13 JUL 1976
SACRED EXPERIENCE AND PLACE
IN CITIES
by
KARALYN EMILIE KRASIN
B.A.,
Duke University
(1965)
Submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree
of
Master of City Planning
at
MASSACHUSETTS
INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
May,
Signature
the
1972
of Author
Department of Urban Studies and Planning
May 12, 1972
I
/
(.
Certified by
hesis
Supervisor
Accepted by
Graduate Committee
2
SACRED EXPERIENCE AND PLACE
Karalyn Emilie Krasin
IN CITIES
Submitted to the Department of Urban Studies and Planning
on May 12, 1972, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of City Planning.
Abstract
This study is about the prospect for sacred environments
in the city, in terms of direct experience of place.
Attributes of the sacred experience are abstracted from
several documentary accounts and a number of possibilities
for their occurrence in the city are suggested.
The physical environment is examined at
form and the particular site.
two
scales:
The aspects of city form considered include
separation, geomorphism, and the concentric
spatial
city.
city
For the particular site, attention is given to site
selection, spatial concepts, qualities of sacredness,
human modifications, and the context of the experience
in relation to the place.
Finally, possibilities for incorporating sacred experiences and places in the city are outlined, in terms of
user needs, with note of the designer's role.
The prospect
given is
cautionary, but generally
Thesis Supervisor: Kevin Lynch
Title: Professor of City Planning
favorable.
3
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
4
SACRED EXPERIENCE
5
Accounts of Sacred Experience
Qualities of Sacred Experience
SACRED ASPECTS OF CITY FORM
Spatial Separation
Geomorphism
Feng-Shui
Earth and Sky Gods
The Concentric City
Implications of City Form
SACRED PLACE
Site Selection
Spatial Concepts
Qualities of Sacredness
Human Modifications
City Experience and Place
PROSPECTS
FOR SACREDNESS
Need
Assumptions
Practical Considerations
The Designer as Shaman
Sacred Design and User Needs
The Shaman as Designer
THE PROSAIC WORLD
13
23
28
28
30
31
32
34
38
42
46
48
57
62
66
71
71
74
75
77
80
94
98
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
103
BIBLIOGRAPHY
104
4
INTRODUCTION
This
is
And it
about moons
is
about
and labyrinths and the twilight hour.
our experience of
"useless" things that
steal
us
away
The places
and, now and then,
from our daily tasks.
of our lost worlds
and lit by the
Sometimes the places
more
rattle our dreams
in the city:
they collect are sacred environments,
of fragments
memories,
such things
are
and tides of
formed
dim cultural
frontiers of our fantasies.
in the
city:
it could happen
often.
The qualities that
found,
spring.
sides:
go into their making
as hard to pin down as
After some thought,
are, I have
a butterfly drunk on
I looked at them from several
the experience itself, the shape of the
the particular site.
the lines as well.
city, and
They may occasionally float between
5
SACRED EXPERIENCE
The frothing of the hedges
I keep deep inside me.
Jean Wahl1
A great
number of our activities
by the places
consist
in which they occur.
almost
a particular
to
seeing" in
many vacation
monuments
general.
small-plane
Some
experiences may
tours
or celebrated
Some activities,
have
city
park,
The ways
and
such as
swimming or
camp
the
site)
or to invite
(the sports
open participation
the purpose
be
carefully
In
addition,
propriety
of his visit,
the site.
structured
behavior,
be more
at
such
(the
open plaza).
in which a person experiences
when he is
"sight-
In addition, we design many of our
a particular environ-
ment will vary with his past associations with
place,
attribute,
locations,
public places to foster specific activities
the
this
flying, depend on direct use of a particular
kind of environment.
arena,
are affected
entirely of the interaction of a person with
place:
with visits
and experiences
as
at
and the
In some
event;
and store
be dictated
of imagination,
cues will
or discourage
in
others,
open and non-directive, the city park
behavior will
or a similar
he perceives
situations these
to encourage
a sports
cues
it
by
by the
certain
cues will
for example.
one's
own
code of
sensed mood and
6
tempo of the place, by its strangeness
by time
or familiarity, and
demands.
Sometimes a particular place will take
for its visitor, provoking his
cance
These occurrences may be totally
and setting.
surprising, or the
that
feelings
heightened emotions
involving him deeply with a particular
and awareness,
moment
on unusual signifi-
similar less-intense
culmination of
have been
accumulating.
The
feeling may be
one of deep well-being or one of terror; the landscape may
take on
Both
a sudden
an awesome
familiarity or
are peppered with
fictional and historical accounts
such experiences
groves,
deserts,
Poets
haunted houses,
and place-types:
the burning bush,
the
strangeness.
call of the wild,. mystical
running off to sea.
and the
founders of religion and madmen (not always
exclusive categories)
experiences.
seem particularly prone to such
Perhaps this is because they deal with their
feelings more directly; perhaps we simply have more
ments of their experiences, in
novels.
James
to
In The
suggests
"holy writings,"
docu-
poems and
Varieties of Religious Experience, William
a certain predisposition
sudden religious conversions,
bound.
sacred
Such persons are, he
in persons prone
many of which are place-
says,
of
an emotional
7
sensibility, and suggestible.
Aldous
Huxley has
drawn a
parallel between the mescaline-induced experience of
surroundings,
ment:
and the schizophrenic's sense
both are
perspective.
intense and direcb,
While the
different, the
of his
ones
environ-
unmediated by rational
causes of such experience may be
quality of a dissolved barrier, of an extra-
ordinary awareness is
found in both James'
and Huxley's
accounts.
Another attribute common to many
experiences of place
meaning in one's
and imaginings
Everyone has
ments--in
is the
life:
attainment of a sense of deep
a correspondence between ones
and the outer
moments
dreams
reality.
of strong affinity with certain environ-
strange landscapes
place inexplicably takes
Such moments may
intense and direct
on misty days,
or when
a familiar
on a heightened meaning for us.
not procure total enlightenment
for us,
but they can provide a certain freshness in our "world
views"
or new understandings
disparate ideas;
The more
the relation of previously
they may create a certain bond with a place.
intense such an experience is,
it may be to
is with our
ence).
about
accept
the more
(however contradictory this
endless search
Jacob Isaac has
for direct
said:
difficult
attitude
and memorable
experi-
8
If one of us should really be compelled by
the call of the tree...he would run to a
not the tree.2
psychiatrist,
It may
also be that we are not
to our environments
off the
grass",
rest
responsive
attuned to be
unless so directed (stoplights,
"keep
areas) and that we no longer expect
them to be responsive to us,
exceptin functional ways.
The places we live and work,
especially in the city, serve
so many
they have,
common-sense purposes that
ceased to provide us with spiritual
I will discuss qualities
one
of place
example here can illustrate
of our
in many
cases,
support.
in the next chapter, but
the two-way conditioning
experiences and the places
available to them.
The
home would seem to be the most personal and intimate of
spheres
is.
for an interplay
of person and place.
Sometimes
it
Gaston Bachelard says:
Life begins well, it begins enclosed, protected,
3
all warm in the bosom of the house.
But
it may often lose that quality in our busy lives,
becoming only a place to come between outside
without
its own particular meaning or tradition.
Many urban
practical
us.
It
activities,
is
settings are
similar in function,
serving
functions, but void of subjective importance
of course necessary to have efficiency
and it would be confusing to
experience the
to
in cities,
"hidden meaning"
9
of each locale while we are set on purposive
But
in a city environment, where
and diversity
and times
of activity are the
fast pace,
activities.
constant
change,
rule, we also need places
for regenerative experiences
in our daily lives.
For the remainder of this chapter, I will attempt a somewhat
"loose"
definition of sacred experience,
some examples which illustrate
common to such experiences,
the more precise
sacred experience of place
a dream:
world.
is
in the city today.
the point of origin
of
one's inner world with his outside
the bonding of
And the place in which this happens provides the
roots
for the
The
word "dream"
pertains
qualities
and a brief outline of some
possibilities for sacred experience
The
followed by
to
dream,
the
in
its
way of taking hold.
this
sense
array of
has a multiple
experiences
these
personal, inner worlds:
that make up
and
fears,
the unwritten poems
and
novels we
fantasies
our
and imaginings--
carry within us.
the point at which we
uncover their link to the
and
include our deepest wishes
and memories, hopes
sacred experience is
meaning,
The
"find" them,
outside world, and perhaps become
able to share them with others.
"Origin" refers
founding quality, and to the personal nature
to this
of such an
adventure:
although a sacred experience may be shared, it
must also be experienced directly "originally," by
individual,
or
it becomes
descriptive, a play-act.
In a similar vein, Gaston Bachelard describes
the
poetic image
moment
immediacy.
Dreams,
idea takes hold, a moment
of emotional
subtle but important
The
in terms of
concept of "origin" has
implications
and
share this quality,
are dealing with them directly,
our own understanding.
sacredness.
as the
in their various manifestations,
however often repeated or refined by us,
so long as we
the onset of
in an individual consciousness
in which the
each
some
for a consideration of
The derived or spectator experience may
gradually lose
its potency, as
its
"newness"
wears off.
Repetition and symbols can enhance the strength of certain
experiences, but rite
and symbol alone seldom provoke
personal discovery or sense of a place.
history, the
by means
sacred experience is
of ritual or myth, more
sacred place is
markings.
a
In religious
traditionally repeated
recently as dogma.
The
commemorated by monuments or temples
But even a certain care and zealousness
"translating" such experiences and places do not
or
in
ensure
the perpetuation of their original power for the individual.
Eventually, myths become
tainment:
literature, and rituals
an enter-
11
Thus the Corn Dance (for modern man) has no
transcendental significance.
It is viewedrather as an enactment of social solidarity
and vigor. 4
Monuments lose their relevance and become markers
gotten concerns,
The
careful
and vacation tours
delicate
or finds
moment
in
of for-
replace the pilgr'mage.
which
a man meets his
god,
enlightenment becomes institutionalized:
Great religions have been born.. .and then too
have died, stifled by their own attempts to
perpetuate, codify and evangelize the mystic
vision.5
renewal of some traditions may serve to
Periodic
the meaning of events whose origins are
enhance
obscure:
Fretigny and Andre Virel cite the instance of
Roger
a tribe
in
New Guinea
which daydreams its cosmology and then illustrates it in beautifully worked masks.
Then
the
each year the masks are burned so that
imagination c n exercise its right to create
living myths.
Other cultures
Indians
in
New Mexico
perpetuate
a
selective
refusing to keep a written record:
"When the
no longer
be
told,"
The Isletan
discard ineffective traditions.
they
say,
"it
will
oral
because
history,
are
stories
there
is
longer a need for them."
"Original
experience"
may
sometimes
seem difficult
for
no
12
modern man in
an age when the written record dominates,
packaged entertainments proliferate,
before live audiences,
signs blink
and in a poignant triumph of deriva-
tive experience, the movie
at the
"applause"
review
substitutes attendance
filmed event.
But there are healthy
signs as well,
alertness and responsiveness of the
including the general
city dweller, the
tendency toward audience participation and spontaneous
"happenings," and the
concern with environmental quality.
Literary and historical accounts of sacred experiences
often tend to
ring a little hollow, because they abound
in superlatives,
depict
and because they require
an often momentary event.
to all the
Also,
they are
vulnerabilities of derivative
lined above.
so many words to
experience out-
In discussing the mystic vision, P.D. Ouspensky
speculates
that the poor quality of visionary
due
fact that,
is
to the
for the
a totally new event,
feeling.
have tried.
subject
Whatever the
person involved, the
and he has
case,
accounts
is
experience
no words to convey his
certainly numerous persons
We may have to take on faith
admonition,
"Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
For he on honeydew hath fed,
And drunk
the milk of paradise."
Coleridge's
13
but we can
Accounts
The
get some sense of his meaning.
of Sacred Experience
traditional sacred experience
version, and I will excerpt
is the religious
from one
con-
account to show its
similarity to the reports of some other, non-religious
"sacred experiences,"
which follow.
"...In
a mournful melancholy state I was
attempting to pray; but found no heart (for it):
...was...disconsolate, as if there was
nothing in heaven or earth could make me
happy.. .then, as I was walking in a thick
grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open
I do not
to the apprehension of my soul.
mean any external brightness.. .but it was
a new inward apprehension or view that I
had of God...My soul was so captivated and
delighted...that I was even swallowed up in
of inward
state
Kim.. .I continued in this
joy, peace, and astonishing, till near
dark.. .and felt sweetly composed in my
I felt
mind all the evening following.
myself in a new world, and everything about
me appeared with a different aspect from
what it was wont to do....9
This
excerpt portrays a feeling of complete
change and
"newness"--the transcendence and absorption that
terizes
intense sacred experience.
an
in which it occurs
it is not
a
is
focus of the
aad its
a grove,
experience here.
have noted, will determine the
takes,
Although the place
a traditionally sacred one,
The predisposition of a person,
ence
charac-
focus:
as both James
general
a poet
may
and Ouspensky
form that the
"find"
love
experi-
or ecstacy;
14
a religious person, his
of unified
god;
and a philosopher his
concept
meaning.
The place
often has
experience.
1.
The
least
to do with the most
There may be
a descending
"conversion"
which
intense
sacred
order:
radically
changes
the person;
2.
The profound experience, which changes the
person, but only temporarily;
3.
The "normal"
which is
or "gentle" sacred experience,
repeatable and mind-expanding, without
detaching the person completely.
The latter is
10
easier to plan for, and most closely associated
with place.
The
following
four accounts
that of a woman in the
include
desert,
a child's
the adventure of a naturalist,
and a metaphorical account of a group
them share
experience.
a certain sense of awakening that
surfacing of a new awareness,
experience,
or a dream;
All of
suggests the
and they have in
common the creation of a bond with the place, which in the
religious
account
is
experiences
seemed secondary
(although the first
followed by a rather rude dispersion of this bond).
15
The child, a six-year old boy portrayed by Jean Paul Sartre
in "The
Childhood of a Leader:"
He looked defiantly at the big nettle patch;
you could see it
was a forbidden place; the
wall was black, the nettles were naughty,
harmful plants, a dog had done his business
just at the foot of the nettles; it smelled
.of plants, dog dirt and hot wine.
