Last month I attended a conference at the Royal Institute of British Architects entitled ‘Beauty – Who Cares Wins’, promoted by the department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and featuring the chair of the newly created Office for Place, Nicholas Boys Smith.

The agenda strongly reflected the findings of the Building Better Building Beautiful Commission (chaired by Sir Roger Scruton until his untimely death when Boys Smith took over) and its report ‘Living with Beauty’. 

I left the event wondering whether this focus on beauty amounted to a new movement with the search for beauty at its heart - perhaps aestheticism or the mid nineteenth century Aesthetic Movement reborn?