2 - The ethics of architecture

Abstract

This chapter discusses the ethics of architecture. Today, the difference between a good and a poor architect is that the poor architect succumbs to every temptation and the good one resists it. In the absence of a common acceptance of the role of art in the discipline of architecture, there is a conflict of view about the role of ethics within the discipline. Opposition to the ethical comes from the advocates of art. There is no true work of architecture that does not enjoy some systematic play of forms. Aesthetics, thus, came to preside as sole criterion for the annual Prix de Rome competition in which all that was put to the test was the power to make exquisite and erudite patterns on paper. Architecture as a social idea has burst the bounds of architecture as an aesthetic discipline. A work of architecture is called into being to serve the cause of innumerable and unpredictable patterns of operation in day-to-day life. Its conception can, therefore, never be immaculate.­­