Lucien
lashed at the nettles with his cane crying
"I love my mama, I love my mamma."
He saw
the broken nettles hanging sadly, oozing a
white juice...he heard a small solitary voice
which cried "I love my mamma, I love my mamma";
a big blue fly was buzzing around: a horsefly,
Lucien was afraid
of it--and
a forbidden,
powerful odor, putrid and peaceful, filled
his nostrils.
He repeated "I love my mamma,"
but his
voice seemed strange, and he felt
deep terror and ran back into the salon, like
a flash.
From that day on Lucien understood
that he did not love his mamma. 1 1
Later that week, he
finds a less
responsive
environment:
Lucien sat down at the foot of the chestnut
tree.
He said "chestnut tree" and waited.
But nothing happened...there was a smell of
hot grass, you could play explorer in the
jungle; but Lucien did not feel like playing.
The air trembled about the red crest of the
wall and the sunlight made burning spots on
the earth and on Lucien's hands.
"Chestnut
tree!"
It was shocking: when Lucien told
mamma, "my pretty
little mamma" she smiled
and when he called Germaine "stinkweed" she
cried and went complaining to mamma.
But
when he said "chestnut tree" nothing at all
happened.
He muttered between his teeth
"Nasty old tree" and was not reassured, but
since the tree did not move he repeated,
louder, "Nasty old tree, nasty old chestnut
tree, you wait, you just wait and see!" and
he kicked it.
But the tree stayed still-just as though it were made of wood.
That
evening at dinner Lucien told mamma, "you
know, mamma,
e trees, well.. .they're made
out of wood."
16
However-far this portrait strays
from Wordsworth's more
romantic version of "the youth, who
...
Priest/And by the vision splendid/Is
it
presents
some elements
forbidden power,
covery;
strong
the
ence
here
in
from his
surprising
dis-z
the
and
smells
and Lucien's
All of these
His
second experi-
directly to provoke a
environment with no
sensory qualities
a
immersion in the place
until he breaks and runs.
human response
a
of terror.
reveals the effects of trying
strong
makes
echoed voice;
contribute to Lucien's
and moment,
way attended,"
experience:
sensory perception
response,
is Nature's
for the nettle patch--
oozing and the
emotional
qualities
sacred
from which Lucien
a heightened
buzzing,
on his
of the
sense of power in the place
Still
are there
success,
although
as they were in the nettle
patch.
The childhood experience also represents
true
in
with
endlessly new experiences
fact,
a time
dream worlds
nostalgic,
seeking
of both
are structured
memories
of this
all our lives
experiences
security
for us,
and direct
and places.
around
lost
to find."
encounter
Often our adult
poignant,
world,
which
sometimes
"we
3Certain places
then become important
however
to us
are
and
because they
reawaken faded memories of our childhood, offer us a direct
contact with a part of our past.
17
The second experience,
length,
from which I will also
concerns the visit of
a middle-aged woman to an
Arabian town with her merchant husband, as
Albert
is
Camus in
"The Adulterous Woman."
strange to her,
she
is
quote at
depicted by
Although the
familiar with the
desert.
The stairs (of the fort) were long and steep...
As they climbed, the space widened and they
rose into an ever broader light, cold and dry
... The bright air seemed to vibrate around
them with a vibration increasing in length...
as if their progress struck from the.crystal
of light a sound wave that kept spreading out
... and as soon as they reached the terrace...
it seemed to Janine that the whole sky rang
with a single short and piercing note, whose
echoes gradually filled the space above her,
then suddenly died and left her silently
facing the limitless expanse... .At some
distance...could be seen broad black tents.
All around them a flock of motionless dromedaries... formed against the gray ground the
black signs of a strange handwriting, the
Above
meaning of which had to be deciphered.
the desert, the silence was as vast as the
space...Janine, leaning her whole body
against the parapet, was speechless...Over
yonder... at that point where sky and earth
met in a pure line.. .it suddenly seemed
there was awaiting her something of which,
though it had always been lacking, she had
never been aware until now.
In the heart
of a woman brought there by pure chance a
knot tightened by the years, habit, and
boredom was slowly loosening...it seemed to
her that the world's course had just stopped
and that, from that moment on, no one would
ever age any more or die.
Everywhere,
henceforth, life was suspended--except in
her heart, where at the same moment, some- 1h
one was weeping with affliction and wonder.
town
18
Her husband, who visits the
fort with her, is
quickly
disinterested, and they leave at his
request.
returns to the
in response to
vague
"call"
fort
she is
late that night,
not even sure
she has
But Janine
a
heard.
... In the vast reaches of the dry cold night
thousands of stars were constantly appearing
and their sparkling icicles, loosened, at once
began to slip gradually to-,ard the horizon.
Janine could not tear herself away from contemplating those drifting flares.
She was
turning with them, and the apparently
stationary progress little by little identified her with the core of her being, where
cold and desire were now vying with each
other.
Before her the stars were following
one by one and being snuffed out among the
stones of the desert, and each time Janine
opened a little more to the night.
Breathing
deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight
of others, the craziness or stuffiness of
life, the long anguish of living or dying.
After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing
from fear, she had come to a stop at last.
At the same time, she seemed to recover her
roots and the sap again rose in her body,
... she strained toward the moving sky; she
was merely waiting for her fluttering heart
to calm down and establish
silence
within
her.
The last stars dropped.. .then, with
unbearable gentleness, the water of night
began to fill Janine, drowned the cold, rose
gradually from the hidden core of her being
and overflowed in wave after wave....15
Here,
as
in Lucien's nettle-patch
heightened sensation, but
in addition the
begin to overlap and merge:
silence,
and the
light
stars and desert
emotional response
and the
experience, is
a
senses and elements
and sound, space
stones.
and
The deep
sense of the moment's power are
19
repeated, here without terror but with a gradual calm and
gentleness.
The magnification
of the
suspended moment is
preceded, and to some extent made possible by the
break
by
from Janine's daily routine.
a perceptual prelude, not
sharp
This break is heightened
recounted here:
Janine's
frustration and her feeling of boundedness by her daily
world
(found also in many religious
physical prelude:
the ascent
experiences);
up the
steep stairs.
of mystery prevails, and of strange signs:
of the camels;
for Lucien
in the previous
be the buzzing of the horsefly.
account it might
Three other aspects
fictional accounts, but
also has parallels
ence:
landscape, the
occurrence, and its
he
in actual
experi-
surprise of its
On a solo
expedition,
stream on a sudden impulse,
though he has a deep fear of water
in his
common to
is recounted by the naturalist
Immense Journey.
floats down a nearby
incident
of the
almost unbearable intensity.
The third "sacred experience"
Loren Eiseley in The
A sense
the handwriting
experience fit with a romantic notion that is
the open natural
and by a
even
from a near-drowning
childhood:
... I had the sensation of sliding down the
vast tilted face of the continent.. .I was
streaming alive through the hot and working
ferment of the sun, or oozing secretively
through shady thickets.
I was water and
the unspeakable alchemies that gestate and
take shape in water,the slimy jellies
that
under the enormous magnification of the
20
sun writhe and whip upward as great
barbeled fish mouths or sink indistinctly
16
back into the murk out of which they arose.
An unsuspecting, somewhat modest
natural element,
to
it,
bumps
In
man takes on a powerful
and having overcome his
finds himself with a strange
a
floating log,
addition to his
Eiseley is
initial resistance
new identity, until
and is brought back from his senses.
"breaking through" an old
vital to the eventual experience
is
was
form of the
the
is
this
also
he recounts here.
experience is
clear that he expects
not
fear,
acutely sensitive to the natural world:
predisposition to respond to the environment
the final
he
Although
a surprise to him, it
something of the
case with the previous two
experience, which
accounts.
Finally, the "group experience", which has religious overtones,
as metaphorically drawn by Wallace Stevens
in his
poem "Sunday Morning":
Supple and turbulenb,
a ring
of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And into their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their
lord
delights;
The trees, like serafin; and echoing hills
That chant among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the Aeavenly fellowship
Of men who perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came, and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feet shall manifest. 1 7
21
of sun, and chant, and summer and
The power is here:
blood; the sacrifice implied.
in, become part
enter
The lake and trees
of the act,
and hills
out its
and play
denoue-
ment.
The
shared experience finds its presentday counterpart
the
celebration and the
well perhaps
the
chaos,
In Stevens'
"orgy",
solemn demon-
and in the urban
and an
distinction between an immersion into
"immersion" into profound meaning.
awareness may necessitate giving up
our
the
festival; as
line between sacred and profane may be a thin
as may be the
one,
the communal
in the bloody urban riots,
strations for peace.
riot,
feast,
in
The new
(even only temporarily)
old patterns and orders, by "going through" a seeming
chaos
first:
Eliade has pointed out that the psychic regression to chaos (Freud's return to childhood, the primitive man's river-dunking, et
cetera) is the necessary condition for renewal
or rebirth and that its ritual form is often
The return to
the orgy or Saturnalia.
for the savage
symbolizes
primordial chaos
and the beginning
universe
the
of
the rebirth
the consciousness
and
for
of a new time-cycle,
and the renewal
true
being
to
one's
the return
of life.1o
But,
although the sensory impressions
chaotic, the
sacred experience
itself is
force whether by new insights or the
bond.
or preludes
may be
an organizing
formation of a strong
22
Of these
four accounts, three are
fictional, although
"Lucien" may be
partly autobiographical, and all of them
are
They are excerpted in some
non-urban.
detail because
they describe a wide variety of actors,
and of places,
because,
clear instances of
in their extremity, they share
aspects of the
sacred experience of place.
because of their largely fictional nature,
what
and
But perhaps
they seem some-
unreal and fantastic, something that "could never
happen to me."
quality:
One
reason I have
chosen them is
to expand a sense of the
Eiseley has
possible.
easily
But Loren
also pointed out the human tendency to prefer
catastrophic and cataclysmic explanations
because
for this
of events,
they are within our mortal timespan, and thus more
(and romantically) grasped:
Flood vs
for example, the Great
the endless working of a drop of water on
Gentler experiences
may often be
stone. 1
9
found in poetry:
Her secret was
Listening to flowers
.....
....
....
Wear out their
color."
20
Or:
Far off I heard the
Both of these examples
cate
springs
of earth praying. 21
are personal
and direct; both indi-
a bond with the place, an understanding of its
"magic".
23
Other gentle
experiences
call in feelings
from our
child-
hood:
The warm, calm nest
In which a bird sings
Recalls the songs, the charms,
The pure threshold
Of my old home. 2 2
These
experiences
They share the
Qualities
are no less
"sacred" by their simplicity.
same qualities as the more
of Sacred Experience:
The
sacred experience
the
following
of place,
qualities:
It
then, has
is direct
possible perceptual or emotional
a sharp break
sensory awareness
some or all of
and personal, with
or activity preludes
(including frustration, as well as
stitutes
intense ones.
anticipation);
from daily routine;
and the sense of
it
con-
its heightened
suspended time--a mag-
nified present--create a bond of the person and place, a
feeling of connection with the web
often in a "natural place");
awareness,
and has
or embracing);
(thus,
it involves our
strong power,
finally, it
of life
it is
spiritual
(which may be frightening
retains
a subtle mystery, hidden
signs.
As
shown, these qualities
ence,
apply to a wide range of experi-
from the gentle fleeting moment to
disruptive event.
of our daily lives;
the explosive
The gentler experiences should be part
the more intense ones,
a perhaps
24
joyous
surprise.
For the former,
wandering songtters
respond to the
single
might
music is
roam the
city,
feeling of a place:
flower
in
the pavement
a great
creating
tunes
a small ode
crack,
"carrier":
that
piped to the
a grand march for
the
expansive plaza; a staccato jig mimicking the hurried pace
of the passerby,
Natural
a joyous
surfaces that
efforts might
echo rain
of a camera
sailboats,
fountains
gutter
chime
simple makings,
or,
with some
effect;
distributed
Simple
discretion,
A
and low tide.
small
small
to
children
for puddles
and
rain dance to celebrate
or a sun dance to dispel them.
for sunrise and sunset,
high tide
rustling
sounds, wind tunnels.
planned for that
"rivers" on rainy days.
rainy days,
amplified:
the sun dancing through the
obscura,
or their
city
laughter.
remind us of events we overlook, without
being too directive:
at
to overheard
sounds might be magnified, or
trees,
hole
salute
or for
A special
a harbor city, for
The welcome of strangers to the
city by an activity roster, arranged by mood or the five
senses.
person
Each
of these
to parts
of his
events
can
environment
serve
to "waken"
that can
the
feed his
dreams,
and make him feel.part of these places.
The experience also has possible forms
to the more
a certain
dance,
that
momentous sacred occasions.
place
and moment may be
A
enacted
a formal pageant to lead persons
are
suitable
celebration of
as a
street
to a given site
25
or event;
a
served for
sites
feast
of local
foods
solitary meditation.
might be
and wines;
Transitions
commemorated by simple
everyone participates: 2 3
this
or
a place
re-
of specific
ceremonies
could include one
in
which
hundred
people each breaking ground for a new public building by
digging
a
spade-full
of earth;
or as
a personal written memorial, as
the
site
Community
simple
of a demolished building,
celebrations, such as
many persons
the
as
bringing
"goodbye", to
to be buried
regular
there.
festivals
in
Boston's North End, would enhance territorial distinctions
within the larger city.
The
dispersion of the
engenders
could be
feeling that
a sacred experience
reinforced by leaving something at the
site--a poem, a plant.
Holy water
is
carried from sacred
springs, but does not necessarily carry the power of the
sacred experience with it.
be personal and interior,
Perhaps the
effect must
as Billy Bray's
after his
sion:
As I go along the street,
I lift
up one foot,
and it
seems to say 'Glory'; and I lift
up the
other, and it seems to say 'Amen'; and so they
keep up like that all the time I am walking.24
simply
conver-
26
FOOTNOTES:
SACRED EXPERIENCE
1.
Jean Wahl quoted in Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of
Space, p. 12.
2.
Isaac,
Landscape,
3.
Erich.
"Religion,
Winter 1959-60.
Landscape,
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics
and Space"
of Space, p.
in
17.
4.
Tuan, Yi-Fu.
"Architecture and Human Nature",
Landscape,
Autumn 1963, p. 18.
