Ruskin’s “Two Paths” speech

Architecture Here and There

Among the platitudes of architecture these days is the modernist credo that innovation is the chief merit of the building arts. Innovation is important, but modernists have a narrow definition of the term that limits their vision. John Ruskin, the 19th century British art critic, saw this clearly long before the advent of modernism as a force in architecture, under the influence of which almost the entire field abandoned traditional concepts of beauty.

Here is a passage from his “Two Paths” address to architects in 1857:

Cont....