Formalism appears in some traditional architectural theories as a normative practical or critical guideline, namely, that our best design thinking takes as central an architectural object’s shape, color, and other formal elements. Other, non-formal aspects of an architectural object are discounted as contributing to its success. Mitrovic (2011, 2013) embraces a normative formalist approach to criticism, on the grounds that the deeply visual nature of much cognition militates against basing appreciation or evaluation of architectural objects exclusively or primarily on features we understand through non-visual means (such as context or history provide). 