Stones with a soul
The Founding Myths of Architecture by Konrad Buhagiar, Guillaume Dreyfuss and Jens Bruenslow, published by Artifice and available on Amazon.
The opening scene of Pasolini’s Medea (1969) is one of the most haunting moments in film history. The centaur Chiron appeals to the boy Jason, his ward, to sense the sacred in the physical world (my translation):
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“All is sacred, all is sacred, all is sacred. There’s nothing natural about nature, my dear boy: keep that well in mind. When nature begins to appear natural, it will all be over ... Does it seem to you that even the smallest corner of this beautiful sky is natural, and not inhabited by a god?” Except Jason is not listening - he’s more interested in catching a very natural-looking crab. An early sign of a hard-nosed pragmatism that will serve him well to assemble the Argonauts and seize the Golden Fleece.
Pasolini’s film, and the timeless question it explores about how to reconcile two seemingly opposed forms of lived experience – that of myth, and that of reason – was the inspiration behind this collection. It started life as a conference held in Valletta in 2005.