Writing: "Making the place where the thought is possible."
I love this piece on writing as a means of “place making.” Creating a place – both with engineering and architecture – that invites people into a feeling and presence where they might FEEL and BELIEVE something. This very much captures how I think about storytelling and creative acts of art + copy. >>> “An essay is a place for ideas; it has to feel like a place. It has to give one the feeling of entering a room.
The architect Christopher Alexander has written that “the experience of entering a building influences the way you feel inside the building.” “If the transition is too abrupt there is no feeling of arrival.” He cites a report called “Fairs, Exhibits, Pavilions, and their Audiences,” in which the authors describe observing people drift in and out of various exhibits, impassive and unengaged. There was one exhibit, however, where visitors had to cross a “huge, deep-pile, bright orange carpet on the way in.” The exhibit itself was no better than the others, they said, but people lingered there because they’d made a journey of sorts to enter. They’d crossed a kind of Willy Wonka or Wizard of Oz threshold, into a different realm. They felt changed.” …
Engineering is a function, but architecture is aesthetic. You’re not just designing for function—you want people to feel a certain way. Churches have high ceilings because they make one feel exalted, smaller and in awe. A visible roof makes a house feel cozier—the roof is a sign of shelter. My new living room, somewhat oddly, is the smallest room in the house, but the closeness of the furniture makes it cozy, almost like a pillow fort; if the floor was lava you could jump from the sofa to the armchair. Alcoves and reading nooks make one feel safely conspiratorial, like you have permission to keep some secrets. Trees are crucial to architecture, in Alexander’s view, because they create places; they can become the roof of an outdoor room, or form an arch or a gateway we can pass through as a spell to change our mood. Windows too create places, sub-realms in rooms where the light pools, where people are drawn to sit and read, or look out at the storm. And then there’s the realm of the fireplace. I love the word fireplace—the place where we put our fire.
When I’m writing, I’m trying to be an architect. I’m trying to get the reader to feel the way I do; even when I don’t intend to convince them of something, and most of the time I don’t, writing is a subtly coercive act. The coercion is cooperative, like any performance. More precisely, I want a reader to arrive at my thought and feel close to the way I felt when I thought it. This may be authorial fantasy, delusions of grandeur, impossible dream, but it is what I want. I’m making the place where the thought is possible. I’m building a house to showcase the tree.