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ARCHITECTURE and the ASCETIC: John K

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ARCHITECTURE and the ASCETIC: John K ARCHITECTURE AND THE ASCETIC: John K. Branner Traveling Fellowship Proposal SPACES OF MINIMAL CONSUMPTION 2012-2013 PREFACE Humans have an unmistakable propensity for consumption. It may be true that all over nature, mammals and rodents, insects, sea creatures, even bacteria and mi- crobes and so many things of this sort are virtually at the mercy of these overwhelming appetites and drives, and that all of life is somehow caught up in a stranglehold by the merciless laws of digestion. But nowhere in this world are the repercussions of a raging, binging, irrepressible urge to consume so embarrassingly visible all around as they are in the vast, sprawling detritus left in the wake of human civilization. But then, perhaps, like any other species, or anything at all for that matter, when one looks close enough these sorts of sweeping statements about the nature of things—what is and is not the case, finally and for all time—these generalizations are seen for what they really are, and one risks washing the shadows of certainty away in a cold light of suspicion. So, true enough, if one looks again more carefully at our most remarkable species, Homo sapiens, one will no doubt note the behavior of a certain contingent from within our ranks who, in fact, devote their whole lives to the very antithesis of wild consumption. For thousands of years, most peculiar individuals have been observed in our midst, who for a multitude of reasons have willfully abandoned what would otherwise have been considered to be, by any decent person, perfectly normal lives, and instead chosen to rid themselves of every possession, wander off into isolation, and make desperate attempts to resist their most basic instinct—to consume. Throughout the centuries, such as these have been referred to as ascetics, or monastics. Though indeed, in this day and age they are scarcely to be beheld. ASCETICS AND ARCHITECTURE We might ask: what thoughts do ascetics have for architecture? Let us start with a consideration: are these ascetics still living within and around what we can safely define as architecture, not just some cave or ditch somewhere, some platform alone in the desert? But precisely this notion brings up an interesting point. For example, think of the venerable anchorite Saint Simeon Stylites the Elder, who during the 4th century in the year of our Lord, discovered a lone pillar amidst the ruins of an ancient temple, ascended, and upon there lived for 37 years, venturing down only on the rarest occasion, so that he might escape civilization and focus his efforts more en- tirely and devoutly on his severe austerities. In his hagiography, the pillar was said to stand at 15 meters high, and from time to time, only for the necessary sustenance to stay alive, children from the nearby village would hurl small loaves of bread up into the air for him. We can say that here we have, in distilled form, an architectural strategy devised by an ascetic in order to assist in achieving an increasingly minimal level of consumption. HYPOTHESIS We might ask then, what architectural strategies have been developed and deployed by ascetics with the goal of extending their resistance to burdensome appetites and drives. Or, we can hypothesize the following: A varied and diverse collection of strategies for designing spaces of minimal consumption can be found embedded in the built environments of monasteries. By the built environments of monasteries, we are plainly speaking of the building or ensemble of build- ings in and around which a single ascetic (hermit) or group of ascetics (cenobites) live and work. Each religious tradition, and the different orders, sects and schools therein have their own thoughts for architecture, which often shift over time. Regarding our question then, the complexity and variation of monastic architecture suggests that a wealth of possible answers could exist. To define consumption, let us think broadly, in the basic meaning of the word: the act of consuming resources. We can distinguish two types of consumption relating to architecture, what we will label direct and indirect. For on one hand, buildings consume resources directly, through processes of con- struction, performance, and maintenance; on the other hand, they indirectly facilitate our own habits of consumption by staging environments for eating, drinking, buying, manufacturing, transporting, and so on. Architects in the 21st Century have already been attacking, with vigor, the problem of how to minimize direct building consumption. Our aim is not to neglect these so-called ‘green’ strategies and techno- logical solutions; however, more critical to the project at hand are the ways in which indirect modes of consumption can be affected by design. (Of course, we are not assuming that design can program human behavior. This would be absurd. But all actions occur in space, and the manipulation of space may serve to extend or diminish a voluntary action). These indirect modes go widely unacknowledged or perhaps