Read on Twitter
European Architecture reflects the beauty of the European landscape, especially the deciduous forests which are the dominant biome of the Northern hemisphere. What is a column but a tree carved in stone?
Our understanding of beautiful structures is informed by the forest. When non-Europeans ask why we always go to the woods, despite the potential dangers, we can't expect them to understand our need to go home, to our garden temple.
The forest as sanctuary, space of revelation, discovery, change, solace, is the foundation of European spirituality. Our forests are both plentiful gardens, hunting land, and shelter, but threaten and challenge us with predators. We better ourselves by engaging with them.
Our attempts at capturing the wild in stone are a tribute to our adoration of the divine. The living tree is unmatched even by our most beautiful, devoted, ancient artisans, who spent their lives shaping ancient stone to inspire.
This is not a new idea, of course, and was delineated first by the German Romantic movement, as Waldeinsamkeit, the soulful connection to the forest.
They used this, deliberately, to inspire a sense of unified identity, during the difficult birth of contemporary Germany.
They used this, deliberately, to inspire a sense of unified identity, during the difficult birth of contemporary Germany.
If the Romantics used the soul value of The Forest to inspire one nation to achieve great things, to become itself, why can we not invoke The Forest to inspire an identity which resists globalist homogeneity?
Here's a very literal interpretation of forest as cathedral, Cross in the Forest, by Caspar David Friedrich, best known for Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog
Reforesting the UK: 'Trees are the ultimate long-term project' https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/16/reforesting-the-uk-trees-are-the-ultimate-long-term-project
