Kant’s Free Play and Aesthetic Judgment in Architecture: A New Interpretation as Visual Calculating

Abstract

Following Kant’s view of drawing or shape as the “proper object” of aesthetic judgments in architecture, I present an interpretation of a central concept in his theory of aesthetic judgment, viz., the free play of imagination and understanding, as visual calculating in shape grammars. Calculating with identity rules formalizes Kant’s reflective judgments in free play, which he explains as imagination sustaining a “lively engagement” with form. This interpretation departs from determining judgments, which underlie twentieth-century mathematical and computational approaches to aesthetics. With this interpretation in place, I address a central issue concerning computation and aesthetic intelligence, engaging Kant’s concept of “adherent beauty”: How are we to employ computation as a practical method for value judgment while preserving free play’s reflective property that refreshes aesthetic experience, especially when creative work must meet defined functions and end-goals?