The Architects Map

© Erik van Dijk

Fold lines, stains, raw edges,

these all add to the patina of the page

The story that has expired

Thrown in the fire in a moment of madness or frustration or fear

An examination of how we live,

the spaces we occupy

Rolled up and unravelling,

our residential realisation

Likening the house plans to a map,

a journey back to that time when everything was easy

The willingness to endure,

knowing it will be worthwhile

We are like unconscious agents in these maps’ operations

Treasure Island, King Solomon’s Mines,

they have a map in the front of the book,

a sign post for the reader to reference

Mindless industrial over production,

a thread of conceit as some forms of housing became unremarkable

The sameness, the repetition, the layers,

mirrors of one another

For me, comfort, security, love

Resistance to autometer,

a paradox that sits alongside my return to nostalgia

Compulsive allegorisation of material,

the need to make sense

Love, loss, beauty

A repetitious process

of giving and taking

An iteration to generate an unbounded sequence

Longing for this loop typology

The last component

connected to the first

If only by a thought

Rhythms, silences, failures

Touch, it is the tenet of my existence,

The desire to be held

Essential to our space

She is slipping from my view

Sandalwood and benzoin bark,

her scent remains

Trapped in the tenet of a tiny room

Each idea a thought

Passed through the rigours of reality

It is formed,

evaluated and tested

Pleats confining a new paradigm

A subversive romanticism

The maker made it this way

Designed to quell the feeling we could forget

Mysterious moments, minutes

turn to months

to be remembered

Memories embedded in a building

Walls with the patina of the past

floors layered with footsteps,

plinth stones and stairs all dipped in the centre,

a slow sign of time

An abyss, black pools in blue eyes

Primal chaos before the calm

Cool steel, dark corridors

Narrow nuance, no escape

It is then that I know

It is impossible to live this way

Without touching one another

A forced closeness, confused by creativity

Intimacy, complicated, calming

It does not exist in isolation,

sitting alongside commitment and separation

The walls and where they join and divide

The tangible and the elusive

Placing what’s most important

in the correct space, the ordering

Knowing when to show restraint

Juries, journalists, judgement

They understand the poetry

Do they see the erudite doubtfulness?

The pervasive happy fear

The need for silence when inviting sensation

That we can be separate together

An incomplete satisfaction

Waiting with breathless anticipation

Happiness, it can be just a moment

The warmth of the winter sun,

cool air on our cheeks,

cold faces pressed together,

the taste of a kiss

Couched in the corridor of contemplation

There is comfort in knowing

The walls within provide protection

For the propagation of sensorial seasons

It will be now as it was then

The sun will still rise in the east and set in the west

The birds will still sing

And this moment in time,

it is neither before nor after

This is what I know of you

The architecture of our lives,

sine qua non

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AUTHOR

NICOLE CULLINAN

Nicole has an established career in the architecture and arts industry as a content writer. She has had the privilege of working with a number of prominent Australian creatives and enjoys discovering what it is that makes their work unique. With a passion for place making and the built environment her work days are fun and fulfilling. She is also a published academic author and has a blog that has close to one hundred thousand views per year. She has a side hustle in photography, her images have been featured on the NGV and Heide websites and socials. Recently she had a photo exhibited as part of the Photo 2021 collaboration with French artist JR at Federation Square. She is currently undertaking a research project and believes the architects work can be more than what the eye can see; ‘allegoria dei sensi’. A trinity of function, form and feeling.