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?