St. James Garlickhythe Church, London

Yet more London churches!

This is a continuation on my previous posts, exploring London's amazing collection of beautiful churches, with a particular emphasis on the works of Sir Christopher Wren.

I took these photos in March, 2018.

There has been a church on this site since at least the 12th century, at which time it would have been nearly on the banks of the Thames. But now a blocky, modern office building stands between it and the river.

The church gets its peculiar name because it was near the landing place (hythe) where garlic was sold in medieval times.

The old church was destroyed in the fire of 1666. Christopher Wren was responsible for the new church, one of 51 he built across London after the fire.

During the Blitz in 1941 the church suffered much damage to its exterior.

Beauty - Subjective or Objective?

For a start, don't expect to find the definitive answer here. Also, I apologize for the lack of pretty pictures. I hope some of you will enjoy reading it regardless.

Today an acquaintance on Facebook posted a link to an article, on the subject of Beauty being ... or not being ... "in the eye of the beholder". My few thoughts that follow were in response to that.

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I have a Master's Degree in Architecture, so this article touches particular interests of mine. The comparison of the rubbish heap to the canal houses reveals the limits of the author's argument.

Unquestionably there is a line between them. But where the notion of an objective measure of beauty fails is on one side of that line, what type of canal houses? Should they be ultra-modern minimalist white boxes? Should they be recreations of 19th century traditional Dutch architecture? ect. We see from this that once we have set aside that which our ENTIRE society has mutually agreed upon as ugly (the rubbish heap) we then come face to face with the subjective discussion of relative merits of different approaches to "beauty".

My architectural training subjected me to 2 very different ideas about the "right" kind of architecture. I studied with "modernists" but disliked their iconoclastic "throw the baby out with the bath water" approach. I also had the great good fortune to study with Christoper Alexander, one of the great thinkers of our time, who challenged the modernists at their very core and who, like them, believed that beauty was NOT subjective.

I came to the conclusion this dilemma cannot be resolved. There are those who would try to put beauty into a straight jacket. In much of western cultural history of the last 300 years this could be characterized as the "Akademie", the governing authority of an institution that decides what is and isn't acceptable in creative art.

But science and the trajectory of our modern society has been to open more and more possibilities for creative endeavors of all kinds and the constraints of an "Akademie" will inevitably be challenged, confronted, and toppled.

So now, when a developer proposes a stark modern tower on the edge of a historic district, it is really a political issue and no longer an aesthetic one. All we can do is try to get those who favor our aesthetic approach into positions of political power... OR ... press towards a more 'socialist' society in which the needs and desires of the larger group outweigh the freedoms of the individual.