On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Randolph Fritz wrote:
> Following in that line of thought, but taking a long jump--is a human body
> dishonest because it has skin? Skin covers a body, and provides important
> functions of protection, sensation, communication, and probably others
> I'm not thinking of right now. There are also specialized internal
> surfaces in a human body that do similar things--stomach linings & so on.
> So...if people can have skins, why not buildings?
Gottfried Semper and John Ruskin, in a slightly different vein weighed in
on this argument in reply to early "material honesty" efforts of George
Edmund Street and Viollet-Le-Duc.
Ruskin writes:
"The Architect is not bound to exhibit structure; nor are we to complain
of him for concealing it, any more than we should regret that the outer
surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy; nevertheless,
that building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye
discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does,
although from a careless observer they may be concealed."
Scott Wing
University of Arkansas
> Following in that line of thought, but taking a long jump--is a human body
> dishonest because it has skin? Skin covers a body, and provides important
> functions of protection, sensation, communication, and probably others
> I'm not thinking of right now. There are also specialized internal
> surfaces in a human body that do similar things--stomach linings & so on.
> So...if people can have skins, why not buildings?
Gottfried Semper and John Ruskin, in a slightly different vein weighed in
on this argument in reply to early "material honesty" efforts of George
Edmund Street and Viollet-Le-Duc.
Ruskin writes:
"The Architect is not bound to exhibit structure; nor are we to complain
of him for concealing it, any more than we should regret that the outer
surfaces of the human frame conceal much of its anatomy; nevertheless,
that building will generally be the noblest, which to an intelligent eye
discovers the great secrets of its structure, as an animal form does,
although from a careless observer they may be concealed."
Scott Wing
University of Arkansas