5.
p.
Allegro, John M.
xii.
The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross,
6.
Cox, Harvey.
7.
Ouspensky, P.D. A New Model of the
8.
Coleridge,
9.
p.
10.
James,
210.
The Feast of Fools, p.
S.T.
"Kubla
Kahn",
William P. Varieties
Categories and sequence
11.
Sartre, Jean-Paul.
Intimacy, p. 78.
Ibid.,
13.
Wordsworth, William.
pp.
Universe, p.
Immortal
Poems,
of Religious
p.
267.
Experience,
Childhood
of a
Leader",
89.
"Ode", Immortal Poems, p.
14.
Camus, Albert.
"The Adulterous Woman", Exile
the Kingdom, pp. 22-25.
pp.
278.
suggested by Kevin Lynch.
"The
12.
67.
262.
and
32-33.
15.
Ibid.,
16.
Eiseley, Loren. The Firmament
17.
Stevens, Wallace.
of Time, pp.
"Sunday Morning",
19-20.
Immortal Poems,
p. 519.
18.
Eliade, Mircea.
19.
Eiseley,
The
Loren. op.
Sacred and Profane, p.
cit.,
pp.
20-21.
58.
27
20.
Noel Bureau quoted by Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of
Space, p. 177.
21.
Marcel Raymond quoted by Gaston Bachelard,
of Space, p. 179.
The Poetics
22.
Jean Caubere quoted by Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of
Space, p. 100.
23.
Kevin Lynch.
24.
James, William. op.cit.,
p.
251.
28
SACRED ASPECTS
On a large
uses to
scale,
express
character
of
scape,
concept
beliefs,
of sacredness
the
overlapping
shape
secular
qualities
the
exist
scale.
in modern cities,
surrounding
land-
Certain
summary is
a recount
their corresponding forms that
in the past.
Many of these
and others
revived, to serve a diversity
cities
varies with the
ambitions.
sacredness on a large
following
scale
of
a given culture
form qualities thread through these many variations
to express
ically
the particular form that
its
its
and its
constant
The
OF CITY FORM
form
are period-
of purposes.
of some ideas
were particular to
The emphasis here will be
form, and its sacred qualities,
or the
and
sacred
on large
context of
the particular sacred place within the larger settlement.
Spatial Separation
Robert
Redfield describes precivilized
that in which "almost
to have
its
created as
some
mony with these
as
sacred by
as
any aspect of nature was thought
indwelling, awe-compelling
and stories, wall
folk society
force." 1
Chants
scratchings and rough stone menhirs
of man's earliest
"magic"
forces.
attempts to
were
create har-
Some places were set off
intricate sacred rituals
in which
chosen places
29
and objects were revealed as manifestations
and came
alive.
The
differentiation of the inside
outside may have begun
from the unfamiliar:
as the separation of the
lithic
walls.
Within
emerged.
over 8000 years
Catal Huyuk had
outside and inside continues
of the Assyrians,
were
ago)
are sharply
clearly differentiated
intermixed with the housing:
sacred centers were formed inside.
libbi
earliest neo-
surrounding territory by continuous
shrines with altars and idols,
city,
The
the boundary, Jericho had a stone tower,
then 28 feet high;
bidden inner
familiar
in Palestine and Catal Huyuk
Jericho
in Anatolia (both built
separated from the
from the
surround.
formal elements
cities such as
sacred
the tilled land from the untilled,
the hunting route from the
Later, more
of the
The dichotomy between
in the double walled cities
including Babylon, where both the
for-
city, or kirhu, and the surrounding center
ali,
were enclosed by sturdy walls
"whose gates
named according to the will of the god of gates." 2
In addition to spatial
sacredness
separation, other
aspects of
found in a particular site (listed in the
following chapter) applied to
the city as well:
the
natural qualities of the land, the response to certain
land "spirits",
and the earth or sky
focus.
At
the larger
30
scale
of the
city, the
sacred and "profane" functions- of
these features were often intermixed (as
were
at
the local
Geomorphism:
they
sometimes
site).
The dominance of
strong,
natural land features
characterizes the geomorphic trend in human settlements.
Although not uniquely religious
complemented well
in character,
the sensitivity to nature that was part
of many early spiritual beliefs.
towns
geomorphism
The
and market towns, built on this
accumulation, suggest
earliest village
system of organic
a plan dramatically, perhaps
necessarily, bound to the pattern of the larger landscape-in accord with it,
barriers.
early
and protected where necessary by natural
The need for
citadels:
built
fortification was
in high places,
evidenced in the
and accessible
only
to the intentional visitor, they also provided ideal
religious sites
settlement
is
in many respects.
An example of geomorphic
found in Machu Picchu
in Peru, which rises
ritually up the mountain peak over five terraces to the
sacred plaza of the
the Inca tied the
intihuatana,(the stone pillar to which
sun
each winter
shining on the maize crop).
by a path that winds
This
through the
solstice to
sacred pillar
is
approached
city, up ascending
terraces, with views of both natural rock
the dwellings
guarantee its
formations
nested within the mountainside.
and
31
Geomorphic
design is
Indian pueblo
like
of
still evident
settlements,
communes in our
architects,
such
today in American
in the recent
revival of village-
country, and in the work of a number
as Frank Lloyd Wright
Paul Horgan describes the pueblo
and Richard Neutra.
towns of ancient
New
Mexico:
The Pueblo town looked like a land form
directly created by the forces that made
hills and arroyos and deserts...the dazzling
openness all about...with its ageless open
secrets of solitude, sunlight and impassive
land... Everything in the landscape was
sacred, whether the forms of nature or those
made by people--altars, shrines, and the very
towns which were like earth arisen into wall,
terrace, light and shadow, encloSing and
expressing organized human life.
FenE-Shui
A later design idea, based on abstracted principles
the
landscape,
is akin to geomorphism in its
to landscape influences,
realized form.
Peking, the
but departs
search
for a
sensitivity
sharply from it
In many ancient Chinese
about
cities,
in its
including
favorable location followed the
dictates of Feng-Shui, the
Lore
of Wind and Water.
Feng-
Shui determined the place in which the planned city, as well
as
its palaces,
houses,
tombs,
etc.,
possible access to the beneficent
scape,
would have
influences of the land-
and be best protected from its
system was a complex one,
the freest
involving
evil influences.
an early scientific
The
32
charting of oracles
features
in conjunction with the particular
of each landscape.
of opposites
Feng-Shui
combined the pairing
(the yin/yang doctrine) with temporal pro-
gression based on the cycles of the
seasons
and directional
orientation.
The philosophic basis
for site location extended to minute
detailing of the settlements
as well as the
customs of the
Chinese people:
Basic to the entire Feng-Shui is the conviction that man is an infinitesimal
fragment of nature, and that he must seek
to understand the forces around him in
order that they, in their turn, will
befriend
him and include him in the
cosmic process...A recognition of unity
between spirit and nature is held to be
the ultimate goal of wisdom.
Feng-Shui,
that
was
example,
says Otto Fischer, sometimes resulted in siting
odds with a logical
at
a
provident
swampy hollow might be
to Feng-Shui,
or
one
in
which
arrangement:
an ideal
tillable
site
for
according
land was
at
a
minimum.
Earth and Sky Gods
The earliest deity of which we have archaeological evidence
was the Mother goddess, manifest
more permanent
the
stone.
Tombs
as
earth, in soil and the
and caves were
dead returned to the womb of the earth.
sacred places:
Stone and
33
divinett .
rock symbolized "the eternal and the
Cles-Reden writes
S.
von
of the importance of' stone to the
ancient
Cult of the Dead in building tombs and monuments to harbor
"the numinous quality that was felt to reside
in (the dead)...Tombs thus became the center
of a cult in which the close community of a
clan or tribe continued beyond the dead." 5
This
preoccupation recurs
temple
in pre-dynastic Egypt,
city of the pharaoh Zoser at
habited "Town of the Dead"
on earth
The unin-
is dominated by the
pyramid, a divine tomb for Zoser.
focussed the views
Sakkara.
in the
Early Greek
first
cities often
leading to and from their sacred temples
forms, particularly distant mountains.
The sky was
the
sacred focus
and possibly the focus
for early sun-worshipping cults,
as well later,
for those with more
abstract beliefs in which:
The divine is outside of nature, no site is
intrinsically any holier than another, and
sites are hallowed by an historical incident.
Vincent Scully suggests that
the form of the particular
landscape may have guided the
orientation.
He cites the
scape.
in the
The distant
shelters
focus
land, toward the cleft
of an earth or
sky
southern Mediterranean tradition,
during the 2nd millenium B.C.,
tombs built
choice
of earth sanctuaries
and hollows
of the
and
Cretan land-
for Cretan palaces was to the
in the horned mountain;
contemporary
34
cultures
farther north, in the English downs, who had
similar megalithic structural methods,
upward to
the
sky,
focussed either
or to a distant empty horizon:
Certainly the English downs form a landscape which celebrates the power of the
sky, and they create the ideal setting
for religious monuments, which unlike
those of Crete, seem intended to invoke
not only the earth but the heavens...
The earth seems to arch up gently, wholly
open to the sky... and the sacred places
of Stonehenge, Woodhenge, and Avebury's
Sanctuary are set upon the mounded platforms of higher land.7
The mounds are not always high; the
depend on the
feelings
orientation to the
of
The
created
heavenly focus may
by other
features:
sun or certain stars,
an
the open expanse
land around it.
Concentric City
The Sumerians,
3500 B.C.,
arriving in the Mesopotamian delta about
brought an aptitude
invented writing, and built
for trade
concentric
and shipbuilding,
towns.
Lewis Mumford
says:
Every feature of the early city revealed
the belief that man was created for no
other purpose than to magnify and serve
his gods.
That was the city's
ultimate
reason for being. 8
Perhaps.
temenos,
But
the sacred precinct of the temple
served man as well:
functions were
directed there
site,
the
both economic and religious
by the priests.
The dwellings
35
clustered below, around the base of the
ziggurat supporting
the
temple; both were surrounded by open land.
the
spatial
sacred
The
focus
was
on the temple,
is
as
clear
the
site.
concentric
city
millenium B.C.,
who
of the city
It
was
later
revived
by the Hittites,
in
the
first
the Elamites and others,
added a circular wall outside the fortification wall,
thus creating
Cincirli
built
a second, outer focus.
(a Hittite
in a perfect
odds--suggests
Feng-Shui
citadel
In the
in Anatolia),
case of
the outer wall--
circle against tremendous
topographical
a cosmological significance that,
in China,
like
superseded the geographical sense of
the place.
A variation
form of
of the
17th
century
and France--perhaps
in the palace
circular
designs
city
found in the stellar
for cities
in
Germany,
Italy,
most dramatically achieved at Versailles
of the "Sun King".
star-shaped city
is
The precedent
(which was more often an ideal
for the
than a
reality) may have been circular cities with dissecting
radials,
Persia.
such as Khwarizm (U.S.S.R,),
Baghdad, and Gur in
36
Terraces and Processional Paths:
Sumerian
cities are found again
Hellenic
cities,
the
These features
in pre-dynastic Egypt,
in Peking, in Versailles,
modern elevated plazas
of our cities.
terraced procession to T'ai-ho Tien
Harmony) was designed to
halls before
paths
the
and again in
In Peking,
Giza
interspersed with two great
final one.9
and Cheops
the
and increase
By contrast
the processional
of early Egyptian pharaohs, as man-gods,
such as
in
(the Hall of Supreme
"arrest movement
anticipation" by wide vistas
of early
in towns
were oriented. by geometric
cal-
culation to the North Star.
Numerology:
certain
Many cultures
numbers
have used the
as part of their
sacred value of
design plans.
The
Chinese employed intricate number systems in all aspects
of
design.
Sumerian-Babylonian numerology rested on 6
"the divisible
female number",
and on its male counterpart
7, "indivisible, unattached to other figures."10
long been
a sacred number,
traditions.
in earlier as well as
In design, numbers
3 has
in Christian
affected the division of
cities,
the height of buildings,
and their hierarchical
order.
The
everywhere evident in
sacred Egyptian 4 is
their pyramids and courts and rectilinear cities
form had, of course,
its practical counterparts).
(which
37
In general, the
seems
use of the larger
to have been more strongly
geomorphic settlements.
the
sky gods,
city landscape as
supported in the
As history progresses,
holy
chthonic,
geometry,
and intellectual concepts intervene:
The divine is
outside of nature, no site
is
intrinsically any holier than another, and
the sites
are hallowed by an historical
incident.l1
The single
of the
concentration of the
concentric
city, a focus
solid walls, would seem to have
surrounding city.
temple;
of the
a strong impact
on the
find the moneychangers
they seem to be absent.
in the
other functions at
city
from the
a larger
Perhaps the qualities
in the particular
scale:
outside world and the
the
pervasive,
identity.
rituals
intellectual
abstract now.
And the
suggest
site
separation
central
may have provided its gods with a stronger,but
elaborate
center
often strengthened by
serve to reinforce sacredness
serve
in the
and, somehow, though the gods are virtually
"cornered",
that
But we
sacred site
focus
less
awesome monuments and the
a culture
at play with its
abilities, whose spiritual needs are more
38
Implications
of City Form
In our urban environments today, qualities of the two form
types
discussed above, geomorphic and concentric, might
each be
adapted for particular purposes.
would seem most
quality
of the
applicable to supporting the
"daily" environment,
reminder of the
natural landscape
Francisco, California
examples
for
Geomorphic
of this
giving
quality.
Perhaps because
intense changes
periodic mysterious
and for the
water
(giving the
its
feeling one
is
at
and
to project
a
aura of sacredness
is
the adobe buildings are
of the earth
from which they rise.
them still dirt, twist impossibly
surrounded by
of the world).
enhanced in the
Fault.
a direct extension
The
for
roads, many of
cars,
small startling cul-de-sacs.
height limitation
hills, which
the edge
In Santa Fe,
in
of this,
fog; for the lushness of its vegetation;
apocalyptic threat posed by the San Andreas
themselves
San
in vista--shrouded in a
island quality of being alaost
And perhaps
forms.
of its own.
