beautiful arts—the design is the essential thing”.29 'Design concerns what is not construction', Forty concludes.30
2.3 Design in Art Design joins the liberal arts in the early 20th century, and architecture is divided in two categories, the practice and the mental product;31 the one that is being produced by experience and the one that is being taught. Earlier in the 19th century, John Ruskin, artist philosopher, was also a supporter of the idea of design being a mental activity. In fact, he valued Gothic architecture because of the freedom (freedom of the mind) enjoyed by the medieval craftsman to direct his own work. 32 Though understanding the existence of design as an art on its own, Ruskin barely used the word to describe architecture (by which he generally meant the specific sense of ‘drawing’)33.
29
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans. Meredith James Creed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1911), p. 21 30 Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000),p. 136 31 Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000),p. 138 32 Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000),p. 138 33 Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames and Hudson, 2000),p. 138
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