Arquitetura do Horror

Karl Rosenkranz's asthetik des Hasslichen was published in Germany in 1853.

In bis introduction, rosenkranz proposes that understanding the ugly as

the inverse of the beautiful. albeit true, is incomplete. As merely a

negative, ugliness cannot have a sensual form and thus cannot become an

aesthetic object.

He endeavors to reconsider ugliness as condition in itself, yet, despite

bis reluctance, finds no alternative but to arrive at the subject of

ugliness through a definition of beauty that relies on harmony and

totality, concluding that "the primary requirements of the beautiful

are boundaries, it must acquire unity and relate its differences as

organic moments of that unity."

Thus, ugliness is first the negation of total unity and formal definitude.

But perhaps more importantly, while the mere absence of form is neither

beautiful no ugly, formlessness becomes ugliness where content should have

a form but is missing it, or where form is not yet adequately developed.

Rosenkranz presents the qualities of ugliness in three categories

described paris of abstract German and greek, terms that are elaborated

in the translation here, excerpted from part onde.

A) Amorphousness

Unity in general is beautiful, since it provides a self-referential

entity; therefore, unity is the principal condition of all design.

The opposite of unity as abstract non-unity would first of all be the absence

of distinction.

The absence of a boundary to the outside is the aesthetic formlessness of a being. Such boundlessness

can be a necessary characteristic of something, such as space, time, reasoning, and desire, and must beconceptualized without boundary.

However, it will only be perceivable where, according to its definition, there should be a differentiation to the outside,

but there is none. Boundlessness as such can be called neither beautiful nor

ugly. In comparison, however, the bounded is more beautiful nor ugly.

In comparison, however, the bounded is more beautiful, since it represents

a self-referential unity, in the same way that plato, as is generally

known, prefers the peras over the apeiron. Boundlessness as such is not

necessarily ugly because it provides, in its nonentity, the possibility

of a boundary. However, since this kind of boundary is not real, neither

can it beautiful. Different from this absolute lack of form, however, is

the kind of formlessness that we declare as relative, insofar

as there is already a form, thus unity and boundary, but still without

itself through its in-differentiations. This lack off differentiation becomes

boring and provokes oppositions from all art forms. Architecture, for

example, uses ornamentation, such as zigzag bands, meaders, rosetts,

circlets, dentils, edd and dart molding, and in and outward convolution,

in order to create differences where ortherwise there would only be the

monotony of a simple surface. Bare, undifferentiated identity as such,

without necessarily being so already, turns positively ugly. The purity of

a particular feeling, of a particular form, a color, or a sound, can be

beautiful. If, however, we perceive the same again and again without

sisruption, chage, or contrast, a dull piteousness a monotony of form,

color, and sound emerges as a result.

Here, the empty indeterminacy, as the nonentity of all design, has dissolved already from the

yet undifferentiated abyss of design possibilities the reality and determination of

form color, sound, imagination has already

evolved. However, having, its end in this very certainty, another form of

ugliness is generated by the fixation on its bare identity. Initialy, we find

appreciation in such a coherent impression, since unity and purity, especially

if combined with energy, have a pleasing aspect. However, if abstract unity

persists, ir becomes ugly and intolerable through its lack of differentiation. Goethe's

assertion on life, thas nothing is less bearable than a series of goog days, also

applies to aesthetics. That kind of purism, which lacks internal differentiation

and which only distinguishes itself from the nothiness of external formlessness,

such repetitive purism of a form, a color, a sound or an idea becomes ugly,

if not intoletable. Green is a beautiful color, but only green, without the

blue sky abover, without glittering water between, without a white flock

of sheep on top, without a red-tiled roof peering through the trees, becomes boring.

Le parti des ennynes in Paris was delighted in 1830, when the skirmish fire and roar

of guns disrupted the monotony of ceaseless traffic