Lightbulb Moment.

I saw something in Florence which stopped me in my tracks. I was walking along the river at sunset, across from the Uffizi, and saw a blue neon sign, the length of the building, across the back of the museum. It said simply,

all art has been contemporary.

Just like that. All art has been contemporary. And of course, that was the whole point of the trip, although I hadn’t thought of it exactly like that. There were days when I was snarky about some iffy contemporary art at the Vatican, and days when I was a little weary of ancient temple ruins, and days like at the Miro museum when I was moved to tears by the sculpture. All of this art and architecture I saw, from 3,000 years ago at Saqqara to the street performers in the square, have been contemporary at some point. All of them were trying to express something fundamental, to encapsulate something about their core beliefs; as Dr. Schaffer would say, to inscribe their cosmology on the earth and make sense of their universe. The pyramids? life after death. Borobudur? the path to enlightenment. The Acropolis? seat of the gods. Italian piazzas: monuments to participation in civic life. And on and on. I wanted to see these places, and learn what was so important to these artists that they had to inscribe it in stone.

This raises the obvious question, one we discussed at great length in school- what is it we, here, are trying to say? What legacy are we leaving behind? As architects? As people? Nobody is interested in another discussion about sprawl, strip malls, big-box stores, and monuments to the culture of “personal mobility” and consumerism and the automobile. But this is a very personal issue to me at the moment, given that I am at a, shall we say, awkward point in my career. In that I do not have one at the moment. Which, actually, is a great time to consider, what is it I would like to say, given the chance to inscribe something in stone myself? Is it, “All people deserve safe, well-designed, affordable housing?” Is it, “Our American cities could use some sensitive urban design?” Or maybe, “Our buildings need to be as sustainable as possible,” or just “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” It may be years before I get to design anything, anywhere, for anyone- but I’m going to quit talking about what I don’t want to do, architecturally speaking. I’m throwing my energy behind the “all art has been contemporary” sentiment, and tackle it from that approach for now.