Ethical Architecture

"Architecture may well possess moral messages; it simply has no power to enforce them. It offers suggestions instead of making laws. It invites, rather than orders, us to emulate its spirit and cannot prevent its own abuse." Alain de Botton, Architecture of Happiness (2006:20)

I've recently been chewing over this quote again. I remember it striking me when I first came across it a few years ago, and recently did so again researching for a thesis I've been writing. I love what it says, about the beauty of good architecture. That it is not forceful, good architecture does not automatically lead to good people inside or around the building. But I also like this quote for what it does not say.

In Architecture I think we see much clearer, than for space, just how much capacity we have to mould our environments. But also acknowledged above is the way that the influencing is not one way, it's profoundly reciprocal. We influence our space, and our space in turn influences us.

But I think the thing I like best about this quote is the fact that this reciprocal influencing, this iterative relationship is not carried out in a neutral manner, it's profoundly an ethical (one might even say spiritual) dilemma.