Rick Lightburn
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Rick Lightburn commented on Architecure on April 17, 2008, 12:51 PM
In 1624, Sir Henry Wotton wrote the first book in English on architecture, called Principles of Architecture. It begins:"In Architecture, as in all operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well-building has three components: commodity, firmness and delight."Good architecture has these three things: it accommodates the program of the developer, it is engineered well, and it has some sensible/sensuous appeal. Developers change historically: no one is developing Temples to Zeus anymore, even tho' those were important back in Periclean Athens. Engineering capabilities and requirements change too. And so does taste and our sense of delight (apparently: if there is an objective beauty is another topic.)
Rick Lightburn commented on the Humanities on April 17, 2008, 1:06 PM
The one thing that we can be sure about for the career-driven student is that there will be a great sadness in his or her life. We can't be sure that he or she will have the career that he or she is being currently trained for. It's highly unlikely, yes, but not impossible. But it's absolutely certain that everyone will know some deep sadness, or some great tragedy: parents or loved ones will die, loves will be unrequited, children will disappoint, ambitions will be frustrated, or something else will be bad. We may not know what kind of sadness he or she will encounter, but encountering that sadness is absolutely certain. And the "lofty subjects" like poetry and fiction, or philosophy and history and even many of the social sciences equip their students for moving on from that. It is this fundamental usefulness that makes the "lofty" subjects so valuable.