About architecture, What is it? Architecture is a passion before a science and love before a business. It’s many different things to those who are devoted to it, depending on the individual. The one thing that all architects have in common is the thought that architecture provides a sense of place or privacy for all kinds of human activity.
‘Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, are merely shadows cast by outward things on stone or canvas, having in themselves no separate existence. Architecture, existing in itself, and not in seeming a something it is not, surpasses them as substance shadow.’
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Architecture creates and preserves culture and traditions for thousands of years; think of the Egyptian Pyramids for example. Architectural works are also perceived as cultural works of art such as the Statue of Liberty.
Architecture is not only the art and science of designing buildings; it's a lot more than that. It's the most meaningful type of art. It's the beauty of living inside beauty itself. ‘No matter how much you love a beautiful painting you can't live in it, but you can live in a beautiful house.‘ (Elias Redwan, 2007).
Architecture is also a struggle between science and art. Art has no limitation, but science does and so science is sometimes the architects' best friend and worst enemy. That's why architects sometimes try to overcome its limitations by ignoring its logic when they design for theories or pleasure.
To define architecture in terms of design, it is the creative manipulation of mass, space, volume, texture, light, shadow, and materials. This artistic manipulation is limited or restricted by practical elements such as cost, regulations, construction, and technology, yet within these constraints, it is allowed to fly freely.
Architecture is also an interdisciplinary field. It involves mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, and history.
Vitruvius, one of earliest known architectural theorist, stated, ‘Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgment is formed of those works which are the result of other arts.’
In the end though, architecture is usually governed by the architect's personal passion, approach, taste, talent, or philosophy. In this way, it leans well towards art while preserving a basis in science and theory.
