world of wonders – soul of place

 what is a place of wonder? why are some places full of wonder. what makes a place wonder full? 

treasure cave - cliffs of taktsang monastery, bhutan

which is more full of wonder – the creations of humanity or natural wonders? how would you choose only seven?

great buddha at kotoku-in temple, kamakura, japan

how do some places capture the essence of a culture,  an era, a civilization, an empire?

great wall of china

do places of wonder hold the power of the dreams, the collective spirit of a people?

holding sun and ocean

where are the energy lines, the intersections of spiritual resonance, epicenters of power?

borobudur and mount merapi - java, indonesia

are there places where your dreams are entwined with those that have come before?

humayun's tomb - delhi, india

i’m wandering in the world of wonders, looking for the soul of place, seeking the spirit held within our dreams.

bamboo forest - kyoto, japan

the scent of place

how do we create captivating places that hold in our memories – that draw us back over and over, that linger in our minds, pulling us to them again?  in the design of places, i’ve been thinking about captivation and memory.  why places draw my attraction or repulsion, why places pull me in – and what is striking about the nature of memorable places?  

rose window

 

 

the power of the link between memory and scent deepens the connection to the experience of place.  the more i’ve explored the idea, my experience is heightened – like smelling in technicolor.  many of my most powerful memories of places can be triggered by scent.  

last summer, i met lorenzo villoresi in his atelier in florence – surrounded by thousands of essences he has collected from travels all over the world, i asked him about the idea of scent in architecture or place, rather than the personal fragrance that he is most known for creating.  he shared this book with me “invisible architecture, experiencing places through the sense of smell”, a wonderful exploration of this concept.  

lorenzo villoresi - florence, italy

 

in the hills above florence we explored one of the few iris farms dedicated to the production of the essence.  as he explained, the iris essence is nearly 10 times the cost of most essences “notes” as the nose calls them.  the rare iris essence is extracted from iris bulbs – the flower has no scent.  the bulbs are re-planted after shaving off the bottom two-thirds, macerating, drying and powderizing.  

iris bulb harvest - tuscany

 

iris collection arbor - tuscany

 

dried iris bulbs - tuscany

 

 i still remember being stricken by memory through scent when i picked up an old perfume bottle from a friend’s dresser, and was overwhelmed with the memory of my babysitter from preschool years, whom i hadn’t seen or thought of for more than 10 years – her presence was powerfully evoked to that moment through her fragrance.  it wasn’t dragon’s blood – i don’t even know the name of that perfume, but i know that i can recognize that scent again 20 years later. 

dragon's blood - pharmacia in florence, italy

 

i gravitate toward the scent of wood, wet fir, earth, leaves and tangled underbrush from the misted forests of my early childhood – those scents transport me back to the earth in my mouth and leaves in my hair as i tumbled down a fern-covered ravine.

forest path

 

about six months before i travelled to bhutan, bertrand duchaufour created a fragrance for l’artisan, the french perfumer - named dzongkha - that is the national language of bhutan. this fragrance he created was based upon his travels in bhutan - when i found this fragrance i was very intrigued.  dark, smoky, woody – scents that i love, gave me a preview of what i was to experience in the himalayan temples of this small buddhist kingdom.  i fell in love, with both the fragrance, and the place.  i’ve kept that fragrance close since that journey, and it transports me there.

bhutan temple

 

i’ve been imagining a place – a new project, a building made of materials selected based upon their embodied scent. no drywall, no paint, no glues – beyond non-toxic.  pure materials, and their response to wind, sunlight, chill, and rain – the changing of the seasons, the climate, the cycles of day to night.  would that place be memorable? 

a sense of time

spinning prayer wheels - bhutan

architecture is design in at least four dimensions.  there are more dimensions i wonder about, that physicists theorize on – 10, maybe 11 dimensions - though they are not physically evident.  translating the others into concrete, or even words, is an obscured, mystical and magical act –  like the infusion of spiritual and magical powers into layered metals in the making of the keris blade. 

