You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. For light to shine, dark must be present. Hunger is the best sauce. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
They're all the same sentiment, applied to different scenarios. The acute lack of something is a surefire way to foster appreciation of it. But that's not the whole story. Free-flowing availability is dangerous, as it desensitizes us, and robs the thing in question of it's precious nature.
Let's unpack this a little more. I recently read Junichiro Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows. The book is a short read, under 70 pages, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't already checked it out. Tanizaki discusses cultural differences between east and west, their implications in the built environment, and how different cultures are poorly served by adopting the artifacts and mannerisms of others. The title comes from a repeated sentiment, that interior environments in the east, and specifically in Japan, were designed for lower, more judicious lighting, and that the levels of light to which westerners are accustomed completely obliterate the delicate textures and depths of materials found therein.
Ever since my undergrad lighting class, I've been fascinated with light. Lighting is the single most critical element of interiors. Without it, nothing else really matters. Vitruvius included lighting (actually optics, but same difference) in his Ten Books on Architecure as one of the fields in which all architects should be versed. In the age of IES files and photometric distribution charts, it's reassuring to see lighting discussed in a more holistic sense, free from discussions on luminous flux or wattage. I was taught that lighting an interior should be thought of as painting with light, on a canvas of shadow, and this mindset has served me well. When you think of lighting as an additive process, it's easy to stay conscious of negative space, the shadows, which end up creating drama. It's easy to create a brightly lit interior, but if every surface is uniformly bright and even, congratulations, you just designed a dentist's office. Weaker, more subtle lights, like a flickering candle in a darkened room, are what create drama. Texture only pleases the eye when the shadows cast by tiny mountains and valleys of a surface are allowed to exist. Tanizaki repeatedly mentions lacquerware, and its superiority to ceramics, but only when the lacquer is observed in its intended setting, a dimly-lit room. The reflections take on a new depth, the smallest flecks of gold capture stray photons, and appear to glow from within. Dim light isn't pleasing because of the darkness, it's pleasing because it allows us to really appreciate the light that's present.
It's not just lighting though. Music is all about creating emotion, repeating the same themes, and then abruptly changing, the contrast between two parts only heightening the feelings created. I try to buy new music on vinyl when possible (like when it comes with a digital download, I'm not perfect.) People talk about vinyl sounding "warmer" or "richer," but that can usually be attributed to low levels of background noise, filling in the gaps between notes and beats. I listen to vinyl because I enjoy the ritual. I look through my stack of records, and make a decision (today's choice: Side Pony by Lake Street Dive, to whom you should totally be listening.) I lift the cover of my record player, and place the record back in it's sleeve. I take the new one out, place it on the turntable, close the cover, press start, and wait. The motor whirrs to life. The stylus lifts itself off of its pedestal, swings over, and lowers itself down to the predetermined spot. An amplified pop. A few seconds of near silence. The white noise is the first part of my sensory reward, the auditory representation of the microscopic imperfections in the theoretically smooth vinyl medium. And then the music starts.
The ritual builds anticipation, and primes the listener for what comes next. Were it not for those few seconds, it would be just like listening to the same song on my phone, while I'm driving or at the gym, absentmindedly. The ritual of vinyl makes me put in some degree of effort, and allows me to savor the fruits of my labor. The few moments of restful silence at the beginning of the record are my darkened room, and the start of the music is like a lantern being lit, bringing light, but not driving away all of the shadows.
(Editors Note: From here on, this post has little to nothing to do with design. Continue at your own risk.)
While we're on the subject of music, I guess we can talk about the title of this post. I'll be the first to admit, I'm really a Joni Mitchell fan per se, but I do enjoy her music. It's not often you can hear a song putting down urban sprawl, elimination of public green spaces, and pesticides all at once, and in such a catchy package. Living in Tallahassee, the first two have never really been much of an issue. We're a very compact city (FSU's entire campus could fit onto one of UF's parking lots,) and green spaces abound. We have an incredibly competent bunch of urban planners, and for a while, we had a special half-cent sales tax that went towards funding parks. I'm not big on taxes, but if I'm going to be taxed, trees are one of the least objectionable things to spend my money on.
