ARCHITECTURE REORIENTATION
The world that I arise to each drifting day, is the endless shadow of former virtue; the rotten flesh of fruit, and does not life yet still resume its resilient feast upon this very banquet of immortal decay. Such is the world that sweeps across vast dust plains of concrete, where withered trees stand alone, gnarled and knotted, whilst caged flowers burst open with steroid enforced blooms. Who could envisage that a seed shall once more bare fruit?
Withdrawing from society, deterred by the endless masquerade of busy urban life, I set my sights upon distant lands. Hemmed in by the close waters of the sea, and where meandering roads are disparaged by towering mountains and cliffs, I sought my solace within nature's last hold upon the British Isles: The Hebrides.
There, within the hazy mist of cloud I could see an abhorrent form, unmistakable it was. Piercing through the cloud, a razors edge, defiant, intractable; the ever-perturbing visage to rise from the descending mist and undulating black mass.
As I crept on through this canvas of stone, wearily guiding each foot I laid upon the unruly mass with grave caution, I could not for the life of me withdraw my gaze, away from this forbidding authority, which loomed over me, studying my lumbering ascent. The soft flesh of my body ever fragile to my host, and my progress, awkward and clumsy as I continued the uncertainty of my approach, with wavering thoughts.
As I moved out into the light, my eyes retracting from the dazzling brightness I had awoken to, and yet I found the gentle touch of the sun caress me, and even the stone under my feet now seemed to pulsate with warm blood underneath its rough surface. How aware of my movement I have become, when each naked footstep is a variable experience of texture and temperature, just as my outstretched hands had guided me by the contours of the walls. A door becomes a moveable barrier, which encloses an inner sanctuary, now that it captures my attention by involving the demand of my entire body in a conscience exercise to slide its vast weight ajar and allow myself to pass its threshold.
This is a landscape far removed from those of mankind's basic earthly needs, as such, his painstaking labours will not serve up a product of commerce, but rather, an exploration of this environment presents something of a metaphysical nature.
Finally, I crawled into one of the opening fissures of the wall which cradled my tired body, and there, I slept, free of anxiety and former doubts, I was at long last, liberated.
Beyond the subjectivity of aesthetics, architecture provides a platform for human life and all the experiences that go with it; such environments are imbued with the power to shape and influence its inhabitants, just as the natural world has been busy moulding the amazing variety of life on earth. But how will human beings evolve, if we continue to disregard the complexity and significance of our built environment?