this master keris maker – a national treasure of java (who passed away only months after our time together), told of the final fusion - made during days, maybe weeks of meditation – no eating, no sleeping – a trance-like state where the spirit and magic of the blade is evoked.  it is physically manifest in the intricate layered metal patterns on the finished blade, and serves as powerful protection to the family for whom it is made - it takes about one year to complete the process of folding and fusing metals in the creation of one blade.

javanese keris master - national treasure

keris maker's workshop - java

what dimension is this?  on a neverending exploration into realms only glimpsed, returning to the fourth dimension seems simple.  time is powerfully and clearly the fourth dimension that is embodied in architecture – and when not considered as essential to the foundation of a design – it is powerfully and tragically missing.  architecture defines the passing of the day - dawn to dusk to midnight, the passing of the season – heat, wind, rain, snow, the passing of eras, the rise of empires, the dissolution of cultures. 

bursa mosque

 

bhutan - rammed earth structure

when i look at buildings i see time – forgotten or treasured.  i see the evidence of time – through the weathered patina of materials, the craft and construction of the culture, the purpose of the structure reflecting the industry of its time.  i see the line and wave of people moving from one place to another, mixing across cultures and landscapes - the alchemic mix of east and west, islam and christian, buddhist and animist, merchant and shintoist, dutch farmer and frontier settler… 

skagit valley barn

i see strata of time, layered one over another. of one time, re-made anew, or left to dissolve..

essaouira morocco

palouse agricultural outpost

as we draw, we can move from left to right (width), forward and backward (depth), and upward and downward (height).  in time, we can only be in the present, being taken toward our future.  in our minds, we go back – our memories – in our minds, we go forward – our dreams. 

in studying the sufi concept of time – it’s beyond the inevitable past, present and future line – it’s the whirling, cycling, spiraling continuum, no beginning, no end…it is a connection from the infinite to the present, from the present to the infinite – that is the hand, upward, the body, whirling, the feet, grounded.

whirling dervish - istanbul

my son reminds me that everything we see in the present moment is actually in the past – due to the fractional amount of time it takes for light to move through space.  the idea that our reality is not real – that is well proven – our brains are designed for survival, not reality – and our perception of reality is limited by the capacity of our senses along with the contained past experiences our brain has stored - which means even with the aid of telescopes and microscopes we can still only percieve less than 25% of what actually exists. 

infinite invocation

as we create buildings, we reference what has been known, and anticipate what will be – the act of architecture is fusion of the past, present, and future.  memories, senses, and dreams – together.  if we take great care in that orchestration, it can be beautiful.  it can be perfectly imperfect, wabi sabi, impermanent, organic, cyclic,  temporally ambiguous, time shifting, both of the past and the future.  transformational.

sinan's bath - istanbul

seeking beauty, always.

a sense of place

 

can we tell the story of a place, or does it tell us? can you capture the soul of a place in an image, a story, a memory? how can you share the sense of a place with those who have never been?

moon, island, and cairn

what is essential to sense the soul of a place – where is the power of a place held?  the sound of the birds, the angle of the sun, the scent of the wind, the taste of the water, the trees, the landscape, or the architecture? 

istanbul from the golden horn

is a place made of the land, the people, the imprints of energy of those who have been there? in the spirit of the dreams and rituals of those whose hearts were tied and entwined there? do the people of a place take it with them wherever they go?

temple prayers - kyoto

what pulls you and magnetizes you to a place?  what captures your imagination and draws you toward a place you haven’t been? a sense of unknown, a sense of deeper meaning, a sense of the possibility of transformation through exposure to the unimaginable, unexperienced, unseen, undiscovered? 


night bamboo forest - kyoto

i wonder, if we put all of our passion, heart, care and energy into the places we live, on where our soul lies, what would happen?

offering to the fire

architecture is light

in my dreams, the substance of architecture is light.  in my life, the most powerful experience in architecture is the captivation of light in space.  the first photograph i developed in a darkroom was of heavily dusted light rays streaming into the barn loft – long before i was drawn into the profession of architecture. 

i dream of buildings – light streaking through arched clerestory windows, ice-white-blue transparent slabs opening out to stunning white peaked mountains rising out of deep blue seas, misted grey weathered columns in a green valley.  it’s always about light.

Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Nôtre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp is a dream-like world of light.  I was completely transfixed by the light-sculpting architecture of this place on my first journey through Europe.  This remote pilgrimage in the early days of my career to the eastern border of France was a life changing experience.

ronchamp chapel - france

ronchamp chapel interior

ronchamp light well

Grand Central Station in New York is a place of great power to me - the angle of light-streams project the time of day as the people of the city flow in and launch their journeys – a true portal of time and space.  A place that can captivate you in it’s state of constant change every time you return.

grand central station - new york

The Pantheon in Rome – the circular oculus opening in the center of the dome, washing the deeply articulated coffers and intricate marble floor patterns, creating a striking connection to the astronomical cycles of our days, nights, and months – a pure focusing of light and time in space, in this place of profound power.

pantheon - rome

The Aya Sofia in Istanbul, Brunelleschi’s Duomo of Florence, Borobudur in Java, and even the absence of light in the temples of Kyoto – which in their darkness awaken a sense of deep past, the dark creating a heightened awareness of inner self by shutting out any sense of time. All of these places I’ve experienced a deep sense of my own spirit and my connection to the universal human-ness of our world.

siena museo archeologico - italy

basilica of san domenico - siena

humayun's tomb - delhi

kiyomizu temple - kyoto

borobudur - java - indonesia

aya sofia - istanbul

Junichiro Tanizaki’s “In Praise of Shadows” is the most powerful writing on light in architecture - “find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing another creates.” Just as light creates architecture – the substance of architecture is light.  the power of light in architecture is not only in spiritual places – indegenous farmhouses in bhutan, simple barns in eastern washington, the seattle public library – there are modern buildings that capture the power of light in space, many that do not. 

haa valley farmhouse - bhutan

barn window - spokane

seattle public library

 

in Tanizaki’s essay, he makes the case that modern spaces overlit by electrical lighting are psychologically exhausting – that the eye and psyche are drained by overlit modern environments.  I had years of discussion with my clients in Japan at Seibu and Sogo on the perception of light in their stores – typically overlit to 1200 lux and a cool 4000-4500 degrees kelvin - pretty much like a refrigerator, a morgue or a supermarket – and not the most romantic setting for the display of high fashion, beauty, accessories and home decor.

sogo osaka - light column

One of my clients (and friend) in Japan, Mr. Matsuhashi, once tried to tell me “look at my eyes, see how dark they are – we don’t perceive light the same way you do”.  I looked at him and said “look at my eyes, they are the same color as yours!”.  I finally came to understand that it was the climate and conditioning – that all the other stores were over-lit with super-cool spectrum lighting, and that is what they were accustomed to.  Terrified that if the lighting were not equally bright as the competition, they would loose shoppers.  Ultimately we came to a middle ground – 700-800 lux at 3500 degrees kelvin, which allowed us to highlight visual displays and give the eye someplace to be drawn to, and other places to rest easier.  Another common challenge with lighting in these environments is glare – light fixtures that are not properly diffused, angled, or at heights and beam angles that force the iris to contract, and dramatically reduce your ability to see anything – let alone the refined fabric, color and detail of high designer merchandise. 

What I’m exploring now more deeply in the work is the concept of natural light, it’s link to psychic and emotional response – and how that can be used both to enhance the experience, as well as reduce the usage of energy in the environments that we create.  I believe this is a path for great invention and beauty.

