The article analyses the relationship between architectural composition and aesthetic quality, considering the assumptions of philosophical aesthetics and empirical aesthetics, and the role of formal and symbolic aesthetics to explain this relationship. Historic and contemporary buildings with different levels of order and visual stimuli are evaluated by people with different levels and types of college education, and the reasons for such assessments are identified. Data collection includes archival records, physical measurements, and questionnaires and interviews conducted with 60 architects, 60 non-architect college graduates and 60 non-college graduates, in order to evaluate images of three historic buildings and three contemporary buildings, classified as: order and visual stimuli; order and low visual stimuli; and disorder. The responses to the questionnaires were analysed using nonparametric statistical tests such as Kruskal-Wallis and Kendall W. The information provided in the interviews was analysed through its frequency and meanings. The results indicate that while architects tended to place great value on the existence of order in an architectural composition and non-architects tended to place great value on the existence of visual stimulus, when both are present, the architectural composition tends to be positively evaluated.
Architectural composition; Aesthetics quality; Aesthetics evaluation; Empirical aesthetics; Formal aesthetics; Symbolic aesthetics
