Journal Entry for the Week of March 14 to March 18

During a particularly stressful time in our lives, or as a student approaching the final exam period, we have all experienced the intense desire to have someplace to escape to for a short period of time. Whether it is a cottage by the lake, a favourite book in a cozy corner of the library, or just the sanctuary of our dreams while we're sleeping, we've all felt the urge to leave the "real world" behind for a bit and abandon our senses. This experience was in many ways one of the founding principles of the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna, Italy. A beacon on the frontier borders of Byzantium, it was a classical attempt to implant a Greek heritage in the West; everything in the church was imported from foreign places: the marble, the colours, even the workers themselves. Certainly this alone created an atmosphere of mystique within the church, the almost overwhelming exposure to elements that were not a part of local life. But it was the artistic wonderland within the structure of the church itself that truly made this an escapist adventure. Everything in the church, from the stone and glass tesseraes to the vibrant frescoes adorning the walls, was meant to provide visitors with a surreal sense of mysticism. The images on the walls were a hazy middle ground between the earthly and divine worlds. Whether it was the images of Christ and his apostles, or similar images of an Emperor amongst his loyal servants, every element of the church was meant to convey an atmosphere physically and spiritually removed from the world outside the church doors.

What was particularly intriguing to me was the concept of the Emperor presenting himself as a divine being, one removed from but always watching over his people. Similar to the frescoes themselves, here again we had the ever blurring lines between humanity and divinity. They not only penetrated art, but also shaped a ruler's vision of what he saw himself representing; in this case, he was literally god's presence on earth. Modesty and humbleness aside, this slow progression away from humanity and towards divinity paralleled another important aspect of this time period: the experience of religion as an otherworldly phenomenon. Indeed, the frescoes in San Vitale were not of the human Christ performing miracles on earth or being tortured on the cross; they were images of him in the heavens, no longer a miraculous human being but a heavenly guardian far removed from simple human presence. It may have seemed like the natural course of things to present Christ in this new image, but it also spoke of an intentional effort on part of rulers to take the earthly, human elements out of religion. Whatever the positive or sinister implications of this phenomenon were, it was obvious that religion was shifting away from being a horizontal network to a more hierarchical structure. Indeed, by removing Christ from earth or presenting the emperor as god on earth, mere mortals in the Western world were no longer equal participants in religion; almost subliminally, they were slowly evolving to become subjects of religion, inheritors of a divine world that they could be taught but one they could no longer interpret for themselves. The mystical experience of being removed from the outside world within San Vitale was not limited just to the art or Italy itself. It penetrated the very core of western religious consciousness, a phenomenon that is hard to appreciate unless one looks at the church from the outside; steps back into the real world, so to speak.

Journal Entry for the Week of March 7 to March 11

Unless we're artistically trained to do so, rarely do we go into a building and appreciate the magnitude of the work that goes into making paper plans and sketches into a living entity. Whether it is St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Greek Parthenon, or Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, it is astonishing to study the details of the procedures and labour that make these monuments possible, the exhaustive trial and error, the constant reinvention to suit both the changing times and the changing temperaments of the rulers running an empire. In the case of emperor Justinian and the Hagia Sophia, envisioned as a monument to his triumphant legacy, the margin for error was very small; rulers like Justinian were not revered for their kindness towards those who did not follow through with their expectations. Of course, for emperors who dreamt of such grandiose projects, the construction of that building was intimately linked to their own reputations and immortality. Even after they died, these great buildings would be a symbolic representation of these emperors, forever imprinted on the landscape of history and human consciousness. These buildings were a way for these emperors to convey both their artistic vision and extend their influence to all corners of the world. Of course, a more Freudian analysis might also suggest that these great pillars and erect structures were the emperors' none-too-subtle way of compensating for defects of a more physical nature. But I digress.

