Learning from the Jura: Musings on life and architecture in France

Grande Salines in the town of Salin-les-Bains

Much like lectures, vacations are a good way to step back, relax and evaluate things more clearly. It helps to find oneself in a completely foreign place, as familiarity breeds bias and lazy thinking.  This summer I was able to spend a little time in France, mostly in the Jura mountain region near Switzerland's north border. This beautiful place can be characterized by verdant cliffs, rolling valleys, dairy cows, delicious cheese, pine-scented wine, and an almost Swiss-like dedication to specialty industries, such as clocks, pipes and eyeglasses.  Its regional capital, Besancon, contains an attractive historic urban core surrounded on three sides by a meandering river (le Doubs), and topped by a stone citadel designed by Vauban. Louis Pasteur and processed cheese giant La Vache-Qui-Rit (Laughing Cow) hail from this area. On the Swiss side, the Jura mountain region can lay claim as the birthplace of the most influential architect of the twentieth century--Charles Edouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier.  The region's proximity to Geneva elevates the city as the Jura's commercial and cultural center.   From my perspective, going to that Geneva feels more like an extension of France than as a perceptible foreign entity. But overall, the Jura's rippled landscape ensures a mostly rural character and serenity.

Given this splendid experience, certain realizations come to the fore that seem to either reinforce some of my own beliefs while reintroducing me to things I've long forgotten:


There is no better way to travel through Europe than by car.  Traveling strictly by rail limits visitors to experiencing mostly the centers of larger towns and cities and narrow vistas of the landscape.  The most beautiful views and scenic outlooks I drove through were completely inaccessible by rail. Renting a car is far cheaper and allows one much more flexibility in planning or following an itinerary. I had the option of taking the high-speed-train directly from the airport to Lyon, but the ticket prices were so high that two of them would have covered the car rental for an entire week.  We would have never made it to our final destination by rail anyway since rural rail stations are few and far between.  Highway driving in France is quite nice, since they bypass the major cities and are well maintained due to the toll revenue they collect. The numerous signs along the way that point to major landmarks and attractions and there are well appointed rest stops. And contrary to what most rail champions Stateside will tell you, most Europeans rely on cars for almost all travel, with sole exception for those who live in cities big enough to provide urban rail and bus systems. I can't tell you how many times when I was a much younger traveler how ignorant my native hosts were about using the local train and bus system due to the fact that it had been a long time since they had last used them. Once they could drive, they never went back.


In France, living freely here is in truth more about plugging into a sophisticated yet intransigent way of life. In the land of the 35 hour work week, managing your time wisely is important. Life here forces you to conform to sort of predetermined routine-when to work, when to play, when to shop, etc. All businesses are closed on Sunday; All offices and retail that are don't serve food are closed between noon and 2pm. The whole country shuts down the month of August. Your foreign credit card will work in most places, but not for the most essential transactions, such as buying gas or paying the toll. If you are the spontaneous type and prefer to live outside the agreed parameters of French life, endless frustration awaits. If, on the other hand, you agree to this order and adjust accordingly, harmony and a refreshing simplicity awaits. The risk is that life becomes quickly predictable and less serendipitous. Add to this a social welfare system that allows everyone to live in relative comfort and health and thus allowing a sort of stress-free existence, and the inevitable result is a sort of boredom. It's no coincidence that the French are among the largest consumers of anti-depressants per capita.

It doesn't get any better than this- historic street in Besancon

The most satisfying solution to complementing the natural landscape with man-made structures was achieved during the Medieval and Renaissance periods in Europe.  For someone who designs large commercial buildings under the vein of the trendiest modernism and who scours the country photographing beloved architectural masterpieces of the past 70 years, and who has taught classes in 20th Century Architecture, the above statement seems to undercut everything that I've done up to this point. Why not hang it all up and dedicate my life to designing buildings similar to that period and place? It's a good question, but I don’t see it as a call to repudiate all modern architecture than to draw lessons on how to improve it.  Walking and driving through so many beautiful French towns and provincial cities reinforces some immutable principles about buildings by and for humans: scale matters, natural materials please us best, and there is much wisdom to be learned on how to use light, shade and natural forces to create a timeless building. Simple, straight-forward structural systems enable the most pleasing spatial clarity within, and an even more pleasing volumetric purity from the outside. It also allows for remarkable flexibility in adapting to changing functions over time from workshop, to a modern retail or restaurant space, office or aparment. There is something deeply primal about our fondness for the pitched roof over rectangular plan that rises no more than five stories.


Masonry exteriors are a good thing. In Europe, there is a clean break between everything built before 1930 and everything built after. Buildings built before that date would be what we would consider as "traditional', in that it uses a classical proportioning system that governs the size of all elements which are closely tied to long established practices in masonry construction. Even if the façade did not use masonry and used stucco instead, there is an obvious sense of heaviness and permanence. Buildings built after that date are all about accentuating the thin but long-spanning structural frame made possible with concrete and steel. Cladding becomes a matter of lightly protecting this frame, either with glass, aluminum, or thin terracota, cementitious or phenolic panels. Even if natural materials are used, they are reinterpreted to conform to a machine-like smoothness and accurate dimensions. This obsession in processing natural materials to precise man-made specifications has the effect of alienating objects to natural surroundings. The expression, "...as if a UFO landed here" is a really an exaggerated way of saying that something doesn't belong to the prevailing natural order of a place. To rationalize that highly abstract building is natural is to argue that humans' understanding of nature is itself highly abstract, and that one kind of construct is not in any way truer to nature than another. But that's one of the most intractable problems of Modernist creations, is that it requires sophisticated rationalization to justify that something is 'just right' for the time and place. Most traditional design doesn't have that problem, appearing as if it were simply an organic extension of a place.


Air conditioning changed the way we build as well as raised our preferred comfort level. Europe's mild climate is pleasant enough to make one forget about air conditioning until the occasional heat wave occurs. At that point there is no recourse to such unbearable heat and humidity and one has to put up with it. While in the southern US a house is expected to be completely sealed to retain the cool and de-humidified air, the European house breathes through lots of operable casement windows. The difference in conditions between inside and outside are minimal, as small insects, dirt and dust blow in throughout the day. More food can be stored absent refrigeration, which results in stronger smells coming out of the kitchen. In larger scale construction, the lack of a robust air conditioning system means no furring or dropped ceilings, and thus the chance expose the structure and the underside of the roof deck, which allows the designer more freedom to create beautiful ceilings. The drawback is that there is nothing to collect and filter dust and grime floating in the space over time, which then collects onto the structure and becomes difficult to keep clean. Architecture of the "high-tech" style, with its celebrated steel framing and sophisticated glazing systems suffers in particular, and many of the once gleaming train stations and airports built in this style are looking pretty drab and filthy. Thanks to the almost mandatory use of air conditioning, US construction seems to be significantly driven by the mechanical engineer and, to the frustration of many architects, must design around their needs. This leads to more generic ceilings, simpler detailing and tighter non-operable windows.


