Our soul is portrayed in stone. Throughout history man has endeavoured to understand his place in the universe by relating himself to forces beyond his control. Trapped in his individual needs and wants, he realised his puny existence is nothing without a cause to allow him to work together with other individuals to create a society and a culture.
Armed with his togetherness, man has forever felt bigger than himself. And nothing is bigger than a building. Hence, when a building is erected to signify his urges, it is more than the plan of the architect; more than the materials used; more than the sum of its parts.
EARLY ARCHITECTURE
A building is an amalgam of his hopes and fears; his idea of the past; a representation of the present; a form of security for the future. It is his existence, and that of the greater force, enshrined, he hopes, for all time.
In this way our soul is portrayed in stone. In prehistory it is remembered in pyramids and henges – plans of the known universe, burial chambers for men who will become gods, observatories to understand the sun and tell man when to plant his grain.
Later, with the advent of Christianity, or Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or Sikhism, our soul was our temple, our church, our mosque. A church is not simply a building, but a representation of Christ on the Cross.
And when we walk within, we walk into the body of Christ. But more than this, in the Cathedral, God was supreme in the city. Man was telling fellow man, this is our salvation; this is the force that will keep us safe.
MODERN ARCHITECTURE
During the Enlightenment, a new force came along to usurp God. This was reason. In the great 18th century philosophers, man’s mind began to understand the world through science, and in allowing us understanding ourselves, what need did we have for this God? Better, we thought, to devise our own laws, our own ways – and our own problems.
Soon, our genius brought on the Industrial Revolution, and the new building was the factory, standing tall above all the rest, dwarfing the churches with their stacks. Man’s soul had become choked in smog.
We have advanced from those industrial times – we think.
ARCHITECTURE WITH PURPOSE
Eventually we cleaned up the smog and our ingenuity advanced. God was in severe decline but man still needed to portray his soul in stone. Man, even western, atheist, material man, still needed to see his soul about him. And God was replaced by manna itself.
Capitalist liberal democracy was the buzz word. This infused man with purpose in a way Christianity had never done. For this offered personal fulfillment in the now rather than a disciplined wait for the hereafter.
And the bank became supreme; the trade centre the tallest structure in town. This was the new soul, the new ethos, the new credo. So that when two planes smashed the global soul to rubble, we knew a clash was coming that would define a new soul – and a new world.
Whatever that new world becomes, you can guarantee it will be expressed in stone.
© Anthony North, July 2007
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