The most powerful and magnetic connection of the human spirit to architecture is the captivation of time – embodied in it’s materiality and use. As my son once reflected on the concept of light and time, when he was 12 years old, and pronounced “everything we see is in the past” – as he explained, because light waves take time to pass through space from the object we see – all the we see is reflected light, from the past.

trees, architecture + magic

This spring, some generous and inspirational colleagues of mine asked me to participate in a creative event – Pecha Kucha – “chit chat” in Japanese – a rolling simultaneous global event happening in cities like tokyo, berlin, paris, sydney, seattle.  Artists, designers, architects, and all creative spirits gather and share their inspiration – in a presentation of 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide – 6 minutes and 40 seconds.  That’s it – everything else is up to you.  I savored the opportunity to talk about my love of trees and architecture, and here is just the beginning – just the 6 minutes and 40 seconds, more, to come..

treespirit

My earliest and deepest childhood memories are entwined with trees.  I remember wandering through the forest for hours, tumbling down ravines and inhaling the fragrance of deep forest earth.  I remember climbing to the tops of young birch saplings to see how flexible and resilient they could be, before they might snap.  This is where I spent my first 6 years, in the richly layered forest of our 20 acres.

 

aspen dew – sun valley

I spent hours observing the world from our tree-house in the backyard garden, watching spiders weave their web-nets between the branches.  And there was gazing at the sky through tree-canopies and their endless patterns and interactions with light.  By the time I was 5 years old, after my first attraction to the color red (as in red shiny shoes and ribbons and dresses), green was imbued into the color of my spirit – the green of a broad newly sprung leaf backlit by sunlight. 

 

bird catcher – bali

The woods were full of wonder, but there was a darkness there, too – an element of danger – there was an old man living in a log cabin (a tree structure), in one of the patches of forest in “the murmuring pines” suburb of Portland where we moved to when I was 6 years old. There were so many things I learned and explored within the canopy of those murmurings.  There were mysterious rustlings, unseen creatures, and spiders, too. 

 

fir forest – decatur

There was also the story of why my grandfather was missing 2 fingers from his right hand – from the falling of a widow-maker branch on his hand while he was carrying an axe on his shoulder, having finished a day of logging trees in Ryderwood, Washington – the logging town where my father was born, and only a few miles from my own birthplace of Castle Rock, Washington.

 

cascade fir-spirits

I had spent hours being coerced to sit in church every Sunday, but I was daydreaming about the forest while the sermon droned on endlessly, about why anyone who wasn’t in church that day was going to burn in hell – I was magnetized by the graceful arches of bent beam timbers overhead, and framed the stained glass windows – like that sunlight through tree canopies. 

 

tree heart – decatur gloaming

I never really felt closer to god in church, but I was always drawn to that magical meeting of the highest reach of the tree to the sky. There was a book I read about the life story of a 1000 year old tree, written in the tree’s voice, and that fed my imagination that trees were old, enlightened beings, that I would eventually become a tree.

 

ents! lord of the rings

Then I studied more, and played more, with trees.  I climbed them, jumped out of them, swung off of them, inhaled them, kissed under them, listened to them, and created fantasy worlds within them.  Stories like the Lord of the Rings, where the Ents (ancient tree spirits) could be aroused and become mobilized armies

 

fig trunk - delhi, india

and the wizard of oz where they could be evil and attack you, but trees only seem to go to war in retaliation for your abuse and assumption that they were yours to pick from. And then there was heartbreaking story “the giving tree” by shel silverstein, the story of a boy whose life consumes the tree, slowly, until he is an old man sitting on the stump that is left, all of the giving from the tree of it’s life for his happiness, with joy.

 

enchantment lakes – north cascades

As I made that awkward transition from girl to woman, I sought refuge under their canopies, inhaling the deep scents of cedar, pine, earth, roots.  We spent summers backpacking in the north cascades wilderness areas, dazled by the stunning beauty of larch trees and granite cathedrals.

 

mevlevi gravestone tree – istanbul

I felt the very same pull, the force of attraction to architecture – but at first, the connection to my love of the forest, and architecture was obscure.  Maybe my career has been built on the sacrifice of trees – creating buildings from them, clearing forests for those buildings, too.  And in earlier days, there was only an underlying consciousness to the idea of sustainability. 

