The responsibility of architecture: Beauty, justice and the call of care

Abstract

In contemporary architectural practice, it seems impossible to establish common consensus regarding the merits or definition of architectural beauty. Moreover, the ancient links between “the just” and “the beautiful” have been severed. This article argues that the dissociation between beauty and justice may well be rooted in the unquestioning way in which we habitually fall back on established aesthetic tropes when considering the notion of architectural beauty. In response, it challenges the value and appropriateness of such aesthetic assertions by recalling Martin Heidegger’s formulation of human life as an event of emplaced care, and human contemplation as a form of “inceptual thinking”. This article then briefly discusses the relationship between this kind of inceptual beauty and the notion of justice, as put forward by John Rawls. Interwoven with these philosophical positions, the text refers to the historical development of church architecture as interpretive device.