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To seek the timeless way, we must first know the quality without a name. There is a central quality which is the root criterion of life and spirit. This quality is objective and precise, but cannot be named.
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There is an objective difference between good and bad architecture. It is easy, however, to say that no such quality exists because such a quality cannot be named.
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The quality is never twice the same because it always takes its shape from the particular place where it occurs.
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The quality is a kind of freedom from contradictions. Something has this when it “feels” natural — when what it ought to be grows naturally from what it is. This quality is what makes things live.
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The quality cannot be named because it is so precise that words fail to do it justice. Some approximations
- Alive — the quality where things feel life-like an natural. Yet, this is merely a metaphor
- Whole — the quality where things are free from inner contradictions. Yet, this suggests finiteness and self-containment
- Comfortable - the quality of having no inner contradictions and having little restlessness. Yet, comfort is imprecise.
- Free - the quality happens when ideas and images are left behind. Yet, freedom might be too amorphous, contrived, or theatrical.
- Exact - the quality has a sense of balance and precision. Yet, exactness means a lack of freedom and can mean fitting to an abstract idea rather than being adapted exactly to the forces which are in it.
- Egoless - the quality is a byproduct of nature rather than an artificial created. Yet, an egoless nature is not necessary to achieve the quality. Personality can be injected too.
- Eternal - all things with the quality are eternal. They are stable and self-maintaining. Yet, using eternal as a name for this quality implies that it is mysterious. What makes something eternal is that it is ordinary.
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The quality is not just simple beauty. Not form fitting function. Not spiritual in nature. The quality includes these but it is so ordinary that it somehow reminds us of the passing of our life.
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The search which we make for this quality in our own lives is the central search of any person and the crux of any individual person’s story. It is the search for those moments and situation when we are most alive.
- In our lives, this quality without a name is the most precious thing we have.
- This wild freedom comes into our lives in the instant we let go. Until one lets go of their fears and preconceptions, it is impossible to be alive.
- The quality can only be achieved when our inner forces are resolved. When we have nothing to keep and nothing to lose.
- We cannot be aware of the precious moments where the nameless quality arises, but we know the feeling which the quality creates in us.
- Because of this, we can recognize the quality in our work. We need only ask which has caused us to feel this quality.
- Places which have this quality invite this quality to come to life in us, and in turn we tend to make it come to life in the things we build. It is the quality of life and we must seek it simply in order that we can ourselves become alive
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The nameless quality is emergent. It arises not from being made but from a generative process.
The Quality of Nature
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Nature is systemic
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Nature is full of almost similar units, but no two things are alike.
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Nature repeats its patterns under a given set of circumstances. But there is always variation and uniqueness in the way the patterns manifest themselves.
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Nature is exacting. Everything arises as a consequence of the dynamics of the whole.
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Nature has a sense of ephemerality — the character of nature cannot arise without the presence and consciousness of death. It is in the nature of things to one day decay.
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It is not designed but generated.
- It arises from a simple principle —that any complex system must arise not from design, which will have to contend with combinatorial explosion, but from an indirect, generative process following simple rules.
- The quality depends on how adapted each part is to the whole. Each part has a degree of autonomy.
- At the same time, while each part has a degree of autonomy, the whole has a set of rules to connect everything together.
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Any place where the quality is achieve must make us feel the slight presence of a haunting sadness — because we know at the same time we enjoy it, that it is going to pass.