Why don't we still live in caves?

 
Caves are warm and safe. 

 
Caves are shelter.

Caves are easy.

 
What possessed us to drag forty-ton megalith stones four-hundred-eighty miles and somehow stand them on end in a circle in the middle of nowhere?

 

It wasn't for shelter.

And it wasn't easy.

Again, why do we build?

Why is there architecture?

First we define what architecture is and is not.

Architecture is something built.

 
A cave is not architecture.

But a cave carved from solid rock is architecture.

Architecture is something experienced in space, through time.

A piece of sculpture is not architecture, but architecture can be sculptural.

A piece of art hanging on a wall is not architecture, but architecture can be art.

Architecture is created by informing space and experiencing it through time.

Experiencing architecture through time is to know the past, to stand in the present, and to look forward to the future.

 
Architecture is three-dimensional experienced the Forth Dimension of Time.

 

Before the giant stones of Stonehenge were erected four thousand years ago, giant pine poles were stood in carved out holes around the same circular area ten thousand years ago. The petrified trunks are still there.
The poles were positioned such that the rising sun after the longest night of the year would appear exactly between a pair of tall trunks and beam its first light across the great circle to illuminate exactly the center of another great wooden trunk.
The people who built Stonehenge, the architects who designed Stonehenge, expected the sun would move forward yet another year, another Winter Solstice to another Summer Solstice. They looked forward to this event, anticipating it year after year after year after year after year after year.
Only three trunks or three stones are needed to map the Solstices. Only another six placed on the circumference of a circle, in two groups of three, are required to track Spring and Fall Equinox.
At Stonehenge and countless other sacred sites around the world, structures were constructed to exactly track the sun and the moon and the stars. The ancient architecture was conceived on the expectation of things to come.
Architecture, then, shaped expectation.
What is more important than shelter and protection?
Knowing What Comes Next.
Expectation.
Why do we build?
Because we expect something more meaningful than the sum of the parts.
Why is there architecture?
Because of The Law of Expectation.

 

For a while, the walls of a cave were enough to record our existence. We blew watered pigment through a straw over our hands to make our mark. "See, I was here. Here is a place of plenty buffalo. See how we hunt them!" We sought out caves for protection from animals, from the weather, and from each other.

But a cave just didn't do the trick when we wanted to explain creation. Simple shelter wasn't enough to satisfy our yearning to know what's out there and why and what would come next.

We wanted to know what's outside the mouth of the cave. We've always wondered what's over the next hill; better water, more buffalo, maybe fairer mates.

We learned we could expect certain things at certain times and this gave us power over unpredictability. It gave us confidence.

We conceived of and built monuments to record the past so we could stand in the present and look forward to the future.

 

In the early nineteen-twenties, psychologists in Germany put a name to our innate tendency to make sense of a complicated world, to find closure, to complete things, to recognize patterns, to find the whole.

They called their studies Gestalt Theory.

Gestalt Theory attempts to explain the higher order of cognitive processes that lead to behaviors that make more of the whole than the sum of the parts.

Gestalt Theory suggests that our minds supply the missing pieces in a composition through Closure. We complete shapes and strings of things in our minds by Implied Continuance. We group things to understand them as Similar. The Proximity of things creates spatial connections we recognize through shape. Lining things up connects objects as a whole.

The principles of Gestalt Theory are called Laws. There are many. Each Law of Gestalt deserves its own chapter and each chapter adds more complex layers to the attempt to describe Why We Do What We Do.

 

Stonehenge is a perfect example of Gestalt Theory; Every one of the Laws of Gestalt Theory are demonstrated in this ancient wonder. This is what I think:
All the Laws of Gestalt Theory are weavings in the tapestry of Expectation.
The Law of Closure, the Law of Similarity, the Law of Proximity, the Law of Symmetry,the Law of Continuity, the Law of Common Fate, the Law of Figure Ground Ambiguity,
the Law of Perceptual Segregation, the Law of Segregation, the Law of Contour, Physiological vs. Psychophysical,
all the Laws of Gestalt are theories trying to define
The Law of Expectation.
 
If I were to write a book and call it
IN SEARCH OF LIVING ARCHITECTURE
a primer about architecture, the past of it, the present of it and the future of it, I would start the search by exploring the brain and the human need to build and to create. I would define how humans perceive things and I would use as a lens the magnifying glass called The Law of Expectation.  
The Law of Expectation would lead me through the observation of past architecture with an ability to zoom-in and critique it. It would gift me with a vision into the future of architecture and where we might take it or where it might deliver us.
Why do we build?
I believe, to pursue
The Search of Living Architecture.