The thunderstorms that rage across this earth fascinate and terrify us. They allow us to be melancholy and sad. For good reason, they cause damage and death, they represent the darkness. In others and in us. The storms force us to focus. They activate our senses in ways nothing else can. We hear the rain beating its tattoo against the roof. We feel the wet drip into our eyes as we blink to clear our vision. The grass smells different. The air tastes different. We see the vapor rising from the street as it boils away, evaporating . We see the wall of water as it washes, rushing, towards us. The lightning blinds us before the thunder deafens us. The quiet and the cacophony continues until the storm has tired and moved away. Regrouping to try again another time, another place, another day.
After the rain passes and the world quietens, we hesitantly poke our heads out to experience everything anew. We take stock of the damage and reflect in the half-ness of the world. Not wet not dry, neither and both. fully yes and no. The grass is scattered with moisture clinging to the blades reaching skyward, begging for more. Pavement glistens with the gathered drops. With every passing car, bike, and shoe they spray into the air, trying to hold onto the memory of flight. For the drops, it is over far too soon. As they leap skyward they try taking a bit of dirt along to share in the journey. But the earth doesn’t naturally fly and wants to be put back down. It clings to the first place it lands hoping not to be taken up again.
Through our experience, we become a part of the storm. Not just an observer or a damp bystander, but an active participant in the maelstrom. Often we hunch away trying to shirk our duty and stay dry, sheltering until it is over. There is no hiding from it.
We will get wet.
Whether from a hand on a still dripping car door hastily wiped dry on a pant leg or untying wet shoe strings after stepping in the puddle deeper than thought. We will get wet. We will become a part of the event, the phenomenon, the spectacle. We have a choice: to embrace it, throwing our hoods back, laughing at the rain; Or we can shy skittishly away, hopelessly trying to stay dry.
Do we try the same approach with architecture? Hoping to avoid a confrontation we know is coming but also knowing it will leak through in dribs and drabs over the years as we enter building after building, ignoring each as though it didn’t matter.
Because it does.
They all do. The spaces in which we spend our time are the spaces in which we spend our lives. The mundane experiences in every day and every building we encounter shape us as we shape them. Stone floors erode slowly with each footstep. Each door handle polished slightly by the hands used to open it.
The marks we leave behind are evident. Less so those marks the buildings leave. Do they change our gait with a vestibule too long or short? Does one leg get more work climbing up stairs clockwise instead of widdershins? Are the marks physical or do buildings affect something deeper? Walking into an old cathedral brings with it the sense of something else. A Gravitas. Our breathe is taken away by buildings possessing of this else. We tear up or lose words to describe. We rely on metaphor to make our points. The inaccuracies of speech aid us in our goal of describing. They allow us to talk around a point always pointing to but never quite reaching. The asymptotic nature of the discussion frustrates and enriches. We want to say what we mean, but we cannot. It cannot be expressed directly, only tangentially. So we talk in circles. Almost saying what we mean, knowing close is better than not trying.
Well said is too easily understood. Carefully said, a beautiful sentence is like an arrow pointing into the heart of every reader, revealing the truth inside. As are the best buildings. They shake us out of our reverie. They challenge our mundane everyday. The quotidian elevated beyond belief.