November 11, 2003

Pantheon

            According to the anthology, “the Pantheon and its setting provide a rich example of the concretization of an idea that relates nature at the scale of the universe to the man-made world” (461).  Crowe believes that the foundation to our knowledge “remain[s] rooted in nature” (441) where “nature, as our first environment, was our primordial source of external knowledge and the subject of our speculation about ourselves in relation to all else” (441).  Buildings and houses, as our second environment, act as our attempt to recreate artificial nature to differentiate man-made nature from nature itself.  We have transformed from “a nomadic wanderer” to become “homo faber” or “man the maker” (442).  Descartes, Plato and Aristotle concur upon the dualism of mind and matter wherein human “minds are capable of contemplating nature”; therefore, “nature must reside outside [human] thoughts and is therefore separated from [humans]” (449).  Even when we do try to go about exploiting and exercising power over nature, we unconsciously maintain an intrinsic understanding and application of nature in our man-made art. 

The Pantheon’s maximized use of the dome reflects Hopkins’ concept of inscape; “the dome above…and the encircling wall that joins the dome at its equator, all contribute to a comfortable sense of cosmic unity” (457).  As in the case of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, the dome, comprised of an infinite number of circles, represent continuity and unity.  According to Crowe, “Gothic churches are said to ‘soar’ like the trees of a northern forest” (452); the underlying blueprint for the church ultimately traces back to nature.  Because of this sense of continuity and unity, visitors to the church experience a “pleasurable spatial experience” (452) such as “strid[ing] through a grand room with light streaming in from windows high above and the walls glistening with handsome marbles” (452).  We humans recreate this pleasurable sense of spatial experience in a fundamental search for order and what we sense as beauty or idealized perfection in a “chaotic” world of nature. 

The way the Pantheon “seems to dip into the earth compared to the building around it…contribute to that sense of a natural and eternal presence” (456).  The Pantheon’s cylindrical mass subtle rises from the earth as if it were a feature of natural landscape careful to not disturb the surrounding natural environment.  Had Frank Lloyd Wright been alive during the time the Pantheon had been erected, I would have presumed he was the mastermind behind it all.  Through the study of Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture works such as the Guggenheim Museum in New York, one can grasp his concept of building with respect to the surroundings.  Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “Form follows function—that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”  Frank Lloyd Wright revered nature and believed any sort of construction should be based upon natural surroundings; while with a function, the building should also take on a form in harmony, “a kind of rapprochement between ourselves, and what we build and nature” (448), with the surroundings.