ABSTRACT
Architecture is said to begin with the simple necessity of providing shelter, but eventually adorns and beautifies itself to the extent that it can be placed, honorifically, beside the fine arts. Abbe Batteux evidently has a high regard for architecture, but it obviously doesn't fit in with the definition of art as imitation that he believes he gets from Aristotle. Batteux's remarks about the relation between utility and beauty to some extent anticipate Immanuel Kant's view of architecture after Kant shifts his attention from the free beauty of nature to the beauty of art. Architecture as expression of the understanding of a culture can be construed in more than one way. There can be a retrospective understanding in which we see buildings from the past as expressions of the culture of an earlier age. The question about architecture could now be phrased as a question about the relation between utility and expression.
