Michael Benedikt's book God, Creativity, Evolution: The Argument from Design(ers) seeks to show that "design" and "evolution" are one and the same process running at different scales and speeds and seen from different viewpoints. Although actual designers have been conspicuously silent when it comes to the debate between Intelligent Design and Evolution, perhaps for fear of raising theological-religious hackles and perhaps for lack of feeling qualified, their participation in the discussion is crucial.
The second half of the book is devoted to observations of the beliefs of such great artist-architects as Michelangelo Buonarotti, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn, with respect to divinity, nature, and design. All are shown to have had deep convictions easily traced to religious, deist, and/or process-theological roots, wherein the evolutionary workings of the world, broadly conceived, and the workings of the human mind in the act of design are seen and understood to be continuous, if not identical, and divine.
Can the spat between Intelligent Design and Evolution finally be dissipated? On some better understanding of the word, is it time for "divinity" once again to enter the discourse of architecture and of design generally? This book says yes to both questions.
ISBN: 9780934951081
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE
Theism/Deism
The Argument from Design
Rejoinder and Hypothesis
The Process of Evolution
Evolution’s Essentials
Drift or Direction?
The Process of Design
Theological Implications
Neural Darwinism
Evolution and Intelligent Design
PART TWO
Do Architects Play God?
Do Architects Make Worlds?
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Le Corbusier
Frank Lloyd Wright
Louis Kahn
A Prayer-like Conclusion
AUTHOR
Michael Benedikt