The pesticides issue is one a little closer to my heart. DDT is bad for people and animals, there's no doubt in my mind about that, but its use did save millions, if not billions, from malaria. But what if we had known about the environmental consequences before it was employed? Would it have still been used? How do we weigh the lives of today against the lives of the future, the ones who will live in our world after we're done using it?
One of the most influential books I've read lately is Dan Barber's The Third Plate, and in it, he explores the Green Revolution, and the introduction of dwarf wheat. Dwarf wheat, developed in its modern incarnation by Norman Borlaug, grows faster than its full-sized cousins, and is estimated to have saved over one billion lives from starvation. Because of its high yield, it was quickly adopted worldwide, and has become the dominant variety grown for human consumption. But dwarf wheat doesn't taste very good, and outside of its caloric content, it has almost no nutritional value. Its roots don't retain water as well, and requires more extensive irrigation, consuming three times the water of traditional varieties. Those same roots don't run as deep into the soil as its predecessors' did, the same problem that eventually caused the Dust Bowl. The plants can't uptake nutrients through their short roots, and require chemical fertilizers, which in turn destroy microbial communities and soil fertility, endangering the security of our food systems. The dwarf wheat may have higher short-term yields, but when crop rotations are taken into account, a well-planned, well-cared for organic farm will beat a conventional one over any longer stretch of time.
Bourlaug didn't understand the long-term effects of his work, just like Paul Muller didn't when he discovered DDT's applications as a pesticide. But we do now. Rachel Carson stopped the use of DDT (with a little help from Joni,) and Dan Barber is doing his part to bring about meaningful change in agriculture, by showing people just how much better food can be, through his restaurants Blue Hill, and Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The experience he creates capitalizes on the same effect I've been talking about, the withholding of a stimuli to foster appreciation of it, but the meal is the payoff, and every previous vegetable the diner has ever eaten is the lack of stimuli. He shows people that food grown responsibly and ethically is just better, in the hope that they'll go out and continue to eat responsibly, and encourage the food systems of which they are a part to move towards a more environmentally conscious model.
My Master's project is a restaurant concerned with the same ideals (boom, nailed it. I knew I would circle back around to design eventually.) It isn't quite finished yet, but stay tuned for a write-up of it in the next couple weeks. It's called Arbitrage, and it's all about encouraging connection. People to people, people to food, chefs to diners, et cetera, et cetera. It will offer a locally sourced, sustainable menu, a retail area designed to encourage patrons to cook responsibly at home, and a test kitchen for off-duty chefs to come experiment, and re-connect with their passion for food after being worn down by the high pressure environment of a restaurant kitchen. Here's a preliminary rendering of the test kitchen, one of my favorite parts of the design.
So we talked about a lot today. Thanks for hanging in there, I'm new to this whole blogging thing, and all these things kinda sorta felt connected when I thought about them. Oh also my girlfriend is out of town for a couple weeks, so the title might have a little bit to do with that too. But whatever, it's my blog and I can ramble if I want to. Summary time: bright light is bad, dim light is good. Appreciate the details. Let objects respond to their context, and the context to their objects. Listen to the silence. Eat organic. Get out and vote. Plant a tree. Buy records. Read some books. Dwell. Ponder. End of list.
Start of new list. Fun links for today.
Here's a PDF of the text from In Praise of Shadows. I didn't put it up, and I hope it isn't in violation of too many laws, but there's a ton of versions available, so I feel like maybe it's okay?
Here's a very very very long video of John Cormack (OG video game developer) talking about some principles of optics and their implications for rendering engines. Geared towards video games, but still applicable to architectural and interior still renderings. Kinda. You might think it's boring.
Here's my main man, Dan Barber, taking about the variety of wheat he helped develop, and it's implications for cuisine and for the planet. If you haven't yet, definitely watch his episode of Chef's Table on Netflix (Season 1, Episode 2.) If you like those, give his TED talks a listen too.
And here's Bob Dylan's recording of Big Yellow Taxi, because he's my favorite artist of all time ever, and every song is better as a Dylan song.