Much of American architecture might look dull, but it is often more functional and easier to use. Case in point-Charles De Gaulle Airport  (CDG) is a collection of architecture an planning experiments gone awry in one way or the other. Charlotte Douglas Airport desperately needs updating, but wayfinding is much more straightforward and the public spaces and concourse a bit more generous. Terminal 1 at CDG seemed really cool when I was a kid, with its crisscrossing escalators floating in the main lightwell, but its circular plan has proved far too inflexible to growing passenger traffic over the years. Terminal 2, with its curved concrete shell roof, is looking really old and dirty, and has clearly not adapted to changing security protocols since 9/11. Maybe it's my increasing dependence on suburban comforts taking over, but big spaces where hundereds of people either sit on the floor or loiter, or queue behind ticket kiosks that barely work don't meke me appreciate that kind of hustle-and-bustle of big city life.  Sure American airports are comparatively placid, even somewhat sterile, but for the most part, they're ocmfortable and easy.  Returning home, the clarity, space and charm of the Austin airport was a welcome relief the flamboyant and confusing CDG.


In the realm of private residential architecture, the US has everyone beat when it comes to function and convenience. Most private houses in Europe follow the timeless formula of fitting all rooms within a masonry box topped by pitched roof (hipped roofs are common warmer regions). From a formalistic standpoint they allow lots of flexibility at the urban scale, forming elegant blocks and streetfronts, and offer a range of housing types, as entire levels can be rented out as flats.  But the twentieth century house has changed a lot, mainly due advances in mechanical systems and appliances. Plumbing has now become standardized to such a degree that bathrooms can be organized as cohesive units. Kitchens are now designed as a system as well, in which the optimal distances between the stove, fridge, oven and sink have become standard. I have yet to stay or live in a European house that incorporate these kinds of improvements I have long taken for granted.  The kitchens in the nicest homes are haphazardly layed out, the cabinets are shabby, there is very little counter space, and the appliances are relatively small to nonexistent. Bathrooms often have the same problems, in which sinks, tubs and toilets are afterthoughts. They are usually shared, meaning that I don't recall any bathroom located adjacently to a bedroom for exclusive use. Storage spaces hardly exist, even as the average European, just like Americans, have continued to accumulate more stuff over the course of their lives. 


The post-War suburban ranch home and subsequent American styles have proved to be eminenty flexible in adapting to a rising standard of living.  Its use of an open, asymmetrical plan ensure that there will be a direct transition between dining, relaxing and sleeping while maintaining a division between public, private and utilitarian areas. Clearances moving through are maintained, so you are not left dodging furniture sticking into hallways.  This is hard to accomplish with a rigid rectangular plan that characterizes most European homes, even those in semi-rural, semi-suburban locales where there is presumably a bit more space. Everything must be crammed in, resulting in tight and steep stairways, small bedrooms, and shared bathrooms. One anecdotal example of this was when I stayed with friends in Germany who lived in a four-story Swiss-chalet style house. I had lived an entire year in that house as a teen and thought it was pretty big. When I returned fifteen years later, the owners had added an expansive glass-enclosed "winter garden" space to the back.  I noticed that everyone who still lived there spent their entire day in this new living room, due to the generous amount of space and the abundant light. Suddenly the rest of the house, which once was lived in all of its nook and crannies, was mostly vacant as they had all coalesced into the new living room.  All the older rooms in the house looked tiny and dark in comparison.  My four-year old refused to sleep in the house's tiny bedrooms, opting instead to sleep in the new "winter garden" instead.

La Tourette Dominican monastery
 in Eveux near Lyon.

I can understand why Le Corbusier was obsessed with the notion that 'the shortest distance between two points is a line'. The Jura region along the French and Swiss border where the young Mr. Jeanneret grew up features some of the windiest roads imaginable, where towns only a few kilometers away take a good half hour to reach (though it makes for some exhilirating driving). Add to this the fact the most of these roads are narrow allowing only one lane for each direction and you can understand why Corbu was a big fan of the multi-lane highway. The challenges of the existing terrain would be transcended by monumental viaducts, as shown his rejected masterplans for Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Algiers.  There are a number of beautiful stone and concrete viaducts connecting small towns in the Jura, and it wouldn't surprise me if that they inspired him to in embrace the engineer as an important part of his design philosophy.

View from underneath monastery

The Jura offers amazing views of the surrounding landscape, and it's clear to me that Le Corbusier understood this when situating his building on a rural site. I visited his Chapel at Ronchamp du Haut about eight years ago and observed how the form rose above the town below and while hugging the hillside as if it were an integral part.  The traditional buildings in the Jura region do the same thing, understanding the opportunities provided by this hilly and mountainous landscape. On this recent trip, I had the chance to visit the Dominican convent of La Tourette northwest of Lyon that he completed in 1960. There Corbu skillfully located the building on the steep hilltop site in order take advantage of a spectacular view out to the Northwest.  Like his Villa Savoye built 30 years before, the architect carefully frames his views, this time with a musical array of vertical brise-soleil. Another aspect worth noting about La Tourette is its suprising relationship to the ground. For such an overtly massive-looking structure, it hovers gently over the surface, as you can walk under much of it, thanks to the use of pilotis and cantilevered wings.  You find yourself immediately within the convent's terraced courtyard, bound by ramped hallways covered in green roofs, which lends the effect of nature going under through the building.

