Architecture began like writing. A stone was planted upright, and it was a letter, and each letter was a hieroglyph, and on every hieroglyph rested a group of ideas, like the capital on a column. When there were many stones and a vast expanse of ground, they wrote a sentence. The immense mass of stones at Karnac is already a complete formula.
From the most immemorial temple of Hindustan to the Cathedral of Cologne architecture has been the great manuscript of the human race. This is true to such a degree that not only every religious symbol, but every human thought, has its page and its memorial in that vast book.
Before the invention of movable type in the fifteenth century this was the only form in which free thought was possible, and therefore it found full expression in those books called edifices. Up to this time architecture was the chief recorder of the human race no single thought that went beyond the absolutely fundamental but was embedded in some edifice; every popular idea, like every religious law, has had its monuments.
The human race has never conceived an important thought that has not been written down in stone. And why? Because every thought, whether religious or philosophic, is anxious to be perpetuated; because the idea that has stirred one generation longs to stir others, and to leave some lasting trace.
— Thoughts drawn from Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris.
The architecture of a country is a concrete picture of the mass consciousness of its people. A national consciousness centered in idealism and pregnant with the powers of spirit — if such could be found-would express idealistic fineness in equally beautiful and inspiring architectural forms. We have only to observe the irregular and inharmonious lines of "buildings adorning the main street" of any average modern town to realize how slight and vague are the appreciation of, and the quest for beauty among its inhabitants.
One of the most disillusioning factors connected with procedures of the United Nations Organization is the design of its buildings. Unattractive from every angle, they embody nothing of the New Age idealism which must become the heart and soul of that organization if it is to endure and to accomplish even a small part of that to which illumined pioneers aspire. They present no sense of the breadth, expansion or unity which must characterize a unified world — though it was to establish basic ideals for such a world that the United Nations was founded.
Frank Lloyd Wright, an architect of exceptional vision, takes "a dim view of the 'new' architecture" as exemplified in United Nations structures: "The building for the United Nations is a glorification of negation," he declares. "How can this be seen? In the building being a deadpan box with no expression of the nature of what transpires within the buij.ding. It is a box on stilts, the human element having been purposely destroyed ... How purposely? Because that is the creed of what has been called internationalism in architecture. The United Nations building is undemocratic. It is a curious irony. We try to tell the world how to live. We have to put something behind this arrogance of ours. We have got to build before we can tell people how to live."
Only a country addicted at heart to frivolous and superficial living will produce this style of architecture. The Golden Age of Greece, an era of beauty and culture unequalled in world history, gave expression to the most perfect pre-Christian architecture. The Parthenon still lives for artists as a perfect memory of style, outline and harmonious assemblage. All the high idealism of a people steeped in dreams of beauty found full, consecrated expression in the exquisite and meticulously planned details of this Temple about and within which their lives centered.
Modern skyscrapers, unlovely in proportion, dominant and arrogant in perspective, are apt symbols of nations recently and quickly risen to power, and eager to attract attention to themselves. It is interesting to note that the large cities of North America, South America and Soviet Russia are those in which skyscrapers predominate. They are an altogether unnatural type of building belonging exclusively to this materialistic era of superficialities, and as such have been dubbed "Cathedrals of Commerce."
Rome has been descriptively termed the "heavyweight champion of builders." The very expression "Romanesque architecture" brings to mind pictures of massive structures suggesting power and might, but utterly lacking in the grace, delicacy and symmetry of Grecian architecture-just as the civilization of the Roman era was practically devoid of the idealistic qualities of Grecian culture. The Roman motto of 'might is right' conditioned the people's thinking and thus set an ineradicable mark upon the buildings they erected.
At the height of the Roman orgy of might and power, when the entire civilized world practically lay at her feet and morality reached its lowest ebb tide, when the darkness of materiality was rampant and the light of spirit seemed completely obliterated, occurred the most momentous event of all time, the incarnation of the Light of the World!
Gothic architecture came as an expression of the Christ message. Roman law was to be superseded by His grace. All the sweetness and tenderness of His ministry, all the depth and force of His love, all the poignancy of His sacrifice for humanity,'were enshrined in the consecrated structures of the Cathedral Age.
Gothic architecture, the "Quest for Christ immortalized in stone," attained ultimate perfection in the cathedrals of France. The signature of their Mystic Builder's art was left in the "lost secret" of stained glass. One who has entered or even stood enraptured before these magnificent creations retains a life-long memory of the deep soul joy occasioned by the experience. The buildings captured a living light and imprisoned it in the glass prisms of the windows. Thus does a writer describe the priceless beauty of the windows of Sainte Chapell in Paris: "There, with the great expanse of glass, they seem to have turned the whole stone shell into a heavenly garden of violets clambering up on delicately made trellises."
How true it is that with the passing of these holy builders-Initiates they were, dedicated to the highest ideals and purposes of life — architecture lost its exalted place as one of the seven arts, so designated by the ancients, and descended to its present role as just another financially compensated profession. The general run of modern architects have truly "lost the light." So the glory that shimmers in and through cathedral windows remains a secret until a day when artists dedicate and consecrate themselves and their abilities to things of the spirit.