San Francisco is noted for its forty steep
offer constant,
a constant
New Mexico are two
other reasons as well, each city seems
strong "spirit"
spiritual
rhythms and
and Santa Fe,
form
and lose
Its
(recently changed, I believe)
six-story
invites
39
the
setting sun to soak
and the Sangre
its landscape with magic
de Cristo mountains
colors,
are visible from many
parts of town.
The concentric form might offer
intense sacred experience (as
in
the
following chapter):
him toward its
"core".
suggested
the
detaches the person from the
a prototype
spatial
in "form concepts"
sense
As a tower-city
a concentric city
being built near Pondicherry,
purpose
for 50,000
one
that
concept, the image
Its
But,
people, is now
India with the
of being a Sacred City.
from the boundary
is
"outside" world, and pulls
would seem inappropriate to our day and age.
Auroville,
for the single,
express
avenues curve
(a hundred-meter-wide
in arcs
canal) to the
center:
None of the streets or avenues will be straight-each will meander among private single-story
houses and wide open spaces.
Fountains and
squares will surprise the visitor around each
curve.
The overall effect, Auroville's
designers hope, will be one of peace and
tranquility--a never-ending succession of
discoveries and perspectives.
On the innermost part of the ring, a Garden
of Unity will be found encircling a lake whose
running waters will supply Auroville's canals,
fountains and paddy fields.
Here, it is
believed, will be the core around which the
rings are gravitating in wave-like motions,
like Yin and Yang of Eastern Spiritualism. 1 2
Here, the use of curving arcs
as
connecting
visually deposited in a central garden
the
singular focus the tower city has.
avenues,
and lake,
softens
Or, a spiral
city
40
might be
designed with the
accessible
On as large
sacred garden in the center
to only those who pursue
a scale
as the city, though,
effective attention might be that
of spatial rhythms throughout
ture,
"pooling" into
locations--but not a
it.
the most
given to the interplay
the city--a pervasive tex-
concentrated sanctuaries,
"sacred city" as
such.
or event
41
FOOTNOTES:
SACRED ASPECTS OF CITY FORM
1.
Redfield, Robert. The
2.
Moholy-Nagy, Sybil. The Matrix of Man, p.
Little
Community, pp.
22-23.
96.
3.
Horgan, Paul.
"Place, Form, and Prayer", Landscape,
Winter 1953-54, pp. 8-9.
4.
Fischer, Otto.
Spring 1955, p. 27.
5.
p.
Cles-Reden, S.
11.
"Landscape as Symbol", Landscape,
von.
The Realm of the
6.
Isaac, Erich.
"Religion, Landscape,
Landscape, Winter 1959-60, p. 17.
7.
p.
Scully,
23.
Vincent.
Great Goddess,
and Space",
The Earth, the Temple and the Gods,
8.
Mumford, Lewis, quoted by Sybil Moholy-Nagy in
The Matrix of Man, p. 39.
9.
Moholy-Nagy, Sbyil. op.
10.
Ibid.,
p.
11.
Isaac,
Erich.
cit.,
p.
53.
93.
12.
Kaiser News,
Oakland, California.
op.
cit.
"Markets of Change"
Series,
# 2,
1970,
42
SACRED PLACE
Some
qualities of sacred places remain very much the same
over time and across cultures.
occur, of course,
the
Countless
elaborations
and the particular beliefs
sacred place vary
immensely.
seems to retain a being of
Still, the
its own.
attached to
sacred place
Carl Jung has said,
And every soil has its secret, of which we
carry an unconscious image in our souls;
a relationship of spirit to body and of
body to earth. 1
Rilke writes
of inner and outside
space,
and their
relation-
ship:
Space, outside ourselves, invades and ravishes things:
If you want to achieve the existence of a tree,
Invest it with inner space, this space
That has its
being in you....2
He distinguishes the
we
can feel; the
space we
can measure
objective description of space
subjective
experience of it.
from Rilke
and use the term outside
space,
from the space
and inner space
For this
study, I will borrow
space for objective
for subjective space.
space have sacred implications.
from the
Both kinds of
Jorge Luis Borges
has
said:
"There is an hour in the afternoon when the
plain
is
about to say something." 3
In the
sacred place, we can experience
closer to it.
that voice, or
Here the inner and outside spaces
come
overlap,
43
and begin to merge:
perhaps
"It
inseparable from the
is not
being
the place becomes less
a question
experience we have of it:
of observing, but of experiencing
in its immediacy. ,4
Inner Space:
I would characterize this place-experience
as having certain life qualities,
space takes
and
in which one's
on a special character,
finds a counterpart
what happens
in the
comes
of its hiding,
outside world.
for ourselves, with our
place, what was
previously "hear-say".
selves
closer
a
out
inner
Perhaps
in such a direct and personal experience is
that we create
their
separable, or
little
the
sto
center
awareness
of the
We experience our-
of things,
perhaps
to
sources.
Many writers have tried to
terizes
the
sacred event as
Paul Klee says
processed it
Huyghe
center,
say.s
at
describe this:
Eliade
the re-creation of the world.
"the artist has gone beyond the visible, has
within himself, buried it in him."5
of Rouault's -art:
the
charac-
"We must
very heart of the
whole thing derives its
source
start
Rene
from the
circle from where the
and meaning:
and here we
come back again to that forgotten outcast word, the soul." 6
44
The
simple experience has reverberations
One
may feel that
or he may
at
of these
a certain moment he saw a tree grow;
feel the inner need for
sun he
shares with that
flower; he may sense a distant echo
in the
brook.
a conscious
The place-experience may be
in some earlier self-imposed attempts at
tried to understand what
with vague
working up to an entire landscape.
became
experiences,
The place
circular stillness,
sacred place will reinforce
The
It
serves as an
and the experience
overlap:
The
that
a mysterious
The place beckons
he
shares with
power that expands
and eludes,
in the
and
becomes magic.
of the
it.
qualities of sacred experience
find counterparts
in many
a certain centering feeling--a
The person begins to understand the "aliveness"
place
for obscure
clear and precise, or mysterious and
ways the place reinforces
returns.
I
illusions of
and once,
and give them space.
echo, which may be
obscure.
concentration,
a button.)
Sacred Place and Experience:
these
attempt:
(I believe I almost
succeeded at the level of pebbleness,
I
"talking" of a
it would be like to be a stone,
by incorporating stone-ness,
reasons,
feelings.
(listed previously)
sacred place.
sharp break from routine is
For example, the
echoed in the spatial differ-
entiation of the sacred site.
Its
heightened sensory
45
awareness
and
is
supported by the
strong qualities
darkness, and other rich cues:
a certain
stillness.
The
such as
feeling of
of light
fragrance,
subtle mystery may be
accentuated by a labyrinthine approach, selective darkness,
sometimes by danger;
the
feeling of power, by the increasing
intensity, of the access and entry.
These
qualities of place
are discussed in more detail below.
The Outside World:
physical world are
Although these
stitute
its
Certain ideas
and qualities
found repeatedly in the
characteristics do
not,
sacredness, they provide
of the
sacred place.
in themselves
con-
the context for it,
and serve to deepen its meaning.
In the
site
following pages,
selection;
I will describe:
some spatial
concepts that
differentiate the sacred place;
sacredness that
some methods of
serve to
general qualities
are found in the physical world; natural
and some human modifi-
elements
associated with sacredness,
cations,
including modern urban possibilities.
The examples
given generally refer to historical planned sites,
usually
of
followed by modern day counterparts.
and are
46
Site
Selection
Theo
Crosby has
said,
"There
is
a popular
knowledge
based
on things
seen, and an esoteric knowledge based on things
known."I
("Known"
understanding.)
always
sense
The location
involved the
The physical
force
in the
of a sacred site has
and spatial features
place.
Early sacred sites,
or menhirs,
definition, as
in the
sky regions,
probably
rein-
mystery of a
in which the man-con-
consisted mostly of simple
or relied on strong natural forms
sacred
skills were refined, and the
the
of a sacred site
the numinous
structed elements were simple,
markings
shared intuitive
invocation of both kinds of knowledge.
the "known" qualities,
certain
of a
cave.
Later,
for
as building
land gods slipped away into
site selection came to have
with finding an earth-contained holiness,
less to do
and the sky gods
were periodically "consulted" by oracle and divination
for their opinion on the most auspicious
The
documents of sacred site
selection are
legends,
and
Rome was
sited where Romulus and Remus
so metaphorical.
site.
Thus,
often myths and
according to legend,
escaped from the
river into which their wicked great-uncle Amulius
thrown them;
Bethel was
Heavenly Ladder.
had
constructed where Jacob saw the
47
The presence of a distinctive
form, spatial isolation,
and approximation to an ideal
form
of every early Greek
documented the location
Scully has
of a horned or
selection as well.
site
for
criteria, conscious or not,
probably served as
cleft mountain.
temple
in sight
On the
other hand, Fitzroy Raglan has
of sometimes
anything to
curious rituals
god's favor for
certain animals,
if
that seem to have little,
The
do with the actual landscape features.
pursuit of the
following
collected a number
a site often involved
usually cows,
until they lay
down or a certain time had elapsed; the Bechuana sew the
eyes
of a bullock together and build a village on the
where it
is
found after
certain offerings
potentially
indicate
it
(such as rice,
favorable
approval
four days.
either
Other cultures leave
flour, or
by taking
fire)
there
and build
site,
site
the
if
in a
the
gods
or leaving
offering
undisturbed (probably an unfailing event!).
A Yugoslav
if
farmer who wishes to build rolls a cake down the hill:
it
lands
places,
face-down, the hill spirit
sacrifices
approves. 9
In other
are made to invoke the favor of a god to
a pre-selected site.
Whatever the ritual, its purpose
qualities of a site,
objective means.
those not
Probably
some
is to uncover the
inner
visible or measurable by
combination
of ritual
and
48
physical promise
Possibly, the
the
determine the location of most places.
oracular context became more
"realm of sacredness" expanded to
gods,
and as
became more
the
include the
sacred cultural symbols
complex.
Or, the
important as
(icons,
sky
etc.)
land itself may have begun
to lose the particular energy and balance which demonstrated
its regenerative powers.
This is
mostly constructed environment,
Spatial
In The
risk in any
including the
city today.
Concepts
Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade
sacredness
ting
an inherent
characterizes
for early religious man in terms of differentia-
some of his
spaces:
For religious man, space is not homogeneous;
he experiences interruptions, breaks in it;
some parts of space are qualitatively different
from others.
The Lord says to Moses, "Draw not
nigh hither; put off thy shoes from off thyfeet, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy ground." (Exodus 3:5)
There is, then, a
sacred space, and hence a strong significant space;
there are other spaces that are not sacred and
so are with 8 ut structure or consistency,
amorphous.
Wherever we
they usually
may be
find evidence of sacred places,
constitute a break
from "ordinary
find that
space".
They
separated from the surrounding territory in several
ways:
by
we
a
central
a carefully
focus;
drawn boundary;
49
a planned access, with a special entry;
a change
in
spatial
feeling;and
the uniqueness of the place.
Some
set
or all
of these
qualities
in a place will serve to
it apart, permanently or momentarily; this
separation may be
site which
further emphasized by
suggest the place
as a
spatial
features
at the
"microcosm" of the uni-
verse.
Central
focus:
The focal point
of a
sacred place may be
a shrine or temple, an altar or tomb,
or a
symbolic marking
simple as
point is
a flower.
such as
cept that
centers" are
or pole.
his
"sacred
Sometimes
features outside
The focus
in sight of one
may mark,
an
another.
Eliade calls
For example, the
is
the place,
for its
"inner space"
con-
"world
which may be
this the axis mundi,
a
the place
where man can communicate with
Kamilaroi prepare a special
ground" for their initiation rites,
of which they place
it
Many rituals take
central vertical axis,
earth and sky connect,
gods.
entry, often
not contradicted even when several
place around some
where
from the
"the center of the world,"
is
Or it may be as
or whole to the uninitiated.
or to the sun or a star.
adherents,
or totem,
In the planned sacred site the focal
oriented to visible landscape
tree
a stone.
generally at some remove
tabu in part
a monument
a pole 9 feet high
in the center
"with a bunch of
50
emu's
feathers tied on the
mountains
In
some villages, a blue stone
2
Sacred buildings may serve
as
this central
a hole in the top, to let the
In addition to the vertical axis
enter.
sacred building, there is
temples
is found in many
The Navajo Indians
These central elements
rituals.
tation point,
with the
gods
and as
sand paintings in
certain healing
function both as an orien-
in the place,
its
can organize
even the world, as in Mecca.
is the town plaza, as
places
and
some of the kivas.
Sacred central points
In the 'city today, centers are
especially
for
are present
forces he feels
city,
center,
the place in which man communicates
or spirits or magic.
a whole
spirits
at the
as well as
set apart
sky
initiated may enter.
construct elaborate
the center of a circle
and
an inner sanctum of
often
concentrated holiness, which only the
This
focus,
of many American
The kivas
of them reinforce it.
Indians have
the
cultures,
is said to mark the Navel of the
in the center of town
parts
For other
are believed to be "the pillar supporting and
linking heavr.. and carth."
Earth. 1
top."11
small
ones,
might be found:
often less
in Santa Fe,
obvious.
New Mexico.
Parks,
may center a neighborhood.
the site
of the
There
Other
earliest building,
51
around which the town grew.
of its
intense prosaic
it
sacred potential.
has
serve, with
I eliminate the CBD because
functions,
Certain
landmarks
could certainly
Coit Tower in San Francisco,
The boundary may be
a path, a wall,
or it may be delineated by corner posts.
we
find
even Washington Monument.
Boundary:
serve
might
some attention, as potentially sacred places:
Bunker Hill Monument in Boston,
perhaps
but others
or a moat;
The wall
as a defining element for the sacred place;
can
sometimes
find walls within walls, marking off successive concen-
trations
of sacredness,
as
in Plato's Atlantis.
of the boundary is to separate the
and perhaps
to
concentrate the
The function
sacred from the profane
sacredness within.
The
ancient Etruscans, when founding a city, ploughed around
the
site with a bull and a cow and later built a wall there. 1
In some Kenyan tribes,
the blood and the
of an auspicious
of the protective
the shaman kills a goat
and
"sprinkles
contents of the stomach round the boundary"
site.
circle.
