“No social group…can survive without constant informal contact among its members.”
“The hearth, the place where food was made and eaten, was the heart of family life.”
A Pattern Language, by Christopher Alexander, et alia
With persistent centrifugal factors eviscerating our home life, we feel discouraged, even overwhelmed.
The term ‘crisis’ is bandied quite a bit—undoubtedly, often with good reason today. This is a time of crisis in multiple aspects of human life. Some crises are more remote in their causes and thus more difficult for the common man to address. I am not sure what to do, for instance, about the things stuck in the ports of our nation.
Crises closer to home are different. Their effects more proximate, they call with urgency for special attention. I will focus on one that is squarely, indeed physically, within the four walls of home—yours and mine. Though less obvious since we have become used to it, this is a crisis of civilizational proportions. Or perhaps I should say of individual proportions: i.e., the individual persons we care about most.
Our homes have lost a physical center. And so, we have no place that daily draws us together, whether by necessity or by choice, where we live in mutual presence; where we can be together as only human persons can, in body and soul, in mundane but natural activities.
I mean a space of human proportion—fitted to the number of people that live in our home and those ‘guests’ that are nearly-household-members; a space that by its physical constitution fosters something we so crave and need: sustained shared life and real presence.
Such a space can have varied forms, but it must have certain characteristics. It is a space for good work—the kind of work that can be done together, or at least in the presence of others, especially by hand. It is a space for real leisure—in the sense of meaningful, rich, shareable actions. It is comfortably furnished, but not posh—as such would distract. It is open and welcoming, yet intimate, so not exposed and public.
Traditionally, the hearth was just such a space. Because of what was done there—work, eating, and leisure, it was the beating heart of a vibrant household body.
We can rediscover and remake such a space. It begins with a vision and a will: a vision of rich, shared life, and a will to do all we can to actualize it. Such is in our power.
Consider some concrete suggestions of A Pattern Language:
“Make the kitchen bigger than usual, big enough to include the ‘family room’ space… Make it large enough to hold a good big table and chairs, some soft and some hard… and make it a bright and comfortable room.”
And then there is this gem: “A group of chairs…these are the most obvious things in everybody’s life—and yet to make them work, so people become animated and alive in them, is a very subtle business. Most seating arrangements are sterile, people avoid them, nothing ever happens there. Others seem somehow to gather life around them, to concentrate and liberate energy.”
Imagine! Chairs that gather life around them, concentrating and liberating human energy, human life. This can be the stuff of our reflection and intentionality. Perhaps with a little help from others, we can craft a space that itself crafts life.
To do this is to take a great step toward addressing the crisis of our day. Human life, as all life, requires and responds to a congenial context. Our nature points the way.
The human body itself is fitted to be the place, as it were, of human life in all its richness. The human house should be likewise so fitted. We had no part in designing our bodies. But how we design and inhabit our houses, the homes of our embodied life, is in our control. Here is the primordial context to enact wisdom, to craft human life.
Perhaps we cannot change certain features of our living spaces. We can, however, reimagine, reconfigure, and reanimate them with a new vision. And we can start by choosing one space to be the heart of the home, and invest it with our heart. It will be something answering to the name of ‘hearth.’
We need to learn from traditional patterns of life in the home—considering for instance the perennial importance of physical substances, such as wood, stone, metal, and fire, and how these intersect with food and its preparation and consumption, as well as with other home-arts and home-leisure. At the same time, our space must answer to something we can achieve today.
We can craft this space so that it will reflect our priorities, precisely by its evoking and facilitating certain human activities. These activities are or should be ‘ordinary,’ but they now call for extraordinary attention. And they offer us extraordinary fruits, every day.
**Special Announcement: COMING NEXT WEEK for LifeCraft Members (see below), a new library of short videos. Concepts Made Clear. Clearer thinking, one concept at a time. The first group of videos will clarify concepts of household and home. **
Restoring Home Life Room Mini-Series
This is the third in a series taking a thoughtful tour through a house, room by room, based on the writings of Christopher Alexander.
