Michael A. Vuksta
Since it constituted a major addition to my previous unit, I will begin with poetry. Although the exercises outlined in that unit addressed the means of architectural design, they did not adequately address the purpose of architecture. So, somewhere between the blind walk and some unsuccessful attempts at observation and gesture drawing, a discussion took place which necessitated my structuring a new approach. As a result of the blind walk and this dialogue, I discovered that the students were capable of describing the places they had been, as well as other significant places from their memories. I decided to tap this familiarity with description and the language of feelings. I scanned my collection of poetry books for works that described places or architectural features. Among those that proved useful were,
Somewhere
by Robert Creeley,
A Window
and
Room
by Denise Levertov, and
The Small Cabin
and
Frame
by Margaret Atwood. Each of these works revealed the intangible feelings and memories which places are able to invoke. They also provided a descriptive vocabulary of the physical features of place. They pointed to the personal nature of places and their existence over time. The piece that was missing in my unit had become clear. It was a piece of Mind.
This inclusion of poetry invigorated both teacher and student alike. It evoked a desire to learn more about what can be done to create images and objects which could invoke similar responses as these poems. The class became a meeting place in which this big word, architecture, was more thoughtfully confronted. Instead of the need to understand the making of places, I found a longing to believe that memorable places indeed existed. This precognitive mode of understanding is the basis of my choice of Louis Kahn as the architect who might best address this need.
This agreement on human action, in the form of feelings and memories, as a determinant of architectural purpose carried over into other activities and projects within the planned unit. Floor plans of the students’ homes were penciled on cream colored paper. Young photographers turned their lenses toward buildings and particular features of buildings. Students scanned books on architecture to search for images to copy and use in collage projects which created unique ideas and visions. Belief had turned into understanding. Imagination was applied to the designing and making of objects. In the words of Louis Kahn, “the will to be to express” had taken hold on my students.
The ideas expressed in Whitman’s poems, taken from Scully’s citation from “A Song of the Rolling Earth,” and my own selection from the poem which immediately precedes it, “A Song for Occupations,” display an orientation toward the nature and essence of architecture. It is an integration of active and passive elements. In our looking and searching, we are creators of the architecture that has appeared as a result of the harnessing of larger forces, such as materials, environment, and Mind. The Spirit of Architecture is invoked and embraces all. It is both present and tangible in particular elements, features, and materials; and it is as unreachable as the farther reaches of time, or space, or Mind. It emerges as the result of human needs, activities, desires, and occupations. It is discovered in and created from the substances of the earth. Architecture is the product of man and nature.