The Value of Beauty
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have been preoccupied of late with the philosophy of art. It is something of a departure from the broadly mathematical rhetoric that has dominated the media for the last few years; “we need to build 200,000 homes a year! No, 300,000 homes a year! Has anyone seen my calculator?!”. Recently, it has broadened its view beyond such prosaic matters to explore aesthetics; the study of beauty. The Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission is an independent body set up to advise Government on how to promote high quality design for new homes and neighbourhoods. Headed by on-again, off-again Chair Roger Scruton, the initial thinking was that objections to development would be greatly diminished if the buildings encroaching on the public sightline were aesthetically pleasing. This begs the question; how do we decide what is beautiful and what isn’t? When it comes to human beauty we have a pretty clear idea about what we like. C...