The Courage of Tenderness

Matisse's chapel in Vence displays the courage it takes to create from tenderness. So much architecture is made from coolness, calculation and brute force. This has its place, but Matisse made a place that welcomes the whispers of the soul. It's a sacred space designed by a wise child. It's the art of a master who explored color and form until everything that wasn't essential was stripped away, leaving only pure, tinted light. In contrast to the dark, womb-chamber cathedrals throughout Europe, this radiant space invites gentleness in to play. The vulnerability, usually hidden in shadowy passages and armored by massive stone walls dances on a raised, glowing altar. Every detail shimmers with innocent openheartedness. This includes the vestments Matisse designed for the clergy here. Instead of the traditional black or brown robes, the artist fashioned ceremonial capes with festive colors and floral motifs reflecting the playful stained glass windows. In a world that celebrates heroic acts of explosive art, the courage to listen to the subtle, yet powerful, murmurs of the heart and the skill to translate that elusive strength into a compelling human sanctuary is astonishing.

Freeing The Dark Heart

"A bit touchy feelly don't you think?" A man with dull eyes confronted me with this question as I walked off the stage to wild applause following a lecture at the Graham Foundation in Chicago. Why is touching and feeling something so frightening? "Who do you think you are, Joseph Campbell?" a "friend" asked after reading three sample chapters from my first book, The Temple in the House. How can self expression be so threatening? Mocking laughter was my father's response when I told him I wanted to be an architect. Why would a man would want to crush the dream of his progeny? Imagine you have encounters with spirit killing comments almost daily.

The grip of these types of comments loosened when I realized they were expressions of fear. At the same time, I realized their cumulative effect is devastating. This is because, more than spreading fear, they promote the withholding of life energy. Bit by bit, this withholding turns the heart dark. Bit by bit, the cold lightless heart becomes a place where brutality is born.

I realized other possibilities at the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence in southern France. This luminous space was designed and decorated by Matisse. In the playful colors and delicate forms I saw the courage in tenderness. Our action heros are hard and loud. But in this little chapel I encountered a great power in softness and silence. The darkness in my heart found a place where the life energy it had withheld could be released and be free.

Happy Birthday Lou

March 17th was the birthday of Louis Kahn, the great architect featured in the film, My Architect. Though I never met him, Lou has been one of my mentors. He looked into soul of architecture and saw its vital connections to shaping human experience. For Lou, a door wasn't just a way to get through a wall. It was an event of transition, making the passage from one world to another. Lou's buildings could break new ground, but his words inspired generations of architects. Here are some examples:

"A great building must begin with the unmeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed and in the end must be unmeasurable."

"To express is to drive. And when you want to give something presence, you have to consult nature. And there is where Design comes in."

"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."

Mostly unappreciated in his own town of Philadelphia, Lou found clients that understood his soulful approach to architecture half way around the world in Banglahdesh. When designing this Muslim country's capital buildings, Lou was asked to include a small room for prayer in an out  of the way corner. Lou made the prayer room 30,000 square feet and placed it at the entry to the legislature chambers. Lou said that if the government officials spent time in prayer before carrying out their work they might act with more wisdom. 

Eyes

Eyes in art and architecture connect across time. The eyes in this photo were carved into marble in Greece more than 2,500 years ago. The sculptor shaped the stone into a lively expression of human emotion that can be recognized immediately. Is it only a projection that we see a reflection of our own consciousness in sculptures and drawings of eyes? Maybe there is something about the design of lids, irises, pupils, lashes and brows that indicates the mind behind the creation of eyes. Maybe it's not the eyes that we connect with, but the formless awareness hovering just beyond the eyes. This formless awareness has been looking out through my eyes for as long as I can remember. It's observed the changes in my mind, body, actions and surroundings throughout my life, but the watching silent awareness hasn't changed. Perhaps you experience this. Perhaps, when we meet and connect, it is this silent place in me that recognizes this silent place in you, and vise versa. Maybe, when I came across this Greek sculpture, the silent place in me recognized the silent place within the sculptor who crafted these stone eyes more than 2,500 years ago. 

Angels in the Architecture

Architecture embodies the human journey. Like the eddies and swirls of water cascading down a ravine reveal the shapes of the boulders the water flows across, the design elements of buildings reveal the terrain of human needs and dreams. Throughout history, architecture has been enriched with paintings and sculptures depicting the mystery of dwelling in this world. Only in last 200 years have architects designed structures that looked more like the tools used to craft buildings than the people that inhabited them. The adoration of the machine as a tool for creating better homes and cities replaced the appreciation of the human form as a renewing link between nature, imagination and architecture.

The painting above, Law Versus the Mob by John Stewart Curry, is located in the Department of Justice Building outside the Law Library. It shows a man fleeing a hate-filled mob. When the Attorney General of the United States, U.S. Attorneys, and Judges walk these halls, the architecture frames this stark reminder of their role in society.

Sacred architecture in most parts of the world is adorned with art that tells the whole story of the soul's journey. It's not all celestial light and humming chants. At the central portal into Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, for example, a pointed arch frames the full spectrum of experience. On the left are a host of saints with pious faces. On the right, devils frolic through horrific mischief. In the center of this wild scene sits Christ, Buddha-like, raising his hand in a fear not, be cool gesture. Hindu and Buddhist temples throughout Asia display these same sort of scenes.

What I've experienced with this is that sacred space is all encompassing space. It excludes nothing and embracing everything. All the impulses of life and invited in. Not for a Kumbayah sing along, but to stir the ocean of silence into powerful, revitalizing energy. The full spectrum of life from perfect peace to dynamic creation, destruction and renewal rises and falls within the measureless expanses of sacred space.

By looking for ways to include the design of the human body in our dwelling places, we may be able to imagine vital ways to connect the designs of our buildings to nature. I'm not suggesting we go backwards and cover our buildings with statues. Instead we can look into and feel the ways our consciousness is expressed through the gestures and expressions of our human form. We can look for ways to create places that extend those currents into the rooms we inhabit and find a sustainable coexistence between our minds, bodies and the garden of the world.

Thanks for the comments on previous posts. Keep sharing them and telling us what you're experiencing and doing.