 Kore7 says: [Maillart's] bridge is endowed with a subcategory of beauty we can refer to as elegance, a quality present whenever a work of architecture succeeds in carrying out an act of resistance—holding, spanning, sheltering—with grace and economy as well as strength; when it has the modesty not to draw attention to the difficulties it has surmounted.From philosophical historian Alain de Botton's inimitable The Architecture of Happiness, itself a paradigmatic illustration of the aesthetic elegance of well-engineered minimalism (be it architectural or textual). The NYRB's synopsis of de Botton's work makes note of this: The simplicity of his writing is not the product of a simple mind.... And how refreshing to hear the word 'elegance'!  Hey great to see your first post-clipcast clip. I'm a huge fan of Du Botton, because he is the least pretentious academic I've seen in a long time. He discusses heavy ideas as if everyone should be able to understand them, and most of the time they can. In the Architecture of Happiness he takes on the important task of examining how we are affected by the world we create around us. Very often people think of architecture as art, and art in turn, is thought of as beauty. But they forget that there is something more fundamental at its core, beauty is life, and life is what we are. We so often distance ourselves from beauty and happiness, and think of art or literature as some detached p... Much like the blue whale, the Red Sox, and Winona Ryder, I retreat to my natural habitat periodically to rest, read*, and re-energize—only to resurface later in the season: stronger, smarter, and hungrier than ever! (* Winona excepted.) |
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