ABSTRACT
G. W. F. Hegel himself identifies architecture as the keystone of the individual arts, preceding all others both in historical origin and in conceptual ordering. Almost, Hegel’s account of architecture exhibits salient suspect features that persist throughout his treatment of the other arts, calling into question the whole enterprise of his theory of the individual arts. Hegel’s first candidate in the division of architecture is most puzzling, since the very independence by which it is distinguished seems to transgress the bounds of architecture. The modernist call to liberate architecture of sclerotic ornament and traditional design might appear to be a reversion to the fit of form and function characterizing classical architecture. Hegel does not flinch from meeting the challenges and few would dispute that his treatment of architecture is without parallel for its conceptual scope and ambition. The cardinal desiderata of Hegel’s aesthetics magnify the problem of architecture.
