Earth is the one and only current human inhabited planet
Earth is the one and only current human inhabited planet in our solar system. On Ms. Gaia, (may I call her that?), humans are known to build structures. In those structures that we inhabit we call them, generically, “buildings”. I suppose we can digress and start to put names on them like yurt, igloo, teepee, yada, yada, yada, let’s not.
It is known some buildings extend under the surface of the ground plane, and some extend upwards several thousand feet. No matter their height or depth, width or breath, the structures are buildings. There are literally millions upon millions of buildings throughout the world. The function of these facilities are multifaceted. Some we would categorize as residential, or as commercial, or as industrial, or as institutional, or as ecclesial, or other broad category of an amenity.
There is not known of one over arching master plan that the separate uses of buildings collectively adhere. Why should there be? In different regions with climatic conditions, unequal distribution of resources and building materials, in the end three dimensional forms result, and change. The differing attitudes and historic evolution, belief systems that are interpreted and unique styles and periods and decorations, or as in the case of the modernist, stripped of everything without ornamentation, become displayed.
With all these buildings the term often associated with them, not specifically, is the label “architecture”. Someone will inevitably ask what kind of architecture is it? Really what is being queried is what kind of style does it possess. As a ‘noun’ word in the English language, style is defined as “a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed“. As a ‘verb’ word in the English language, style is defined as “designate with a particular name, description, or title”.1
Buildings have an ‘architecture’, note the little “a”, however buildings per se are not all ‘Architecture’, note the capital “A”. Buildings may contain a degree of Architecture in some aspect in and of them. Certainly the majority of buildings, the great majority, are not Architecture. As an architect I assure you, buildings are loveless, Architecture is blended with love.
“ … to the northern hemisphere when weather arrives“
A gathering of places works because it possesses Architecture. The more Architecture within a hamlet, village, town or city, prospects are good that living in this place will be zoetic.
A natural Architecture of Ms. Gaia is the beach on coastal settings and many inland lakes. Sounds are pleasant, the shore sands are appealing and provide for comfortable furniture, the views are stunning, the horizon is completeness on earth. The mountain is another of her natural Architecture. The mountain often rests on a range, the echoes are angelic, the climb is exhilarating and exhausting, the views are breathless, the crown is an achievement beyond compare.
Walk me about a place that works, opine what place makes you happy and lead us to a happy place. Chances are that you do not go inside the place. We often look to travel to circumstances outside our place to get away to escape to experience life. Try a place of all the warm weather and sun people flock. They travel to the beach by the millions every year in the northern hemisphere, south, then conversely in the southern hemisphere, north, when weather arrives.
Think about the forest and the trails that are walked, some each day, some once a month, some once a year in cold climes, serving bean soup. Consider about the pastoral settings free from clutter, trashed cars and visible mayhem. So what if we could have a happy place, what do we envision that would look like?
“ … and the pursuit of Happiness”
I have done just that, sought to creat happy spaces and buildings for decades. So many parts of the built world of small “a” architecture prevail, so in need of tender loving design input. You have done so as well. Navigate one building.
A place may have one million buildings as in New York City. Or does your place have 100 people, an apartment complex, a warehouse, a church, an arena, or an office suite? In a hamlet of one hundred you could combine ten thousand hamlets and have a NYC. Are they all unhappy hamlets?
As we move we can experiment with happy places. For instance in a song.2
We can walk in them. We can ride a rickshaw or bicycle, we can take a taxi or drive ourselves, we can elevate ourselves to the seat on a bus or a minivan or a mini bus or whatever. We can travel over the waterway, we can travel in the air to see the foot prints of our places, to see if the places make sense. Let us see if patterns of harmony coexist with their natural surrounds.
If one is fearful of flying, use ‘Google Earth’3
I have done so, that is, I have thought, drawn and built places. I have worked played and ate in our places. I have talked about them, I have lived in them. I have learned what I know, and so you know, we can do better. This sentiment may mean that we need to reevaluate, redraw, and replan a happy place.
The US of A, Declaration of Independence, is strongly worded that we do so.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”4.
“ … to allow us to remain alive with her, in her, and through her”
This means culturally, nationalistically and globally, for society to drop the less than positive outcomes of living so we may pursue happiness.
We will move in ways, because our places allow us to do so, happily.
We can interact so we can talk with any or all of us in space and place.
We can design Architecture, capital “A”, structures, ultra fine places.
Think of all the possibilities of living in a different habitat from what we are mindlessly accustomed to today. Why?
