The oldest, most accepted definition of architecture in the English language comes from a translation of Vitruvius, the Roman writer of the first great treatise on western building. He defined the elements that make up a fine structure as “firmness, delight and commodity”. A house could always be beautiful, but it had to be useful to work. With the modern age, commodity was transformed into function, then functionalism (delight was quietly dropped), and it has stayed that way since. Architecture, despite its pretensions to art, was ultimately a commodity. Art, however, was solely about delight. It had no requirement to be useful, nor particularly firm. Buildings are useful; art is delightful.
