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The structure of things
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Deep structure is felt in all of us, informing our everyday interactions and acts of creation. These primal memories are ancient, and as Cecil Balmond explains, inescapable. Here he contemplates how we came to make sense our world and the mysterious power of these very first archetypes. Deep structure is a drum that beats behind organisation – a primal memory of the algorithms that paved the way for survival. Line, Branch, Point, Arc, Zigzag became the grammar of a graphic language. From the hollow cave and womb the closed shell took shape; from weaving and the making of shelter with skin on sticks built up the idea of frame and frameworks. We grew braver, more complex, and explored the labyrinth. The spiral, turning in lost and escape through its dervish element. Nothing or everything was our fate. Both at the beginning and at the end of our lives were the singularities to zero or infinity; the vortex became a puzzle – terrifying to get lost in, and resurrection to emerge again transformed. To keep track we counted. We classified ten beats on our fingers. We created metaphors and concepts out of the numbers. One for Unity and completeness. Two, duality – the balance of opposites – bipolar, diurnal, as you to me, different and yet the same. Three was the essence of equilibrium. (A three pattern offered the counter-‐move to the stark one-‐two that pulled in opposite directions and tore things apart.) Three offered better balance. (Waltz-‐time is more amenable than the two-‐step.) Four composed the Elements and its harmonies – Earth, Air, Fire and Water: Hot, Dry, Cold and Wet added sympathetic characteristics. The square became the mnemonic for such justice, pulling together the four attributes of the world into one drawing of equal parts. Five marked the Pentagon, the Pentacle, and the Magic beyond. Only five regular solids could pack space. We have five senses – sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing – a Pentagram gateway to what is perceived. The other numbers magnified or added qualities. The first five took shape: But before this from the fashioning of nature and the design graphic of our mind a picture language developed. The base motifs are few: As we think to create form we punctuate space, we cannot escape the trace – arching, bridging, folding, packing. There is rhythm as we fork or branch, each node another buried beat. As we fold, each ridge is a structure. As we pack things together in loose or tight fit, contacts vibrate. As the patterns grow nesting in the elements of architecture, the composition awakens harmony or sharp dissonance that recall safety or danger, stability or imminent collapse. Unbearable tensions or repeating compliances – deep structure is always felt. A large part of our survival is built out of such rhythms. Be it in the breeze or the rise and fall of an ancient chant, we hear it. Be it in the organic of a city or the spell of Stonehenge, we read it. Be it in the surge of the ocean or the ripple of the pond, we sense its profile. Be it in the texture and colours of a painting, we touch its vibration. Be it in a piece of architecture?