architecture, but in the state of mind of the inventor of airplanes.
The lesson of the airplane is not primarily in the forms it has created, and above all we must learn to see in an airplane not a bird or a dragon-fly, but a machine for flying; the lesson of the airplane lies in the logic which governed the enunciation of the problem and which led to its successful realization. When a problem is properly stated, in our epoch, it inevitably finds its solution.
The problem of the house has not vet been stated.
One commonplace among Architects (the younger ones): the construction must be shown.
Another commonplace amongst them: when a thing responds to a need, it is beautiful.
But.... To show the construction is all very well for an Arts and Crafts student who is anxious to prove his ability. The Almighty has clearly shown our wrists and our ankles, but there remains all the rest!
When a thing responds to a need, it is not beautiful; it satisfies all one part of our mind, the primary part, without which there is no possibility of richer satisfactions; let us recover the right order of events.
Architecture has another meaning and other ends to pursue than showing construction and responding to needs (and by "needs" I mean utility, comfort and practical arrangement).
Architecture is the art above all others which achieves a state of platonic grandeur, mathematical order, speculation,
