Some time ago, I submitted for a class a ‘manifesto’ for the architectural pursuit of the Home. It’s brief- but compiles 3 points that frame my own idea of what a home should be.
The Home
We spend increasingly more time on display. Modern transport and communication have allowed us to be closer, more often and for longer- and always, we are in the public view. The home is our escape from this, indeed our only refuge, but even this most sacred object we are increasingly treating as just another showcase, a badge and status symbol. The houses we build or buy and furnish are primarily intended to be seen- a demonstration of our success or a statement of our personality.
I declare we return the house to what it should be; a home. A home that is not for your neighbour’s envy, your guest’s intimidation or your girlfriend’s arousal, but for you alone.
The purpose of the home is solace and comfort- this is your keep, your last bastion, your refuge and shelter from this fast-spinning and ever-shifting world. Leave the nameless and faceless at the door, here, you alone define the space and judge your actions. Here- if nowhere else- you are the main character.
Introspection – The Courtyard
Traditionally the house looks outward- as much for sunlight as it is for keeping the neighbours in sight, and so conversely, invites looks inwards. You are again on display, but here you are seen at your most vulnerable. We must reverse this aspect- turn your views in upon yourself as the focus of the home- upon those things that define you, your activities, your belongings, your loved ones that you have invited inside. The house is concerned with you; it is not simply a platform from which to watch the outside world.
If we collapse the ‘convex’ perspective, and pull space from the outside to the inside, we can enclose it within the house and create an intimately defined, ‘concave’ space for ourselves. This is the courtyard which is too scarcely borrowed in the west, but serves masterfully as the private and enclosed heart of your home.
Shelter – The Cave
The home must provide security and protection from the world that is beyond your control. To replicate this, take heed of the primal responses of man- his instinctive gravitation to solidity and strength- look to the cave. Construction should express in concrete and stone the same characteristics of the earth itself. Lower the building, let its horizontal aspect reflect the ground plain not defy it- lower the floors further throughout the depth of the building. The heart of the building should be its lowest point, protected on all sides by the internal faces of the house and open to the sky (though overhung by the house) and completely protected from the exterior ground plane. This space is secured and secluded- nestled snugly into the earth.
Truth – The Machine
At all times the house serves man and this function should be celebrated. It facilities cannot be reduced by adherence to an ill-fitting aesthetic- rather its own aesthetic must be incorporated into the whole. The house is a machine and the truth of this is its beauty. Also- as a servant- it must be well equipped- so look to new technology to improve it- incorporation does not mean hide- express the hard and cool mechanical elements and you will express the defining nature of the building itself. Always allow for the future- technology will change- but the function of the building will not and it will need modification- it is truly a machine, one that must be readily upgraded.
One of the earliest and most terrifying images I can remember from my childhood is of an old, derelict sea mine. I was young- watching some old television drama with my parents- I don’t remember what, or even the plot- when suddenly I was seeing the menacing outline of a lost sea mine bobbing and tumbling in a stormy grey sea, having apparently emerged at some time from the dark waters below. This image filled me with dread, or maybe that came later as I dwelt on it, but it comes back to me now, and brings with it the same old horror.
It was a menacing, cunningly-submerged, iron ball bristling with trigger-pins like spikes above and below- clearly very old, rust-red and pitted-black on a steely-grey sea. It was this 'submersion' that horrified me, revealed in the gradient of its colour; bright at the top where it peeked above the waves, but darkening toward its hidden underside in the black water, where it would be trailing it’s broken, rusted tether. It wasn’t the evil nature of the device that frightened me- of explosion and sudden death- though this vague connotation may have hovered near to my immature mind- it was of the unknown, and the combination of menaces. I was overwhelmed by the sudden awareness of antiquity, the mystery and alienism of an unknown artefact- frighteningly anachronistic- its maker and purpose long forgotten, and its seemingly dumb and directionless existence. Then of course, there was the sea. I am not afraid of the water, but the idea of things existing below its surface- unseen or obscured, like a submerged tree limbs or jagged rocks unnerves me.
The sea- cold and timeless, indifferent to man but amused to harbour his destructive devices, adding its own old cunning to their potency, alongside smashing waves and suffocating depths.
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Photo credit; Wikipedia, Accessed March 9, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mine_%28AWM_304925%29.jpg
Founded in 1872 by the Provincial Government (1), 4 years before Provinces were replaced by Counties, (replaced by District Councils 113 years after that) and only 31 years after the country was declared a Crown Colony separate from New South Wales Australia (2), making it old by a young country’s standards.
