5 – 2010

Elegance

In an enlightening essay that he wrote for this issue Georg Franck says that the term elegance cannot be analysed. It will never be possible to get completely to the bottom of elegance, at least not until it is disputed together with taste. Is elegance related to a particular time or does the often-quoted timeless elegance really exist? On reading the contribution by Philipp Esch that looks back at times gone by it becomes clear that the term elegance extends beyond purely aesthetic qualities. In the field of philosophy, in mathematics and rhetoric elegance appears in the form of elegant thought processes, elegant solutions and in the chosen but not laboured, accurate and therefore elegant expression. A series of interesting source texts and quotations from great thinkers make it easier to follow the traces. And in architecture? Is there such a thing as elegant architecture and if so how should it be described? Both Georg Franck and Philipp Esch venture approaches, hypotheses and answers. The reflections by Francesco Buzzi and Tibor Joanelly about SANAA’s recently opened Learning Center in Lausanne also deal with architecture and elegance. Do we feel in this building something of an elegance whose roots are quite different and not so familiar to us in the West? Architect Fritz Haller and Paul Schärer designed architecture and furniture in a completely different way, at various scales but always elegantly and in accordance with a single system. In the process they created icons; Jürg Graser explains how this came about.