Our streets, our sidewalks, our garages and paved parking lots of endless monotony, over the entire landscape, numb us in big ubiquitous and distressing nonsense, the nasty kind.
Our places need to be contrary to the status quo, in a manner that embraces the highest human ideas, our destiny foretells and claims.
Our souls need to be allowed to dispel manmade suffering so ingrained in us.
Our Ms. Gaia needs to regain her confidence in our spirits, for us to do what is correct, to allow us to remain alive with her, in her, and through her.
“ … or fail to act on them, the messages that is.“
Yes, yes, yes, you say, leave us in our misery, it is the way we were made and intend to stay. How so vain, you think the world is all about you.
Our happy place begins in our hearts. Our hearts connect, there comes into sight a binding agent. The agent can be touched, held, embraced, and dare say, expelled. Though once obtained, the two hearts grow, think and build. In the uplifted world of happiness, human hearts create Architecture. Architecture is blended with love.
In our places today, the design professional class have become purveyors of land, build buildings, pursue wealth, produce profit, although they do not blend love by their work, nor are inclined to due so because of stone hearts. Cheerfully all can change, and in the course of linear time, will do so.
A few earth inhabitants walking the enlightened paths of Ms. Gaia have simultaneously been absorbed in cosmic time, thus allowing their prophetic voices to be human equivalents of beaches, forests, and mountains. These residents are the exceptional. Some minutes we listen to them, mostly we do not. We care not to hear their messages. In case we do capture their words, we in turn forget them, or dismiss them, or de-rationalize them, or fail to act on them, the messages that is.
A Zoetic Message
You know as well as I do love has many meanings. The blended love we address in this message consider as an agape love, not an emotional, romantic love, nor a brotherly, philia love, nor lastly, a familial, storge love. As we create an Architecture we infuse a blend of material, with altruistic values, a selfless quality touching all, public minded and spirited, and kind to earthlings and earth alike. We thus leave a place, with a characteristically social conscience, that is to be observed and recalled.
Although I do identify myself as an architect, I am no position to suggest to you personally what you deem yourself to grant a big “A”, Architecture. It is a quite a well-known fact that over millennia Architecture has been created without an architect or a master builder on hand. Architects typically speak in untranslatable languages anyway.
You are the master of your universe and it is your idea, conviction and opinion that create your Architecture.
I will give you only one example of what I would consider Architecture as I define it. This Architecture has been front and center with us each and every day for the past year and some weeks. I speak at the US Capitol building, on the Washington DC mall in the US of A.
The U.S. Capitol is among the most architecturally impressive and symbolically important buildings in the world.5
As a premier symbol of our constitutional republic, the building possesses the attributes that are found in Architecture about our globe. The January 6th insurrectionists do not believe the Capitol building is Architecture. They have not understood the blending of agape love that created it and at the same time a pre-eminient nation of a united peoples.
Our challenge in our lives is to embrace and even create true living Architecture, of all sorts, in all corners of the world, such that mad intellects will not be given the impetus with their selfish thoughts to destroy that which cosmic goodness has inspired.
Let us imagine.
Google’s English dictionary is provided by Oxford Languages
Katie Melua - “A Happy Place”, 2010 video:
Google Earth: https://earth.google.com/
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/buildings-grounds/capitol-building
Michael -- I consider architecture one of the many disciplines of art itself. So many things to be considered in structure and design ... materials used, the edifice itself, aesthetic value, historical significance, its place in the cultural surroundings and/or environment, "lines" etc. Then there's the intrinsic values ... where is your comfort zone, favorite place (balcony, alcove, "nook," etc.
I suppose your meaning extends "happy place" is a mental state, current consciousness ... how a place/time makes you feel in real time or in the current. We go in and out of these in our lifetimes ... they evolve as we evolve. I'm a different person at 66 than I was at 46 so my "happy places" are different now than they were two score ago.
I have an appreciation for both of the above. Sometimes they meet. Right now, if it was possible, I'd like to be at St. Basil's Cathedral (Moscow), or maybe at Hagia Sophia (Istanbul), or St. Mark's Square (Venice). Tomorrow I might prefer my own home office here In Lawrenceville surrounded by many of my life accomplishments that decorate the walls.
I kinda "get" what you mean in this piece. It took me on a nice mental Zoetic travel trip. Appreciate it much. -- Jim
Lyrical Excerpt from “A Happy Place”
“I have found that stress and nonsense
Puts me in zone of avoidance
Could my mind be moving faster
Pulling like a super cluster
Can be hard to trust a feeling
But believing ends in seeing
We’re going to find a happy
We’re going to find a happy
We’re going to find a happy place”