#archtheory

Wonder is the emotion felt in front of the spectacle of human achievement, the informed appreciation of the hand or mind's labor.

The word informed is important: If the sublime is induced by mystery, wonder is conditioned by knowledge.

Would you be as impressed by a hand made sculpture, as you would by a 3D printed object? 

While the objects might look exactly the same, and maybe even better executed by the machine, we certainly won't have the same emotional reaction to them. Assuming that we know which one is which.

This might be one of the reasons why we can be so moved by an medieval cathedral, but not by a modern building no matter how formally impressive. 

In the past, the function of wonder was largely fulfilled by craftsmen. The intricacy of patterns, the precision of a sculpture or the technique in a painting, allowed us to experience an empathetic connection with the original act of creation.

Today's architecture, by straightening it's edges, banning ornamentation and reducing labor to mere assembly sucked wonder out of it's walls. We are left with nice looking (at best), but inert forms that seem to require a masters degree in Architecture to be appreciated.

How do we reintroduce wonder? 

let’s start by defining the sublime as both the descriptive quality of an experience, and the emotion produced during that experience.

It's the feeling of standing in front of a majestic mountain. it’s a mixture of fear and admiration. An imposing presence of something that is beyond us. Something that exceeds our ability to make sens of the world.

we could say that the experience of the sublime is produced in our mindscape, from the interaction between the scale of our human life and the intemporel scale of the landscape. In this collision, we experience an opening where we see beyond our solid individuality.

It's a feeling a belonging.