In witchcraft, we
find the tracing
Sometimes the boundary is
secrated by the sacrifice of a man or
animal.
con-
In Tahiti
every pillar of a sacred house was built over the body of
a man;l5
for other cultures the blood of a fowl or
substituted for the human sacrifice.
pertained to the axis mundi,
"Sacrifices"
animal
also
cited above, and the threshold,
which will be discussed below.
52-
In the
city today, boundaries are plentiful.
Of particular
interest in terms of sacredness might be those
no particular
the
of
function:
the ring of trees
in a city park,
buildings that surround an unused lot,
a pool
of sunlight
Planned Access:
at a certain
Labyrinths
that serve
or the edges
time during
and winding paths
the
are
day.
found
again and again in myths and legends.
Some sacred sites
are located
a difficult one.
Decorated
almost
caves
in
France
E.O. James
as
often
in
the"dark,
of damp limestone mountains,
tortuous" path.16
are indirect
accidental:
access.
Ritual
and often
it
initiation.
serve to reinforce the
sites
entry paths
This
circular.
attain the
for the sacred encounter.
is the rite of
Mountain
present
to Greek
contortion
reflects the physical and spiritual
effort that must be expended to
prepare
are
cites the cave at Niaux which can be reached only
similarly difficult
is not
is
much as half a mile from the entrance."
"dangerous,
temples
and Spain
inaccessible recesses
sometimes
by a
so that the only access
Its
sacred, to
ritual counterpart
The winding access may also
central focus,
as
in
early temples
in both Japan and Greece which afforded tantalizing and
varied perspectives of the sacred structure as
it.
one
approached
53
The access
in the city
qualities,
in the Financial District of Boston, in dark
alleys
that
open
(usually by
terms
today may be found, in its labyrinthine
to a wide vista,
accident).
or that
The most
fall
effective
of sacredness, may be the least
into
access,
obvious one:
a park
in
a tunnel
created by a low overhang of greenery, an unused culvert,
the indirect path along a river.
odorous descent into the subway,
journey
along adjacent
The Entry:
It
could be the
or a "stepping
dark,
stone"
rooftops.
"Doorways", Carter Wheelock
states,"
are always
symbolic of the passage to another state or identity or
world." 1 7
as
The threshold, the
this transition point.
door, and the gate all serve
Eliade
cites many
recur in myths and sagas to express the
difficulties
the
barrier',
the
eagle's beak."18
'the active
The Japanese Tea House is
are
expressed as
Lord Raglan notes that
sacred "not
door',
door made of the two halves
low door, which the visitor must
Initiation rites
"gates
in the
'two razor-edged restless mountains',
'the two clashing icebergs',
ing
insurmountable
of entering the Sacred World:
shape of jaws,
images that
the access
stoop to
"an
of the
entered by a
enter.
opening of doors".
to the holy place is
only because it leads to the
divine being but is itself the
'the revolv-
dwelling of a
abode of divine beings."19
54
Doorways have their own guardian deities.
the threshold must
not be
touched.
For the Hindus the
threshold marks the division between
and the
dess
is
spirits within".
of wealth
It
is
Often therefore,
"the spirits without
the abode of Lakshmi,
and good luck, and anyone who
sits there
likely to be afflicted with haemorrhoids." 2 0
water
spilt
on the threshold will anger
The doorway is the break
god-
In Samoa,
its guardian deity. 2 1
in the boundary that
separates the
sacred from the profane.
The Etruscans, when ploughing
this boundary are
lift their plows
the
future
gates
said to
or
in concept
is carrying the bride over the threshold.
Forecourts
at
least, today,
Holy water
found at the entry to a sacred place,
church.
of
doorways.
A threshold ritual that exists,
often
at the sites
and terraces may serve
as
is
in a Catholic
as the transition
between the approach and the focus of the sacred place.
wealth
of ornament may
of the door.
It
further emphasize the importance
may be heavy;
special occasions.
or
locked, except
The "holy of holies"
for
in the tabernacle
at Jerusalem was sealed by a heavy curtain, which is
said
to have torn when Christ died.
Today, the
gate.
"key to the city"
Entries,
A
is
a more common idea than a
though, wherever they occur, may have
55
special
characteristics that
unusual
size, whether large
mysterious
sound qualities,
are pertinent
or small; weight;
the
certain
such as creaking or rattling;
particularly "blank" doors that give no
behind them;
to sacredness:
cue of what
lies
a waterfall, from an overhanging ledge; or,
crack in a wall.
All of these kinds
of entries may
serve to both announce and guard the place beyond.
A Change
in Spatial Feeling:
set
off by a peculiar spatial
the
surrounding area,
probably used to
respectively.
The
sacred place
often
form, or one different
from
as in both caves and mountains,
communicate with earth gods and sky
Sacred structures often effect this
by ascending platforms or terraces;
Great
is
the
gods
change
access to the
Hall of Harmony in Peking, 'though not
steep,
is said
to have been planned to give the
impression of ascent.
In the
feeling is
tive
city, a change in spatial
of a change in function,as
mercial.
within
The
often indica-
from residential to com-
sacred potential might be more likely found
a particular site, where the change
in a cluster of closely-spaced buildings
spacious neighborhood;
in the hill crevice
abrupt,
as
in a generally
or where the change
in a park.
is
is
The feeling of
gentle,
spatial
change may be supported by sound qualities, such as
a
as
56
change
from clatter to stillness.
Uniqueness
of Site:
A sacred grove may have
kind of tree than the
surrounding ones;
more elaborate than the houses men
differ, which
is reflected in
often sacred sites:
ture
and force
its
the water
scrapers,
live in,
form.
is both
and its
Hot
functions
springs
are
in tempera-
from other water.
such as the
or the
trim setting.
the temple
in them differs
In the city, one should look for
functions,
a different
oddities, with indeterminate
small wood building flanked by
place that
Dominant
sky-
seems wild and overgrown in a
geographic
characteristics,
such
as a harbor, or startling vistas may offer special possibilities
for sacredness.
The Microcosm:
All of these qualities help to part the
chosen site from the outside world.
another world is
found, often
of the universe".
built
In Egypt,
in the image
for
of "microcosm
example, temples were
in the semblance of the world, with the floor
earth and the roof as the
canopy over the
sky.
ocean. "22
In Assyrian temples
deity's throne was
there was a large tank in the
cosmic
Within the boundaries,
The
called
forecourt
'heaven',
as the
"the
and
symbolizing the
sacred place becomes the "divine
57
model",
In
our
and so incorruptible.
cities,
we may
find
examples
or the explanation of cosmic
But these
are lacking the
of the "token"
cycles in the
tree,
science museum.
integrated concept of the micro-
cosm.
Qualities
of Sacredness
Permanence
and Impermanence:
and his building skills, the
the
continuation
the
permanence
Impermanent
of their
of the
each ceremony.
H.R.E.
Davidson,
secret
in
arts developed,
sites became monumental,
sanctity
structures
seen as
which
sites are also found:
marking sacred ground,
a
As man's
dependent
documented
on
them.
Navajo sand paintings,
are destroyed, then rebuilt for
In aboriginal Scandinavia, according to
"ritual
special
paintings
shelter,
had to be produced
and destroyed
in
or hidden when
the special rite for which they were made was
Initiation
and
completed." 2
rites are often marked by new ground consecra-
tion ceremonies for each occasion.
Japan
involve. setting
light
framework.
up a temporary
sites
examples.)
repetition
in
sacred place with a
(I have not been able
whether the same
This
Some Shinto rites
to find evidence
are used each time in these
and renewal of
the sacredness
3
58
of a given setting suggest the powerful force of regeneration
as
an attribute of sacredness, and reflect certain cosmic
rhythms that demonstrate
as
do the
tides,
this idea:
and the seasons.
the connection with these cosmic
Light
and shadow emphasize
The
sacredness,
sacredness:
its elusiveness,
approach to
place, evidencing the
a sacred place
and Stillness:
sacred places,
The
it
suggests
all symbolize
Sensory
escape
It is
Qualities:
Its
The
often dark,
and
sunlight may come
center of the
circle
and as a sacred
Buddhist Yin-Yang symbol).
stillness
or,
is
"communication" with the
eternity, wholeness, purity.
ness
the
the unseen and hidden.
through an overhead opening in the
the
light has
Creation, and the
inner sanctum may be dark, tabu;
Roundness
sacred effort insures
Darkness and shadow portray the mystery of
labyrinthine
the
and goes,
rhythms.
connotation of "giving life", the
from Chaos.
the sun comes
sacred
god.
symbolizes unity,
found repeatedly in
symbol (for example, the
lack of beginning and end,
in enclosure,
and its
centered-
sacredness.
The
involvement
of the person in the
sacred place may be fostered by sensory qualities that
denote either purity or sensuality, or both.
W1
mpg, W."g-M
IN!"
Rich incense
59
odors,
inviting or forbidding textures,
as nectar,
fruits or honeysuckle),
sacred foods
strange
sounds
(such
(the
cottonwood, sacred to some American Indians--called the
Talking Tree;
bells and chants
create a unique
its
and drumming sounds)--all
atmosphere that gives
the
sacred place
special character.
Mystery:
This
sacred site.
ambiguity,
is perhaps
the essential quality
The mystery may be
in narrow passages,
exposure of
a hot
desert
for a true
found in shadow and
or in the unexplainable
sun.
It may be
accompanied by a
sense of strong power,
and by a sense of danger, or tabu.
A place that is highly
"legible"
no
aspects,
secrets, will probably not be sacred:
don't belong
in
All of these
qualities
serve
that has
sacred places
guidebooks.
are found in the city, and perhaps
as the basic "spiritual
can work.
final
in all
clay" with which the
designer
They will be discussed in more detail in the
chapter.
Natural Elements
Certain natural
sacredness
values,
elements have been associated with
since ancient times.
variously seen as
They have
associative
inherent or representative,
60
which
suggest
sacredness; they often evoke the
qualities mentioned above.
When combined or
set
is
apart, their sacredness
reverberations
Natural
may occur to
elements
sacredness
that
are
sacred
elaborated or
concentrated, and subtle
deepen
and expand
particularly
its
evocative
meaning.
of
include:
Stone--which express
permanence, power, and constancy;
Sun--the life-giving force;
Water--"the preformal modality of all
having no form itself, the source
all possibilities:
the
fons
Desert--the unknown, the
cosmic matter,"
of all forms,
containing
et origio;
endless horizon, the tabula
rasa;
Tree--life, youth,
these,
endless
immortality, wisdom:
in all of
regeneration;
Cave--secret retreat,
return to the source;
Mountain--permanence;
awe; the pillar to heaven.
The ideas
expressed by these
elements become
even more
forceful when they are combined or differentiated.
For
example, the
sacred grove may enhance the power of the
sacred tree,
so long as the grove
Sacred groves are found
itself is differentiated.
in Nigeria, Greece,
in Ghana many sacred groves were
and Japan;
lost with the
61
construction of the Volta Dam,
disorienting those who
depended on them as much as the loss
The
grove
also has
tioned above,
of their homes.24
several of the spatial qualities men-
including centeredness
and, usually,
a clear
boundary.
In addition to the sacred grove,
combine many ideas that
nearness
thin air,
Hilltop
reinforce
to the sun and sky,
to reach it,
the
the sacred mountain may
its sacredness:
the special effort necessary
central peak;
its remoteness and the
in addition, contribute to
sanctuaries are
its
a sense of purity.
found in the mountain worship of
many peoples; examples include the five sacred mountains
(Wu-chen) in
ancient
Sinai,
Olympus
the
China; Kanchinjunga in Tibet; Sumeru in
India; Alburz or Hara Berezaiti
Hebo, Hor, and Zion from the Old Testament;
in Greece.25
above examples,
to be a
According to
and
Ichiro Hori, who cites
each of these mountains was believed
"cosmic mountain", the Center of the World.
sacrifices
Here,
and prayers were offered and divine revelations
and oracles received;
tradition, the
revolve
in ancient Persia;
towers were built.
sun, moon, and planets
around Mount
Sumeru.26
constructed, in the form of the
Later,
In the Buddhist
are believed to
"mountains"
ziggurat
are
and the pyramid.
62
The sacred spring,
erupts
often found at
from the deepest recesses
sites of hot
of the
springs,
earth,
displacing
or dissolving all in its path:
And from this chasm in ceaseless turmoil seething
As though the earth in thick, fast pants were
breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift, half-intermitted bursts
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail...
And mid these dancing rocks, at now and ever,
It flung up momently the sacred river. 2 7
A
far cry
addition,
from the plaza fountain in today's city!
we
find the Chinese
the veins of the earth".
"fumes
from the earth",
Human Modifications:
idea
of water
as
"blood in
Along a similar line,
causing
Ancient
In
Delphic
sacred intoxication.
and Modern
"From the height of flat-roofed Tibetan
monastaries an exquisite mystery descends,
down along roads padded with sand to the
very edge of the sea; there it spreads
itself out in numberless, extravagant
temples, studded with trembling bells."
Andre Malraux28
Many
"human"
the early
ziggurat
touches
are seen in
stone menhirs, the
the
examples
cave markings,
given above:
and later the
and temple evidence man's participation in the
creation of his sacred world.
The
temple perhaps
reflects
one
of the most
elaborate
forms
63
of constructed sacredness.
temple's
cosmic symbolism is
House by Fitzroy Raglan.
some
A
general discussion of the
found in The Temple and the
Vincent Scully describes,
detail, the Greek temple as
The Earth, the
Temple,
sacred architecture,
and the Gods.
mention briefly some aspects of
Here,
I will only
Temples vary widely
in form according to their cultural context.
the model
the Greek temple here.
A winding
approach performs the same function
ancient labyrinths
grim for the actual sites.
it prepares
centered.
columns reminiscent
The pillared recess is
deepest
and holiest
made of
stone; its
sanctuary.
dome,
the formal cave, the
The temple wa's usually
when present
and moats, of water.
shadow were
seen as the
of the sacred
(in other
fortified the cosmic sacredness of roundness;
fountains
The effects
carefully interspersed.
as microcosm (cited above),
the pil-
elements are
columned pavillion may be
The
canopy of heaven,_ its
tree.
the
Second, the open court reflects
sacred clearing in which the strong focal
often
as
leading into caves, or the path up and
sacred mountain or hill:
around the
the
in
it which emphasize links
to pre-existing sacred qualities.
is
in
cultures)
its pools,
of sun and
In its performance
each of these
elements was
codified according to the particular beliefs of the
64
culture,
and the gods
Modern Forms:
spirits so evoked through them.
and
In the city today,
certain constructed
forms may combine many sacred qualities by accident or
design.