Director's House at the Royal Saltworks
 designed Claude
Nicolas Ledoux, 1779

Main Entrance to Royal Saltworks

Claude Nicolas Ledoux was a genius. Along with Etienne Boullee, they were at the forefront in creating a dramatic neoclassical style in the late 18th century. I was somewhat surprised to find that one of the best preserved examples of his work was standing in a town not too far from where I was staying. His Saline Royale in the small town of Arc-et-Senan, features bold proportions, clean lines and volumes, and a timeless symmetricality even as it is overtly mannerist in details. I was familiar with this project when reading about it during the architectural history survey at school but I was not aware that it had actually been built. It was particularly significant in that it was the first attempt for an architect to design an entire industrial city along the lines of a single masterplan. The salt works was planned in an era in which salt was an extremely valuable commodity, and was most conveniently extracted from underground saltwater springs and later evaporated. The government generated a lot of revenue this way, and appointed Ledoux to create a new salt-extraction facility 20 kilometers away from the original saltworks facility in Salin-des-Bains. Ledoux designed all the necessary buildings, including workers' housing, the salt works and the director's house, within a formal semicircle. Given the autocratic social structure being conjured by enlightenment philosophers at the time, the director's house lies at the center, with a view of all the worker's housing wings beyond, presumably to enable tighter control. It was hoped that the town would expand, demonstrating how industry would change the way cities would look and function. It never came to be, but Ledoux beautiful documented his ideas and related theoretical projects in an influential treatise (L'Architecture considérée sous le rapport de l'art, des mœurs et de la législation) published in 1804. There is a very impressive exhibit on Ledoux's projects featured in that treatise inside one of the worker's buildings in the Saline Royale, featuring elegant plaster and wood models in addition to enlarged fascimiles of pages from the treatise. As any art historian will tell you, Ledoux's architecture was all about going 'back to basics', stripping classical architecture to its bare essence while employing a monumental scale to the orders (this was partly due to archaeological discoveries of ancient Greek and Roman architecture taking place during Ledoux's lifetime.) The effect is an architecture that appears a bit more essential, timeless, and more severe than the baroque and rococo styles that preceded it. It's a bit refreshing to look at these buildings after having seen countless baroque and neo-baroque city blocks throughout France.

Too Big to Solve: When Architecture Lectures Try Too Hard to Change the World

Sao Paulo-will our future be the 'favelas' or the high rises?

In my field of work, it is always a good thing to refresh one's mind with the work and research of others, especially from those who have aligned their practice towards theory and experimentation. The irony is that the more you practice as an architect, the harder it is to do just that.  Therefore a thoughtful lecture given by an architect known for his or her scholastic ambitions is a real treat--the pretty pictures, the colorful  diagrams, the project backstories--these things offer a kind of escape from the unglamorous nature of an architect's daily responsibilities. They also remind me why I chose to practice architecture in the first place. 

However, among most of the architecture lectures that I've gone to, there is a nagging tendency to justify the work presented as part of a solution to the world's biggest problems.  Whether it's a Pritzker winner or a local boutique architect, they can't help but remind the audience of the dire situation that confronts the world, and how their designs reflect far more than just a personalized response  to set of problems and client demands.   Their work is supposedly a direct extension of their all-encompassing world view, the result of having considered overarching realities, contemporary trends and developments.  According to the designer, what to me looks like another elegant apartment tower is really a kind of prototype solution to global problems such as overpopulation, environmental degradation and climate change.

While many in the audience find such presentations inspiring, I can't help but consider it another half-baked attempt at a solution that will fall well short of its promises. It's not that I don't want them to succeed, but rather that they accept a set of highly dubious assumptions to construct what seems as a compelling argument at first,  but which inevitably collapses like a house of cards once you dig a bit further. 


In spite of the  breadth of issues these designers and academics try take on, they rely on a predictably narrow set of sources and data that are prone to exaggerate and are devoid of empirical analysis.  A typical red flag for this is when they cite left-of center sources as authorative voices on their subject, even if all of them are merely dilletantes in the form of opportunistic politicians, activists or op-ed editorial writers.  It's not unusual to hear the names of celebrity dilletantes such Al Gore, James Howard Kunstler, George Monbiot, Thomas Friedman or even Barack Obama during these presentations.  Some even fall into using sensationalized Newsweek or Time magazine covers to highlight the urgency of the problems that need to be solved.   They are probably unaware that all of these sources have been discredited over and over, and some have suffered big hits to their professional integrity during the last few years.

These lectures have become formulaic, and they all seem to touch consistently on a similar set of themes. They are each framed a bit differently from presenter to presenter, but the arguments are pretty much the same. Allied with slick graphics, these presentations pack a hefty rhetorical punch, and it takes time for those who disagree to come up with reasons why they aren't persuaded. I try hard to supress my tendency to roll my eyes out of their sockets, but let's look below to see why I struggle: 


Complaints about the cost of the current status quo

Usually, this kind of  lecture starts  by highlighting aspects of contemporary life that later inform their work.  For those designers who orient themselves towards global issues, they love to use bullet points, with attractive bold graphics to list things like:

• The costs incurred in planning infrastructure in low-density urban areas (roads, water, sewage, heating).  Municipal spending in response is supposed higher per-capita to build and maintain these services.

• The costs incurred in driving and automobile ownership.  This is then loosely tied to the cost of using petroleum

• The costs incurred on the medical system in the forms of heart disease, allergies, asthma, and metabolic syndrome (obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.)

Along with other  dubious data points, the implication is always this: The status quo is not only costing us too much money, it's literally killing us.

What is not mentioned when discussing costs are the trade-offs from doing something else.  If we did not plan our cities along the lines of auto-centric sprawl, would the alternatives be all that much cheaper, or could they possibly be more expensive? What are the unintended consequences of a more dense walking and transit-centered policies?  Would it massively inhibit the potential economic growth that car-centric development provides?

Beyond the monetary question is the larger question about control: is the inevitable cost to personal freedom and the pursuit of wealth really worth having shiny new trains, long waits at stations and bus stops and having retail shops at the ground-floor of your apartment?

It can't go on forever

We are reminded  in these lectures that nature has its limits and the way humans exploit it will cause an impending scarcity that will threaten our civilization if we don't collectively act quickly enough.  Climate change and Peak Oil should remind us that we can't continue to live the way that we do, but that we ought to live in a way recommended by our betters in the architecture and planning community.  Peak Oil is a favorite theory of theirs, in which oil will run out sooner  than we think and car-based civilization will come to a halt. People will head for high-density cities and rely on public transit while the suburbs will turn into ghost towns.  Unmentioned is that oil reserves continue to grow almost exponentially due to technology advances that allow more oil to be recovered (re: Eagle Ford discovery).  The production of shale oil is ramping up, and is fortunately plentiful in North America.  Also unmentioned is the current natural gas boom from shale deposits that can provide up to 100 years' worth of energy for the U.S. alone (Michael Lind writes in Salon that we might be entering an age of fossil fuel abundance). 


Efficiency has doubled during the past two decades and there is room for even more efficiencies, especially as direct-injection and hybrid engines become more mainstream. The desire for  automobility is too ingrained in our modern world for it to go away, and demand for it will continue to grow in developing countries for the forseeable future.  Most spectacularly, they fail to credit market price signals that influence consumer behavior and allows people to adapt to changing levels of scarcity in one resource  for abundance in another.  Finally, they show pictures of urban blight and Third World misery, and point to them as not as the economic or social failures that they are, but as the wasteful byproduct of excessive car dependency or inadequate use of mass transit.

