To some, believing in beauty can seem like a troubling proposition. One common worry is that doing so would require committing to a singular idea of perfection, a feat that would likely prove too restrictive or detrimental. So that even if a majority of us could agree on what constitutes the beauty of a particular thing, say the human body, that this would ultimately lead in dark directions as people try to achieve an unattainable ideal.
Clearly there is cause for worry, as evidenced by those who have plastic surgery to achieve perfect “Instagram Face,” only to regret its dehumanizing effects later. The error made here, though, is mistaking a particular instance of beauty for an ideal that can be endlessly replicated. Instead, the principles that help generate beauty (like balance and harmony) are abstract and adaptive; they require a specific context to manifest themselves. In this way, it’s only by understanding how beauty arises from irregularities that we can avoid the pitfalls of idealized perfection.
OUR BIG, BEAUTIFUL, IRREGULAR UNIVERSE
When trying to understand how irregularities lead to beauty, it can be helpful to go back to the beginning, and I mean the VERY beginning. As I learned from Dr. Jo Bovy, who teaches at the University of Toronto, astrophysicists think about this topic in their own way, by studying the origin and formation of the universe’s structure: the panoply of galaxies, stars, and planets that bring distinctiveness to the otherwise empty vastness of space.
It took the discovery of quantum physics to figure out why our universe ended up with any structure at all, instead of becoming just a uniform disc of matter and energy following the big bang. Astrophysicists have deduced that tiny density variations (dubbed “primordial fluctuations”) existed from the beginning, and that they were suddenly and incredibly stretched during a time of rapid expansion known as “cosmic inflation.” These inhomogeneities have since been morphed by the force of gravity to create the unique structure of our universe (including us!). So in a very real way, you could say that irregularities are baked into the fabric of our world.
BEAUTY IS PARTICULAR
Understanding the origin of our universe’s structure is useful because it helps demonstrate a key point: our aesthetic perception is based on a particular, not a general kind of judgment. That is, our recognition of any structure is contingent on understanding its individual features: the reason I want this painting instead of any painting seems to be linked to those primordial fluctuations long ago. Let me give you a down-to-earth example to help explain what I mean:
When a vinyl record collector drives across town to purchase a rare Charlie Parker album, only to find that the disc inside the jacket is damaged beyond repair, she doesn’t just shrug it off and say “give me the Kenny G instead.” Her desire is for that particular record, and the specific beauty it contains. Perhaps she knows of something in those tracks that would illicit a deep feeling when played. To think that this sentiment could be substituted by any general kind of jazz album is missing the point entirely.
So, too, is it wrong to think that there could ever be an ideal jazz album, though there certainly are ideals one considers when making or listening to music: harmony, rhythm, and melody among them. But these properties are really more like principles to be employed rather than ideals that can be literally manifested. Their power derives from adaptation to the particulars of a given arrangement, and only personal experience can judge whether or not beauty has been achieved.
JUDGING OPTIONS IN SEARCH OF BEAUTY
We certainly have the particular in mind when we aim to make everyday things like buildings beautiful, and we rely on our individual perception to accomplish this. To do so, we typically consider various options and judge between them. We may go about this process by first drawing or mocking up one potential solution, stepping back to take in its effect on the whole, and then try another. The option that seems to fit best is the one we’ll likely chose.
One such example that the philosopher Sir Roger Scruton liked to use is the parable of the door: specifically, how one decides to trim its frame so that it looks right in relation to the building around it.
If it’s the front door of a house, the first point of reference might be the trim used on the home’s windows. Though in thinking it through, it might occur to the architect that something more substantial should be used to help signal the door’s importance. So he might consider larger profiles with extra details, though likely ones similar in flavour to the other features of the facade. When weighing options, the architect may look at neighbouring houses, past projects, images, and moulding catalogues, but ultimately the success of the solution will be judged in its immediate, particular context.
This act of designing to suit the immediate surroundings creates a series of relationships that, when done well, add interest and suggest meaning. Part of architecture’s appeal is the pleasure it brings when patterns skillfully address obstacles and irregularities, as when a mason varies the brick pattern around a window opening. This subtle balancing act, which is endemic to all art forms, can be understood as a metaphor for our own lives. So, like dance, how we respond to life’s unexpected turns can either be graceful or clumsy.
