By: Vasili Mattheos, M.Arch

“The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.”     – Oscar Wilde

Art was probably invented a long time ago by ancient humans who had nothing better to do.  One day, at least one person from this group was done looking for food, clothing him or herself, and creating shelter.  Tired of having nothing to do, this person, possibly a child, decided to make something for the sake of making it.  Some of the others might have joined in.  Then the thing was created.  The group probably stared at the created thing, and probably scratched their heads, thinking about it.  Some of them probably liked it.  They might have even carried it around or kept it in a special place for a while.  Art was probably born that day.

Indeed all art is quite useless.  Pure art does no physical work.  Art does not assist us in completing tasks that might help us in our survival.  Art does not feed us, nor does it power any of our devices.  It does not solve equations, nor does it conserve energy.  Art does not provide security, either.  It certainly does not make us more time-efficient; in fact, it often seems like the end result of much time wasting.

Not only does art not work, but it requires an artist’s work, and time, to be brought into existence.  Once created, it requires further work, thought, and time to be appreciated.  Art, one might say, is not only useless, but a waste of time and energy that could be applied to more productive endeavors.

But despite not physically doing anything while consuming time and energy, art has always been valuable to the human species, as it delights our senses, thoughts, and emotions.  Once admired and appreciated, the time, skill, and energy put into some works might not only delight, but may also astound.  In this case, the artistic process and end product feel, and therefore become, “worth-while.”  That feeling of worth might even grow enough to make a piece of art feel precious, and eventually, over time, some works transcend to “priceless.”  So one might say that art not only generates delight, but that in doing so, generates value.  That value, stored in the artwork, appreciates in worth over time.

Architecture can be said to be an applied art, and to some, it has been called the highest form of Art. Truly great architecture takes sculpture to the human, and urban scale, creating form out of space.  An architect, at his/her greatest, is a master artist whose tools are not chisels and brushes, but cranes, bulldozers, and many, many human hands and minds.  The greatest works of architecture from our history have sometimes even outlasted the civilizations that built them – precisely because they have become so valuable to us.

But at the building scale, an Architect must also be an agent of the public, an accountant, and a diplomat.  Too much is at stake to only consider beauty in design – but too much is also at stake to ignore it.  Part of the art of architecture is figuring out how much art the architect can put into a building, delicately maneuvering around the forces within a project that might oppose art for its own sake.  The architect who values beauty above all else is often bedeviled by situations where the most valuable aspects of his/her work might be seen as ‘useless,’ needlessly expensive, and downright wasteful – often judged this way by the very people who will reap the greatest benefit from the future value of that work.  All too often, newly completed works of architecture are initially reviled for their boldness, only to the cherished for that very boldness generations later.  Many, many, more works are killed on the drawing boards, before they have a chance to be built, appreciated, and to appreciate in value, over time.

So, with architecture, a new art within the art emerges: how to create value through beauty, with other people’s resources – which may be limited, under their direction, in a convincing enough way that the project will be constructed, and in a thoughtful enough way that the project will create value for its owners, users, neighbours, and perhaps even civilization, into the future.