Markets, what markets?

As part of their general anti-market worldview, these lecturers completely avoid rational discussions on economics or market mechanisms in general.  The only time such things are mentioned is when they are abstractly criticized as being inadequate in solving the problem at hand. Markets or capitalism are objects of blame for the failing status quo.

Just as they blame markets, they will never point to bad government policies, unless such policies were tied to fostering economic and capital growth. Bad government  policies are ones that engender  wealth, plutocrats and economic inequality.  They will never mention government policies that have destroyed livelihoods, stable social structures (families), and have chased away business and real estate development-- never.  Apparently, good architecture exists outside this reality.

Detroit, MI- Red shows population
decrease, blue is expansion.

For example, cities that show clear signs of decay indicate that the market-based status quo isn't working.  Detroit is shown as evidence of the failure of unenlightened urban planning and  the capitalistic forces that led to creating an unsustainable urban model.  There is no mention of possible political reasons for Detroit's current blight, or how it may have been the result of its legendarily misguided economic and social policies (taxes, corruption, unions, crime, race relations).

Why are markets the culprit? It's because they do not follow any kind of intelligible design.  To a designer, most social and economic failures are do to a poor design or lack of one.  Never underestimate the faith that architects and planners have on design, even as policies that exhibit a high level of design tend to harm people more often than not.

If they have it, why don't we?

According to most designers, some solutions are universal. Local factors that complicate an outside solution's effectiveness are merely a nuissance.  It is not believed that different places throughout the world come up with their original solutions to planning their built environmental based on rational decision-making, geography, climate and the technology available at the time.  In older denser countries that were scaled to human or animal-based travel, linear transport systems based on fixed nodes such as rail make a lot of sense for passenger travel.  In more recently created nations, faster modes of travel than rail will take precedence if it is affordable and economically beneficial, and will logically determine city planning there.  If the automobile and airplane are sufficient to meet the transport needs of society, there will be no real demand for slower, less flexible types of transportation like rail.  Instead, every time urban or intercity rail is built in a place where cars have long been commonplace, it ends  up imposing tremendously high and permanent costs to taxpayers.

From the designer's point of view, when a place doesn't have all kinds of taxpayer-subsidized modes of transport in one place, it presents a  lack of choice. What is not stated is that collecting taxes to fund these 'choices' denies the taxpayer's freedom to choose how to spend their money on matters of transport.  In addition, many rail-based mass transit systems exist as a way for cities scaled to walking  to compete in efficiency and productivity to newer cities that are scaled to the car.  Without these, a walkable urban area is nothing more than an isolated village. 

At the national scale, one thing that these design lectures like to shame the U.S. on is the lack of  high speed rail network.  France, Germany, Spain, Japan and even poor little China has one.  Why can't we?  There is no mention to what makes these networks run--lots and lots of state money ultimately extracted from its citizens, whether they use them or not.  Beyond being huge money pits in which the cost of operations will never be recovered, their impact further urban development is negligible.  The mere notion of transit-oriented development (TOD) gives lie to the fact that preferred modes of mass transit actually generate real development at all. Instead, TOD is code for government help in areas next to stations that could not be privately developed due to the inadequacy of that mass transit's ability to provide reliable consumers/users.  It is never mentioned that greater automobility begets greater prosperity and economic freedom.  Paradoxically, the supposed choices offered by a rail-based national transit system depends on the denial of rights to property owners.

Megan McArdle from the Atlantic Magazine perfectly encapsulates this problem, writing about her own experiences in Chinese high-speed train:

Viewed from a purely technological perspective, America's high speed rail is an embarrassment compared to China's:  shaky, slow, and not particularly sleek.  But viewed in another way, our slow rail network is the price for a lot of great things about America:  our limits on government power, our democratic political system, and the fact that we're already rich enough to have an enormous amount of existing infrastructure, in the form of houses, industrial plant, and roads, that would be very expensive to tear up in the name of building rail lines.  All in all, I think these things are more valuable than even a really cool train system.

Back to the City

Design lecturers repeatedly spout the mantra of the inevitable triumph of the dense centralized urban core and the withering away of the suburbs.  Large cities are more sustainable, more resilient to energy scarcity and have an overall economic advantage over smaller communities due to the proximity between all kinds of economic players.  They recycle the same statistics that show the rapid rise of urbanization throughout the globe and conclude that the development of megacities is likely, and that solutions are needed to deal with this unstoppable flow of migrants.  Nowhere in these statistics is there a breakdown in the distribution of which cities are growing, and how much of it is in reality suburban development.  There is no doubt fewer people are still farming, and are indeed moving to more urban locales for work.  It is not clear whether this always takes the form  of Bladerunner-styled urban development.

If anything, the big elephant in the room is the general fact that the population of urban areas have been dispersing at an accelerating rate.  The 2010 US Census provides incontrovertible evidence, showing almost all the nation's metropolitan centers have seen their inner- and outer-ring suburbs continue to grow while their core continue to stagnate or decline.  Whatever new developments that have occurred in central cities has only managed to attract upper-class singles and professionals, thus inflating property values while chasing out the middle to lower-middle class to the suburbs.  In fact, I predict that the main challenge for planners and architects in the coming century will be on how to retool the suburbs to function more efficiently while still offering residents "a place in the sun", an inherently natural human desire. 

Still, I think most designer-types will stick to finding ways to leave their mark on central cities, which are increasingly resembling resorts that cater to a uniformly wealthy leisure class who like to work in pretty environs. These gentrifying areas have long ceased being transformative economic zones accessible to people in all walks of life.  Such basic functions have gone to urban peripheries. 

There is a recurring irony here: these designers and lecturers take urban problems seriously and come up with serious solutions resulting from a highly reflective and sober design process--yet share an unserious understanding of actual urban trends and reality.

The future will be compact and geometric

The solutions presented is in a way the biggest letdown of these lectures. One hopes for something truly new and imaginative, but one is presented with nothing but a warmed-over  urban scheme reminiscent of what architectural prophets like Le Corbusier or Tony Garnier  were drawing up a century ago.   The concepts that are often floated  consist of a highly geometric pattern, either linear or radial, with dense blocks,  often anchored to public transit or other means of centrally managed conveyance and keep automobile use at a minimum .

