THE Barbarians had descended, and had installed themselves among the ruin they had made, and in every European country these innumerable hordes began their barbaric life and the slow rise of nations. Nothing remained of antiquity but the mighty vestiges of Roman buildings.
From the covered wagon we must pass on to the temple and the city. Roman cement has preserved the great domes, the arches, the monolithic vaults, of which one side was destroyed by fire but the other half still hangs suspended in the void. Here is the exemplar; the rude craftsman of the North is faced with classical culture.
For his buildings he takes a ready-made model. A savage does not simply take over the alien fruits of another civilization. This will be made obvious. Man never copies, he is unable to do so; it would indeed be against all natural law. The fruits of civilization only ripen when all its technical resources are evolved, and these are the result of a slow accumulation of the mind’s constructive efforts; from zero man climbs to his highest point, passing sometimes painfully, sometimes easily, through the various intermediate stages: this is, in fact, the actual capital of a society, long in accumulating but sooner or later to be the nourishment of a spirit thus determined and claiming to shine forth and to be classed with the noblest epochs of this world. So we have this feeling of things which are rooted in profound acquired bases, which is what we mean when we use the word culture. There are certain moments when this feeling is so acute, its ingredients so resolved, it shines so crystal clear, that a mere word suffices to illuminate the whole question; so we speak of Greek culture, Latin culture, Western culture and so on.
You cannot ransack another man’s inheritance. No one has ever seen a cypress suddenly install itself, in full growth, in a forest of oak trees; all that could be seen would be a tiny sapling taking two hundred years to grow into a fine tree. This is one of Nature’s laws. You cannot absorb culture from text-books, or out of the treasures pillaged in great cities; it implies centuries of effort.
So, to begin, the rude craftsmen of the North who wanted to copy the antique started out, like children, from what they saw, and not from what they knew. Their starting-point was the Pantheon, for this seemed good to them, but their poor imitations fell to pieces; they knew nothing of the Roman cement, they had no technical means, no implements. They grew discouraged, and about the year 1000 they laid down their tools, resolved to do no more. If the priests no longer enjoyed their labour, at least they had their riches; they were expecting the end of the world—which did not arrive. Then was planted the seed of knowledge, and one age succeeded another. A technique was invented, tools were acquired, and as a result of this healthy discipline man’s thought was brought to bear on the works of reason. A feeling was born, virgin and pure, true and real. In 1300 the cathedral was born!
Here is an amazing fact! From the Pantheon1 we arrive at the cathedral; out of the old classical culture came the Middle Ages.
This is how cultures grow; they are based on personal effort, on ingestion and digestion. When digestion has taken place, then we have acquired a feeling for things. And this very feeling is nourished by what has been ingested. There is no question of stealing when it is a question of the creations of the mind.
In its sudden release, its superiority to mere will, its close harmony with the native gifts of a race, sensibility or feeling is a culmination and demands expression; it commands and leads men; it determines their point of view and the deep meaning of things.
We leave the Pantheon; but that is hardly true ! We arrive at the cathedral. From classical culture to the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages. The Barbarian is there, with his striving after culture. This year of 1300 is not a culmination, the Barbarian is still too near at hand. The road continues. We too are on that same road and would wish to mark a further stage.
Sensibility comes into play….
Sensibility or feeling is a categorical imperative which nothing can resist. Sensibility—some words have an odd fate—is precisely not a thing of the senses and it cannot be measured. It is something innate and violent; a goad, an “urge.” In weaker terms we might call it intuition.
But intuition, apart from simple manifestations of instinct, can be defined, for our comfort, on a basis of rational elements; it might well be expressed by intuition is the sum of acquired knowledge. (And it might be said too of instinct that it is the sum of knowledge acquired through the ages.)
Here we have our feet firmly planted on the ground and in an environment where we can move freely and govern our own actions.
If intuition is the sum of acquired knowledge (which may go back a long way—atavism, the legacy of the ages, and so on), then feeling or sensibility is the emanation of these acquisitions. Its basis, therefore, is a rational one, and it is a rational fact; it is, that is to say, what each man has earned for himself; for every work has its reward.
You cannot steal another man’s sensibility.
We must specify clearly if we are to bring together into one formidable array the various means which our own age has placed in our hands—that is to say, the equipment with which we must set up our framework for the work itself. We shall become conscious then of a feeling which is set free, and arising out of our small and fixed daily occupations, a sensibility which can lead them in the direction of an ideal form—towards a style (for style is a state of mind)—towards a culture, that is. These are the many-sided efforts of a society which feels it is ready for the crystallization of a new attitude after one of the most fruitful periods of preparation that mankind has ever known.
Culture manifests itself in a full realization of the equipment at our disposal, by choice, by classification, and by evolution. All this establishes a hierarchy of our sensibilities and so dictates the means by which these can be stimulated. It is natural that, in seeking happiness, we should strive towards a sense of equilibrium. Equilibrium means calm, a mastery of the means at our disposal, clear vision, order, the satisfaction of the mind, scale and proportion—in fact it means creation. Disequilibrium witnesses to a state of conflict, to disquietude, to difficulties not resolved, to a state of bondage and of questioning. It is an inferior and earlier stage of preparation. Lack of balance is the equivalent of a state of fatigue, and balance the equivalent of a state of well-being.
~~The City of To-Morrow And Its Planning -by- Le Corbusier
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