December 19, 2007 at 3:07 pm · Filed under General
I took the bus home last night from work after running some errands on North Ave. I usually take the train and run into pretty much the same sort of people every day. The #9 bus on the other hand, is full of surprises. It’s one of those CTA routes whose ridership changes drastically along the way. It often feels similar to riding the #55 from Hyde Park to Midway, the faces surrounding you changing at least twice along the way.
A few stops after I got on the bus, a few men sat down behind me. As they walked by, I distinctly smelled black pepper. I momentarily felt like I was in a book in which the characters were described as smelling sweet like tobacco and cinnamon or sharp like gunpowder. I never really related to that sensory imagery, but in this case such language would have been the best and only descriptor.
I wonder, if those men were in a Hercule Poirot novel, what sort of characters would they be?
December 19, 2007 at 2:51 pm · Filed under General
It was Drew Peterson.
December 19, 2007 at 2:53 am · Filed under General, Personal reflection, Social Justice
On Architecture and the Law
Standing in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House for the first time in years, I realized that architecture and law can and perhaps should occupy a strikingly similar place between expediency and innovation. Each of these fields greatly influences the environment we live in, and so must seek to achieve the greatest practicality while remaining innovatively responsive to the human condition.
Wright’s prairie aesthetic did just this. He knew that his future as an architect relied on the relevancy of his designs, yet at a time when people primarily valued homes that offered protection and warmth, he designed rooms like the one in the Robie House–90 feet long, lined with glass doors to the world outside. Wright took a risk in order to show his clients that intimate, protective environments can be created without secluding the occupants. His ‘open plans’ eliminated artificial boundaries, yet respected the human scale.
Similarly, by re-defining political boundaries, the Bill of Rights greatly impacted American society. The Founding Fathers could have considered their task complete when they had successfully achieved independence from the British. Instead, they envisioned a system that would protect Americans from future abuse at the hands of their government. They created the Bill of Rights, and in doing so, revolutionized the relationship between government and citizen.
Law, like architecture, can contract or expand the world in which we live and relate to one another. As such, greater social responsibility and positive change can be achieved.
