“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.“, must have thought a person to change the world in what we see today. With passing years, architecture has evolved human life to let us know the difference between living under a shelter and living inside a home. What if Rome had no colosseum, no London bridge over the river Thames, no great wall like the Great wall of China to be seen from the moon, and no marvel of marble- The Taj Mahal? A world without architecture- as colorless as a canvas without any colors.
Don’t you find that often, when you walk into a room, you may talk about how you find the qualities of the room to be somehow calming? That’s the power architecture holds in our life. A space may instill certain emotional conditions. It’s not just about an intellectual reading of architecture as a cognitive rational process, but also about the emotive dimension.
It is often quoted as ” History is more lived rather than read .” But how did people live back then when architecture itself was never quoted? The answer is correct ‘ a shelter ‘ or a den may be, and may be further have shifted to a clean and regular space but not a functional one. It is quite unfair to say that architecture merely provides you with shelter or even walls. But instead, it imparts empathy for how you see the world and how the world lets you in.
For an instance, a wall is in a room, a room is in a building. A building is a house Which wall? Which room? Which building? Any clarity? Just how
Architecture is not a wall or a building. It is THE wall and THE building. It is the detail. Architecture fosters functionality and utility in conjunction with aesthetics. There have always been extraordinary connections between the natural world and the capacity for creativity in human beings even when no world of architecture existed. “Nature inspires creativity in a being by demanding visualization and the full use of the senses. For given a chance, all this would just be a fantasy if we never knew how the tree trunk would be used in many ways and not just as a nesting holder.
The human rush to nature, they worship them holy, and they feel that all the natural forces are a gift given by god. Sadly, they will never know that nature in its most natural form just provide them with their basic needs and they feel blessed. But with architecture people think more than feel, it sees nature as spirited and magnificent and used it in many dimensions, as a whole environment that made use of climatology, as an interior that provides shades of material and an exterior within the protective envelope, both intrinsic and extrinsic with its ability to narrate the purpose it has been made for or rather first thought for. Architecture does not only set the living measure but almost has given us a solution to live on another planet as well. Architecture turns it over to see what lives on the unseen side of the world. It is what you call functionality that defines the space.
Imagine you go to Santorini for a vacation but you see no blues and whites or Japan with no Pagodas anymore. We see each building reflecting the story of the time, and how that iteration of culture wished to project itself to the future. Without a doubt, architecture is a part of the culture- it has been called the mother of all arts! It is certainly part of how we see ourselves and part of how we see the world. The unique aspect of architecture is that in its physical incarnation of buildings, it may last for hundreds and hundreds of years. Without a doubt, buildings are accepted by communities and imbued with emotions and the appreciation or disdain of people! They are included in the identity of a people, city, or place. Like a story narrated, the evolution of architecture since centuries from scribbling on paper to the feeling of pragmatic utopia around us is incredible. Along with the logic behind the science of building structures, architecture adds up to shaping the character of who people are. Who knew how long was Rapunzel’s hair if there were no towers designed, or how Martians would have survived without their underground colonies, the mysteries behind Hogwarts’ dynamic staircases, and the playful color pops of squid games? The spaces and buildings we love the most instill certain feelings in us that are often not easy to describe and architecture does this job pretty well.
The world has given us many democrats, extremists, socialists, and the power of democracy which is for the people, of the people, and by the people and so is architecture which is for the betterment of its people, of the utopian world, and by the creative minds. Human life without architecture would be as lifeless as architecture without humans. Boom! The London clock tower struck and it’s just a dream because thankfully we live in a world blessed with architecture.
Architecture is the mightiest of all.
One could get lost
In all the little ways
You carry a character, and carry light,
And hold many stories in your being.
You are a golden thing.
In this heavy, heavy world
And everything feels new
When I look at you.
