ABSTRACT

We have come to expect creativity from the architect. What then do the humanities have to contribute to design creativity? There is tension in the question: “Creativity” refers to the ability to invent. It suggests “originality.” “Design creativity” would thus seem to call for a certain freedom from the established and accepted ways of doing things, an openness to the challenges presented by an inevitably uncertain future, made exciting, but also troubled, by the new possibilities technology continues to open up. The task of the humanities, on the other hand, is to preserve our shared cultural heritage as expressed in the canonic works of the past. Design creativity demands freedom. The humanities seek to bind freedom to what is most essentially human, thus keeping freedom responsible. But how are we to understand what is “most essentially human”? No longer do we fi nd a ready answer in the works of the ancients, which for so many centuries seemed to provide the humanities with a canon and a foundation. What authority can the humanities still claim?