Diana Durham, Writer & Poet
  • Home
    • About
    • 'Coherence' Introduction
    • Chapter 1: The Curve of the Land: Chapter One
    • 'The Labyrinth in the Village': Chapter Two
  • Books/CDs
    • Reviews/Endorsements
  • Poems
  • Blog & Articles
    • Articles
  • Events & Contact
  • Perceval & Grail Workshops
    • Staging Perceval & the Grail
    • Clients/Venues
  • YouTube

About 'Money-scapes'

2/15/2015

0 Comments

 
One of the chapters of my new non-fiction book ‘Coherence‘  is called ‘Money-scapes’ and is about the way the depleted values of our current materialist-based society show up in physical form in the shape of hideous urban ‘developments’.  Here is an excerpt:

      “Values are abstract, but they show up in form all around us.  And architecture is a form in which we can literally see them.  If we walk down the western nave of Chartres Cathedral, for instance, and gaze up at the vaulted ceilings, we see an embodiment of harmony.   We are impacted by an interplay of architectural feature, proportion and perspective and the way light interacts with all these qualities of space as it shafts in through the multi-faceted stained glass windows.   Every part is in meaningful relationship to every other part, as well as to the whole structure and even to the cosmos ....  
.... the same cannot be said of the majority of modern urban and commercial development,  particularly in North America.  Even the word development is a euphemism, because most of the time what one is really talking about is sprawl,  the cookie cutter sameness of large chains and mega malls and grid-like inner city apartment blocks and projects.  These sites have not been developed in the sense of aesthetically designed and thoughtfully integrated but developed in terms of turning acreage into either a money-making or money-saving venture for as little cost as possible.  
    What is fascinating about these places is that as we try to interact with them, whether just by looking at them, finding our way around them, or living in them, we get to experience the absence of those unquantifiable values which have been left out of the equation, and in their place, to come up against the incoherence and constriction of ‘flatland’. ....  
    Proportion and perspective are qualities that require the sense of meaningful relationship between parts.   As I have been exploring, it is possible to think and act in ways that lack proportion and perspective.   But proportion and perspective are also visual elements needed to make designs aesthetic, or to give us a sense of relatedness to them.   We know that we respond visually to the proportions and patterns  encoded in sacred geometry and the golden mean because the same proportions and patterns govern the design of our bodies.  This is why most of us prefer to walk down the nave of Chartres cathedral, or through woodland than across the wastes of parking lots and strip malls. ...
    .....  The confusion about value and meaning gives rise to an oddly literal-minded approach, which is usually founded on the depleted values of utility on the one hand,
and money, or cost-saving, on the other.   Yet even though utility is emphasized -
let’s build a box and a parking lot and highways to get there - this idea does not function well.   The literal-minded, utilitarian approach seems unable to integrate function with design...’
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    October 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    October 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    April 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    I always thought I'd write novels, but poems and non-fiction came first.  So I am excited about the publication of my first novel.  In the end, fiction captures reality more than explanations about it ...


    Categories

    My writing & events:

    The Real Grass Roots: Development in my hometown:  see July

    All

    RSS Feed

decoding myth and archetype - our psychic DNA