A LIGHT RESPITE: FLYING BUTTRESSES

Remember those awkward years? You're probably recalling middle school or high school. Mine were in college--a late bloomer, really late. Besides the social angst, my indecisiveness led to academic highs and lows. I loved Art History but chose to switch majors for many reasons: one outstanding, I detested architecture.

Flying buttresses, York Cathedral
(Google Images)

Now before you get your "flying buttress" out of joint, I lean toward the visual. More so, I haven't forgotten Art 100 and the lectures comprising glorious architectural examples.

What spoiled my enjoyment of the field? Lectures. Not the professors, many of whom were my favorite in college, but the vernacular, the tedious details, the multitude of floor plans and the underlying engineering. I couldn't ingest and process the analytical details, the foundation for understanding how the great monuments to the ages were built. 

The Houses of Parliament by Claude Monet
(Google Images)

The beginning of my recess from architecture remains vague, opaque like the morning fog bank enveloping one of Monet's paintings of, "The Houses of Parliament." I've walked through those testaments to the past and the present (House of Lords/ House of Commons). And I continue to see each House in my mind but have never been able to readily identify the date, period or style without consulting a reference website (orig. Middle Ages, 1840-70 rebuilt, Gothic Revival; thanks, Wikipedia). 

Actually, I believe the downward spiral began much earlier with the Romanesque. Columns, I can picture those unadorned columns inside French churches, for example Saint-Etienne Nevers below:

(Google images)

And I do know the difference between a façade, nave and an apse. However, the emphasis on comparing the schematics, e.g. mouldings, "Thud!" My own façade still droops and my foundation sinks whenever I see or hear an in-depth analysis.

West Façade, Chartres
(Google Images)

Royal Portal
(Google Images)

Yet, when I faced Chartres Cathedral almost forty years ago, looking up at the small statues adorning the West entrance, I became frozen in time, transported back to medieval France and the masons who built the great cathedral stone-by-stone.

(See below: for architects, art historians, or pedants who want specifics: the central tympanum of the Royal Portal with jamb statues.)

Due to time constraints or bias I can't say, Eastern and non-Christian houses of worship were skimmed that year for Art 100, but during my later travels, when entering a Hindu temple in Bali or a Buddhist temple in Seoul, I had a similar, powerful reaction. Intense peace.

Gunung Kawi, Bali
(Google Images)

Other architectural examples I admire range from antiquity through modern day, with some pit-stops along the ages but I can't dismiss the importance of the Bauhaus movement or the controversy of I.M. Pei's pyramid at the Louvre. No, with time, I've learned more patience and acquired more depth. And in my mind, I can now juxtapose then compare Boston's Cathedral of the Cross with St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York with greater understanding, or comprehend, savor the book Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King, having seen the engineering wonder atop the Cathedral of Florence.   

Inside the Louvre - inverted Pyramid

(Google Images)

Thus, as I've grown older I've begun to associate more of what I learned about architecture with what I have seen personally (as well as on the small or large screen). With visual reinforcement, I've discerned the differences more readily, the influences more acutely. And my appreciation for exquisite details of our world's treasures has replaced my loathing of the field, architecture.