The Significance of Architecture

Progress, Volume XII, Issue 3, 1 November 1916, Page 772

The Significance of Architecture

; We take pleasure, or should take pleasure, in architectural construction altogether as the manifestation of an admirable human intelligence; it is not the strength, not the size, not the finish of the work which we are to venerate: rocks are always stronger, mountains always larger, all natural objects more finished; but it is the intelligence and resolution of man in overcoming physical difficulty which are to be the source of. our pleasure and subject of our praise. And again, in decoration or beauty, it is less the actual loveliness of the thing produced, than the choice and invention concerned in the production, which are to delight us; the love and the thoughts* of the workman more than his work: his work must always be imperfect, but his thoughts and affections may be true and deep.— Buskin.