The first candidate reason stands or falls on whether, in fulfilling social needs, architecture is thereby rendered a social art. For an artform to be intrinsically social, any such need fulfilled should be critical rather than discretionary or extravagant. Thus, for example, addressing housing demands overall meets the criticality test—though addressing design demands for a third home does not. The first reason looks right because architects often integrate social needs into design thinking. Armed with socially minded intentions, they create built structures which serve myriad social ends. A difficulty arises, however, in consistently upholding such intentions as a mark of the social if (a) such intentions are unclear from experiencing architectural objects, instantiations, or representations thereof, (b) built structures are repurposed, or (c) there are architectural objects with no corresponding relevant intentions. (As an instance, we might consider “found” architectural objects like inhabited caves.)