Dear Architecture
/Dear Architecture,
I can’t believe it was nine years ago today that I last held you and looked upon your precious façade. You were so beautiful and in that moment we were so proud. Sometimes I can still smell you – fresh, new, sterile…
I’m sorry I don’t visit anymore. We tried for a while, but with each hour spent with you I felt increasingly more empty. It’s heartbreaking facing the faults in our labor; I hated myself for failing you, for not being good enough. I was certain I would never create again. But your existence, however flawed, made me an architect.
We thought we were so careful: we studied, we planned, we consulted experts. I daydreamed about your potential success and achievements. You were going to bring people together. You’d shelter everyone and everything you touched. You would change the world. We had the benefit of a long history of creating your kind behind us and we designed you with dedicated love and passion. But we were naïve in our quest for perfection.
We all watched in awe as your rigid structure formed, your complex systems developed, and your glistening skin hardened around that extraordinary frame. The reality of your significance materialized with the passing of every month. Oh, Architecture, you were visually astounding. Absolutely revolutionary!
But, as your creator, I knew something was wrong the moment you were announced to the world. I felt it. You were cold, hard, and still. I felt… disconnected. I felt nothing. Everything was so quiet. Where was your pulse? Where was the life we gave you? The longer I looked at you the more I could see the resemblance to your brothers before you. Now, like them, you’re merely a brilliant shrine of what you were meant to be. You are a parasitic burden on this place until someday you crumble into nothing. A piece of us all dies with you.
I don’t blame you, Architecture. The fault lies in our premature ambitions. We didn’t know what we know now and there is endless learning ahead of us still. But what I do know, what I believe, is that life creates life – it is our purpose.
For that truth we owed it to you to try again; there is hope now with your sister. In your honor we designed her in your name and image. But what you lacked due to our ignorance she will have – she will breathe, adapt, and reproduce. She will be a complete, living system, truly belonging to this world in a profound way that you never could. She will change everything.
My dear Architecture, thank you for what you’ve taught me and for inspiring us to try again. Please forgive us for our missteps. I know you are meant to be more. I know that is why I am, that is why I will forever give you all of me. I have hope for you. I have hope for us.
Love,
Your architect
