The right to being surrounded by beauty - by Dalibor Borák 11_08_24
1. The World and Man were created beautiful
From the exalted source and out of the essence of His favour and bounty He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge. This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of creation. (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 261)
On the globe are only two types of materialised Environment. The original Environment - Nature which was not touched by hand of Man and so called Build Environment where activity of man could be traced.
Praha
It seems that there is general agreement that The Nature is beautiful. The problem appears when we try to evaluate the other type of Environment. The original source – power of creation was apparently more successful than we are.
Ios - Chora
The question is : could the creativity performed by Man produce the Quality, in our case Beauty on the level performed by the original creation (or at least close to it) and are there some principles which being used result in similar quality?
Český Krumlov
2. The society seeks for The Beauty – The Truth – The Fairness
The experience of "beauty" often involves the interpretation of some entity as being in balance and harmony, which may lead to feelings of attraction and emotional well-being
Many philosophers connect Beauty with truth. This approach is deeply anchored in tradition of Civilisation and reflexes even in languages. The English word FAIR expresses the Aesthetic values as well as right behaviour. Beauty is considered being “right” and Man apparently tends to by surrounded by it.
3. Search for the formula for the creation of beauty
The ability to change the state of material object and to create Built Environment surrounding us is apparently connected with application of certain principles, techniques and processes. The search for them leads through the history of Mankind as far as could be traced.
Cross-cultural research has found many commonalities in people's perception of beauty. The earliest Western theory of beauty can be found in the works of Greek philosophers from the pre - Socratic period, such as Pythagoras. The Pythagorean School saw a strong connection between mathematics and beauty. Objects proportioned according to the Golden Ratio seemed more attractive. Ancient Greek architecture is based on this understanding of symmetry and proportion.
Naxos Gate
Plato considered beauty to be the Idea (Form) above all other Ideas. Aristotle pointed out that there is the strong relationship between the beautiful and virtue, expressing that "Virtue aims at the beautiful."
- Vitruvius Vitruvius, the Roman Architect and engineer based his work on study of Greek architecture. When perfecting art of building, to define the rules for creating beauty, the Greek invented the architectural orders. Doric, Ionic and Corinthian. These were based on understanding the proportions of the human body and led Vitruvius in defining his Vitruvian Man. He describes the human body pierced with a pair of compasses and inscribed with Euclidean geometry as an allegorical connection between humanity and architecture
Vitruvius describes in his book De architectura that a structure must exhibit the three basic qualities of firmitas, utilitas and venustas — that is, it must be solid, useful, beautiful.
- Leonardo da Vinci The Vitruvian Man was drawn later by Leonardo da Vinci. He inscribed the human body in the circle and the square which are the fundamental geometric patterns of the cosmic order.
Le Corbusier developed the Modulor which was created between 1943 and 1955 in an era that was displaying widespread fascination with mathematics as a potential source of universal truths. Le Corbusier was apparently influenced by Rudolf Wittkower’s research into proportional systems in Renaissance architecture which began to be widely published and reviewed in the late 1940s
The Modulor was developed as a visual bridge between two incompatible scales, the Imperial system (Foots an inches) and the Metric system (Meters and Millimetres). It is based on the height of an English man with his arm raised.
Le Corbusier described it as a "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things." The system is based on human measurement, the double unit, the Fibonaci numbers, and the golden ratio as well as on the long tradition of Vitruvius, Leonardo da Vinci Vitruvian Man and the work of Leone Battista Alberti. Like Vitruvius and Alberti before him, Le Corbusier sought to reconcile biology with Architecture through the medium of geometry.
The aim is to discover mathematical proportions in the human body to use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of architecture. The Modulor was used as a system to set out a number of Le Corbusier's buildings and was later codified into two books. It is interesting, that buildings and spaces created by Le Corbusier on the base of Modulor were Beautiful when connected with religious purposes, and the other buildings are often questioned by general public.
Capelle Notre Dame Du Haut - Ronchamp
4. What is considered being beauty ?
- Plato felt that beautiful objects incorporated proportion, harmony, and unity among their parts. - Aristotle found in his Metaphysics that the universal elements of beauty were order, symmetry, and definiteness. - During the Gothic era, the classical aesthetical canon of beauty was rejected as sinful. Only God is beautiful and perfect, and man is flawed by the original sin and can achieve no beauty in his life if not through God. - The Renaissance and the Humanism rejected this view, and considered beauty as a product of rational order and harmony of proportions. Since Renaissance, harmony, symmetry and correct proportions are considered essential elements for the definition of the universal beauty. - The Age of Reason is a period of a rise in an interest in beauty as a philosophical subject. Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson wrote that beauty is "unity in variety and variety in unity"
Francis Hutcheson (August 8, 1694 – August 8, 1746)
- In the Romantic period, Edmund Burke pointed out the differences between beauty in its classical meaning and Sublime. The concept of the Sublime by Burke and Kant permitted us to understand that even if Gothic art and architecture are not always adherent to classical standard of beauty as the other style, gothic art is by no mean "ugly" or irrational
- The 20th century saw an increasing rejection of beauty by artists and philosophers alike, culminating in postmodernism´s anti-aesthetics. This is despite beauty being a central concern of one of postmodernism's main influences, Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that the Will to Power was the Will to Beauty.