I. Restoring Home Life: Room by Room
III. The Kitchen: The Last Stand of the Home
IV: A Space for Children in the Home
V: The Marriage Bed: Can It Really Work?
VI: A Place to Watch the World Go By
VII: The Living Room: A Place for Formality
VIII: The Bathroom: Remembering Differences
IX: Does Your Home Have a Physical Center?
Christopher Alexander (1936–) was born in Austria and is currently an emeritus professor of architecture at the University of California, where he taught for almost forty years. He has been widely influential through his theories of architecture, and is especially known for the 1977 book he co-authored, A Pattern Language.
Husband, father, and professor of Philosophy. LifeCraft springs from one conviction: there is an ancient wisdom about how to live the good life in our homes, with our families; and it is worth our time to hearken to it. Let’s rediscover it together. Learn more.
Thanks!
You are welcome, David.
The most perfect physical home center I ever saw was a kitchen with a fireplace and gathering place in one corner. There was seating on a low wall on each side plus a small couch and chairs. Yes the kitchen was large and the floor had to be reinforced but it was so homey. The living room had a wall sized fireplace. All this tucked away on the Kansas prairie where no one would suspect such magnificence was within.
Jacqui, Wow. I can picture it. I would have loved to see this home in person! Thanks for sharing.
In the process of designing our (hopefully) “forever home”, and this idea has been circling around in my head when trying to envision the living room and kitchen. Trying to get decide where to put fireplace and built-in book cases and how to hide (or even not have) a TV, obviously avoiding the TV to be the center of attention. Can’t decide what seating will look like in those rooms yet, but hopefully soon! So much to consider, but thanks for your insight!!
TJ, Good luck in your exciting project. I really recommend taking a look at A Pattern Language. It is divided clearly into small sections that have very helpful architectural principles regarding both the design and the furnishing/arrangement of rooms so as to make them most amenable to real living. Crafting these spaces IS a form of life-crafting. All the best to you.
Is the Earth the center of the universe when placed in context of God’s gaze upon man in Salvation History?
So too, with the Domestic Church, look for the spiritual center and you will find whether the physical cornerstone of the home was..and is…placed rightly…every day.
I think here of the floor plan of the Palace of Ithaca included in the introduction to the Lombardo translation of the Odyssey, especially when overlayed with the generally anticipated floor plan of a Byzantine rite Church.
A beautiful concept-a home built for the most important aspects of family life: growing together, helping and enjoying each other, being attuned to others’ needs. How can we do this if each family member under the same roof, is always isolated in his own room, or separated in time like when each person eats on a different schedule.
Maybe this is off topic, but I also see the importance of a special prayer space. It should also be comfy and quiet, but also with a kneeler, an altar-like table with the Bible, crucifix, rosary and other religious articles; a place to communicate with God, to be able to put right order to all things, including our human interactions.
Thank you for your genuine friendship.
Teresa, I really appreciate your point on a special prayer space. I think this can also be achieved by lighting candles, etc to make a ‘normal’ living space also a prayer space.Thanks you for your thoughts here!
Teresa. Christ does need to be front and center in the home….then He will help work out the details about family meals and etc together. Thanks for sharing!
What a lovely post! Thank you!
My husband and I are a Builders. ( 40 years) We believe in Hearth in the Home. We continue to refer to The Pattern Language which we purchased years ago.
cheers!
This article brought me to a reflect on how the car seems to have become the new physical center of the family for many and how that reinforces a semi-nomadic lifestyle focused on facilitating the movement from one place and activity to another of the inhabitants of a house.
John, I love your reflection; I think it is very much to the point.
Most of us will have to deal with the fact that today we must live a semi-nomadic lifestyle; but at the same time we can be aware of how we can nevertheless seek a greater stability IN our home life. Thanks very much.