Aesthetic challenges in the field of sustainability: The relation of art, architectural design and sustainability in the projects of Michael Singer

Abstract

One of the biggest issues every country has faced in the last four decades is the following: what can we do to protect our beautiful world? And what have the visual arts and architectural design done to regenerate it. In the new millennium, however, focus on relationships between nature, architectural design and sustainability began to get more and more space in both art and architecture. But already at the beginning of the 1970s and in the following decades several artists began to solve this problem. Especially the American artist and architectural designer Michael Singer put new creations of the relation between art, architecture and sustainability to the top and it became a key challenge in his small and big projects, that are “woven into nature” and also are created on inspiration from especially concepts of beauty in the Shinto and Zen-aesthetics and in the ancient Chinese gardens. However, during Michael Singer’s teaching at various art and architectural schools, he realized that it was not enough to create new artistic interpretations of an often-forgotten concept of nature and beauty. It was also important to regenerate the nature and create landscape and architectural projects where the artistic and ecological goals were integrated in the construction process. Thus, in the large Waterfront of West Palm Beach and The Sculptural Biofiltration Wall in Coconut, Greek Casino in Florida. The originality of so many of Michael Singer’s projects is due to the interconnecting art, architectural design and sustainability.