Beauty is back on the agenda in the architectural debate. This is partly out of sheer necessity. Authoritarian regimes associate architectural beauty with the classical tradition and, as such, exploit it for political ends, a trend that is forcing the professional world to respond. At the same time, architectural practice is subject to increasingly stringent demands for efficiency and optimization. In this context, beauty is a value that can support the social and cultural value of architecture’s. In other words, beauty is both a sanctuary where architecture can assert its right to exist and a political battleground where issues such as tradition, the canon, authority, inclusion and engagement are debated.

This dilemma doesn’t make talking about beauty any easier, all the less as laypeople and architects have a different view of the matter. However difficult it may have been for architects to discuss beauty in recent decades, the public has always eagerly expressed aesthetic judgements. In Flanders, the discussion surrounding noAarchitecten’s transformation of Het Steen in Antwerp and the controversy triggered by the proposed transformation of the Gravensteen in Ghent are just two striking examples of this.