Grief, Beauty, and Spaces

“It is in dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. We might, quite aside from all other requirements, need to be a little sad before buildings can properly touch us.” Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

The 20th century, German philosopher, Martin Heidegger wrote a great deal about the way in which things gather world. An early 18th century home gathers a very different world than does a 1970’s ranch. White Rock, New Mexico allows for a different kind of world than does Miami, Florida. And an ashtray gathers a different kind of world than does a pin-cushion. I imagine an ashtray and think of a darkly-lit jazz club or of journalists meeting deadlines late into the night. A pin-cushion, in contrast, conjures up images of an older world, when women worked at home mending the clothing of husbands and children—a world of grandmothers and those older 18th century homes that are so different from those of the mid-late 20th century.

The idea of things gathering world is a Vestal concept—different spaces, structures, and things allow a certain character of world to come into being just as they preclude other worlds from taking shape. I wonder if this is where grief finds its place in architectural appreciation: In grasping the beauty of one way of being we simultaneously mourn the preclusion of others. And in mourning what is not, we can appreciate the unique and special character of what is.

The tears that accompany grief and sadness help to clear us out, like a river running through us. The experience of grief allows us to let go of possibilities that we once held on to, and herein lays both its pain and its gift. When we truly experience the sadness of what no longer is, or of what will never be, we clear space for something new to open up; and in this space lies an appreciation for how special and impermanent this next something is. This is a space of true vulnerability, of being open to what is and to what is yet to come, even as we carry the pain of what is no longer and even as we know the pain of one day needing to let go again.

It is this space of vulnerability that allows one to appreciate art; for art is very much about letting go of possibilities. A painter must choose one form over another; a songwriter needs to let go of certain words; and an architect only has so many corners to work within and a finite number of buildings to design.

I read the quote above on a day when I was sad and immediately understood. It inspired me to sit by a building I love, and I began to feel grateful for the sadness I was experiencing. I was reminded that every one of our feelings has a place, a purpose, and a beauty that can be discovered if we only enter into them. I allowed the beauty of the building to sink in, mingle with the grief, and create a sweetness that I could not have predicted nor experienced had I not let the river of sadness doing its clearing. Here’s to tears, to letting go, and to the capacity to be touched by a building.