Roger Scruton on Anxiety and Architecture

I have not read Roger Scruton's The Aesthetics of Architecture but I assume he more fully develops the point he makes in this interview:

One must think of the people who really use a building, who are those who pass it by. They don't know anything about the structure. But they do jolly well know the impact of that façade. Just think of what's involved in going through a doorway, and the difference between a sheet of glass which you can't actually identify the handle of, and something which arches over you and guides you in.

These elementary experiences are part of the difference between a building which welcomes and a building which creates anxiety. Nobody can deny that modern cities are increasingly places of great anxiety. And if you don't think architecture is one reason for this, it's because you don't have any eyes.

I have never made this connection between anxiety and architecture, but if it is accurate, I think it could be a good criticism of contemporary architecture. The Louvre entrance is arguably the best example of a confusing entrance; the Louvre's multiple glass pyramids that cover an underground entrance are worse than a simple sheet of glass with a hidden handle.

Later in the interview, Scruton says that if it is true that our lives are ones of anxiety, it would be the purpose of architecture to strengthen our lives in the face of anxiety; to simply reinforce this position, Scruton claims, is to show contempt for human beings.

If this is at all interesting, or if you want to hear Scruton briefly talk about liberalism, conservatism, deconstructionism, or pornography read the interview at salon.com

Please note that the interview has two pages to it; the link for the second page is at the bottom of the first.

Living with the Old Grandpa: Chesterton on the Family

I am not exactly sure who G.K. Chesterton has in mind in his chapter "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family" in his book Heretics; it could be Kipling with his importance about travel or Virginia Woolf with her membership in the sexually free Bloomsbury Group. The idea Chesterton is attacking is what is significant, as long as the idea of the family for modern writers is actually representative of what his opponents claim.

The claim made about the family by 'certain modern writers,' according to Chesterton, is that "the family is not always very congenial." From this, they would argue that because it is not a place where people live harmoniously with the same disposition, it should be abandoned. Instead of arguing against the first proposition, which is what Chesterton claims the defenses of the family at his time attempted, Chesterton accepts it as true. The family is an uncongenial place, and this is the reason why it is a good institution.

It is good because it conditions one to deal with the rest of the world. "The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that he was born." The brother who is not interested in our religious life, the Uncle who dislikes theater, the sister who has theatrical ambitions, the Aunt who is unreasonable, the Father who is excitable, the brother who is mischievous, or the Grandpapa who is old and stupid are all examples he uses to show the variety and difficulty of the family. The family is a microcosm of the world. It is a lie to think that by escaping it one is entering a "larger" world. The person who only lives or talks to people she chooses inhabits a false reality. As Chesterton says, "there is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique."

Because it is not chosen, Chesterton sees the family which is given to each person as romantic; it comes to us. It forces us to encounter things that we do not like or do not expect. "To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be born into a romance."

If you wish to purchase Heretics avoid the edition by Quiet Vision Press as my pages fell out after my first time reading through the book.