The playground for
features the temple elaborated:
emphasize all of the
the labyrinth, the
paintings)
A
example, might be designed to
clearing (magic chalk circles,
and pools or
the cave,
fountains of water.
there
an old warehouse;
second possibility is
sand
is a
partially abandoned one at the edge of the Boston harbor.
Made
of
One imagines
One enters
salt
its
to creak.
into a
ignored at
four
a camera obscura made by a crack in the
open space, perhaps
first, because there is
fifteen
But the shelf
a fire above it,
feet high, licking at the wall.
fear and
source
alive
overlapping and playing with
away, is a shelf about altar-high.
of
street.
Suddenly an overhead beam comes
At the end of an
board wall.
tion
could be made
the
and pushes the visitor momentarily toward the
one another:
perhaps
off
air and bright mist
with dancing white lights,
is
wide but
A temporary storage wall narrows the space
decaying wood wall.
feet
is
it
creaking;
from the
musty gloom.
inside,
its
door
its
old brick,
A combina-
curiosity draws the visitor closer until
is visible:
another crack, a second light
I,
65
show, golden this time.
Odd things are
stored here
and
there:
the hull of an old boat, bicycle wheels--water
things,
round things....
A third "prototype" could be the abandoned subway
with all the
symbology of the
narrow descent,
pillars,
echoes,
Ruins
the
seeping water, strange
a bat or two...
of buildings,
if structurally
to contribute.
least two such sites:
stand, is
safe, often have their
Franklin Park in Boston has at
one,
in which only the rock corners
next to a clearing with a rock "altar" having
depressions in its top
leads to
stones;
a low, empty culvert
a stone wall partially surrounds
from one side;
it
the site.
with
the dark,
stone walls with markings, round
hidden crevices, perhaps
own ghosts
dish
sacred cave:
The second ruin is
a stone wall along a valley
eleven arched windows,at least
two of which focus
directly on elements with sacred possibilities:
highest tree in the
nearby.
station,
A
area,
and a magnificent
stone path winds
the
grove of trees
off along a valley to a boulder
(now inscribed with an Emerson poem).
All of these
care,
sites
are special in some ways; with some
their potential sacredness might become real.
66
City Experience
The
and Place
sacred experience involves
the person in a new con-
ceptual world in which he:
abandons his
fixed world momentarily;
attaches new meaning, through direct experience, to
an object
or place;
reorders his perceptions according to the
insights
provided by this new framework.
The places
in which this happens
are
generally those which
offer spatial support to this experience by:
separation from surrounding space,
and from
utilitarian functions;
some sense of mystery and/or ambiguity; and
by a rich sensory quality.
Of the
spatial attributes
discussed in this
would seem that the most general, the
sacredness",
in cities
today.
central focus,
as
"qualities of
(such as mystery, stillness,
most directly applicable
The
etc.)
to the
"concepts"
etc.)
(boundary, planned access,
are adaptable to this design insofar
the sacred concentration.
"permanent" structures
are the
design of sacred places
they provide a framework within which to
"find"
chapter, it
approach and
"Microcosm" and
seem antithetical to the modern
67
sacred experience--one in which the person constructs
a
new vocabulary of meaning for himself.
In the chapter on "sacred experience",
sense
a general
"cosmic"
of understanding was preferred to the particular
cultural expression of it.
This preference
assumes that
urban experience:
generally separates us
(derivative experience
and of experience
ducts
as
from the sources
of production
and packaged pro-
an economy);
interrupts or short-cuts the
complete organic
cycle;
and
tends, however unsuccessfully, toward a complete and
rational order to its parts.
The sacred experience offers the possibility
the
"packaged" attributes
the
shorted circuits,
for dissembling
of our urban life, reinserting
and examining both (perhaps
re-ordering them) in a context removed from the alternative
production cycles.
Place types that
suggest themselves
according to these
guidelines include:
abandoned sites
(ruins,
towers, warehouses,
stations);
boundaries
and transition points;
subway
68
sequential corridors;
parks
that
productive
roofs
link
districts;
or intimate
and cellars.
gardens; and
69
SACRED PLACE
FOOTNOTES:
24.
Psychological Reflection, p.
1.
Jung, Carl.
2.
Bachelard, Gaston.
3.
The
Borges, Jorge Luis
Mythmaker, p. 22.
4.
Bachelard, Gaston. op.cit.,
5.
Klee,
6.
Bachelard, Gaston. op.cit.,
7.
Crosby,
Theo.
8.
Raglan,
Fitzroy.
9.
Ibid.
Paul.
of Space, p.
The Poetics
200.
quoted by Carter Wheelock in
234.
p.
The Inward Vision, p.
Sense,
City
p.
p.
24.
xvii.
7.
The Temple and the House, p.
10.
Eliade, Mircea.
The Sacred and The Profane, p.
11.
Eliade, Mircea.
Rites and Symbols
12.
Moholy Nagy, Sybil.
13.
Raglan,
14.
Ibid.,
p.
18.
15.
Ibid.,
p.
20.
16.
James,
E.O. From Cave to Cathedral, p.
17.
Wheelock,
18.
Eliade, Mircea.
19.
Raglan, Fitzroy. op.cit.,
20.
Ibid.,
21.
Ibid.
p.
p.
27.
5.
67.
17.
Carter. The Mythmaker, p.
Rites and Symbols
p.
20.
of Initiation, p.
The Matrix of Man, p.
Fitzroy. op.cit.,
16.
26.
1.
61.
of Initiation, p.
65.
70
p.
135-136.
22.
Ibid.,
23.
Davidson, H.R.E. Pagan Scandinavia, p. 20.
24.
Conversation with Kevin Lynch, April 1972.
25.
Hori,
26.
Ibid.,
27.
Coleridge,
28.
Malraux, Andre.
Ichiro.
Folk Religion in Japan, p. 144.
p. 145.
S.T.
"Kubla Kahn",
Immortal Poems,
The Temptation of the West,
p.
p.
519.
4.
71
PROSPECTS FOR SACREDNESS
"The particular thing is to learn how to get to the
crack between the two worlds and how to enter the
other world.
There is a crack between the two worlds,
the world of the diableros and the world of living
men.
There is a place where the two worlds overlap.
The crack is there.
It opens and closes like a
To get there a man must exercise
door in the wind.
his will.
The Teachings of Don Juan:
A Yaqui Way of Knowledge
In the preceding pages,
the most part,
in a somewhat purist
as an absolute
good.
keep us out
It
sensations
fashion, and perhaps
It is not that at all.
of dark alleys or relieve us
has rather to
of
and in
"the
Nor
does
it
from back taxes.
do with a separate peace,
time"
discussed, for
sacredness has been
found in
"small
void of eternity".
great
As human beings, we need to reach and stretch beyond our
of our
childhood soil, to play with all the possibilities
dreams, to give them substance in the worlds we live
in.
We need responsive environments.
The
Need for Sacredness
Yi Fu Tuan writes
of the
sacred as
"that which pierces the
commonplace world of cyclic repetitions,
give-and-take." 1
he
is both at
sciousness; he
Every person needs
cause-and-effect,
some moments
the center and on the horizons
needs, perhaps,
in which
of his
the hope of "that
con-
72
hypothetical instant
one the
in endless,
enormous Library of Babel
The human spirit
lives
Gaston Bachelard has
material
and the
well
as in the mind.
in the
is
formal.
universe of the
Both
are
of
and extravagance,
present
forms";
other hand,
eternal, and the permanent
deeply sunk in
substance."
permanency, with the
its meaning,
the
Sacredness
sources of things.
echoes
and give
it
But
extravagance becomes excess,
diversion.
surface.
spirit
can
Without the play, the
sunken:
the
In an urban
"formal"
and
deals with the
in things,
deals with both
The
elements of
elements that
they deepen
I Ching, Tui
is the
left to itself,
elements bring it to the
aspects of the
certain coherence
personal understanding, a way to
"form
substance remains
sense, these two
serve to provide a
The
the play a momentary
element of joy, and of playfulness,
ponderous,
in
without the substance,
In the Chinese oracle, the
of frivolity.
as
the realm of
and reverberations;
play.
the
nature
I think, with those
especially,
formal serve as
in
it is
primitive, the
are
imagination,
and "unnecessary beauty".
material imagination, on the
elements, but
imagination.
The formal imagination deals
"free
some-
justified." 2
defined two kinds
novelty and variety, in
choice
linear time when for
deal with three
needs we have as adventurous human beings,
for our
spiritual
perhaps the
73
same needs that inspire the creation of myths
1) The
remember:
deep
need for a history we
can use, not
simply
The sacred function of history is to
get at
sources
for our understanding, to regenerate
that have meaning to us.
one in which we
2)
It
The need for a shared
roughly translated as "all
more
is
a history that
cosmos:
a sense
events
alive,
Tat tvam asi is a
of consciousness
that out there
succinctly, "that art thou".
such as this deepens the harmony
It is
is
the
can participate.
Hindu phrase which expresses
or,
and temples:
A
is you yourself,"
consciousness
and mystery of our being.
the ongoing "present" in the sacred scheme.
3)
And,
the
need
for a glimpse
of
eternity:
In the
concentration of the sacred moment, however gentle or
momentary, we will have a glimpse of our destiny.
is
no middle future here; the
gently
is
an horizon that
curves along the arc of our imagination.
In city terms,
functions
1)
2)
the sacred context may serve the
for its
following
inhabitants:
allow direct experience with which to
stereotypes
of the
future
There
examine
of meaning.
promote a feeling for the
city as
a human environment.
organic
interdependence
74
3)
serve to integrate our subjective and objective
worlds.
4)
provide
for mystery and magic.
for Sacredness
The Prospects
In the
a context
following pages,
I will discuss
some assumptions
sacredness today:
some practical considerations
But
In
in the city.
we have
sense of timing:
I am working with,
and the designer as "shaman".
I should first like to examine,
for sacredness
several aspects of
briefly, the prospect
a way, it
not yet
involves a
achieved the totally
all urban
designed city, and the perfect program to direct
to use our Mondays as holidays,
children in the
its
The
Kansas
such as civic art
town has
and we still
allow our
in addition, nurtures
city,
own hardy breed of artists,
challenges,
ment
city.
We are beginning
computer.
activity lies still deep in some
inured to special
transferred some of its
Industrial Develop-
funds to the project of planting apple trees
Street.
And somewhere deep
Colorado a man named Tom is
apocalypse.
The time to act
Some Assumptions
1)
A small
and urban pageantry.
on Main
in Wet Mountain Valley
building lutes
for the
is now.
about Sacredness
Sacredness
is accessible to each of us,
on a
in
75
variety of levels.
2)
It
is
place-dependent
"The Designer as
Shaman");
to
its
some extent
(discussed in
cultural context
should be
general enough to allow a transcendance beyond daily
rhythms and customs.
3)
and as
The sacred experience is
such, personally involving.
tions:
there is no
there is
4)
an unmediated experience,
audience in the
This has
two
sacred grove;
implicaand
no director.
The sacred place, though
qualities,
is
it deals with permanent
itself impermanent.
periodically or buried.
It
should be recreated
Each generation has
to recreate
its own sacred context.
Some Practical
Considerations
The urban sacred place is
designer;
alien from its
not:
a signature piece for
context, the
city;
to community or city identity; a monument.
is
a kind of people's art;
"head scout":
searching out
activity; mindful
prosaic
change
serve as
or to
In a way,
catalyst
the appropriate
of the entire fabric,
functions a city serves;
sacred places
a testament
the designer may serve as
sorceror, but he needs also to
looking
its
it
a
and
ground, or
including the many
for both the
(where things begin, where they begin to
loosen a
little)
and for
the places
that
best
76
serve utilitarian
Having
functions,
and should be
to
left
do this.
found these, he may call on a wide range of resources,
some of which will be discussed below, to release the
particular
fabric of the whole
the
in a way that will not
spirit of a place
artist-designer
as
(which may be the
a revolutionary,
but
destroy
function of the
not
as
a
"shaman");
but
rather concentrate on its hopeful qualities, which
may
also produce,
suggest
1)
alone;
take
not to
3)
magic:
It
some axioms
for the
as the
or use it
"chaos"
designer here is
The
to work to
but
to understand the
this is
and sometimes
4)
and leave
not a missionary.
of sacredness,
also:
implications of trifling with his
the lesson of the Sorceror's Apprentice.
of the
indifference,
cruelty, in nature and in our own imaginations,
responsibility for leaving some possibilities alone.
not to
insist on very remote
pletely new ones,
but
to let the
traditions, or
appropriate
to
look for the simple centers
of things:
...Things that are disconcerting to us show
us suddenly how much simplicity there is
in us, inspire in us the idea of an existence
without ties to our own.
5
Andre Malraux
com-
ones grow
in their own time.
5)
it
sacred can
of which the
"release" the potentialities
them;
"capture"
out
I would
context:
designer in this
necessitates a cautious awareness
and the
change.
to learn to recognize the profane,
form.
2)
in its turn, serious
77
of an existence that
I would add;
Finding a simple center requires
may require
it
elaborating;
rhythm buried beneath
"cult"
in
form.
"weeding out" before
finding
subtle
any
is very much our own.
the clatter
Finally,
to track,
a star
of cars,
and especially
a concentrated awareness of the
or ignoring
important,
6) the designer must pick up after himself.
involves
or a
This
qualities of the
"outside" world into which the participants will emerge:
choose to emphasize
he might
things that are present in
both, so that the experience has
a "decompression"
to provide
place for
provide
assimilating the
kinds
echoes;
he might choose
chamber of sorts,
experiences.
of participation that
a quiet
The experience may
are difficult
to trans-
late in the daily world, and he should be aware of the
possible "let
down" by too
sacred moment
fades,
to time,
or begun
sudden an exit.
and may have to be renewed from time
again.