UNFOLDING WHOLENESS
In the context of a door and a brick wall, perhaps citing the structure of the universe seems a little heavy-handed. Nevertheless it can be helpful for architects to observe how the world around us is naturally formed. That’s because making something beautiful isn’t exactly easy—we need models to help us understand how ideals can be manifested.
The late architect Christopher Alexander spent his entire career considering how natural structures arise, a process he called “unfolding wholeness.”1 One of his great insights was that such structures seem to share in a set of basic, geometric qualities, including fractal scales, local symmetries, rhythm, and interlocking parts among others. He noted that one of these properties usually manifests at each step of development. So that, like a seed growing into a mature plant, a form arises in a manner that meaningfully preserves part of its previous structure, all while responding to the irregularities of its surrounding environment.
Alexander observed that this unfolding process extends to the realm of human design as well. Take for example the growth of an older city like Boston, Massachusetts. The arial view below from 1939 shows how streets and blocks grew over time in response to specific site features, such as contours in the landscape, the waterfront, and public spaces. A city like this has a way of feeling much more comfortable than those that were developed in our own era, which tend to emphasize buildings as isolated objects without much concern for the quality of spaces in between.
In contrast, consider the harm done when a city’s form is redeveloped without a structure-preserving process, as happened in Boston in the 1950’s and 60’s (shown in the lower photo from 1969): an entire neighbourhood erased and replaced by towers, empty fields, and parking lots; an expressway plowed through tightly-knit streets according to the broad contours of high-speed car travel; and at the centre, a brutalist city hall presiding over a desolate plaza—broadly considered a complete urban planning failure.
That kind of urban development, which became commonplace after World War II, demonstrates how architects and planners often try to impose an idealized order in an effort to eliminate irregularities. This sentiment persists in the kind of minimalism favoured by establishment architects today, who, for example, regularly design condo towers with glass curtain walls that suppress any individual sense of home: every space made indistinguishable behind a grid of characterless panels. The monotony is sometimes broken up, but usually with an arbitrary formal gesture instead of humanly-scaled and architecturally-integrated ornament.
EMBRACING LIFE’S IMPERFECT NATURE
Designing with a focus on inflexible ideals instead of adaptable ones is problematic because it ends up denying the idiosyncratic nature of our world, reducing it to sterility. But why does this approach seem to be more present now than in the past?
The answer is complicated, for sure, and it includes the ascension of utility over all other values. But I believe that the fear of powerlessness is a contributing factor, a fear that has accelerated in the modern era. Not that things are worse off generally than they have been before—advances in material wealth and personal liberty are remarkable. Rather, as Friederich Nietzsche observed, secularization has played a part in creating modern angst: The old assurances of religion have waned, and people are less willing to accept the comfort of fate in a world that promises them control over every aspect of their lives. With ubiquitous commercialization, we’ve largely substituted our old ways of addressing anxieties2 with a faith in data, optimization, and an ability to easily replace whatever we tire of.
When total control is the goal, one is liable to reject an aesthetic that tries to deal with life as it really is: one that makes beauty from irregularities. But in truth, we can only be at ease in the world if we embrace the presence of those imperfections that make our universe interesting and beautiful. To do so, we must accept that, despite our best efforts, we cannot control every aspect of our lives or our surroundings.
When it comes to achieving beauty in architecture, there will never be a universal, perfect style. Instead, we must always seek to reconcile the irregularities of real life with our aesthetic ideals, including harmony, proportion, balance, and a sense of tectonic stability coupled with practical use. In this quest, the geometric properties and unfolding process that Christopher Alexander identified can aid us in understanding the basic building blocks, and traditions can help us by providing successful models. But the world is constantly changing, and our human nature is always craving new and interesting adaptations, so that the work of design is never complete. It takes a tireless creative energy to keep beauty forever renewed.
As explained in Christopher Alexander’s book The Nature of Order: The Phenomenon of Life.
For an in-depth examination on how architecture can address our most primal fears, read Building for Hope by Marwa al-Sabouni.