St. Thomas Aquinas, called by reason of his great wisdom the doctor of angelic philosophy, said that God never left himself without a witness. Among the architectural witnesses of the centuries, those who lifted turrets, domes and columns against the sky, were representatives of many creeds, cults and faiths, but each and all proclaimed the triumphant message that God Is. Another writer graphically describes his impressions of that inspiring miracle, the Chartres Cathedral: "If you drive down to the plain of La Banco from Orleans, there in that illimitable expanse of vanishing green and gold, floats the shadowy cathedral, vast, vague, like a great ship far out at sea; never shall I forget that first vision of it." It is claimed that a Druid Temple once stood on the site of this cathedral, and that an ancient altar dedicated to a virgin-mother goddess was found there. Also, that this gem of the ancient builders' royal art, which bears the dedication "The bed of the Virgin," was erected to perpetuate worship of this goddess.
A graphic and inspiring description of this glorious edifice, together with a brief historical account of its building, appeared in a recent issue of The Reader's Digest. The article, by Donald and Louise Peatty, is entitled The Miracle of Chartres. It is yet another of the countless testimonies to the deathless glory and moving grandeur that was imparted by the mystic builders of old to this and similarly dedicated sacred structures, and to their enduring power to invoke in the hearts of beholders impulses that relate to things eternal.
As previously observed, such was the spirit in which the architects, the workmen, and the entire community labored that when the Chartres structure was completed it was already charged with a sanctity that made itself felt by even those considering themselves immune to any kind of religious impulse. And the cathedral remains so to this day. Its sheer beauty, together with the physically intangible but very real influences imparted by devout worshipers down through the centuries, have added reverence to the emotions of all who enter its sacred precincts.
The Cathedral of Chartres is located on a commanding site consecrated to the worship of the Infinite long before the advent of Christianity; and it has remained so despite the fact that a Christian edifice arising thereon has been virtually destroyed no less than four times and been four times replaced, each time with greater determination to make the new structure nobler than the last. People from the whole surrounding area rallied to the task. Labor and gifts were donated by young and old, rich and poor, high and low-a truly democratic enterprise carried on under what was still a feudal social system. Common allegiance to a religious ideal gave rise to a true fraternity in this specific sphere of activity. The builders labored at their tasks during the day; at night they gathered together to invoke blessings on their efforts, and to sing hymns of praise and thanksgiving for the opportunity of participating in the erection of a glorious shrine dedicated to the Most High. Such was the spiritual fervor among these consecrated workers that healing miracles were not at all uncommon.
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres has been called "The Christmas Story in Stone," for it incorporates in its many architectural and decorative features a visualized presentation of the principal events in the life of the Mother Mary, from her birth to her Assumption. The climax of that immortal story is the scene of the Nativity. It is here that Mary, blessed among women and surrounded by Angels, is to be seen in the effulgent glory light that burst upon the world at the birth of the Holy Child. This birth scene gives to the cathedral its distinction of centering attention upon life, not death. There is not a tomb within its walls. It speaks of birth, a new birth. It proclaims life, a new life that is immortal.
In all the annals of mystic architecture one cannot find a more beautiful example of what a deeply devoted and dedicated group can create as a memorial to the highest and noblest in man, and t.o the honor and glory of God, than this magnificent Christian Temple of worship, the Cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres.
It was in the 13th century that the building of French cathedrals came to its perfect flowering. Into them went the bravery and renunciation of the crusaders while the spiritual dedication of -the Grail Knights was engraven in their immortal beauty. Five or more churches and cathedrals were erected, chief of which is the glorious Notre Dame de Paris. In his Biography of a Cathedral, obert Gordon Anderson writes: "This cathedral's body should be a delight to the sculptor as well as to the architect, indeed to everyone with a spark of poetry in his soul. It has a body perfect in form, function, articulation. Even without its chaplet ring, its corona, its glorious windows, it would be breath-takingly beautiful for its admirable fitness, for its objective, its resilience, integrity, purity and simplicity through perfect union of all complexities and its sheer beauty of line.
"The Cathedral is a magnificent gesture, the noblest, perhaps, ever made by man. It is flung in pride in himself, entreaty to the unknown, in fear and delight, and arrested forever against the sky. Were man and his chemicals to destroy it, even then there will remain the universal feature, of which the Cathedral is shadow, of Him with outstretched arms upon the Cross."
Another structure in which the builders' art reached a climax is the stately mass that rises in harmonious crescendoes of harmony, its thousands of spires and turrets silhouetted against the blue of an Italian sky. This is the Cathedral of Milan. No one can view its splendour without coming into a deeper comprehension of the intimate relationship between music and architecture, and of the significance underlying words attributed to Friedrich von Schelling: "architecture in general is frozen music." This magnitlcent shrine serves as a fitting home for the holy St. Ambrose, father of much of the sacred music now in use.
England largely owes her famed architecture to two distinguished sons, both of whom belonged to the Guild of Mystic Builders. These were Sir Christopher Wren, a high Mason, and Bishop William of Wykeham, a high churchman. These "Brothers" pledged themselves to work for perpetuation of the eternal in architecture. St Paul's Cathedral and Westminister Abbey are lasting memorials to the art which set its signature of eternal worth and beauty, specifically in the name of the Christ, across the face of Western Europe.
— Corinne Heline
