Building Blocks

After three years of writing about America, I’m changing my weekly column from “Blowin’ in the Wind” to “Building Blocks.”  I’ll be reflecting on the general topic of building.  Last August I wrote five columns about American architects and buildings. I enjoyed the research and reflection, so look for more stories about favorite structures and builders, worldwide.  I’ll ruminate on tools and materials - I have a little book about the history of the screw I want to read and think about.  And faithful readers know I love metaphor; I’ll celebrate building as a great metaphor for life; formation and restoration, windows and doors, privacy and community, etc.

Come, let us build together.

(If you still want more about America, read the newly-returned-to-his- native-land, Dale Rominger, for a very interesting perspective, different from mine.  And you can always tune in to our old friend Ed Kilgore’s daily column “Political Animal” at the Washington Monthly, which we have linked to all these years – still a good progressive insider’s view of US politics, as we heat up for another presidential election parade.)

Structural Choices

 A successful building is one that is strong (built to last), functional (works) and appealing (invites you in.)

That is, it should have firmitas, utilitas and venustas.

That’s what first century Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius believed, and wrote about, in his fascinating notebooks, On Architecture.

Firmitas – strength.

Utilitas – usefulness.

Venustas – beauty.

Beauvais Cathedral Some buildings have only two out of three.  Beauvais Cathedral was beautiful and useful, but the overambitious builders (or was it the bishop?) insisted it be taller than any other church.  Without firmitas, it collapsed. 

It’s like a three legged stool, firmitas, utilitas, venustas.  With only two legs, you fall down. Literally, in the case of Beauvais.

I live near another apparent recent victory of venustas over firmitas.  The San Francisco Bay Bridge, rebuilt and retrofitted after the 1989 earthquake, but only reopened last year, has now been found to have key structural bolts that are already weakened by rust. The leaders of San Francisco and Oakland battled for years over the redesign of the bridge that links their two cities.  The long delays were about venustas; Oakland wanted its end of the bridge to be an appealing impressive statement, not just a functional link to the bigger SF; it wanted something that looked good.  But costs were cut on the bolts.   SF Bridge is falling down…..

San Francisco Bay BridgeBut the three-legged stool more often falls down in buildings that are all firmitas and utilitas, but with not an ounce of venustas.  We all see these buildings every day: highly functional fortresses.  Think supermarkets, shopping malls, the Pentagon.  These monstrosities not only offend the eye and soul, they are icons of our desperate century – all power and profit, little beauty.

Poet Kenneth Rexroth said, “Against the ruin of the world, there is only one defense, the creative act.”  If everything is about power and profit, firmitas and utilitas, with little beauty, that’s the ruin of the world.  Our souls need the creative act.

So here’s the metaphor part of “Building Blocks.”  Might we build our careers, even our lives, the way we build buildings?

I once went to a career counseling workshop that use a similar image of the three legged stool to talk about finding your calling in life, building your career, as it were.  They started with Frederick Buechner’s good definition of calling; “To find the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

Deep gladness – your passion.  Venustas

Deep hunger – what the world actually needs.  Firmitas

But then the workshop leaders, concerned that we should also be realistic about how we might actually get a paycheck, added a third piece of newsprint: what you are actually good at, your skills.  Utilitas.

Beauvais Cathedral An architect, like a life builder, can begin with any of the three legs of the stool.  Beauty or use or strength.  Clients usually start with utilitas - I want room for 100 worker cubicles.  Job seekers begin their search under skill, job title - I would look under “typist,” but not “neurosurgeon.” 

Firmitas comes next.  I want a building that will last.  Will the world continue to hunger for typists?

Many workers and buildings stop there.  Hence Pentagon and dead end jobs with no deep gladness, no venustas.

Maybe that’s the difference between a job and a calling.  A job is just firmitas and utilitas; the world needs it and you happen to have the skill to do it.  But without passion, deep gladness, venustas, that's all it is, a job. 

And that may be the best you can do, work in your Pentagon cubicle and support yourself and family.  A good thing about the utilitas leg of the stool is that you can change it, different use, different skill.  You can retrain for new skills.  I mean I could learn to do neurosurgery.

But even then I may have not venustas, no deep gladness, even in my neurosurgery.  If it’s only a job.

A career, or any life for that matter, needs all three.  Just to keep standing we need health, community, nourishment – firmitas.  We also need to feel we are making a difference, that our lives have purpose – utilitas. 

But with only those two we are just a boring solid building of cubicled workers.  We need beauty.  Give us bread but give us roses.  Work in the cubicle.  But come home every night and do a small creative act. 

Otherwise you might collapse.

Copyright © Deborah Streeter