©rrk 1972
Distant indeed is the twentieth century from the space in time of Academia where and when Plato stood tall facing his eager pupils gathered round the tree of pure knowledge that stretched its fragile limbs upward to the realm of ideas — the soul’s yearning for dwelling among the stars. Surely, Plato’s choice of site was no accident; though some would argue that Olympus would have been more appropriate, Plato would not have tolerated the vulgarity of Homer’s gods under the same roof.
Surely, he — the metaphysical poet that he was — must have mulled over the leasing of the Parthenon until his nervous monad obsessed with the betrayal of art, intuited the “fourfold principle”. Surely, revulsion was imminent: the vileness of such earth works would gravitate his pupils ‘ flight into a sense & presence, obviating the call of “fly me” to the sky within.
Nevertheless, Plato had had to realize reluctantly that to sustain his disciples high motivation — lest it be dampened, lest his lesson plans be rained on — shelter had to be sought. Even for a Platonist Heidegger's primal principle applies:
To be a human being means to be on the earth as a mortal. It means to dwell.
Thus, the Western schoolhouse was conceived, whence a continual progression. or regression of architecture took hold. From inspiring temple to drab monastery; from the red schoolhouse to sprawling dragons of modern times, one common theme is apparent: to reflect the style of living and learning of respective space and time:
Dwelling is the manner in which mortals are on the earth....we do not dwell because we have built, but we build because we dwell. [Heidegger]
As children my friends and I used to crawl under the turnstile and ride the El in the city. To us, in truth, though, of course, subliminally, it meant dwelling: the great piles firmly imbedded in the cobblestones below were Herculean legs that held us up to the sky and rails we viewed from the roaring front car gave us the perspective of gods vaulting the dwellings of mortals. Small wonder we never stole a ride on the subway, for we were mortals on earth, not moles in it.
Apparently the EL did not measure up to Heidegger’s categorical imperative:‘On the earth’ already means ‘under the sky.’ Both of these also mean ‘running before the divinities' and include a belonging to man’s being with one another.’ By a primal oneness the four — earth, sky, divinities and mortals — belong together in one.
For where is man's brilliant work — the El? — scrapped, hauled out to sea or shipped to Japan. The fourfold had been violated: man’s works are to be under the sky, not in it. Yet was this principle offended really? Those dwelling below could not savor its lofty pleasure, could not experience its exhilaration, could not sense its Olympic majesty. To them it was noisy, ugly and offended the city sky and the sun’s play of light and shade. What is left to recapture this primitive presence?
I merge with my children’s excitement — their sense of unique presence — when they ride the roller-coaster at Rye Beach. Do I indeed sense dwelling when they wave as they climb the impressive apex and I drink in the beautifully and divinely sinuous structure lighted under the dark skies of the concealed divinities? Surely, the early dwellers of the city felt the magnificent presence under the El as well as on it. This was dwelling. It was every city kid’s temple. What else could so perfectly capture the Greek order? Old Sol’s fingered rays finding their way through the rail ties to extend into infinity the unique pattern of full light and abrupt shade and then changing to blinding flashes when the divinities roared along their free sky. There was a sense of belonging, a sense of “preserving” owing to the strong vertebra overhead and the magnificent legs behind which one could cling to escape the intrusive trolley the taxi, the cop on the beat.
“Staying with things” was the joy of the city kid; for here under the El, under the sky hearing the boisterous arguments of the divinities, and the comfort of “being with one another” — the great tribe along the temple’s avenue, feeling mortality because the fleeting gods overhead reminded the primal tribe of its insignificance, its inhale of life, only to exhale death; the presence of earth, of dwelling — everywhere in its iron and steel, its rust and fungus, its great trees lying horizontally overhead, the smell of burning rubber and gasoline, its rain and snow buffing its mighty cobblestones, its great heaps of garbage and produce paying homage to its proud structure — yes, the mother of us all had bestowed her presence to her children.
But there is more than the fourfold theme to dwelling; there is the accident of changing time through which there are those who move and feel not the presence or a sacred staying with things: they exploit and plunder, thereby disjoining the fourfold of those who care, of those who are at one with the earth, the sky, the godhead, their fellow creatures. The school building that really belongs to a community is by accident — the architect stumbled onto Heidegger.
For, it is the architect, not the community, not the dwellers, that may feel a presence. In the cities, nay, anywhere in modern society, dwellers have little or nothing to do with earth works. It is Heidegger turned upside down; “We dwell because we have built.”
Thus, man, just as I as a kid in the city, adapts to a sense of presence.