Why is there something, rather than nothing and how, as Churchill says, does our “is”, our being, relate to architecture? We use the word “is” all day every day without stopping to think about its true nature. Asking what the nature of “is” is sounds strange and that’s because it is strange. The subject I am referring to is being.Ĭhurchill was tackling what Plato, Aristotle and (skip 1000 years) Heidegger were all trying to explicate: the mysterious phenomenon of being. Its characteristics echo who we are and in turn, we continually evolve within it. It is a subject of importance in the sense that its very nature determines our nature. Winston Churchill, addressing the English Architectural Association, 1924ĭwelling within this quote resides a singular subject that has long since been overlooked and perhaps even forgotten within the field of architecture. We make our buildings and afterwards they make us. “There is no doubt whatever about the influence of architecture and structure upon human character and action. We will never know why he uttered these famous words, but we do know that he spells out very clearly the impact architecture has on humanity – on us. Churchill said: Perhaps the depth of his understanding was created by the great expanse of his experiences. His one statement hardly seems radical at first glance, but the fact that he was able to distill the essence of architecture into three sentences is remarkable. So to be clear, Winston Churchill was not an architect, but he had a profound understanding of architecture. Much has been written about Churchill and his legacy as a statesman, leader, writer, historian, and even painter, but in all of this literature and analysis, you will not find any serious discourse on his relationship with architecture.Ĭhurchill did not write or speak much about architecture, but like some of the great philosophers of the world, the little he did say exhibits the depth of his understanding of the potency of the built world. In this post, we will touch on another fundamental relationship: being and architecture. In the first post of this series, we looked at culture and its relationship with architecture.
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