Ethical Function of Architecture

Definition

The ethical function of architecture is Karsten Harries's thesis, adopted by Goldberger, that architecture's public task is not aesthetic pleasure but orientation and aspiration: it "calls us out of the everyday, recalls us to the values presiding over our lives as members of a society" and "beckons us toward a better life, a bit closer to the ideal." On this account architecture is not a luxury that can be surrendered under stress but a way of "showing us our place in the world" — Harries, paraphrasing Sigfried Giedion, says it "should speak to us of how we are to live in the contemporary world." Such architecture is invariably public, "common ground," and it "preserves at least a piece of utopia." Goldberger adds two qualifications of his own: that the ethical is inseparable from the aesthetic in the greatest buildings (Chartres, Jefferson's University of Virginia are "profoundly ethical buildings as well as great works of art"), and that an ethical architecture can be more, not less, necessary in hard times — as when Lincoln insisted the Capitol dome be completed during the Civil War. He also bounds the architect's social responsibility: architects are not makers of public policy, and "it is not the architect's role to solve the problem of housing the poor" but to design the best buildings when society decides to act.

Key Thinkers

• Karsten Harries — author of The Ethical Function of Architecture (1997), the source of the concept and its account of architecture against the "thrall to eye-grabbing architecture."
• Paul Goldberger — adopts Harries's account as the bridge between aesthetics and social purpose, and limits it with his account of the architect as designer rather than policy-maker.
• Sigfried Giedion — cited by Harries as the earlier source of the "how we are to live" formulation.

Related Concepts

• beauty — in Goldberger's reading the ethical and the beautiful are inseparable in the greatest buildings.
• sense-of-place — the ethical building orients its users; the erasure of place is the ethical failure.
• public-sphere — the ethical function is realised in public, communal buildings, not private ones.
• commodity-firmness-and-delight — the ethical is the social dimension of the Vitruvian triad.

Source Support

Sources in the wiki that discuss this concept:

• source-notes/goldberger-2009-why-architecture-matters — ch. 1 develops the ethical function from Harries (pp. 36–39) and uses it to argue that we build because we believe in a future.
• source-notes/harries-1997-ethical-function-of-architecture — the primary text itself.

Open Questions

• Does bounding the architect's responsibility to the brief ("society must be willing to address these problems") leave the ethical function with any critical edge, or does it become a description of whatever a society happens to commission?
• Can an ethical architecture be reconciled with the "challenge" pole of Goldberger's challenge-and-comfort synthesis, which asks architecture to displease?