Architecture and Its Ethical DilemmasNicholas Ray While not pretending to be exhaustive, this collection of essays, based on a conference held at Cambridge in 2004, nonetheless gives a clear sense of the enormous range of ethical issues architects face on an almost daily basis; from their often conflicting responsibilities to client and contractor, to their obligations to the greater public good, and in particular the natural environment. Whether most architects are conscious of the issues raised is open to question, which makes their discussion all the more valuable. It isn't possible in the limited scope of a review such as this to do justice to the individual contributions, which are consistently well-written and thought provoking. I was struck, however, by what appeared to be a clear convergence between several of the papers; namely, the relationship between the individual designer and society at large. Richard MacCormac, for example, makes a compelling case for valuing individual intuition in the service of the common good, which seems to be consistent with Jane Collier's account of John Dewey's notion of the 'Moral Imagination.' Historian Andrew Ballantyne suggests that the only real temporal continuity we have as societies is shared habit, and Sjoerd Soeters describes his personal experiences in practice of using variations on established architectural types to successfully balance the unique and the common. |
Contents
Part 1 The historical perspective | 5 |
14 | 14 |
Part 2 The professional context in the twentyfirst century | 35 |
Architecture art and accountability | 49 |
Responsive practice | 55 |
On being a humble architect | 69 |
Part 3 Accountability and the architectural imagination | 75 |
Moral imagination and the practice of architecture | 89 |
Hearth and horizon Andrew Ballantyne | 115 |
Architecture luxury and ethics Richard Hill | 123 |
Part 5 Ethics and aesthetics | 133 |
Less aesthetics more ethics Neil Leach | 135 |
Architecture morality and taste Julian Roberts | 143 |
Afterword Nicholas | 155 |
| 157 | |
| 163 | |
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achieve activity aesthetic archi architects architectural practice argues artistic beauty become built environment Cambridge client codes of conduct codes of ethics concept concerned construction context contract contractors cost creative culture discussion economic elite engage engineering ethical dilemmas example experience forms of accountability framework Harries History Faculty building human Ibid idea individual institutions issues Jameson Jane Collier Java Island judge Kant Kant's Latham lbid Le Corbusier live luxury managerial accountability ment Michael Latham moral imagination moral luck Nagel Neil Leach Nicholas Ray objectives obligations Onora O'Neill organisation political postmodern principles problem production profes profession professional Pugin question realised refuse trust respect response RIBA Richard MacCormac role sector sense sional social society Spinoza standards Stirling Stirling's structure symbolic capital targets taste tecture things tion transparency truth University values wider