I wondered at the Victorian quality of the
evening - Wednesday, 15th November 2000. That formal Brontesque
hairstyle hovering behind the misty glow of the lectern was not the only image
to elicit such a romantic recall. The subject was Yemen. That extraordinary
place with extraordinary landscape and extraordinary architecture was being
introduced to an awed audience by an individual described by Professor Holden
as an extraordinary lady with extraordinary skills. In all it was to be an
extraordinary evening. And that is why it felt Victorian - or as one might have
thought such an evening could have been experienced over one hundred years ago. It was a night abuzz with the expectations of the revelation of unknown delights: a true extravaganza.
Just imagine Carter showing slides of
Egypt; of Woolley with his illustrated treasures of Ur. Once these were the
unknown places of this world where the classic English traveller would meander
with exuberant Britishness - an odd mixture of cheek and respect; of the brash
and the sensitive. Tibet and China were once such mystery places too; and the
Hindu Kush. These classic, learned, intrepid travellers can be imagined
returning to London and being invited to present on an evening at The Royal
Geographical Society where the unimaginable wonders of these hidden cultures
could be revealed to amazed eyes. So the evening felt Victorian, where an
encyclopedic delight in learning of new differences was the core of attention and expectations.
But this Yemen evening was in Brisbane at
the Royal Australian Institute of Architects rooms in 2000. Professor Jennifer Taylor was
presenting a talk on her recent trip to this remote place introduced as the last (one
of) place where ancient culture and society remains alive in cities that were
established in pre-biblical times by Biblical names. A relative of Noah was
said to have been involved in this place with landscape appropriately - the
flood - ripped apart by ancient riverbeds. There was once much water here, but not now.
The maps illustrated locations of names
never previously heard of, while the slides flipped through amazing images of
multistorey mud that looked like something else much more controlled. Fringed
lime-white decorative mud passed into multicoloured facade details that looked
crisply surreal and clear like a Jeffrey Smart painting. The beautiful
illustrations were accompanied by a read text that was expanded with asides
from the traveller – “we did…; it was; then we
;etc.”
The evening presentation, precisely an
hour's duration, always seemed that it might be more than a travel chat, but it retreated into this easy, lazy format. The promotional material,
(complete with the formal Registration Form and cash payment), suggested the session was to
offer much more than a traveller’s reverie, but it really was just a matter of
look at this – “how it lives with the landscape; organic; at one; amazing;
beautiful; stunning; etc.” And this became a concern.
This was the other reason that gave the
evening its Victorian touch. These cultural delights were treated as aesthetic
wonders just as the Victorians might have viewed them. There was no effort to
try to understand the whole and its parts as those that made them might have
seen them. Those attending that night were encouraged to look at these wondrous
things as though they were indeed works of Jeffrey Smart - just self-conscious,
composed, aesthetic things to delight the eclectic modern eye, nothing more. We
were asked by way of the commentary to see these things alone in our world with
our eyes only: WOW!
That the question about food elicited such
a response of horror was odd. One felt that the real Victorians might have been
a little more tolerant of impossibly different food. But how can food be
separated from form? This circumstance only highlighted the position that saw only
the difference we were invited to gaze at. No mosque was isolated for
discussion, but these form the core of the community. The bathhouse was
mentioned, but never illustrated. How might these relate? The amazing clutter was ogled at, but the
laws of settlement and adjacency were not touched upon. What if a tower was
built up to on three sides? How does the organic and chaotic get controlled?
Dare we imagine that the forces of innocence in nature in this third world void
gave this result, as a growing crystal might form in its solution?
A questioner raised the important issue of
the stairs in these towers, a point that was never touched on by illustration;
and one never saw a construction site either. What was in the core of the stair
tube-core? Only the idyllic masses of towns were photographed along with the
endless quaint details. It was indeed all very pretty. But if we are to really understand
what these places stand for apart from some functional explanation of
wastewater spillage, and shit collection for the baths, and wall thicknesses,
then we need to get closer to the meanings. Why were the decorations painted
the same as those sculpted?
It is not good enough to assume that these
cultures saw (see) their world as we see it today in our time and place. For us
to make no effort to try to understand the other culture from its point of view
only continues the egocentric importance of the misguided twentieth century.
These buildings, if one can interpolate from other mud brick cultures, are no
silly self-help exercises that can be likened to the randomness of squatters’
homes outside Delhi or Rio. No, they are the work of skilled masons; and so on
for the carpenter, the glass worker, the lime worker (more than a mist of
white), etc. Intelligence lies here. It is too easy for us to assume some
third-world poverty-driven endeavor assembling all this by chance and
inexperienced effort. If we are to learn anything of other people and places,
we have to overcome this prejudice and warm to unknown possibilities that we
could learn from. The concept of 'architecture without architects' has not been not useful for us or our conceit.
The latent questions in this truly
extraordinary work are: why is it so beautiful? Why so richly human? Why do we
still respond to this wonder? To presume an answer along the lines of naivety,
time and innocence (ignorance) is as absurd as believing in the ad hoc
beginnings of these structures that, like all traditional art, leaves us to
wonder in amazement: where, as Martin Lings noted, we cannot marvel enough.
While modern architecture and art can
surprise with its difference, it knows nothing of marvel other than man the
artist as 'marvel man,' when traditionally every man was a special kind of
artist - not every artist a special kind of man. And to truly marvel is an
experience of a humility and a seeking for an understanding that involves
wholes, that our fragmented world only touches upon as isolated parts. It does
involve religion, like all good art and architecture. It is never a fluke or
born of chance or the ad hoc.
Traditional art is an art of remembrance.
The question we have to ask and seek an answer to is: what is it that this
art/architecture is seeking to remember? This is the core quest for modern man
when confronted with all traditional art that is never art for arts sake or
self-expression. If we are to exhibit art/architecture or talk about it, then
we must address these questions. Admiring pretty things is never enough if we
are to really understand. And we must accept this quest to know as one that can
change everything we hold to be important. Without such a point of address, we
will only continue to drag our madness into other minds, in the same manner as
the presenter who seeks brownie points by being the one to show such hidden
delights - I was there; look at me.
But “What is the rock of the landscape?”
was the question. The traveller did not know. I pick up a rock and carry it to
touch for recall. “Perhaps basalt?” was the blind guess. I thought it was buff
to red colour. In an eroded desert? Volcanic? We must challenge ourselves to
regain even, at the very least, a meagre interest in knowing more about the
unknown so that our own architecture might revitalise itself and our lives
beyond complacency and Gehry-ish self-importance. Frustrated pencil tapping will never
know this world in which love thrives and enriches spirit - and still can. The
silence of the audience told more of the awe than the formal questions that
could only touch on the facts of function and planning. “How does one plan such
a trip?” seemed to miss the point. It was like the man looking at the finger
rather than the full moon being pointed too.
Let us hope that Yemen will not become the
tourist 'Mecca' and self-destruct. It is different. The Americans found this out;
and the British tourists too. Art and architecture are more than things to gawk
at; and the experience is always much more than that whimsy of a place full of people full of
themselves.
