An antidote to modern architecture

"Only if we are capable of dwelling, only then can we build" — Martin Heidegger

Modern architecture is often ridiculed, despite its enduring popularity, for being sterile and visually unappealing. It leaves one to wonder why it remains so omnipresent when so many hate it? The truth is far more insidious than its unsightly blight on our cities. The answer doesn’t lie in a cold cost-benefit analysis calculation of material costs. The matter is far more treacherous than the 20th century architect’s mantra, “function over form”. The bland modernist cubes and inconsistent postmodernist eyesores are the result of a deeper cultural rot, which exists within all our minds, one that prevents us from knowing how to build anything better. We struggle to find places that we can truly call home. We are creating cityscapes where families cannot thrive, places where we cannot even consider children within their walls. Embark with me on this journey, and I’ll show you that the way we build is verily dehumanizing — but this is not a substack of doom and gloom. You will find some redemption on this path forward to relearn the ways we can build worthy monuments of our civilization, places to call home that stir within us a desire to raise and cultivate the next generation.

Heidegger cuts right to the core of the decay that lies beneath modern architecture¹. Our society merely builds, but one cannot conceive how to build if they are incapable of dwelling. We cannot build something without first understanding its purpose in our lives, and then we can decide how our construction can enrich that purpose. So, we first must understand what it means to dwell. Dwelling in the simplest terms means to ‘take shelter inside a building’, but we must first consider how to define a building that is worthy of dwelling inside; for there are bridges, airports, and convenience stores which we may find ourselves inside, or even hotels that may accommodate us temporarily, but we do not dwell in these buildings. We build such buildings for other purposes, as these places are not the homes where we lay our heads.

According to Heidegger, the line which separates our dwellings from mere buildings is that the dwelling should be a place where one can be set at peace. Heidegger emphasizes that dwelling is not simply a place to hang your hat. It is not a studio to rent just to have a roof over your head. Four walls do not make for a home: this is merely a building — not a dwelling. Instead, we must create places that enrich us. We may throw up posters or tapestries in a tiny apartment to make it more homely, poeticizing our rooms, but this is still not dwelling, this is a bandage on a place you are reluctant to call home. To learn how to build homes that are worth dwelling within, we must go back to a time when we intuitively knew what this meant, before it was long forgotten.

The dwelling of the past and the building of the present

The Homestead Act of 1862 helped America achieve its manifest destiny in ruling the continent, extending the nation from ‘sea to shining sea’. Settlers were allowed to claim any westward plot of land if one navigated this mad scramble towards the Pacific Ocean. Allowing them to rest their weary souls at one of the numerous blossoming communities developing across the land. Here one could witness the construction of many dwellings. Families built these homes specifically for their needs, which were governed by the existential demands of a homesteader’s will to survive. The needs of such dwellings were clear, these homes served as a haven for families who took the risk to start a life anew. The Ingalls family of the famous children’s book series, Little House on the Prairie, captures a humble view of this period that many experienced through a Hollywood lens with the famous television adaption. This quaint homestead built on a California ranch, represented the Minnesota farmland where the Ingalls family staked their claim in America’s new soils, and constructed the type of dwelling that is helpful for us to envision.

A screen capture from Little House on the Praire

We enter through an awning porch into this compact 45 metre² room (500 square feet) with an attached kitchen. This dwelling is a sanctuary for the Ingalls family of six. We see its Olympian hearth, set in the centre of the home, built of stonework that radiates its warmth outward to all corners of the house. The living room features a softwood table with edges just ever so slightly rounded. This is where we often find the Ingalls family crowded together sharing a meal, the furniture placed around the small room uses the space efficiently, never cluttering but always complimenting, the edges never sharp nor protruding. The knobs on the cabinets are subdued and rustic, unimposing to the onlooker. They are part of the wooden fixtures that accompany the entire home. Let’s not forget studious little Laura’s desk in the children’s lofted bedroom placed against the warmth of the stone. This space is filled with life and family, never feels claustrophobic despite being comparable in size to a studio apartment. The family finds peace within these crowded walls.

Yet, how can we be set at peace, when our dwellings have morphed into mere buildings? The disappearance of the hearth due to the invention of the radiator, replaced by radio then television, leaves us no centre to draw the family together in union. We cannot come together as brothers and sisters like the Greco-Roman Gods sitting in a circle with Hera tending the flames. We have no fixtures in our homes that provide this solace and connection. The paper thin walls of contemporary 5-over-1s do not provide the tranquility of freedom from the encroaching noise of our neighbours and the barking of little dogs. Cheaply made doors that do not have the weight of solid oak are easy to inadvertently slam, disturbing our loved ones, or waking a sleeping baby into a fit of startled tears. Beautiful carven mouldings no longer adorn the edges of our ceilings. These delicate touches of beauty are strangely absent in our contemporary world. Wooden inlays in our furniture might as well be a lost art. One cannot write poetry about the inside of a barren cube nor does the blanc angular IKEA coffee table inspire us as a muse, for it lacks any distinctive character of its own.

How is it that we forgot how to dwell? How to live? How to build?