One of my Christmas gifts this year was Daniel Worster’s biography of John Muir, A Passion for Nature. It was amazing to read about the life of one of my idols, and how original and pioneering he was. It was also interesting to see yet again how connected to my architectural viewpoint my naturalist / outdoor adventurist leanings are. As always, I filled my sketchbook with journal entries about my responses, and would like to share two here, as they relate to my ever-evolving architect’s mindset.
1.) There was a quote early in the book about how Muir struggled to reconcile his ‘career’ with his nature – his ‘religion;’ it was interesting to me, because of course, my ideal architecture is that which is respectful of people and planet, which creates a container in which & upon which to reflect, that offers you someplace compelling and positive to return ‘home’ to… a container for and advancement of your reflections on nature. But this goes back to the W.G. Clark concern – if I so love nature, how do I reconcile abusing it and using it for my own gains? That’s an oversimplification, but it does sit heavily on my mind.
One way to look at it, Daniel Worster wrote of Muir’s viewpoint: “People needed the orchard apple to feed their bodies, but they needed the wild apple to feed their spirits.” This simple acceptance of both sides of the coin is beautiful, and I would love to cleave to it, but I have been interested the whole book over by the notion that we’ve been grappling with the same problems for 200 or 300 years, at least. And I can’t help but wonder, then, if a supposed beautiful harmony and acceptance is far too simplistic to truly help us better balance our relations with one another, with industry, with the planet?
2.) One of the things about reading that has always resonated for me… the way authors describe a place. It starts a chain reaction in my head. First I’m picturing it based specifically on their words. Then I’m filling it with the characters. And before I know it, I’m there instead, and the next thing you see, I’m whipping out my sketchbook to better develop some of the details and really make the place amazing! This definitely happened for me with John Muir’s ‘scribble den.’
A place to think. To just be. Somewhere like going into the woods, only its accessible to you on a daily basis. Would this be better than the woods? Would it still call to you in the same way? Or is it a farce? Can you not truly bottle that up and bring it home? Does the place become one of those unused rooms cluttering up the plans of homes around the world?
Whether or not I truly believe you need this room in order to be able to create and reflect, I’d certainly like to have one myself!