 

blue mosque minaret – istanbul

It seems that if you look for a pattern, a number, a symbol, it then appears everywhere you look.  In my studies of architectural history there were certainly obvious links to trees, forests, and architecture.  One book that makes the striking parallels is “architecture, nature and magic”, by William Lethaby -a beautiful concise book on the history and symbology of architecture.

 

aya sofia – istanbul

Beginning with the concept of the world fabric, lethaby opens with our modern challenge “at the inner heart of ancient building were wonder worship magic and symbolism: the motive of ours must be human service, intelligible structure, and verifiable science.”

 

gangtey gonpa monastery – bhutan

“agreed by competent scholars that a common early explanation of the earth and the heavens was that there was a central stem and that the revolving sky was sustained by its branches”.  The most ancient dwellings in Europe and Egypt were round structures with a central post toward which the roof would rise – cut from a tree or sometimes built around a living tree.  The idea of a column was inseparable from that of a tree.  Thus it was that columns came to have capitals of foliage and reeded stems.

 

leaf city

And there is Paolo Portoghesi’s book “nature and architecture” there are too many references to review in 20 second – here is one example of the structural model that trees give to us in city planning – a great leap of scale from the microscopic structure of a leaf to the aerial view of this Italian city.  This book is densely packed with wonderful examples of architecture modeled from nature.

 

cherry blossoms – tokyo

Working in Japan a few years ago, my resonance with trees and architecture became powerfully entwined.  My client was enlisted by the Japanese government and leading banks to restructure and re-birth a failing retail brand, SOGO.  One night I was whisked away from the never-ending meetings over to a long serpentine section of the ancient imperial palace grounds moat, at the peak of the cherry tree bloom – a national event celebrated by thousands.  I became partly japanese as I joined the collective sighs of thousands as a slight breeze showered blossoms over us in the up lit night sky.

 

sogo shinsaibashi – osaka

I ran miles across town the next morning to wander again among the hundreds of ancient trees, and they then became a symbol of rebirth in both the project and my life, and in my connection to the people of Japan.  We splayed branches and blossoms over the façade, in the stone floors, the railings, layering in ginkgo leaves for the added connection to the tree-lined boulevard of Shinsaibashi, and in tying the people of the community with the symbology of rebirth, prosperity and longevity. 

 

seibu jakarta

The completion of that work led me to Jakarta, where the Indonesian owner of Seibu asked us to create a new flagship as this Japanese brand entered the market.  Surprising that an American designer is enlisted to create a Japanese store in Indonesia..

We came closer to creating the depth and layering of a forest – creating a true envelope of branches, leaves, blossoms – the effusive nature of the Indonesian culture infused this work with an energy unique to it’s people, their incredible craftsmen and willingness to make anything you could imagine. 

 

bamboo forest – kyoto

And in exploring the idea of enveloping, the forest has become a powerful symbol of the difference in form and object making, but rather creating architecture – space – environments for the human theatre of activity.  In this profound little book, “the eyes of the skin” by juhani pallasmaa, we architects are accused of creating places with frontal/object driven perception – not understanding the power of peripheral vision – and sound – like the mystical sounds of the bamboo forest in Kyoto.

 

prayer flag veil – chele la pass, bhutan

I’ve spent hours fascinated with this amazing book, “the meaning of trees” by fred hagenede - the archetypes and symbology of trees are universally linked to spiritual meanings across cultures and religions all over the world.  Where would we be without eve and that apple tree?  Would we care that H.H. the Dalai Lama is coming to seattle today if the Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama hadn’t achieved enlightenment while sheltering under the bodhi tree?

 

tree and me shadow

grateful, to all who have walked along this path, who share this connection of beauty, wonder, and deep inspiration - and the love of trees.

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a
green thing that stands in the way.  Some see Nature all ridicule and
deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all.  But to the eyes of the
man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself.
-  William Blake, 1799, The Letters