Utilitarianism in architecture can mean several things.
1. The belief that the value of a thing or an action is determined by its utility.
2. The ethical theory proposed by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Jeremy Bentham (IPA: or ) (February 15, 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1748 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. ... John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873), a British philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ...
3. The quality of being utilitarian: housing of bleak utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is a suggested theoretical framework for morality, law and politics, based on quantitative maximisation of some definition of utility for society or humanity. ...
As he grows increasingly suspicious of this notion, and of architecture's ability to "awaken" the masses and to reform institutions, he begins to invest his cultural critique in poetry--especially in The Cantos, where the architectural images he uses are fragmented, but nonetheless powerful in their socio-politically/historically significance.
Architecture serves especially well as a dialectical image for Pound because of the multiple facets of its language, and because of its obvious ubiquity.
As Keith Tuma explains, "Architecture is important to Pound because it is intimately connected with the daily life of the masses" (1990: 86), and whatever most often confronts the masses, Pound may have surmised, has the most power to change consciousnesses.
It is undeniable that the greatest architectural creations of mankind arose as a response to religious fervor; the desire to express in materials what human beings felt towards their Deity and Creator.
Utilitarian objects were made with the same philosophy of striving to represent the complexity and beauty of the universe -- as best understood by human beings at that time -- in the things we built.
Deconstructivist architecture can be described as the product of a group of architects creating their own cult by defining a new style of building.
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