I have struggled with this one. I think if you built an asymmetrical car or aircraft it would just look weird.
But when I see a sports car with the driver's seat and steering column on the centreline axis it doesn't feel right to me. When people want to put the companionway door to one side or or other on a cat, or only have transom access on one side of the cockpit I'm not opposed to the idea on a practical level but I do feel a little bit queazy about the aesthetics. And yet proas are mostly just damn beautiful. And so are Brancusi's sculptures. Some are symmetrical and some are not. Clearly symmetry is not a feature that defines their beauty.
So these are conflicting ideas about what is right and wrong - at least on the basis of aesthetics. Clearly there's something going on in the mind related to what we expect to see. The issue is not about the design itself. It’s about our preconceptions and our ideas of beauty mixed up with expectations and convention.
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