World Builder

Prologue, Henry V:

But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

The Bard, with humility, his theater, the wooden “O” deemed “unworthy”, asks pardon for the effrontery of staging a bit of historical fiction there.

Oh, and what finds itself crammed within the spaces we architects to presume to make?

Life

Pardon us please for daring to set a stage and bring forth so great an object as living-in-the-world.

Are we sufficiently humble? Are we honoring the material? Is the scaffolding we have envisioned up to the task?

So, a film: on the one hand shot in a day, but on the other needing two years in post-production. For architects and film makers both, after the vision, comes the long work of documentation, and iterative refinement with digital tools.

Architects have always been world-builders. The work is best when motivated by affection.