When Does a House Become a Home?
When you see the exterior of a magnificent building, say Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright, you marvel at its glory in place. How it stands majestically in its environment, foreign yet not out of place. Seemingly larger than life, yet small in its grand understatement. The outside is so striking, our mouths hanging agape in awe, that the myriad of questions flooding our mind can be overwhelming. Where did they source the materials? What kind of vacuum cleaner would you need to get into the nooks and crannies? Who dreamt up such a thing? And why? The questions are endless, yet the most important for me is: how do you live in it? Just as superb as the exterior may be, the interior has to be a space worth living.
It starts with the foundation, I think. The foundation is the solid base from which all greatness is built upon. The strongest foundation is the one made for the environment on which you intend to build your house. That can be anything, though I wouldn’t recommend building upon sand, nor on solid rock. One’s home cannot sink, nor can there be no give, so be mindful. As you build up, think of what’s essential: a toilet and a kitchen are an absolute must. A room with a view, yes most definitely. Perhaps a bedroom or two; a space to be wild and free, as well as a place for rest and rejuvenation. How do you fill it? With bits and pieces that are representative of you. If you love books fill it with all the tomes you’ve read, should read and wish you’d written. Is it music that sets your heart a flutter? Then make sure you have a designated wall for all those many albums that reflect your many moods, with the biggest and baddest sound system to blast those blues away. Or maybe it’s the visual that stimulates your mind and not a night will do without a viewing of some Hollywood so-and-so screaming their hearts out at the injustice of this world. Then by all means get that big screen and put somewhere you can easily curl up. Are you like me and crave the glory of nature? Then make sure you have windows that are monuments to the resplendency of our glorious sun. A glowing orb that feeds not only our souls but the plants that cascade down your bookcases and sprout from pots in every open space, inching towards a knowledge they’ll not understand but feel. And build for yourself a shrine, a place to shut out the world and return to centre in lotus or supine.
The Muladhara chakra is the most important chakra. It’s our core, the root from which our selves sprout. There was a time in architecture--sometime after Gaudi, around the edges of Bauhaus, and definitely before the time of who’s the biggest--that structures were made for the people in their land. Like Fallingwater, they were meant to house but also breath as independent, evolving entities in our natural habitats. In effect they were living like us, for us to become us. Whatever you feel, whoever you are, show it where you stand. Build yourself upon a foundation that works for you. Create your house as you see fit and allow it to blend into the environment in which your wood, brick of concrete rises easily. Have doors that open, and secret gardens that smell of heaven, but most importantly let this building reflect the truth that is you, because forever and ever, this your home it will be.
Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation
