spirit in architecture

Today i'm thinking of an Architect or builder. Architecture and building could be viewed as the expression of the human place in the world. An architect is a designer of buildings that hold different types of people. The builder the vehicle by which the design reaches fruition. The design begins from a concept relying on a stipulated menu of needs. He or she tries to stay within the guidelines and yet impact the final product with imagination and creativity.

All our buildings express our culture and our place amongst humanity. It is our abode, the place where our spirit enriches our present.

i've been trying to articulate a method that would work for everyone and yet still have room for all the many differences we all have and need. Religion does not have room for those that disagree with the dogma...unless you are willing to "believe" or have "faith". If the dogma is presumed to be accurate you may find yourself questioning that which is not supposed to be questioned. Blind acceptance may not be in the cards and you need another venue. This is my venue for talking about our similarities not our differences.


i found a book i never would have bought if it hadn't appeared on my dining room table. It was waiting to be discovered in a box with a whole lot of other books that were meant to have been taken to a resale shop but hadn't made it as yet. The box had been deposited on the table temporarily while the cleaning out of a car occurred.

Being the sort of person that can never let a box of books go unexplored i delved in, finding a few books for myself and for a friend. i put the rejects back in the box and immediately started to peruse my new gems. The one that caught my imagination is called "Between Silence and Light" Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn.

i had never heard of him but i liked the title and started reading and came across this quote of his.

Now remember this is an Architect.

"All material in nature, the mountains and the streams and the air and we, are made of Light which has been spent, and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, and the shadow belongs to Light.

I felt first of all joyous. I felt that which Joy is made of, and realized that Joy itself must have been the impelling force, that which was there before we were there, and that somehow Joy was in every ingredient of our making. When the world was an ooze without any shape or direction, there must have been this force of Joy that prevailed everywhere and that was reaching out to express. And somehow the word Joy became the most unmeasurable word. It was the essence of creativity, the force of creativity. I realized that if I were a painter about to paint a great catastrophe, I could not put the first stroke on canvas without thinking of Joy in doing it. You cannot make a building unless you are joyously engaged.

I would like to feel that I have not forgotten, nor have you as I speak to you, about the stream of Joy which must be felt. Otherwise, you really don't feel anything. If what I say somehow activates that feeling, I would, of course, be terribly pleased and honored." Louis Kahn
Here at humanity squared this author works for a type of unity and joy that, while supporting group identity at various levels, promotes a wider allegiance to humanity as a whole. i find that for many, humanity as a whole is a concept that is not considered even though we are connected through our economic predilections.

Reading Kahn's piece on Joy one can't help but recognize the universality of his expression. Everything we do starts with being joyously engaged. We just don't always think about it in those terms.

And so today's piece is a shorty.