No suggestions are ever made on how to get from here to there.  No mention of what the cost will be to implement these ideas.  For all their talk about their plans' sustainable advantages when it comes to the environment, there is little said about their inherent financial unsustainability.  They propose a massive realignment of infrastructure for mass transit lines that are highly dependent on public subsidy;  cost more to maintain and operate over time; become more inefficient over time as a result of the inevitable increase in labor costs due to unionization.  They propose transit systems that have historically never come close to covering their operating costs from fees charged to riders, and have instead looked to outside sources of public funds (i.e. taxpayers) to keep running.

Such an enormous amount of money and bureaucratic power  to achieve these goals leads one to conclude that many architect lecturers pine for some kind of benevolent leviathan state.  For all the material progress that we have enjoyed from market capitalism during the last century, and for all the unparalleled bounty it has provided to architects, it seems that many of my colleagues won't be happy until as much private wealth can be taxed to subsidize a more designed, and thus more beautiful tomorrow.

There is nothing wrong with lectures and books that show these designers are engaged.  It's just that I wish they would be engaged with a cultural, social, and especially economic reality most people outside the profession have to deal with.  In those lectures that focus mostly on innovative masterplans and ambitious urban concepts, it would help to ground them a bit more in the challenge of actual urban economics-- why and how certain urban densities occur on their own; why some districts thrive and others decay; What are the actual observed usage patterns of certain buildings, and to what extent they can be reshaped by the designer (designers architects LOVE creating diagrams--abstracted graphics explaining how a design ought to work but rarely about how it actually will work). 

For every new idea that they propose, they need to think what the tradeoffs will be upon implementation.  A nice park system or extensive bicycle path network would no doubt be nice things to have,  but how does one ensure that the budget for their maintenance and expansion will be there year after year? It's doesn't suffice to simply declare to let all cars go to hell and the roads decay, since all that does is to weaken the necessary economic base upon which public funds depend. If they plan with the sole focus on a high-density future, is there an alternative if the future turns out to be less populated and more suburban in character?  If self-driving cars take off, thus solving major dilemmas such as traffic, accidents and even parking, will they be willing to abandon the classic transit-oriented model of development?

As someone who is repulsed by the idea of an all-controlling centralized leviathan state, I tend to take the view that a designer should aim to solve a set of problems that don't involve a radical overturning of the status quo.  If that makes me "not part of the solution" and thus "part of the problem", my answer would be that I don't find our world all that problematic, compared to the alternatives. Fully accepting of the fact that humans are fallible with a tendency towards the tragic, I don't subscribe to the notion that society is somehow perfectable.  I also reject the notion that because architects weave a variety of disciplines from the artistic and philosophical as well as the scientific, they are in a special position to offer grand solutions to the way in which we live.  Advances in our quality of life throughout human history have been spurred by unpredicted technologies, spontaneous social revolutions, and military conquest--not by some elegant grand design. For human beings to spurn such grand designs should not be understood as a failure of human beings, but as a failure of planners to understand them.

Let's go back to architecture lectures in which the projects are a poetic and sophisticated solution to problems posed by the site and the client's needs.  There's a lot to be explored and think about within these simple parameters.  When a lecturer tries to make the discussion go beyond these parameters, I sometimes suspect it's a means of covering-up a rather shallow and unworkable design.  The architecture that moves me most examines building's most fundamental forces, such as gravity, weather, light, and human memory.

Just spare me the alarmist statistics, please.

Hang On To Your Ego: How Big Heads Created Big Problems for Protestantism

It should come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog, or even a casual observer of American Protestantism that we have big problems. The mainline protestant churches are shells of their former glory, to put it nicely. In terms of numbers, finances and theological prowess, many mainline Protestant church bodies are stuck in a morass of decline and relativism. For non-mainliners, the Church Growth Movement has so hopelessly watered down evangelical Christianity that it is impossible to determine the difference between Oprah Winfrey and Joel Osteen (and the legions of wannabe Joel Osteens).

Then there is the Emergent Church, or Emergent movement, or whatever it chooses to call itself these days. This pitiable attempt to reconcile postmodern philosophy and traditional Christianity has displayed numerous heresies and a total lack of humility, all with a wink and a nod towards irony. The postmodern "best of all worlds" approach of the emergents is very attractive to young adults, who are pretty sure that because someone quotes a church father from 340 A.D., they must be wise. Focusing on love and all things touchy-feely, the emergents have tried their very best to respond to vapid megachurches with an embrace of "authenticity", rawness and getting back to what Christianity "really" is about.

Like all movements, there is some good coming from both the Church Growth movement and the emergent movement. For the Church Growthers, at least some folks have moved from the couch to a church pew, or, theatre-style seat. I think that is a good thing. For the emergents, at least they call traditionalists to not get too rigid in our theology and hide behind it. "Organized" religion can indeed be so provincial, so shortsighted, that it does indeed become the grumpy uncle no one likes to have around. Perhaps both of these movements, fatally flawed though they be, can remind us stodgy, orthodox Protestants, to think outside of the box on occasion.

But observing these two movements, I have been compelled to try to discern exactly what the roots are. Why are these movements unique to Protestantism? When did this all begin? Without trying to provide an exhaustive history, and knowing that much has contributed to these movements (including the revival movements, the embrace of the law that the mainliners left behind, etc.), I'd like to offer at least one foundational principle that has led directly or indirectly to these two movements: the emergence of the super-theologian in the early/mid 20th century. Major theologians, including but not limited to Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Paul Tillich, the Niebuhr brothers and more recently Jurgen Moltmann, had profound influence on Protestant theology, and they were all advancers of new ideas.

Of course, there were many theologians, including Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, and Albert Schweitzer that were super-theologians, but they had no interest in advancing a cause, but in preserving the Church. (Some say Bonhoeffer was a neo-orthodox super-theologian but I strongly disagree. His “religion-less Christianity” comment was fleeting and has been overblown.) They were influential, but more for apologetic reasons than fomenting theological revolution. It was those listed in the previous paragraph, and their many disciples, that created something in the Protestant Church that has been a cancer ever since: competition.

While I am not so naive as to think that competition hasn't existed in the Church forever (remember the disciples asking Jesus which one was the greatest?), I do think that the emergence of the super-theologian created opportunities that simply did not previously exist. Mass media and the possibility of achieving celebrity status converged to teach many a young man and young woman that being a theologian offered one the opportunity to become known, and to have influence. But this celebrity status would be available only to those who had something new to say. And now we arrive at the nub of the problem: theologians quickly embarked on a race to find something new to say with the hopes of being seen as a super-theologian.

