Does Art have a purpose in Architecture? 2018

As an architect I search to express art in architecture through form and reflectance in space and light, through its conceptual essence, ethical intent and haptic qualities. It has nothing to do with fashion and consumerism. I believe art – including art in architecture – is a search for essence. It refers to a reality beyond itself, and such a reference raises questions about truth that come from within our beings. And this is where its real power to overcome cultural and ethnic differences lies, as does its task – if it has one; because we are all, in our own ways, engaged in that search.

I would like to end with a quote from one of my favourite authors – the writer and philosopher John Berger:

“Art makes sense of what life’s brutalities cannot; a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last. Art, when it functions like this, becomes a meeting-place of the invisible, the irreducible, the enduring, guts and honour.”

 © Ian Ritchie 2018