The
Designer as
The
sacred experience happens
soaked bits
of magic dust,
and the seeds
known merge
Shaman
in Don Juan's
here, the inside
the worlds":
Also, the
of our
the
information collects:
sun-
"virtual grain of hashish",
summer dreams.
here, giving our
"crack between
Things
seen and things
space dreams substance.
design of a sacred place or activity
is
a delicate and
The
78
exacting task:
it requires
ear for sacred echoes.
The
a cosmic time sense,
"designer" might be the pro-
fessional planner, or an activity coordinator or
group
of persons
As I imagine
it,
simply a
"turned on" to the city.
the designer-shaman should have
and half-moons
dripping from the folds
and a tool kit
that includes:
Platform of the 7th Starbowl,
spring morning, fireflies
moss
and an
or her sleeves,
honey and linden, "the Titanium
the clear
in the
cool green of a
shadows of alleys,
and dream herb, dim moon-eyed
the sun through silk,
of his
comets
fishes,
velvet
the light
of
imaginary gardens with real toads
in them, and the oldest rock in the deepest
strata of the
earth's mantle.
He
should be
able to
impatient cars,
in the ruts
the
close
off the
sign, and
a worthy cause.
Instead,
at the peculiar skinny
shadow that alleys
and their "sucking" labyrinthine
sun dancing across a row of office windows
filling them each in turn with a moment
sea
harbor.
smell that collects in a doorway
He
of
of oily alleys, the hum of the neon
he should catch
the
clatter
the piles of rat-chewed litter collecting
intrusive megaphone blaring
often have,
abrasive
quality; the
at sunset,
of its own
image;
far from the
should poke around in the weedy lot,
the
79
crumbling ruin, for evidence of "aliveness"
as to how things
Then,
search, he
of order in the city
as
He
are
the
searching out
the curves
consider them as
the spirit of the
"commas"
stars.
Then, he
and corners,
the song of the
the pockets
own previous designs,
and bumps
and re-
in a sacred vocabulary, or
fit into no rational
should look also to the things
at the
of the big "rational "elements--the skyscraper founda-
tion, the sea bottom, the heart
of such a search is to
tion,
counter-
He might continue by
cracks" between the worlds that
scheme.
root
should also seek out things
fantasy of Gaudi's monuments;
discarded from his
"small
and the places that border
He
and vitality:
wind, the tracks of certain
he has
places things
immune to rational coding, that have emotion,
poetry, magic,
culture;
the
should look for a certain disorder as well,
evidence of transitions.
that
should look at these
framework:
begin, the transition points,
activities.
for a clue
arrange themselves when left on their own.
in abstracting his
aspects
and
to
of the
furnace.
loosen the designer's
The
own imagina-
find the poetry in things which he has
considered primarily in terms
In the remainder of this
possibilities
function
previously
of utility.
section, I will suggest
for sacred activities
and places
some
in terms of
80
of the three
present
siders
spiritual needs
some prototypes
the pursuit
I have mentioned above,
for each.
of the
The
final
"sacred texture"
and
section con-
in a city-wide
context.
Sacred Design and User Needs
Once the designer has
worlds,
found some of the
and sees some possibilities
in them, he
our hopes
for
can begin to weave a fabric
and dreams;
to nudge
us
cracks between the
sacredness to grow
of spaces to tickle
into an involvement with
our origins; and to pull us toward one another in a spirit
of celebration:
His
in a harmony with the land
design should, as
Here,
always,
they are the spiritual
in which we live.
be mindful of user needs.
ones:
the need for
history, the need for a shared cosmos,
a "useable"
and the need for a
glimpse of eternity.
1) A history we can use,
not
simply remember.
Robinson Jeffers said, "History falls
rocks."
History, in the
still alive,
societies
one
sacred sense,
in which we
on your head like
is one that is
can participate.
recreated the events
of
creation, thereby
nullifyiiy a sense of historical, linear time.
within the
Archaic
They lived
rhythms determined by nature, and their myths
reflected this periodic restoration of sacred events.
It
81
is
reflected also in the attitude of cultures that retain
only what
they use, as
sacred stories.
changes
to
in the
It may involve
"falsification" of history,
suit an evolving understanding:
portrayal of Hamlet with jeans
the aesthetic sensibilities
as well
Isletan refusal to record
the
parallels
today, a
and a beard might offend
of purists, but
of our culture
it
with Elizabethan
England.
Games
enactment
of accumulated knowledge and skill.
and sports
also reflect a periodic re-
Perhaps the underlying aspect
living aspects of our pasts
is
carrying forward the
such as
skills,
our monuments each time they are needed.
snow statues
can reflect
or recreating
The
elaborate
that were created to celebrate the
Olympic
games in Sapporo, Japan this year were destroyed in three
days
(an interesting time
span, from the viewpoint
of
sacredness) because they might topple and harm the
children who played around them.
A San Francisco architect recently built an organic
accumulation of a house from found things:
barn wood, used fixtures.
carpenters
At the finish,
each of the
designed a single panel to contribute to its
already rich history, and so to recreate
The house
stained glass,
it
for themselves.
itself suggests a sacred sense of history; the
82
designer's
disposition of it
he
to take a leisurely tour of Europe with his
sold it
family, because he
his
"dream
house"
"knew he
he
may also: when he had
could build another".
suffer, but
eyen fragments
It was
said.
Perhaps new towns might be built
purity might
finished,
of the
this way.
Stylistic
if each person brought with him
structure
of his
dream home--and if
he left behind those
of his portable possessions he never
used--the town might
grow more
its
inhabitants.
Or,
surely from the dreams
one might think
of
in terms of leaving
behind a beloved object that someone else could use.
In terms
of
existing historical monuments,
might be made
to
find a use that
their particular past.
The
some attempts
allowed us to
son et lumiere
share in
spectacle is
one possibility; the visitor might participate in it by
spontaneous
drama or theatre.
for contributions
sense of the
from visitors
existing time:
palimpsests into which one
Museums might have spaces
that
would document
their
wet plaster walls, as
could put
objects of his
own
choosing, to reflect his personal sense of the current
time--and which would eventually be
contributions.
wandering
intermixed with later
Historical buildings might be
songsters who could recreate the
staffed with
songs
and legends
83
of that
building's
songs
the
past,
from our own time.
ground
is filled
find, if it
shards
fit
lay
their dreams;
geological
style
a vertical sheet
scratchings,
time
it
magic
verbalization
at
description.
Or,
own terms:
at
each
level--cave
perhaps
even
a
the most recent
in the city,
level
to
in the
"guidebook"
represent
modern
terraces might be designed
were level with different eras of its history,
site suggested
such a sequence.
in Boston has a horizontal line
to
in its
the guide, has some
market
district
spatial
nearby;
one
of earth exposing many
represented
symbols,
opened
or one might try to
eras might be "scored" with markings
of the
that
might be
at an historical site,
recreate a sense of its past
example,
areas
from ancient
artifacts.
Instead of verbal explanation
for
of the countryside,
"archaeologists" could keep what
recreate a history from the
might
with parallel
and arrowheads
Some of these
where
as public digs,
interspersed
In many parts
with
Indian settlements.
they
perhaps
The
interior
if the
of City Hall
of bricks which,
according
correspondence to the old
and the bricks
are the
same as those
in Haymarket.
Simple
that
is
traditions,
alive:
the
in their recurrence,
can suggest
a history
familiar tradition of the Capistrano
84
swallows
finds an
American town:
Ohio."
this.
or
6
"The Day the Buzzards Return to Hinkley,
If Hinkley can celebrate buzzards,
community might
If
not,
might
consider the
years
ago,
find instances
and they are less
purist than I,
example of Manhattan,
the city fathers
surely each city
of living cycles worthy
created its
celebrate the Manhattan Centennial.
this
in an
Each year, within the week, the residents celebrate
of note.
to
echo in a curious annual holiday
Kansas.
they
Several
own "origin myth"
They devised for
occasion a fabled hero in the style of Paul Bunyon,
and christened him "Johnny Kaw" after the nearby Kaw
river; they
from the
of a fifteen
"take"
of carving the river
land, with his mighty scythe.
Kaw "myth" was
might
feat
ascribed to him the
Finally, the Johnny
consecrated by a song and by the
foot statue in the city park.
The
have ended there because the myth did not
at once--but a resident
who now play near his
tells me
creation
story
really
that the children
statue in the park have begun to
create their own stories about Johnny Kaw.
At
other times, existing traditions might be
new uses
in a formal way.
settlement on
advent
The villagers
the southern coast
of Crete
adapted to
of a small folk
celebrated.,the
of electricity to their village with an ancient
ritual festival.
85
These examples demonstrate traditions
that
are alive.
The
sacred history of a place may be discovered in patterns and
cycles that
shaman is,
have been
forgotten.
I think, to help
surface these and
simply to give them space to
Form Prototype--The
Sometimes we must
as well
they will.
In form terms,
return in our
I would
winding, stone and close:
The
labyrinth.
dreams to an earlier time,
as adapting that history to us
it.
as
sometimes
of sacred history with the
We must re-experience
We
grow as
Labyrinth:
suggest the alliance
The designer's task
(as
labyrinth is
shadows
are confronted with fragments
suggested above).
dark and
startle us;
crows appear.
of our past that stick
somehow like burrs--a line of a tune
from a decade ago,
an odor of home.
in our hearing.
walls
Chants hover dimly
narrow occasionally and feel of wet velvet.
stoop to
get through a low opening and our sight
We
falls to
a shimmering pool, which reflects us with large heads
shortened limbs, as
children's laughter is heard,
The
and
from
somewhere....
The
scene -of this scenario is an
not
so subtly adapted as
probably
hear train
abandoned subway stop,
a sacred site:
whistles
there
as
one should
well.
86
A Shared
2)
The
Navajo
Cosmos:
Indians have
House
Gods and Talking Gods,
first to bring harmony within their homes,
harmony
among all of their people.
of all living things,
context
for the
the latter
involves
the
they exist,
ships
the interplay among them, is the
"sacred
present"..
It
is
"being
up
In the city
relationships where
and create their own order.
is done must be a "safe"
specialized
express
exploration of organic
caught
and the allowance for letting other relation-
change
which this
for
The harmony and mystery
in the web of life", being filled with it.
it
the
functions.
one,
The place in
removed from
Three of the activities
this sacred present are
that can
celebration, meditation,
and gardening.
The celebration allows people to come together
"During
a
violated."9
common
This may be
ground which
celebration
tates
the ranks
fiesta,
fails when
itself
excesses
it
in
cannot
a celebration
astonish.
of life
chaotic; but it can
allows us to
are
also be the
create our own order.
it becomes too rigid, pompous,
a coded response:
express
and stations
freely.
loses
gimmickry,
support:
its
openness.
demanding
attentions
Or,
The
dic-
it may
or
this is the risk of designing
for rather than with, of designing to
Often, the
designer's task is
simply to provide
87
a variety of
can
"free
spaces"
use when they want
at several
to gather;
scales that people
other times,
design
activities to
direct attention
cosmic
elements that
demonstrate regeneration
(water and the sun)
cycles
(stars,
tides,
celebration seems
happenings,
and that
demonstrate
seasons,
to be
to the
he might
constant,
of life
its natural
day and night).
coming into its
own:
The urban
we have
participatory theatre, the decoration
malls by children,
spontaneous parades.
a symposium on Art
and the Environment
of urban
Recently at M.I.T.,
included a session
on "Urban Celebration and Pageantry".
Sometimes,
solitude,
part
in
our understanding of "shared cosmos"
reflection, private time to
the balance
to this
is the
busy urban
of life.
sanctuary.
edges
of cities
The garden:
heaven but
includes
and to
balance
The building
We could provide
child.
rest
in
for the
for meditation.
In a Babylonian sense,
a garden might.
A
a tower cannot touch
sense of "shared cosmos"
of our relation to
cosmic cycles.
Every environment
life:
areas
We might design ashrams on
an awareness
of
our personal
form appropriate
centers, and corners of playgrounds
solitary needs of the
the
explore
necessitates
the
city
will
have
all living things,
creates
one that
its own
may be
as
88
rich as the rain
forest.
often lost to us.
little
The
Packaged foods
sense of their source:
better,
such as
the ones
still might be the
in Boston
sources
of organic
cycles are
in super markets
an open air market
give us
is
in Boston and New Orleans; closer
urban vegetable garden.
anyone may rent,
at
Along the
a nominal fee,
Fens
a small plot
of land in which to grow vegetables or plants.
Along a similar line, we might
"surface" the wide variety
of life in a seemingly lifeless place.
of common city dirt,
by various means
(such as magnification) could show us
with
be
life;
as
a
glass
"spadefull"
of poking and prying
that it
of tap water
is teeming
(which
might
disconcerting to some).
Water is
mixing,
be
might
A
an
excellent unifying
creating new orders.
devised to expose the
element:
flowing together,
In a harbor town, ways might
sea-floor life near its
edge.
Better still would be the opportunity to go down into the
water oneself.
Here,
litter, one might
searching beneath the beer cans
find a spark of life--or perhaps
and
only
recognize first hand the deadening effect of pollutants
and trash
balance.
in this respect, which interrupt
its natural
89
Weedy Gardens:
There is something in western culture that
wants to totally wipe out creepy-crawlies,
and feels repugnance for toadstools and
snakes.
This is fear of one's own deepest
natural inner-self wilderness areas, and
the answer is, relax.
Relax around bugs,
snakes, and your own hairy dreams.
Again,
farmers can and should share their crop
with a certain percentage of buglife as
"paying their dues"--Thoreau says, "How
then can the harvest fail?
Shall I not
rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds
whose seeds are the granary of the birds?" 1 0
The Hopi Snake Dance
universe,
celebrates
snakes
of all living things."11
city by
specialization, by packaged products
attitude that
weedy gardens in our lives.
Perhaps
activities might promote Snyder's
In addition to
celebrations,
the sacred present--the
nurtured by
Or we
bus stations,
city.
allows no
some of the above
sense
of relaxation.
sanctuaries, and gardens,
temporarily "trading off" daily customs with
might
stranger in the
the
and
sense of tat tvam asi--might be
cultures unfamiliar to us.
in terms
their
often interrupted in
opinions, by an "antiseptic"
travel.
a part of our
Living cycles,
change and decay and regrowth, are
the
"as
This
is
consider ways to incorporate the
city:
urban transition points--airports,
city boundaries--are
of welcome
a common benefit of
usually badly designed
or of giving a promising picture of
We might think of ways to make
some traditional
90
"boundary lines"
less rigid.