-Later thinkers such as Roger Scruton and Frederick Turner returned to beauty as an important value. Elaine Scarry also argues that beauty is related to justice.
5. Why is The beautiful Environment so important ?
The Built environment influences the social behaviour, relations and efficiency of processes in society. It is an essential component and it reflects the extent of the evolution of society. It is worth remembering that we all spend about ninety percent of our time inside buildings or within the built environment
The Build environment influences people’s reactions it covers – or not – our need for protection and security, for shared experience and interaction, for beauty and joy – in other words, our personal pursuit of happiness. We often only realise how important good environment is for our lives, and how our daily comfort is determined by spatial design, when our positive perceptions change. It is only when the environment becomes a burden that we pose questions about its genesis.
To communicate the cultural and economic value of good Built environment, many European countries have adopted or have started to develop national architectural policies. These policies have tended to identify principles that would permit the holistic integration of the key aspects required for the achievement of quality in the living environment including cultural, social, economic and environmental factors.
6. Is „order“ The answer ? Or is it “harmony”?
The largest changes in Environment we live in happened in last two centuries. The economic power, new materials, and tools offered to society by sciences made large building activities possible. The result is unsatisfactory. Even where good intention and a lot of knowledge were available, the Environment created is generally speaking far from what we would name Beauty.
As a base for creation and design were used rational formulas and tools developed to result in beautiful Environment For example using “order”, which is essential part of architecture for centuries, without implementation of other aspects of design work lead to unacceptable results
It is clear that the only way is search for holistic creation of harmony among all components necessary for good function of society. Only the society aiming to Harmony could create beautiful Build environment in larger scale.
7. Holistic approach and Harmony
The term holism was coined in 1926 by Jan Smuts, a South African statesman, in his book, “Holism and Evolution”. Smuts defined holism as "The tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution." The idea has ancient roots. Examples of holism can be found throughout human history and in the most diverse socio-cultural contexts. The concept of holism also played a pivotal role in Spinoza's philosophy and more recently in that of Hegel and Husserl. In philosophy, any doctrine that emphasizes the priority of a whole over its parts is holism.
Scientific holism holds that the behaviour of a system cannot be perfectly predicted, no matter how much data is available. Complex systems as society or natural systems can produce surprisingly unexpected behaviour. This must be taken in consideration within social and cultural anthropology to refer to an analysis of a society as a whole which refuses to break society into component parts with an emphasis on total system behaviour unpredicted by the behaviour of any isolated components.
Praha – Lenon Wall
In theological anthropology, holism is the belief that the nature of humans consists of an ultimately divisible union of components such as body, soul and spirit.
Architecture as the creative power shaping our Built environment often argued to be a holistic enterprise. Used in this context, holism tends to imply an all-inclusive design perspective. This trait is considered exclusive to architecture, distinct from other professions involved in design projects.
The aim of using Holistic approach is to create The Harmony in society which reflects in all aspects of its life, which is visible in the materialised Environment.
Praha – Karluv Bridge
8. Three sources to be harmonised
Development of Mankind shows, that there are three basic aspects, which must be reflected in society and its daily life : - spiritual aspects – the relation between every intention and the Absolute source - material aspects – the development through science and knowledge - social aspects – the sustainable social structure – the Fair distribution of wealth
9. Unity in diversity as the result of harmonisation
Differences are of two kinds: One leads to destruction, and that is like the difference between warring peoples and competing nations who destroy one another, uproot each other's families, do away with rest and comfort and engage in bloodshed and rapacity. That is blameworthy. But the other difference consists in variation. This is perfection itself and the cause of the appearance of Divine bounty. Consider the flowers of the rose garden. Although they are of different kinds, various colours and diverse forms and appearances, yet as they drink from one water, are swayed by one breeze and grow by the warmth and light of one sun, this variation and this difference cause each to enhance the beauty and splendour of the others. The differences in manners, in customs, in habits, in thoughts, opinions and in temperaments is the cause of the adornment of the world of mankind. This is praiseworthy.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 295)
10. Is there The right to being surrounded by beauty ?
The fight for the beautiful built environment is not the right, but the duty of every Man and Woman
- Every activity must be seen from holistic perspective - Every activity must aim to harmony in diversity using unity through understanding and tolerance
Stadsbibliotheek Roermond, The Netherlands. Architects: Architecten Aan De Maas.
If in a garden the flowers and fragrant herbs, the blossoms and fruits, the leaves, branches and trees are of one kind, of one form, of one colour and of one arrangement, there is no beauty or sweetness, but when there is variety, each will contribute to the beauty and charm of the others and will make an admirable garden, and will appear in the utmost loveliness, freshness and sweetness. Likewise, when difference and variety of thoughts, forms, opinions, characters and morals of the world of mankind come under the control of one Supreme Power and the influence of the Word of the One True God, they will appear and be displayed in the most perfect glory, beauty, exaltation and perfection. Today nothing but the power of the Word of God which encompasses the realities of things can bring the thoughts, the minds, the hearts and the spirits under the shade of one Tree.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 295)