Great architecture is judged on material reality, not the ethics of those that are creating it, says Sean Griffiths.

What is the relationship between ethics and aesthetics" Some believe that the social conditions under which a work of architecture is created are intrinsically embedded in its material reality and hence form part of its meaning. So a beautiful building or object becomes ugly if it was produced using exploitative practices.
Others maintain that material objects exist in and for themselves and that not only are the meanings projected onto them by human beings essentially different to the object itself, but that these meanings are not stable. So if, for instance, we were to go back to ancient Greece, we would discover that although the classical architecture we found there might be familiar, the meanings attached to it would not be. Nevertheless, we remain untroubled by the idea that an architecture that, at least in part, was a direct celebration of war, sacrifice and slavery should be an appropriate form of architecture for national institutions and august commercial entities. Should we therefore be free to evaluate objects on their own terms, unencumbered by questions of ethics"
Take Thomas Heatherwick's project, the Vessel in New York. This erection, to call it something that chimes with some of the more unflattering monikers it has acquired, has been condemned as not only a vacuous monument to, but a prime example of, the city's colonisation by ...