SIMPLE VOLUMES UNDER THE LIGHT OF THE SUN are at home in southern California and remain fundamentally satisfying to the contemporary eye. (Costa Mesa Library above, Chaffey College below, Johnson Favaro).
The moon has no light of its own. And while we can see the sun, we cannot see its light. It is when the light of the sun meets an obstacle upon which that light then reflects that we know that both the light and the obstacle are there. We would not know that the moon is there were it not for the light of the sun and conversely, we would not know that there is light from the sun were it not for objects such as the moon that it illuminates. We cannot see light any more than we can see wind. We only see its effects.
WE STILL TELL TIME by the light of the sun-- the hour, the day and the season—particularly in southern California where there is the near constant presence of the sun and moon free of the interruptions of weather.
WE SEE OBJECTS AND SURFACES and the relationships between them (“space”) by virtue of among other things the shade and shadows they cast on each other.
As sentient beings, we evolved within a narrow spectrum of reality, our environment, to navigate it using among other things light. By the shade and shadows cast by opaque surfaces under the light of the sun, we can tell where we are in relation to the things around us—the ground and objects (or “figures”) that inhabit it. And even now, with clocks, we still tell time in relation to how and when opaque objects occlude light. We sense the time of day (morning, noon, afternoon and evening), what day it is (new, quarter, half and full moon) and here in southern California, the season (winter, spring, summer and fall).
MADE OF AND OF THE EARTH are pre-industrial revolution buildings, substantial, unchanging, voluptuous and serene (Dubrovnik, Croatia above, Lindos, Greece below).
DRAWING ON OPAQUE SURFACES further clarifies relationships of height, breadth and depth (“space”) and sharpens our sense of orientation within them.
SIMPLE PLEASURES OF VOLUMES IN LIGHT are what we enjoy in these two works of art (Caravaggio above, Gehry below).
Relationships among the opaque objects around us and ourselves with them are fundamental to our sense of orientation in the world and our survival in it. We depend on opacity. Not every object or surface in the world is opaque in the same way (texture, color) and that is how we know what they are made of. Some, not a lot, are not opaque at all-- they are, rather, translucent, transparent, refractive and reflective-- some so transparent that under certain (somewhat rare) light conditions they disappear altogether.
THE INTERACTION OF LIGHT with objects and surfaces that variously reflect and refract yields color, illusion and ambiguity in our apprehension of our environment, also pleasurable.
REFLECTIVE AND REFRACTIVE surfaces and environments in nature are transcendent in their relative rarity and ephemerality.
WE VALUE certain stones and metals mined from the earth for how they reflect and refract light. Most of our world is opaque and dull while these few materials are filled with bright light and brilliant colors.
TURNER AND TURRELL one a painter of landscapes and the other a maker of controlled environments both capture the wonderous effects of what we think of as pure light. We do not, however, see light but rather reflections and refractions of light upon objects and surfaces too small or transparent to see.
Those qualities that we appreciate in the reflection off a mountain lake, the refractions of light and color from precious jewels and metals, the interplay of varying translucency in the interactions of water and air across days and seasons (mists and clouds at sunrise and sunset) are their rarity and ephemerality. They are transcendent by virtue of their ability to unmoor us from the mundane gravity ladened world we live in.
WE LIKE IMMERSION IN SOMETIMES DISORIENTING ENVIRONMENTS of color and light but mostly only as a special and momentary experience, not a daily one. (Walk-in Kaleidiscope installation at the Tate Modern above, Saks Fifth Avenue, Rem Koolhaus, below).
ILLUSIONS OF INFINITY whether in service to monastic power or high art are irresistible to our earth bound bodies and minds (Versailles above, Kusama below).
Before not long ago, most buildings were mostly opaque. They were built of and finished with common and readily available materials taken from the earth (soil, wood, stone). The extent to which buildings had openings (doors and windows) depended on the in-born structural qualities of those materials--qualities that nature, not engineering, had bestowed, openings which by contemporary standards were and are limited and limiting in extent and experience.
MIES VAN DER ROHE, a German architect, over a century ago embraced glass wall construction like no other early modernist. What seemed special then is ubiquitous now.
FIFTY YEARS after Mies van der Rohe first conceived and drew an entirely glass high-rise building, the Hancock Tower in Boston still achieved in the 1970s special status by virtue of its presence within and contrast with historic Boston. In 2020, another fifty years later, glass buildings are now everywhere—an object lesson in how what was once avant-garde can so easily devolve into rear guard.
With the advent of manufactured materials, such as steel and glass, we came to conceive buildings that were mostly translucent, transparent, refractive and reflective. We got more (or less?) than windows in walls, we got walls of glass. Instead of buildings and rooms shrouded in the dark, we enjoy interiors abundantly lit by the light of day—and with the right light, a seamless visual continuity between inside and out. That we have benefited is without doubt, but have we also paid a price?
MID CENTURY RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE offered seamless indoor/outdoor living as an alternative to living in rooms with windows. The price paid was the disregard for and disintegration of cities. Rooms with windows are the (rather low) price to be paid for coherent city environments.
PRE-INDUSTRIAL STREETS AND SQUARES by virtue of the opaque surfaces that give them shape are both coherent and alive. The hegemony of 20th century retail has contributed to the disintegration of enclosing surfaces in public spaces. Perhaps the pandemic will provide a welcoming corrective. (Ae xen Provence and Campo dei Fiori, Rome, above and below left; Culver City and Century City above and below right).
What began in the 19th C as an earnest effort to apply new technologies and materials to improve construction efficiency and broaden our repertoire in building design morphed in the 20th C into rarified hyper intellectualized experiments intended to contrast with and transcend what by then had come to seem mundane—dense massive buildings punctuated by small apertures and dark interiors with (relatively) little light. Not long thereafter in the mid-century, as those experiments congealed into dogma and the economics of construction increasingly relied more on manufacturing and less on labor, we got glass and steel buildings, not as something special in distinction from their settings but as the default setting of our surroundings.
A SEASIDE TOWN in vernacular Greece is attractive by virtue of its opacity in contrast to a seaside town in current day southern California where glass walls that favor the private experience (view) over our shared experience (city) prevent any sense of identity or grounding in place. (Mykonos, Greece left; Manhattan Beach, CA right).
COMPLETELY OPAQUE AND COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT (Walls and openings in a private residence in Westwood, CA, Johnson Favaro).
Nature is nearly always our best teacher and we would be right to wonder whether within our built environment (which to be sure is not a natural environment) the increasing deficit of opaque surfaces is nevertheless lamentable. We forget to appreciate the simple beauties of volumes lit by the sun, the gradations in lighting, shade and shadow that come with the varying orientations and shapes of surfaces and the sense of clarity, stability and permanence that comes with an opaque environment reassuring in its unchanging presence.
A HOT ARID CLIMATE demands opaque surfaces and walls of depth that both insulate from and capture the relentless presence and dramatic lighting effects of the sun. (Nichols Park Joyce Jackson Community Center, Riverside, CA, Johnson Favaro).
ANCHORED IN PLACE Opaque buildings come in many forms including new ones yet to be discovered. (Costa Mesa Library left, Chaffey College right, Johnson Favaro).