It isn't just book sales or fame that led to this problem. The academy itself is largely to blame, even though its blame comes as a result of unintended consequences. Think about this logically: to earn a PhD, one must have a new thesis to present. In the world of theology and scripture, there are only so many new theses that can be presented before many of them start leaving the rails of orthodox Christianity. One can only read so much into the gospels or the letters of Paul before one sees things that aren't there, things that Paul never intended, or things that cast Jesus in a radically new light. If the academy demands that academics find something new in theology, they will. And before long, these will be the patriarchs and matriarchs of a new Christianity.

Fortunately for the Church Growth Movement, it cannot be criticized of having theologians that have gone down this path because it does not have theologians. It has marketing experts that pose as theologians. The emergent church does have many leaders who have embraced no-orthodoxy, however, and have swallowed it whole. Their leaders are following in the footsteps of the super-theologians by being heavily published, widely read, attractive to secular media, and influential to skeptical postmoderns.

While I hate to be so cliché as to say this all could have been avoided, much of it could have been. It is not the theologians task to present anything new; it is his or her task to proclaim what the Church has always proclaimed. The entrepreneurial and independent spirit of American Protestantism causes grave problems when it forgets its calling to be faithful and insists on being “relevant” or “contemporary”.

To the super-theologians of our age, I simply say: the gospel is always contemporary. Your superstar status is not needed to make it so. Cease trying to reinvent the Christian faith. Use your charisma to proclaim it, not redefine it.

Give Me My Mission Back

Several weeks ago, I enjoyed a long visit with a friend of mine from Germany. He is, like me, a pastor, so we naturally had all sorts of conversations – er, debates – about our different church systems, which one was better, etc. In Germany, church members pay an 8% tax to the government, which then issues money back to pastors and congregations. This is obviously different from the American system where members support their individual congregation through offerings. Our system carries a lot of uncertainty, and it can be exploited by a less than honorable pastor. Hence, the prosperity gospel movement, sleazy televangelists, etc. But it does connect, in very tangible way, the mission of the Church/congregation with the stewardship of the individual.

The German system, meanwhile, is probably an efficient system, but I would argue it facilitates a separation of the member from an intimate involvement in the life of the congregation. My argument is supported by low attendance by church members in Germany, possibly as low as 1% in some areas and perhaps as high as 10% in other areas. American church attendance is somewhere between 30-40%.

But as the consequences of the church tax system began to dawn on me, and as the size and scope of their government became more apparent, I began to wonder if it was only the tax system that has an impact on low attendance. At one point, I asked this: “What can the Church do for the poor, the needy, and the homeless, that the State doesn’t already do?” His answer was pretty clear: “Nothing.”

So while I spent a lot of time arguing against their church tax system, assuming that was the reason for low attendance, I came to think that the problem was probably much larger: there was not much for the Church to do! There is a disconnect between the words of scripture compelling us to care for our neighbor and the need of the Church to do so. After all, much of what the Church would surely do is already being done by the State.

Indeed, much of the ministry of the historic Church had been co-opted by the so-called “welfare state” all over Europe, and the Church has been a willing participant in this. That should not surprise us, as taking care of the poor and needy is hard work, and the Church would often prefer to focus on the niceties of preaching, worship, and fellowship. The attitude can quickly become, “We’ll do all the pretty stuff, and we’ll let the State take care of the safety net.”

Now, I am not arguing against our transcendent tasks (what we call Word and Sacrament) for mere social improvement. The Church still has vital tasks only it can fulfill, found in Word and Sacrament ministry. It should go without saying that the value of Word and Sacrament ministry is priceless. But if opportunities to show love for neighbor cannot become an outgrowth of Word and Sacrament ministry, congregations will almost certainly become places where faith becomes a mere concept and where theology in the mind replaces fire in the belly.

Without trying to sound cynical, it seems obvious to me that the welfare state is at least an unaware competitor to the Church. The further the welfare state gets along the socialist state road, the less "unaware" the state becomes. That is to say, the State is, in many places, doing “ministry” that not only should be done by the Church, but would actually empower the Church. This kind of ministry would connect the words heard in the “mouth house” of the nave to the deeds we are called to perform. The Church should actually be hungry for doing this kind of work.

More to the point, it should demand it! Because love for neighbor as the motivation for serving the poor, the homeless, and the lost is the best motivation of all. And this motivation is finally and truly found only in the Church of Jesus Christ.

Am I suggesting that we should not have a social net? Of course not. There are things only the State can do, and should do. Government is ordained by God, just as the Church is. But if the answer to my question above really is “Nothing,” then the State is simply doing too much, and the Church is being deprived of a portion of its mission. In America the State certainly has a role as does the Church. But if our society begins to march towards the German model, I hope Christians will join me in saying to the State, “Give me my mission back!”

200,000: Celebrating a Milestone

One Saturday morning in the summer of 2005, I began this blog thinking that I had something to important to say. All I knew was that I would name it after an early-eighties pop music album from an influential synth band, just because it sounded profound yet cool. It took a while to find my voice, writing about a variety of topics, before finding a niche exploring the intersection between politics, economics and architecture. I soon recruited fellow writer Relievedebtor on this little endeavor, who provided his valuable philosophical and theological insights and in the process invited readers to learn more about all things related to the built environment. In time the content grew and started to inadvertently fulfill the implied meanings of the blog's name.

Today (April 4th, 2011) Architecture + Morality will have welcomed its 200,000th visitor. While other more popular architecture an religion blogs have attracted far more, it's no small accomplishment either.  This blog started during what I call blogging's "heyday", when everyone believed they were the next great online journalist by writing a popular blog.  With a variety of free online software (e.g. Blogger, Wordpress, etc.) they could bypass the established online magazines and potentially draw far more readers than even the old established newspapers. Soon enough, it became obvious to most people that this was hard work and pretty time consuming, and many naturally gave up not long after their blog's debut. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter would later offer many of the same benefits of blogging, but without the need to consistently deliver quality content on a timely basis. Since neither Relievedebtor nor I know how to make clever pithy statements nor do we like talking about ourselves, the traditional blog format still remains our preferred outlet in sharing what we're thinking about when we don't find ourselves consumed by the non-stop demands of daily life. We are proud that this blog continues to be updated, albeit less frequently, and that many people come to read old posts and find them still relevant. We are also humbled that our blog has become a kind of resource for students, newspapers, magazines, and online encyclopedias.

