Between Earth and Sky

Résumé du livre

Homelessness and the search for home are the greatest affliction and the greatest responsibility of all those who would dwell humanly upon the earth. Some writers, Martin Heidegger for example, suggest that the homelessness of modern life results from a forgetfulness of the poetic nature of dwelling. One of the clearest expressions of this forgetfulness is the sterile alien nature of many of the creations of contemporary architecture. However, while architecture has contributed to the homelessness of modern life, it is also one way of rediscovering what has been forgotten. Using the image of the arch, I show how architecture can be a means of situating humanity at home, on the earth under the sky. At attempt to recover the basic features of dwelling proceeds by discussing Hestia and Vesta, the goddesses of the hearth and its sacred fire in Greek and Roman mythology. A detailed exploration of the images and rituals associated with these figures suggests some of the major features of a kind of dwelling sensitive to the life of the soul. Passages from the writings of Marcel Proust and Rainer Maria Rilke are relevant to this discussion, for homelessness and the search for home are important themes in their work. This study suggests that dwelling illumined by the hearth fire situates us at home among things. If architecture is to express the true nature of home, it must be aware of the ways simple things populating our lives focus the world as a home. As Proust and Rilke suggest, things can be understood as household gods enriching and protecting our dwelling. Things, however, require our care if their soul is to be preserved. As the gods of our household, they must first be protected from carelessness and forgetfulness, if they are to secure our home.--the Abstract.