In the specific case of the Hagia Sophia, it was almost a comedy of errors that finally brought the project to fruition. By all reasonable means, the project should not have worked. Although the details are exhaustive, I can say the documentary we saw in class provides viewers with a solid idea of the endless engineering feats, innovations, and—dare I say—shortcuts that went into the construction of what was to become the greatest Christian church in the Byzantine Empire. There was a particularly amusing image in the documentary that spoke of the great unveiling of the finished church; we had Justinian entering the church with a magnificent procession, pomp and circumstance galore, while around him the weight of the dome was already causing the marble columns to flake. Perhaps Justinian and his emperors all overestimated the immortality of a building that had to go through a series of serious cutbacks and constant changes just to stand up. To serve his need for grandeur, Justinian overlooked more practical concerns such as his friendly neighbourhood earthquakes, which this region was particularly prone to. Indeed, a mere 20 years after its completion, Hagia Sophia's dome was shattered in an earthquake. Though the reliance on natural disasters to get us to change our ways is a little disheartening, at least Justinian and his minions learned their lessons the second time around. Better materials, sounder structures and in general more common sense allowed the Hagia Sophia to be rebuilt; it thereafter stood for 1400 years. It is ironic that with all the work that went into the building, it eventually became the emblem of another empire. The church envisioned as the crowning jewel of Christian Byzantine was eventually turned into an Islamic mosque when the Ottoman Turkish Empire took control of the region. Nevertheless, despite the ethnic and religious variation of its owners, Hagia Sophia remained a majestic symbol of power and glory for both empires. Perhaps it didn't happen in quite the way Justinian envisioned, but there is no doubt that Hagia Sophia has remained one of the glorious religious and artistic symbols of our antiquity.

Journal Entry for the Week of February 28 to March 4

I remember a conversation I had with my best friend a few months back that really got me thinking. We were discussing the beautiful architecture on our Bishop's campus; as the oldest building--McGreer Hall-- dates back to the 1840's, our campus is a visual treat for those who appreciate an era when architecture spoke volumes about the social and cultural values of a nation. The colour of a building, the floor layout, every window pane and brick arrangement was layed out with a precision and artistic dedication that could rival the vision of the Parthenon architects. Buildings such as McGreer symbolize not just an era that loved art, but one that immortalized it through brick and paint; they were constructing buildings as monuments to the future, much like painters designing elaborate frescoes in ancient Mycenae, or the architects painstakingly developing the Coliseum in Rome. McGreer is a visual treat for the artist's eyes, and a cultural treat for the historian's heart. It speaks of grandeur, great past academic figures, columns and high-ceilinged rooms that are inspired by their European ancestors.

It was precisely this beauty on our campus that got us thinking about why we chose to come to a small school, when so many huge campuses were located much closer to our homes. A major factor in our decision was disillusionment with what architecture has become in our modern times. Living in an urban city is like seeing an absolute reversal of the colourful beauty and visual spectacle that architecture once was. Cookie cutter houses, houses that look so functional and identical that they may well have been produced out of a photocopier, are in many senses an insult to the artistic legacy our ancestors left us. The houses we live in today tell us nothing about the culture of the people living inside the house; the paints and structures don't offer us volumes of information about the history of the humans who inhabit those spaces. When a house was constructed to be unique, when endless months of preparation and care went into the construction, the end result was not just a house but a gift. The house became a source of immense pride, a sacred shrine that reflected the values of those living inside it; it was not just a home but a sanctuary, a place you could truly call your own. Nowadays, our houses reflect nothing but a culture so hollow and functional that they are just looking for a place to stay, not a place to be a part of. Our houses are just boxes with rooms, similar to our culture which prides itself on building as much as possible in as little time as possible, sacrificing the integrity and personal intimacy that was such a deep-rooted part of architecture once. Can we truly call the houses we live in today legacies? Can we leave them to future generations in our will and be satisfied that through our functional, cookie-cutter house we are transmitting our heritage and values? The houses we live in today are the absolute antithesis of what humans are, of what society is. Society is a complex, multi-coloured, interconnected web of pasts and presents, of the old and the young, of our cultures, religions and our heritage. Humans by their very essence are unique individuals, each with their own values and hopes and dreams. It seems almost prudent to call houses today a form of mass artistic slaughter. We live in a society that celebrates individual achievement, yet prides itself on being doppelgangers of one another when it comes to our living spaces. When we ourselves are not mere photocopies of one another, why should our houses be?