even intentionally ignored by the discipline of architecture today, yet reside at the very heart of asceticism. By now, it is increasingly clear that our habits of unmitigated consumption have taxed the earth’s re- sources to such an extent that our very survival as a species is threatened. Despite many ominous signs on the horizon, we carry on, unfazed, with the systematic appropriation of limited minerals and fossil fuels; we proceed to harvest renewable resources at a rate that has far exceeded the earth’s ability to replenish them. As much as this dismal turn of events is the result of incomprehensible processes, long at work, and completely beyond our control, we are still implicated. We drive around; we eat meat; we have laptops, iPads, iPhones, and so on. PROJECT What we are proposing is to act as a sort of travelling librarian, gathering information on spaces of minimal consumption and their design. What strategies have been attempted? By who? For who? Where, and when? With what results? The intent is that this questioning, this collecting and classifying will evolve into an original catalogue, one that describes design ideas, architectures, mundane events and minor figures from the marginal world of the ascetic. The catalogue will define and diagram relevant architectural propositions occurring at each level of the monastic environment: from issues of site and landscape, to programmatic arrangements of the collective compound, compositions of the individual cell, to material considerations, tectonic details, ornamentation and so on. Accompanying the architectural description, a narrative element will record an account of the inhabitants of these spaces, how they live, their rhythms and routines, the objects they interact with day to day, their thoughts, ideas and beliefs. The aim of this catalogue is to formulate a certain design vocabulary with the potential for applications beyond the walls of the monastery, at multiple scales of human society. The flexibility of this vocabulary will be tested through an architectural thesis. The project of the thesis will be to explore the possibility for an architecture ofdegrowth *. METHODOLOGY We will begin pursuing our goals by dividing the task into four categories: preparation, immersion, collection, and catalogue. *Essentially, the idea or the germ of this thesis is that Preparation. The obvious first step prior to departure is to study our subject, asceticism, and among global society must scale back consumption, for if we use other things, its place in world religions, the distinctions between various orders, sects and schools, and basic logic, it is apparent that the earth is finite and its then, in what ways certain architetural styles and spatial compositions are meaningful for an ascetic resources limited and therefore unlimited consumption tradition. of these resources (i.e. growth) is not sustainable. Yet the fundamental and unquestioned ideology of industrial Immersion. This will give asceticism a face. Here our object is to get within the walls of the monastery society and global capitalism is that growth is the basic and observe ascetics in their element. Equally important is to experience the architecture, and as much goal of all human organization, and that more and more as possible, to do so by participating in the routines of ascetic life alongside the monks. growth is inherently good. This mania for growth also pervades the discipline of architecture. Collection. Information gathering will occur throughout preparation and immersion. This will primar- ily involve rigorous documentation and analysis of relevant architectural features through notes, com- Just as we may speak of an architecture of the capitalist mentaries, sketches, orthographic drawings, diagrams, photographs, and so on. era, so-called cathedrals of commerce and so on, perhaps we can conceptualize the opposite—an architecture that reveals the underlying ideologies of our growth society and casts doubt on their legitimacy. Catalogue. The collection of information compiled will be meticulously evaluated based on the fol- lowing criteria: what is surprising, what is novel, what is far-fetched or otherwise intriguing, and of potential use for inspiring design? Our intent is not to measure the success or failure of an architectural strategy, or to deal with quantifi- cations of resources consumed or not consumed. In a way, all we are interested in is ideas, in studying how an architectural proposition may materialize in diverse forms, and in observing how these mate- rializations operate in the world. There is a sense in which everything is worthy of remembering, the overlooked even more so. But nevertheless, we intend to distill our information down into something cleanly configured, graphically appealing, expansive, concise, absorbing, potent. ITINERARY There are innumerable monasteries in the world. Unfortunately, we can’ not see them all. The following criteria will help us begin selecting: Density & Diversity. In order to amplify our efforts, we have sought out sites where multiple monastic enviroments exist in relatively close proximity.
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