By architecture we mean building considered as a fine art—that is to say, an art which subserves mental and not merely physical necessities. Art is primarily simply skill—thus we rightly speak of the art of the dentist and the art of the pickpocket, and there is great art in washing up. Upon this lowly base is built up the grand erection of human accomplishment. To do or make something well is the root of the business.

But as it commonly happens that human works are used by human beings as well as done by human beings, it follows that the idea of suitability as well as that of utility occupies the mind of the workman. Hence even in the simplest articles of use the two ideas combine, coalesce or conflict, and the chair-maker who sets out to make simply a thing which will fit the sitting human body finds himself involved in all the complexity of the problems aroused by the question, what human body, or whose human body—am I making a child’s chair or an office stool, a chair for the dining room or one for the bishop in his cathedral?

Thus has grown up the distinction between art and fine art. By art is meant simply the skill to do what needs doing or the skill to make what serves a physical use simply. By fine art is meant skill to do or to make that which is simply delightful to the mind. At the one extreme are such things as dentistry and pure engineering (though even dentists play about with gold stoppings for no real utilitarian reason), such things as working a London tube lift or mixing concrete for foundations.