The “ugly” in art and architecture has been theorized in many ways — as the opposite to beauty, as a cultural construction, and even as a force with its own aesthetic power.

If we look at the etymology of the word, derived from ancient Greek, “the ugly” means that which has no shape or form, or beauty, and provokes a negative impression.

More specifically in art “the ugly” is not simply a negation of beauty but its meaning extends as a necessary dialectic counterpart: disharmony, deformity could provoke feelings and express truths that beauty alone could not. In modernism for example, “the ugly” is considered more as a critic of bourgeois taste, a disruption of complacent beauty. The raw concrete of Brutalist buildings (often labeled “ugly”) was intended to embody honesty, truth to materials, and social functionality.

Thus, “the ugly” becomes aesthetic resistance, a refusal of smooth, decorative beauty in favor of confrontation. This points us to another link, that between “the ugly” and the sublime where beauty’s harmony is exceeded by the overwhelming intensity produced by ugliness.

“The ugly” can also be theorised in relation to different contexts, its historical and cultural relativity, ethical and political significance.

In this particular episode of Architecture Series we are going to deal with one of the more provocative, modern takes on ugliness based on Mark Cousins’ series of lectures and essays titled “The Ugly” (1994) . Cousins argues that ugliness is not a stable property of an object, but an event that occurs in perception and often functions as a threat to order, measure and destabilizes identity, taste. Here, ugliness is seen as productive and opens up space for critic.

Constantine Cosmas