architecture, nature, human

Swiss architects Jacques Herzog once in an interview in 2010, which said these words:

“Architecture is like nature – it tells you something about yourself. Nature is very empty – it confronts you with yourself and your experience of it and what you know about yourself in the context of a landscape, river, a rock, a forest, a shadow, the rain.”

Herzog connects architecture, man and nature with a short but mysterious passage, a link at the spiritual, abstract level. The key to linking the three is the "empty" he mentioned in that passage. "Architecture is like nature, and nature is very empty.” I like the word he used to describe nature-empty, especially as we all know that nature is infinitely vast and unfathomable. The word, empty, he used to describe nature does not make me feel discordant but hit the nail on the head.

Immersed in nature, looking up at the stars or listening to tides always gives me an indescribable move. That is a kind of pleasant affection. So I try to find out the meanings hidden in nature, and often it touches people’s heart, but we seem to feel touching out of nowhere. Perhaps, in this way, the reason might be nature is empty! Therefore, when one faces such colorful and varied Mother Nature, one can feel almost ethereal calmness, and then have the opportunity to face and feel himself or herself.

When we talk about the relationship between environments and architecture, the so-called "environment" often includes the urban or natural environment, but when we read the context of urban and natural environments, the methods are very different. Since urban space is an artificial environment, we perceive every part of it with human significance. Streets, squares, buildings, green space, people and their behavior are inextricably linked. In this way, of course, they will be mixed with political, economic, social, cultural and other contexts. For example, tin covers on the top floors, which are common in Taiwan’s society, are related to Taiwan's population expansion, humid climate, engineering technology, regulatory changes. In addition, the existing cadastral division and street houses are also connected with the culture of property inheritance, agricultural population transfer and other elements. No matter what kind of urban phenomena, architecture or space forms, we can always find its representative reasons and significance. The natural environment is quite another matter, of course. The nature of grass, rivers, rocks or lives all contain the great wisdom of the creator and the profound logics, but the enormous significance transfer the stars, the moon, mountains and rivers into "empty" existence. We will not find our insignificant positions in nature or in the universe until we find ourselves too small. Only by recognizing it, we can face our true selves when we immerse ourselves in the “emptiness” of nature.

Herzog's vision of architecture is the same. He believes that when architecture encounters nature, there is no need to put much human consciousness in it. (It is a bit like Louis Kahn describing his viewpoint of natural materials with a bit poetic sense, for he chose to listen to the ideas of the materials and the natural sounds.) So Edwin Heathcote, a British architect and architecture critic, asked him in the interview, “Can architecture really be so "selfless"?” Herzog said meaningfully, "You can't deny who you are." He went on to explain that when he understood the meaning of the emptiness of nature, he saw no need to impose any personality and ideals of an individual on buildings. To go further, at the beginning of any architectural design, in contrast to carefully "reading" urban texture, perhaps we should choose to concentrate on "listening" to the natural sounds in facing the natural environment, I suppose.

But before reading cities or even listening to nature, how one should position himself or herself in the "emptiness" is something I think needed to be considered first.