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A Farewell to a Building
"The spaces we create shape us."
-Sir Winston Churchill, on ordering the House of Commons
to be rebuilt just as it had been before being
destroyed during WWII.
I love buildings without main
entrances, ones that ask you daily
to risk all, where each threshold,
promises adventure,
and a simple mistake
can mean whole moments of meandering
though who we are, time that's
never lost,
where anxiety abides and
there is no right answer-ever,
where everything is complex,
confusing, a continuing collision
of choice and chance,
where most survive, save those
consigned to lifetimes of
wandering, searching
for main offices they think
they seek. Instead,
let's praise a building with many
entrances, one named Rogers,
another Mitchell, or Marshall,
or Kirshner,
that says, 'Come hither, and I will
show you many different things,'
reminding that
we need not get
anywhere,
that the journey,
as they say,
is all.
May 2000