In the
1908 a territorial dispute was
lining up at the boundary at
Great Hopi
Push of
solved by each of the groups
sunrise,
and pushing until one
group gave way.
Some attention to the
coordination
of existing activities
might also promote a harmony that we tend to
city.
The Greater Boston Metropolitan
Cultural Alliance
has been formed for this purpose. I am not
familiar with the program but a newspaper
its
lose in the
personally
report
states
goal:
Too many...audiences...are experiencing cultural
activities as fragmented parts of their lives.
The public feels bombarded--like too many press
releases--by organizations that are not mutually
reinforcing.(Boston Globe, March 9, 1972, p 39)
(This group's
the
successful
choice of title does not
"mutual reinforcement"
Form Prototype--The
Sacred Clearing:
seem to
of its
aspects
The Sacred Clearing is the
of life are present.
designed to
up
components,)
The Labyrinth allows
its pilgrim to wander among his memories,
real.
to make them
sunlit present where all
The urban park might be
let in as much life
as possible,
and to
casual experiments with the balance of life:
new plants or animals;
demonstrate
"a constant
set
introducing
close watch" on the
91
varieties of life
many places
and their
(The Water of All Waters);
planted for their
Voices).
pits
A
sound in the wind
gong at
groups
song
or
back
again.
soil,
of persons
dance
the
3)
about
Weeds,
"rich
(the Grove
and others.
according
that
day
bugs.
mulch"
A Glimpse
a hollow with trees
of Many
sunrise, noon and sunset.
for children and dogs
three
changes; a pond with water from
of all
clay
Simple ceremonies:
to age,
from eldest
The
Wet
handing
along
to youngest,
sacred present
is
a
and
the top-
life.
of Eternity.
... an edifice without dimension
a city hanging in the sky.12
To
see
some
the side
directly.
stars
of them:
This
produces that
something
and we
the
is
astronomer
they
disappear when he
the sense
just on the edge
it
in;
of our
take
looks
to
at them
sacred future.
It
awareness beckons us,
or, when an odd juxtaposition of
normal things disconcerts us
In the
of the
slightly
special exhilaration that happens when
stop to let
standing
must look
into an
entirely new under-
of the way things happen.
sacred future,
on a new quality.
normal spatial proportions
Time
and infinitely expandable.
seems
seem to
immensely protracted
Whistling winds
and unseen
92
voices pervade the mists:
I hear.. .the breathing of the air,
the wailing
of the unborn, the pressure of the wind.
I hear the movements of the stars and planets,
the slight rust creak when they shift their
position.
The silken passage of radiations, the breath
of circles turning.
I hear the passing of
mysteries and the breathing of monsters. 1 3
In the
sacred future, the
haps to
sense of space is
Robert Riley's sense
changed; per-
of
strange and troubling spatial complexity of
the kind we experience in dreams, a quality
the essence of which always just eludes us.
We feel
it,
we understand it
intuitively,
14
but we cannot quite explain it
rationally.
Riley suggests as
Moebius
Strip.
because it
authors,
a parallel a Maurits
The
architecture
is bounded only by the
one
for the
realized:
make us
in science
sacred
setting would
future, but
the giddy heights
feel
setting, the
small, leave
I am not
fiction stories,
With its
is not
of skyscrapers
us behind.
soaring
seem to be
somehow it
an ideal
often
often only
Another possible
futurist exhibition, too often seems
unpeopled, or its spectacle dissolves
becomes
a
imagination of its
often portrays this feeling.
architecture, the urban
Escher print or
inhuman,
into gimmickry,
a "trompe l'oeil".
at
into a city.
all
sure how to
I think that,
transpose the
sacred future
on a personal level, it
involves
93
the
feeling that
something
"about
linear time
our sacred future is
to happen",
sense.
to
future.
that
than
One
signs
should be
the magic
in the
sacred
the violent,
cold, and dry
twilight;
the
One might look for a place where he thinks
could emerge, and enhance
dybbuks and demons
ness,
looking perhaps at
their
own environments
beyond the things we
designed,
I
to provoke mystery or
think,
A
mist,
as of wings.
challenge for the technical artist.
with pulsing moons
which one rises in
goes
form prototype
using twilight,
and a whirr,
alter
enchantment.
The sacred future
can explain.
spatial juxtapositions,
its strange-
all of the ways witches
Form Prototype--The Threshold:
a good
attempts
could borrow from atmospheres the qualities
mistral wind of the Mediterranean; mists;
be best
"squeeze"
up
should set
no explanatory
are mysterious, eerie:
full moon.
could
troubling
It
seems
I would begin
the midst
open doors the texture of cool silvery moss,
of, half-
gossamer webs,
strange markings, the sense of an horizon enclosing us,
falling
a
The design should "suggest"
and
"direct",
own work:
do its
cannot
the feeling of the sacred future
rather
in
"plotted"
For this reason, any
independent of other uses.
here,
cannot be
something we
It is
into our everyday worlds.
to produce
that
something inside us,
comets scattering smoldering
embers
from which
94
greenish mists
arise,
and translucent
which throw back endless
future
is the "brink":
gliding panels
tunnels of images.
the planned event
to trouble the visitor regarding his
his up and down--the movement,
The
sacred
might be designed
size, his
time sense,
gliding; the light,
source-
less.
The threshold aspect might
dropping
emerge as
an horizon seemingly
into nowhere, which then,approaching the visitor,
swings him onto its
arc.
Or,
it might be a horizontal bar
of light, which, when touched, expands to
person.
enclose the
It might be an unseen force of wind that the
person must turn slightly to pass through:
passing to
the strange." 1
The Shaman
as Designer
Taken
haps,
ghosts
5
singly, these spiritual needs
activities that,
in
"the unknown
in themselves,
suggest
seem hardly
certain
"sacred".
Per-
considering -,hem outside-in, they become only
of an elusive spirit that is
habitation.
The final
"success"
still without a
of the
sacred texture of
a city may depend on a)the ways these activities and
spaces begin, b)their links
balance with the
city.
and overlaps,
and c)their
alternate production functions
The temptation is
to siphon off the
of the
sacred mist
and
95
"carry"
until
it,
as
was
into a single dizzying city tower--
one remembers Babel.
Perhaps,
the
all adrift,
after all,
designer", but
the
solution lies,
not
in
in introducing new kinds
"redesigning
of persons
resource personnel for the planner-designer.
suggested to me much earlier, and it
moment
for
it.
In addition to
a blind man, and a witch.
the city
for its
activity
"sets"
somehow
whatever their daylight
city the
the guild might
an urban archaeologist,
and give them as
to the planner-designer.
form or
simply be finding
for someone) those who,
occupation,
could apply to the
spatial sense of:
parsec
(about 34 light years);
baraka (the Moslem sense of blessedness that
itself to
kami
mirror
(sacred Shinto objects,
used as pivots to
sacred conceptions).
guild should remember that the human spirit
an odd duck:
when we
attaches
objects after years of loving use);and
Finally, the
is
to haunt
More important,
specialists might
(a good thesis topic
idea
now, the
Their best use might be
sacred places,
though, than collecting
seems,
the artist,
include an astronomer, a naturalist,
This
are
it
is not
dependable.
Just
at the moment
(once again) on the brink of chaos
and
96
everyone's cooperation is sorely needed,
on a
search for the Loch Ness monster.
someone goes off
FOOTNOTES:
PROSPECTS FOR SACREDNESS
1.
Tuan, Yi-Fu.
"Architecture and Human Nature
Landscape, Autumn 1963, p. 19.
2.
Wheelock,
3.
Bachelard, Gaston.
Carter.
The Mythmaker, p.
The
4.
Manhattan, Kansas.
resident, June 1970.
Poetics
64.
of Space, p.
report of Katharyn Deatherage,
The
Temptation
5.
Malraux, Andre.
6.
Conversation with Mara Ogulis,
of the West,
Conversation with Katharyn Deatherage.
9.
Cox, Harvey.
Snyder, Gary.
11.
Handout
12.
Nin, Anais.
13.
Ibid.,
at
p.
86.
Story of Johnny
8.
The Feast
p.
March 1972.
"The
7.
See also Filinger, George A.
Kaw".
Manhattan, Kansas (booklet).
10.
ix.
of Fools,
p.
118.
"Four Changes", unpublished pamphlet.
Hope Snake Dance, Arizona, August 1970.
House of Incest,
frontispiece.
38.
Riley, Robert.
14.
Wonder", Landscape,
Masefield, John.
15.
Poems, p. 249.
"Architecture and the Sense
Autumn 1965, p. 23.
"The
Passing Strange",
of
Immortal
98
THE PROSAIC WORLD
Some
notes about the real world seem in order.
Planning.
Potentially sacred events
begin small,
They
and sites
in the terms of the people who will use them.
should be open to direct participation, adaptable
to change
in form and need, and perhaps
the addition of overlapping practical
is a delicate balance:
plans,
inadaptable to
functions.
This
it is tempting to enlarge
small
to provide a sort of closure for them, and to
include
as much as possible.
for sacredness
The person who designs
is an explorer, willing to try out
variety of "prods", openings,
to
should
give substance
to hopeful
a
and small experiments
ideas.
Perhaps
the
primary objective is to give city dwellers the confidence of an environment that is
to
their dreams,
they may
and to
continually responsive
show them by suggestion how
use what is available to
The designer
can assist in
them for this purpose.
"clearing ground" by
obtaining permits, rerouting conflicting uses,
safety, and overseeing maintenance.
eye out
He
assuring
should keep an
for those who feel threatened by events,
those who
find them silly.
encouragement or
some cases
and
The former might need
altogether different activities;
in
they might bring political repercussions,
which could possibly be forestalled by an astute planner.
Silliness
may have its
place
sometimes,
or
it
may
indicate
99
a-misfit.
On the whole,
more
feasible than more.
Life
span.
The beginnings
can be attended with
the
less planning would seem to be
of sacred events and places
initiation rites of various kinds:
dedication ceremony, the breaking of ground, or
even quiet
contemplation.
beginnings
should be modest
own weight,
My own
feeling is that
and hopeful and carry their
letting the ceremonial aspects
grow.
But
there may be times when the more exciteable grand
beginnings
are necessary to
effect a break from our
ordinary rhythms.
The
death of sacredness
is not
sacred events and places may
always evident:
simply lose their effect-
iveness or be smothered by sanctimony.
and traditions could be
some
Certain places
officially "buried" as they
begin to atrophy--again, by ceremony,
or by relocation,
or by having instituted a limited time span for them
from the beginning.
let
It will usually be much harder to
things go than to begin them.
ation
of sacredness is
The
timing and continu-
an individual issue, not
an
arbitrary one. One rule of thumb might be to evaluate
the importance of a place or tradition by the care and
attention that its users give it,
remembering also that
transition periods may appear chaotic for awhile.
100
The
designer should watch closely and listen carefully
to those he would serve. They can give him his best
Maintenance.
Even when a place is impermanent, the care
of it willietermine its
easily smudge the magic.
septic
environments
character.
A bit of litter might
On the other hand,
slick anti-
are a negative inducement.
places need loving attention.
who could help here include
the
cues.
counter culture:
It seems
Sacred
some of the people
children, the elderly, and
as garden keepers.
The
designer
should also consider self-maintaining environments.
Safety. As Lucien's experience
in the nettle patch
demonstrated, overgrown places may have burrs.
larger scale, as
for example in a dark labyrinthean
corridor, they might breed vandals as
accidents might be more
safety from his
own
likely.
and watching tasks could be
Order.
well as ghosts;
While noone is
assured of
sacred visions, his physical safety
should be reasonably secure.
practical
On a
Fencing, barriers,
lighting,
imaginatively used for both
and sacred purpose.
Woodstock showed us that mud and disorder may be
part of the magic;
Adequate facilities
other festivals have shown us differently.
should be provided, as well as
101
reasonable access
Balance.
(depending on the intent).
A balance
of activities in terms of time,
tion, participants, and size
one's resources
Guidebooks.
into the
While
is
loca-
preferable to pooling
single annual
one should not,
I
spectacular.
think,
label
the
sacred river "Alph", preparatory information of a generative
nature might be
avoid
useful, on
occasion.
"don't" and queues and almost
perhaps Words to
always, words
(except
Chant).
Personal visions.
inappropriate.
The designer should
People may use spaces
in ways that seem
Some latitude should be allowed here, and
the distraction, if it
is
one, possibly used to advantage.
I remember a screaming child in Carlsbad Caverns who made
wonderful
echoes.
A sensor might begin
the white
noise reached a certain level.
generally responsive, and might
for the use
bulging eyes
of a place.
a gentle chant when
People
contribute new directions
Sometimes, though,
dragons with
should carry off those who steal
magic by a thoughtless gesture.
are
other people's
102
Expectation. One
should not
feel he has to experience some--
thing, and there should be a reasonable number of exits
along the way:
Symbols.
gentle exits.
Abstract things
possibilities, so people
should be open to a number of
can contribute their own meanings.
Trying to guess the
"right answer" will interfere.
Decompression.
sacred experience happens
The
Any event that makes the
wards
Dirge.
here;
ness.
is
not
outside world look shabby after-
sacred.
The sacred in terms
it may be as important
But the
of grief has not been considered
as the other kinds
of sacred-
general dirge surrounding most-holies is
more or less guaranteed to set the
Pomp.
in a context.
Conscious pomp
(pomp art?)
spirit adrift.
may be
in some contexts
a means to carry us out of our everyday worlds.
conscious pomp usually creates
echoes have resonance.
But
only hollow echoes.
selfSacred
103
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many of the ideas for this
paper began during some
good days in New Mexico, with the help of two friends
in particular:
Katharyn Deatherage and Eric Hedlund.
Here at MIT, Kevin Lynch was both muse and mentor,
giving me unwavering support, excellent
criticism,
and, especially,
the space for sacred echoes to grow.
Many friends helped with ideas, and often, simply
blind faith.
Bill Porter kindly gave me time free
from my research for him during the final weeks of
writing.
And the Department,
especially
in the
person of John Howard, was ever patient.
1o4
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