The Queen of Engineering

About The Queen of Engineering

Abstract

This paper explores beauty or aesthetics as it relates to engineering science and design. Because modern science and engineering have developed largely in the West, the emphasis will be on classical, Western understandings of aesthetics, whose features include symmetry, simplicity, idealization/representation, and universality. Western aesthetics is surveyed from the ancient, pagan Greeks through Christian thinkers such as Augustine and Aquinas. The paper considers how these aesthetic concepts appear in engineering science and design and suggest how they have influenced engineering – how they have been imposed—and how they seem to emerge naturally from the engineering design process. By way of contrast, the Eastern, Japanese aesthetics of wabi-sabi is briefly discussed as an alternative vision with some possible ramifications for engineering. Finally, the paper will seek to ground the aesthetic concepts and their role in engineering in the Christian gospel: the Triune God, creation, the Fall, and redemption. While this paper can only introduce these deep subjects, it is hoped that Christian engineers will gain fresh, insightful, and useful perspectives which will inspire new ideas, better design, wonder, and worship.