At most the hospital housed 549 patients in 1955, 100 in 1996 when many were sent to live in the community, and Seaview closed 3 of its units (3). By its final closure in 2009, there were 22 which were relocated to a new dementia ward at Greymouth Hospital (3).
No high stone-walled, cloud-shrouded prison-hospital, housing the straight-jacketed insane. Nor a remote and isolated island fortress on high cliffs over a titanic, churning sea. Seaview Asylum was just a few broad timber villas, sleepy and comfortable, with wide parched lawns, lots of sun and endless, endless time to relax.
But now- as I find it- an eerie place- old, frail and desperately silent. I prepared- selecting the unit furthest out on the plateau, and furthest from those strange, furtive eyes. It may be the most decayed- long horizontal lines of brittle, white weatherboards- red-brown roofs- peeling paint- broken windows, and trespass challenges- some printed signs, some just spray-painted alongside break-ins. Long thin grass surrounds it, pale green but with vivid yellow flowers, spreading along asphalt cracks and widening to resemble vibrant island chains. Trees encroach unchecked, covering windows. Old hospital beds lie outside.
I entered into what must have been the main lobby, a large high-ceilinged room with a fireplace against one wall and a broad dusty timber floor. Remnant detritus litters the room haphazardly, some old; smashed chairs, toppled cupboards, old boxes and yellowed paper- some new; blackened mattresses of thin crumbling foam, with faded floral covers- evidence of even less savoury local habitation.
I pass through the eternally patient silence- caution and more than caution make my steps noiseless, and I round corners wide and agonisingly slowly, but the ruin is abandoned. I reach the main hall running perpendicular to the lobby- this continues left and right to both wings. Doors hang open down the length of the long shadowy hall, as though the final occupants left swiftly, and recently. But the age is visible, blues and greens and pinks have all faded, as paint decays and is consumed by invaders following the damp.
The patient wings are empty but for rubbish scattered across bare floors, and the long strips of pale light from tall dirty windows- partially obscured by old thin curtains. The bathrooms are gloomy and stale- Men’s in blue, Ladies in pink, but both blackening with malignant mold and slow rot.
With no sound to hide it, I clearly hear the car pull up outside. I freeze, caught in the long hall, all-to-ready to leave, but now desperate. This is the police, the owner, the caretaker- I abandon stealth and flee in a sliding, crashing cacophony to the opposite end, my thought concentrated with an unexpected speed and clarity on certain exit, and in shattering seconds, I’m on the cracked window cill and slipping through a frame of splintered glass to crisp concrete below and then sitting, gasping at the wheel of my car.
It was no authority- no one had known I was there- what I had heard was a now departing shining-red sedan of another keen adventurer, and if they were trailing in my footsteps, themselves marvelling at this world unknown, they did not know it. But I was done, tired- body and nerve- but once again exhilarated.
This small adventure- in early 2012- marked my first true ‘exploration’ of the world beyond the tidy, well lit cities of a comfortable society, a fringe world- more dirty, more dangerous, and infinitely more interesting.
See entire photostream here 'Seaview Lunatic Asylum'
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1 “Seaview Asylum.” Accessed March 2, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seaview_Asylum
2 “Provinces of New Zealand.” Accessed March 2, 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provinces_of_New_Zealand
3 “Greymouth unit open.” Accessed March 2, 2013. http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/128975/Greymouth-unit-open
He was not made for this world which had always been strange and unwarm to him, so he created those things that all need, and which others had. In times and realities within his own mind he established reason, purpose and meaning for the toil and strain of everyday struggles. He invented truth and beauty and elevated these things and from which, he could draw strength, conviction, passion- channeling it across the gulf into this alien plain to sustain his chained body. He lived by laws he had established elsewhere, and therefore could not be restrained by mortal ones, nor judged by mortals- he knew existence outside their world and the greater part of him could not be touched.
With feet in both realms he could shift his weight one to the other- in times of danger or anxiety- as he often found in the frigid spiraling world which had driven him out- he would lean back, retreating into his mind- his perspective and his care narrowing until he could see only a slim shard of this world, and its grip loosened. The moment could be seen, his aspect shrinking and fading- transparent eyes elsewhere- like squeezing into a deep, shadowed crack, and the world would pass by him by.
