06 Dec

I thought I knew what the definition of architecture was. To me, it was an experience, created by an environmental world within a built form. One could construct an experiential world, with a realization buried within it for those who could discover it.

Then the world was remade. I walked on thin bridges, precariously above a spider web of shimmering channels overflowing with clouds. But my companion walked through the gnarled roots of a dense, inverted forest, while another peered into the pages of a story, and another found their map in the voids of the deep sky above. Each returned with our own story to tell, for there was not an intrinsic meaning.

I realized at each moment, each city or forest or reflection or keyhole, I found something different. I did not find a destination, grand sight or monument. Instead I had found a perception, a new way of seeing things.

One might say there are many ways to view the world. Architecture, with the fellow spirits of cinema, literature, and all the other lovers of the seeking of the invisible and visible worlds, is not an empirical, problem-solving process or representation of reality, technology, or humanity. It is a lens though which to view the world. The world constantly changes; fleeting moments can be found in cobalt reflections, fog fills the voids of a labyrinth, and rain creates an echoing symphony in a tomb. All one must do is be aware of this peripheral world and widen their view to it. So that they might see what their imagination can transcend.