In the Cultural History stream at Waterloo Architecture, students delve into reading, writing, and thinking about the cultural forces that shape architecture. We page through dense philosophical tomes in the short days between studio deadlines, and brood upon the imagery of countless art films screened in class. Ideas cultivated in “ico” (short for iconography) class make their way back into our design work, and prepare us for the experience of living and studying in Rome in fourth year.
“An Unlikely Meeting” was written by Aaron Coté for ARCH 143 Cultural History 2: The Ancient World, taught by Eric Haldenby. The course examines the origins of the city in ancient Greece and Rome, introducing “the complex problems of what the artist is [and] the quality of human existence, culture, and environment.” 1 Aaron Coté’s text imagines a conversation between the main characters of three key course readings: Aeneas from Virgil’s Aeneid in dialogue with Odysseus from Homer’s Odyssey, moderated by Gilgamesh from The Epic of Gilgamesh.
1 Course Descriptions – Undergraduate Calendar 2012-2013. Retrieved June 12th, 2014 from http://www.ucalendar.uwaterloo.ca/1213/COURSE/course-ARCH.html
An Unlikely Meeting
by Aaron Coté
G[ilgamesh]:
So here we see a likely feud,
one spurred on by none too few.
To speak on subjects timeless, true,
defend the honour of the view
their people hold, their stories tell.
Through buildings, statues, gods and men,
the discourse here will follow thence.
What of the Romans, men so true,
who boldly step into Gods’ view
and proclaim how they stand so tall,
the mighty Romans, gods to all.
But too, the Greeks, with tongues of swords,
Athena’s praise, like cunning reigns,
against them Nature cannot hold,
against the polis, walls of stone.
A[eneas]:
The gods? I’ll start with them I think,
To lowly peasants made to drink
the water fed to them by gods,
the divines who acknowledge not,
the place of men in heaven high.
Our temples surge, libations pour,
in halls of marble, great white stone.
Monuments built by our hands
to elevate our grounded stance
to one akin with those we trust,
to Jove and Juno, king and love.
The Pantheon, our greatest work,
puts man in space and time and earth,
an oculus with gleaming sun
plays light and space across the front,
so time is kept and order known
by those who gaze upon her stone.
O[dysseus]:
A dome, a light, an Earth to see?
The cosmos trapped and built by thee?
A monument of movement through,
means naught without a man to view
the gleaming pillars, polished stone,
and light that plays on coffered domes.
Connection ground to bits and dust
by structures built and lifted up
to lofty heights, divinity.
You search for truth and construct what?
A way to humanize the truth?
You build the earth, and pour the sky
from concrete forms too real to fly.
Your all-god shrine, a temple some,
a monument to man’s device,
our skill at tracking time to keep
our place in heaven’s comfy seat
and put ourselves in earth, divine,
the curv-ed floor ‘neath feet of mine.
A:
What of your statues, Koros, then?
Do they not strive for timeless men?
If buildings mine require man
to move throughout in time and span,
then how do truths you claim to know,
in temples, Koros, Kora, both,
combat the knowledge of divine,
with pure creation of the mind?
Embodied pure in passive gaze,
by movements slow, deliberate, save
the subject from their ailing hearts,
to be remembered without fault
in name and deeds already won.
How then we differ, ageless man,
who constructs statues meant to tell
of us, immortal, timeless man,
whose abstract faces still imply
collective might of why we’ve died.
O:
The Koros stand in full, in thought,
within the metopes sitting squat
to recognize from whence we came,
a visage shared, Apollos face,
whose height it stands above all else,
denoting him as somewhat more.
In Zeus’ west we stand akin,
the gods and men contained within,
our faces share a passive gaze
for from the gods we took our face.
Instead you build your statues lean:
the marble blocks and quarried stone
are sculpted true to flesh and bone,
to represent what we’ve achieved
not as a group but on our own,
accomplishment forever known.
From Nero’s house of shining gold,
to Boxers left to hold their own,
the story told is what you seek,
above the story told by him,
the faceless man, the Koros strong.
We hold yours close as art to all,
but to remember just one soul.
G:
It seems that both you men have lost
the shame in what the polis brought.
Acknowledgement that we’re just men,
born and bred with gods’ intent,
to live our days as mortals when
we found a way to stand again,
immortal now in cities wrought
with hand and plow, in stone and thought.
We placed ourselves away from god,
immortal selves, an ingrate lot,
to paint ourselves in walls of stone,
engrave our stories, timeless, old,
remember what we had achieved
but place in words so time could see,
development in us as men,
not art meant just to raise our souls
to divine rights, as Caesar holds.
O:
What of the Colosseum built,
a temple, now, to test mans will
against the nature he forsook
in lieu of action, bloody sport.
For here you see the backdrops changed,
from Nature, hills, our old Greek plays,
replaced with pillars, arches, stone,
a mirror image, borne inverse
to trap within what nature’s left,
reflection of the world you lost.
For us we built in cliffs divine
where man would sit and act as such,
a temple built for Dionysus.
In yours you act as men divine,
proclaiming life, yours to deny.
The roles reversed, you’ve managed such,
reflection of your cities’ lust.
What of your walls, a topic too,
a thread connecting us and you.
You stand as men, afraid of such,
your walls no longer testament
to mortal beasts and gods above,
a space alone to test your feuds.
The Fire Wall he built to save
your people from their own damn blaze,
protecting you from who you are,
a lofty sort, whose truths are marred.
A:
Our leaders, then, you stand in awe,
of divine reach we saw and got.
We stand akin to gods above,
the deified man Caesar among
the stars above, with nature now,
we hold our own, on divine grounds.
Your temples sought to trap the gods,
on hallowed ground you built their walls.
Foundations poured and facing dips
where sky and ground came down to kiss.
In here you saw your gods arise,
through smoke and flame and burning pyre.
We grew, since you, and built a more
pragmatic way to pour our hearts
to divine thoughts through sacrifice,
through worship, statues, human touch.
In cities now we build our shrines,
through human life we give our thoughts.
G:
Now Greeks you build so separate from
a natural aspect, your work too pure,
yet from the land you stem your forms:
the site, the view, the gods’ own home.
In this you give us harmony,
of profound links to earth and sky,
a truth we know and understand.
Romans, you weave a stranger story,
one whose buildings are meant to inspire
a sense divine in men who expire.
Through nature and place you practice not,
but build for the illusion of those who inhabit
the great halls and temples of Rome and her sisters,
a human experience for worship and fervor.
G:
Enough now of buildings, of some petty feuds
and let’s hear a story of both of you two.
It seems through your talking that both of your views
are tumbled and tangled, not feet with same shoes.
A:
My story is glory, for future and son,
a tale of two cities, one built and one gone,
My romance is brief, as the gods spur me on,
for my fighting breathe is reserved for my son.
O:
While mine is of trust, and a story of love
between me and my family, and roadblocks enough
to have stopped the great Romans in pursuing thus.
For we reserve love, between humans to trust,
more than demi-god children, the bastards of lust.
G:
In statues and buildings, these cultures collide,
through stories and tales that are told over wine.
Ideas might mix, and beliefs they could clash,
but over again it’s the same every time:
two people who struggle with finding a grip
on man and his place in a cosmos so vast,
where immortality rests in a place we can’t grasp.
Our successes divide us, in failure we win,
as a race not two cultures, whom gods aren’t twin.
You Greeks may have focused on just being man,
while you Romans focused on ascending land.
The gods sometimes mix, and the stories entwine,
but all that is left is our cities and statues,
monuments standing to man insecure.
Author’s Note: My intent was to illustrate the differences between the two cultures by way of external views, and paint a slightly darker, sadder picture of what they were trying to do. Aeneas gives a (possible exaggerated) viewpoint on the Greek accomplishments (as could’ve been historically accurate, given their militaristic nature, I like to think [à la Memoirs of Hadrian]). I see Gilgamesh as a neutral party, as he tried to gain immortality during his life, but only to recompense the loss of a brother and live both lives, but failed in doing so and so settled with establishing both personal immortality (his story on the wall) and immortality for man (establishment of the city).
The Archi-TEXTS series celebrates written student work at Waterloo Architecture. Ongoing submissions are welcome at submit@waterlooarchitecture.com
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