To mark this milestone, I've updated the look of the site, changing the graphics while adopting an updated blogger template. The most important change to take note of is the Twitter feed on the top right portion of the window. I am constantly browsing articles that interest me and that I feel are worth sharing to our readers. While waiting for the next big post on the blog, I recommend following @archmorality on Twitter in the meantime and checking regularly. Twitter allows me to catalogue articles and websites that I might later use to help me write for the blog, and it's really the best way to track what I'm thinking at the moment. We also encourage you to share our articles to your friends by clicking on the buttons below each post.

As you may have noticed, Relievedebtor and I have found it more difficult to find the time to write pieces for this blog, even though it's still one of the more enjoyable things we do. We are consumed by our growing households, our professions and our ommunities. We will continue to post when we have the chance, so long as the topics and ideas we come up with are worth the time and patience of our wonderful readers.  Many times we express views that run counter to the orthodoxies of our profession (architecture and religious pastorship). Even so, we appreciate the countless number of readers who disagree with much of what we believe but still read our articles.

It's been an interesting little side project, and we look forward to sharing more with our readers in the years to come.  Six years ago I would have never envisioned the breadth and attention Architecture + Morality now enjoys, especially considering how little we have promoted it and how infrequently we contribute to it.  We are grateful for your comments, and we look forward to fostering a meaningful dialogue with our readers on topics regarding architecture, morality and everything in between.

Real Faith for Real Life

I know that tradition has its limitations, but it still strikes me as shortsighted for pastors and congregations to show a hostility towards it, especially pastors who hail from long-standing church bodies with adherence to liturgies. Why, I wonder, do these pastors insist that it is the tradition that is the problem with their congregations, not the solution? Why are they willing to separate something as important as traditional worship from older parishioners for their new vision?

Certainly, anyone should be able to admit that if tradition means that we use a certain doily sewn by a certain member from the 1950s, then tradition can be problematic. That breeds an ownership mentality in the church , and that is surely not what we mean by “tradition.” If tradition means doing anything, including worshipping, a particular way just because that is how “it has always been done,” then tradition can be problematic. Even an old soul like me abhors meaningless clinging to tradition because of a fear of change.

That kind of traditionalism aside, it is not hard to find an antagonism to even the best that tradition has to offer. Those sentiments seems to be rooted in the belief that our new day demands a different kind of church, and certainly a different kind of worship. One pastor put it this way: “The danger for the church today isn’t the challenges of the modern world but the temptation to escape reality by hiding behind tradition. We want to help people find a faith that really works for them in their real lives.” While I appreciate this pastor’s zeal, his love for his people, and his earnestness in helping a troubled world find answers, there is at least one assumption that calls for redressing.

That assumption is this: there is a “real life” somewhere out there, so far removed from the traditions of the Church, that only a contemporary faith can speak to it. What do these real lives look like? I suspect only this pastor can fully answer, but I would guess a “real life” is something like this: a life that is burdened by busyness, burned out on work, in conflict with family and neighbor, skeptical of God and consumed with the day-to-day tasks of keeping a home and raising a family. You see, tradition doesn’t really help people solve all the problems of this “real life,” because tradition is only really concerned with lofty doctrines and dry solutions. Tradition and this real life are like ships passing in the night.

What people need, the argument must surely go, is a church/pastor that helps people cope with this “real life.” As Rick Warren often says, people need “fewer ‘ought-to sermons’ and more ‘how-to’ sermons.” Sermons then might focus on healthy marriages, stress reduction, conflict resolution even things as mundane as time management. People aren’t looking for a re-posting of any 95 theses; just give them something that will get them through the day.

To be fair, sermons without application can be awfully dry. And while they are necessary at times to teach and instruct God’s people, sermons that only focus on doctrine will not communicate that God’s word is indeed living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). But how does the pastor know when to stop descending into the real lives of people, who are, after all, sinners? What is the criteria that a pastor might use so he or she knows when to stop digging? What is a reason that a pastor might refrain from abandoning the gospel in an effort to speak to the “real life”?

Good preaching, it seems to me, can be at the mercy of tradition and still speak to the modern life. The problems that plague us are not new, nor are the solutions; there is nothing new under the sun. So good preaching doesn't just comment on the mundane problems of this world, but actually peels back the curtain on the mystery of God's kingdom. It invites the faithful to a glimpse of the transcendent.

Our day-to-day life is, in fact, not our real life. It is, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, like looking through a mirror dimly. In our real “real life”, the eternal one to which the baptized look forward, we will then see God face to face. In the presence of God, all the promises of salvation and mercy fulfilled, we will be in awe at the throne of God and declare: “This is the real life.” And we will more fully understand Mark Twain’s quip: “Why do we cry at a funeral and rejoice at a birth? Probably because we’re not the person involved.” No point in crying for a person who is finally experiencing the real life.

Visionaries, Unlike the Rest of Us: How to understand elite designer architects

Louis Kahn, who had a lot
of personal drama, standings
inside his most magnificent
creation.

There's a common French expression that turns up everytime the topic of conversation turns to the differences between a work and leisure-centered lifestyle: "in France, we choose not live to work, but work to live."   Most people indeed want and do find work that lets them 'live', in which one can spend precious time with family, friends, and hobbies.  And yet there are certain professions where this ideal is a non-starter, such as my own. To put it simply, architects who care about design excellence frown upon those who innocently seek a work-life balance.  They don't see practicing architecture as a job that occupies eight hours in the day only to forget about it when they come home. Rather, one should live to work, be passionate about what one does and take as much time necessary to do it well. Architecture demands it!


Well, about half of us have failed to heed this calling and have managed to carve out a comfortable work-life balance in this profession, usually by foresaking design responsibilities for dryer technical roles.  The less individual input and investment the task requires, the more likely one can go home at a reasonable hour. Construction administration, which takes place near the end of the project (where the architect's involvement is most limited), and consists of following an automated routine of answering emailed inquiries and checking shop drawings, is especially helpful in getting one to leave at 5pm. Similarly, I often notice that our consulting engineers also enjoy this luxury, delivering the bare minimum drawings and happily pasting in stock solutions, without making any effort to consider alternatives or out-of the box ideas. Those who are happy with this arrangement don't seem to envy the constant late hours spent by designer-types preparing the perfect competition entry with piles of sketches, models, renderings and gallons of coffee. After an extended period of doing roles that require such different amounts of time and energy, those who work to live no longer understand those who live to work (I strongly suggest reading a related post here).

The New Battle for the Liturgy

In the 1980s and 1990s, congregations across America were divided over how to worship. One side said that times were changing and the church should also change to become more culturally relevant. It was okay to use popular music in church, they said, because traditional organ music and hymns are passé and driving away those ubiquitous “young people”. Others said, form must follow function, and traditional music and liturgies are the best way to objectively proclaim what the Church has always proclaimed: the gospel.

