17 February 2026 – Why do articles about beauty in architecture and ornamentation provoke such strong reactions? As soon as something is finally written about these topics, part of the professional community takes up their pens to declare architecture’s bankruptcy. The architectural discourse is far too often a play on words. Without much nuance, a term such as beauty is reduced to a catch-all phrase for vague design extravagance. Former director of the Architecture Institute and professor Ole Bouman even referred to the ‘silly how-question’ of architecture on LinkedIn.

With critics like these, architecture no longer needs enemies.

Together with Job Floris, I wrote an opinion paper about that everyday how-question. In our opinion, architecture as a word game ignores the experiential knowledge needed to create architecture. The primacy of architecture really does not lie in criticism, but in practice. The how-question has been the raison d’être of our profession – the materialisation of buildings – for thousands of years.

Today online on the website of De Architect, with thanks to Stephen Taylor and Jan Peter Wingender, Ard de Vries, Moriko Kira, Jaap-Jan Berg (Design-by-Thinking-of-the-Making).

Image: Plashet Court Mansions, London, design Stephen Taylor Architects