According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, architecture is ~
1 : the art or science of building; specifically : the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially habitable ones
2 a : formation or construction as or as if as the result of conscious act
2 b : a unifying or coherent form or structure
3 : architectural product or work
4 : a method or style of building
5 : the manner in which the components of a computer or computer system are organized and integrated
Ok, so... which of these structures may be considered "architecture"?
- A circus tent
- An egg carton
- A roller coaster
- A cottage
- A skyscraper
- Mount Rushmore
- A Web site
- A computer software program
Clearly,
there are no easy answers.
Here's what the American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright,
had to say about Architecture:
"What is architecture anyway? Is it the vast collection of the various buildings which have been built to please the varying taste of the various lords of mankind? I think not.
"No, I know that architecture is life; or at least it is life itself taking form and therefore it is the truest record of life as it was lived in the world yesterday, as it is lived today or ever will be lived. So architecture I know to be a Great Spirit....
"Architecture is that great living creative spirit which from generation to generation, from age to age, proceeds, persists, creates, according to the nature of man, and his circumstances as they change. That is really architecture."
—Frank Lloyd Wright, from In the Realm of Ideas, edited by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer and Gerald Nordland
How do YOU define architecture? Tell us!