In retrospect, we can see that music was the whipping boy for larger issues. It was the tangible change that was occurring in the congregation, but plenty more was changing, too. The role and authority of the pastor, the mission of the church, even the necessity of the cross were all being redefined in the contemporary movement. All of these things were silently being debated as the drummer set up his drums and the guitarist tuned his six-string. In truth, these debates continue to rage. But most of the congregation dividing and conquering has already happened. Now, congregations are either “traditional” or “contemporary” or some weird combination of the two.

The Grass is Indeed Greener: How I gave up dreaming about the big city and learned to love the suburbs

Rod Dreher, a self-declared "crunchy con" and editor of the Dallas Morning News editorial page, let slip some opinions about suburban living that was a bit surprising coming from him but all too obvious in my own experience. To understand where he is coming from, Dreher has been a major proponent of living a way of life that combines holding conservative political beliefs and choosing to live an authentic lifestyle that rooted that is cherishes nature, traditional family life, community, and faith. "Burkeans with Birkenstocks", in which back-to-the earth values of hippie movement are grafted onto bedrock conservative principles of self-reliance, independence, religiously-based virtue.  They like to consume market-fresh organic produce, protect the environment and live in historic walkable neighborhoods. They agree with most liberals on a whole of host of lifestyle and cultural issues, but depart from them on issues such as taxation and the level of government involvement. It's rather a private choice to live this way, and policy should be designed to grant independence to people who choose it, while encouraging everyone else to be better connected with nature and eschew crass commercialism and sprawl.

Since popular examples of crunchy-cons are still too few, Dreher openly refers to his own daily life to illustrate. He insists on eating food from the farmer's market or at Central Market (an upscale grocery store, which sells both organic products and exquisite foreign brands) while raising chickens in the backyard. He home schools his children, belongs to a small orthodox Catholic parish, and has purchased and restored a small craftsman-style bungalow in a historic yet transitional neighborhood in Dallas. Reading some of his more anecdotal columns, there is an inevitable air of sanctimony when talking about himself, but the benefit to the reader is that he lets you peer inside into how he thinks about a variety of topics as it relates to his life. His writing makes his personality accessible, which allow readers to see someone who constantly confronts doubts about his beliefs and witness how his opinions change.

Breakdown of a Megachurch Viral Video

What is it that makes the megachurch click? There are so many answers, and since the megachurch phenomenon is relatively diverse, no one can point to any one thing. In a scant few cases, they offer theological certainty to a relativized world. In others, they offer entertainment and a commitment-free faith. In others, they offer a "power of positive thinking" sort of message that resonates with folks beaten down by the sin of the world. In far too many, they offer a "name it and claim it" empowerment to people who feel alienated from their government, culture and even currency.

But a recent viral video highlighted one more reason megachurches have become (at least for now) the pinnacle of the American Church experience: they notice, appreciate, and celebrate the suburban lifestyle and the middle class grind that most Americans experience 6 days a week.

Glenn Beck: An Ego in Search of a Message

Glenn Beck has annoyed me for the eight years I've known of him. I couldn't fully articulate why until this weekend. I always thought his over-the-top antics would fizzle out on radio as more people yearned for serious analysis and less sarcasm. When he went to CNN, I figured he would be the next in the long line of radio personalities who wouldn't translate to television. But Fox intervened and his celebrity has taken off. Now he's writing novels and becoming a religious crusader. Don't think Mr. Beck hasn't noticed that his level of influence is at an all-time high.

Just as it is obvious that Mr. Beck is in over his head, it is just as obvious he has no clear understanding of his limitations. While I am glad he is informing large swaths of the public about subjects I have come to know and despise (liberation theology, for example), he is quickly turning into a clownish figure who would probably endorse a third party if he could figure out how to benefit. Couching behind his newly-found religious voice which gives him the pretense of humility, Mr. Beck appears to be every bit the narcissist our president is. Not only does he presume to be a political expert, he is now some sort of preacher of an ambiguous gospel. And why has he adopted this new religious tone?

Are House Churches the Future of American Protestantism?

If you can get everything you spiritually need from a small group, why would you ever attend an established congregation? That's the question before many American Christians who have turned to the ancient practice of the house church, a gathering of about 10-15 Christians for fellowship and worship. One report indicates as many as 9% of American Protestants attend home churches. There are no paid clergy, no sermons, no organs, no sanctuaries; just a small gathering of the faithful to get all they need from church without all the hassle: prayer, Bible reading, community and the sacraments.

The time might be right for a serious house church movement, but we should remember these sorts of movements have come and gone through the centuries. Lutheran pietists in Norway and Sweden established house churches when they felt they could no longer participate in the state church. Certainly, those in house churches now would tell you the first congregations met in homes, essentially as small groups. Even megachurches, ironically enough, have taught millions of their own members how to have house churches as they have refined methods and published books outlining best practices for small groups. What is a small group but a house church? Serious community, Bible study and the sacraments are almost impossible to find at a megachurch, so the need to supplement with small groups became apparent.

Distillation in the Desert: climate, the environment and how we build

Having been lucky enough to immerse myself in climatic biomes such as tropical forests, mountains, oceanfronts, prairies and temperate forests, it has only been since last week that I finally got to experience a very important one--the desert. Driving through northern New Mexico, I was struck by how such radical environmental conditions, with its extremely dry air and sunny skies, provoked an equally radical response by people in how they built a suitable man-made environment. Though humans have made deserts habitable since the dawn of time, the reason I consider the desert a radical environment is due to its distinct lack of what makes human life (or any life for that matter) possible: water. Without water, either in the air or on the ground, the whole equation to how we build changes dramatically.

It's useful to remember that though our bodies are made up mostly of water. We therefore must consume even more to stay healthy, it constitutes only a small fraction how we use this resource. Most of our water goes to irrigating our man-made landscapes either in the form of farms or private lawns. Still, our direct physical need for water comes first, and in extremelty arid climates like New Mexico, there is little or no irrigation to speak of. It makes one realize how much of the built environment relies on channeling water resources towards mostly leisurely ends. A fountain here, flowerbeds there, green lawns, shaded parks-- they all have the important function of softening the hard and coarse surfaces of urban life. We have a natural aversion to living in something completely manmade, as evidenced by the common complaint of some cities being nothing more than "concrete jungles". Greenery, ponds, and displays of flowing water all contribute to a intrinsically human need for calm and repose in a city, even if it is only intermittent. Though not as important drinking or flushing, this urban role for water is not completely wasteful, even as it requires lots of it.