In the concrete of our cities, what place should be given to beauty? The duty asked the question to Chris Younès, philosopher and professor at the Special School of Architecture in Paris, who has been working for decades to promote a renewed urban aesthetic where nature takes back its rights on the bitumen.
A philosopher and psycho-sociologist born in Beirut who fell into the magic potion of architecture somewhat by chance during a study trip to Clermont-Ferrand, Chris Younès has devoted his life and some fifteen books to reflecting on the ways in which the human inhabits his world, his city, his house, his environment.
The sum of his work leads to an observation: the beauty of a city does not belong equally to everyone, and ugliness arouses a malaise that goes well beyond simple aesthetic considerations. In his eyes, ugliness, by promoting exclusion and withdrawal, also imposes a social, political and ethical cost on urban populations.
“Badly conceived causes a bad life”, underlines this professor dubbed Knight of the Legion of Honor by France in 2014. As proof, she adds: it is not the same reality to live in Saint- Germain-des-Prés than in an HLM north of Paris.
“There is often great inequity in the neighborhoods; some have beautiful public spaces and beautiful monuments while others have none of that. It has an extraordinary, enormous human cost. Often, the common thought believes that beauty is expensive to build. It is however little, compared to the invoice of the ugliness which manufactures resentment and frustration. »
Aesthetic challenges always conceal a political and ethical dimension for Chris Younès. The ugliness of a city is therefore reflected, in his eyes, as much in mediocre architecture as in the poverty that grows in the shadow of beautiful neighborhoods.
“Beauty unites while ugliness divides and excludes. Beauty, she concludes, is not opposed to ugly: it is opposed to evil. Beauty is a good in itself, a shared and common good that must be preserved and created. People crave beauty and it is not an intimate or singular phenomenon. To be convinced of this, it is enough to see people rushing to see an exhibition, listen to a concert or stroll in a park. »
Efficiency before beauty
The root of the evil, for the professor, lies partly in the functionalism of the XXe century. Cities of the past, she says, were beautiful because they were unique, suited to their people and their environment. The last century has brought rapid urbanization that is still accelerating, to the point where two-thirds of humanity will live in cities by 2050, according to the United Nations.
“What was terrible is that we started to make plans that were intended to be functional, which responded first and foremost to the imperatives of utility and profitability,” she observes. Cities have become generic and indifferent to their history, climate, geography and traditions. They can be from here or elsewhere. »
She sees, in the primacy of efficiency to the detriment of beauty, the culmination of an impulse born in the 18e century.
“The Enlightenment dreamed that science and education would fight hunger, disease, inequality. There was a hope that they would lead humanity to social justice and the betterment of individuals. This flight started in the XVIIIe century, it was amplified in the 19e and she finally took all her arrogance to the XXe “, – until reaching an impasse, analyzes Chris Younès.
“The climate crisis makes us think about the limits of this technocratic and capitalist arrogance,” she believes. The “awareness of our common vulnerability” can also overcome “selfish individualism and every man for himself”.
Revolt against ugliness
The philosopher comes alive when talking about the new generations to whom she teaches at the Special School of Architecture, who are more concerned about elegance and the environment. “There is a revolt against the disfigurement of cities, she notes. There is a quest for utopia, a search to find out how to find a harmony that serves everyone and that is no longer reserved for a privileged few. »
In Paris, popular anger, mobilized under the hashtag #saccagerparis, protested in 2021 against the deterioration of the Parisian landscape. The movement has forced the town hall to adopt a manifesto for beauty in four volumes, a kind of compass that directs the City of Light towards climate resilience, inclusion and grace.
“Our intelligence highlights a very dark time, but there are gaps of extraordinary richness”, believes Chris Younès. She takes as an example the New European Bauhaus, a European architectural initiative that promotes inclusion, sustainability and beauty.
“In the adaptation of cities to climate change, the New European Bauhaus has chosen the criterion of beauty,” rejoices the philosopher. It creates a common goal: to make cities not only sustainable, but also beautiful. I find that extraordinary! »
A little everywhere in the West, she also notes that cities, more and more, are designed in symbiosis with nature. “In the past, the city set out to conquer the environment. Today, there is a reversal of values, and nature is reclaiming its rights over the city. For me, bringing together culture and nature, ethics and aesthetics, is the new project of our time. »