Good for a Laugh
By Tia Blassingame
Fallujah. Najaf. Mosul. Punta Gorda. Swift boats. Memorial. Memorializing. Safety Concerns. Guarded. Terror threat levels. Questioning patriotism. Terror. Terrorists. Terrorism. Terrorizing. Flag-draped coffins.
I find myself adrift in a swirling sea of depressing and gruesome realities. At some point, I realized that I was not the only one who was suffering a surprising and thorough malaise. I could hear it in others’ voices- an apathy, a sorrow, a disconnection. I started to wonder if what we needed might not be a laugh, a shot of whimsy. I came across pictures from a trip to Russia- during which I visited metropolises Moscow and St Petersburg, as well as tiny river-site towns. It was upon the images of the wooden town, Kizhi, that my eyes and attention were drawn. In particular, I found myself transfixed by the image of a large metal teapot appearing to boil over on the chimney top upon which it had been securely fixed. I laughed, I smiled to myself, and a bit of me thought, "thank goodness". After being bombarded by cool rhetoric, political spin, campaign nastiness, I found myself sinking in a nation divided on every issue from the autonomy of a woman over her own body to wars waged over drugs, ephemeral "terror," and unemployment. All the while, a constant, cruel stream of bloody images keeps seeping in. This photograph was my own architectural Calgon. I invested it with my hopes for escape, thinking why can’t architecture take us away, uplift us in the face of such somber and simultaneously absurd times.
In a time when our public lessons into ancient architecture are introduced by such disparate events as gunfights and Olympic competitions, we could stand for a bit of whimsy, your basic chuckle. Structures that move, uplift, pause you, at the very least make you smile.
Looking at that teapot and other images of Kizhi, I forgot about the father who, upon hearing the news that his soldier son had died in the line of duty, set himself afire in his vehicle. Campaign rhetoric, elections, such concerns slipped away.
We could use more architectural triggers to uplift and remove us from this increasingly troubled and perplexing time. Whether it be the appliqu�d jokes of a metal tea pot simmering atop a chimney or soulful interior spaces, we need these breaks from somber, respectful, tasteful tributes and the gory, gloomy chaos surrounding us. I want to look over my shoulder not because I am warily eyeing suspicious, potential terrorist behavior, but because the hand of the architect-artist, a flicker of shadow or sunlight has caused a space, building element or architectural gesture to catch my eye, my imagination, to arrest my very soul.
