Among many other necessities, to move forward and prosper it is essential to have a place to structure a life.
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Here in a thatched hut
hidden among mountain peaks,
with barely room for one,
I’m suddenly invaded
by wandering white clouds.
Kōhō Kennichi (1241-1316)
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A home is our corner of the world, which we can form according to our own nature. In the best of cases it will be a distinguishable built space in relation to others, where we are presented with the opportunity to create both an external expression that reflects ourselves and our personal tastes in addition to an internal environment which does the same. The spaces of everyday life should comfort, protect, calm and inspire. I have always described a good home as a positive emotional connection to a place. At its best, conscious design of our home places can attune us to the subtleties and depth of the world. It can make us aware of where we are, where we come from and where we desire to go. It can remind us of who we are, and all of the things and people which have formed us in our lives at any given point in time.
It is unfortunate that so many people in our times, especially those who live in larger cities, are asked to make a home out of an interior space only, often somewhere high up in the air, where the external form is generic and fixed and the internal forms are characterised by standard dimensions and synthetic material surfaces. Connection with the outdoors is offered through a window or a small balcony, but often a garden space is completely lacking. Even within this spatial frame, strict rental contracts or the desire to retain a semblance of generic character to make it possible to sell the space later to an unknown buyer preclude one from doing anything interesting with one’s living space. These are standardized homes for standardized people, but no one completely fits any standard.
Though a home is only a transient habitation, a place that is set up in beautiful taste to suit its unique owner is a delightful thing. The boundary between self and world is more fluid than we might think. A home becomes an extension of our own inner world and tastes. You can tell a great deal about a person from his or her home, in the same way that you can tell a great deal about a person form his or her fashion. To dwell at a place rather than simply to exist at it, adaptive habits and expressions must be allowed to arise naturally. Yoshida Kenkō (c.1283-c.1352) remarks: "Even the moonlight is so much the more moving when it shines into a house where a refined person dwells in tranquil elegance." (1)
Human-built structures have commonly been called the «third skin», a necessary layer of physical protection in addition to clothes. No other form of life exhibits the same variation in its constructed habitats as humans. As a consequence, there are many different conceptions of the home, both in terms of the qualities of the material space and the way that they relate to the patterns of life in any given household. The home is usually associated most strongly with shelter: it offers physical protection from the weather, is constructed such that it maintains a relatively stable temperature, it has a certain opaque enclosure which at least partially blocks the views of outsiders, and it prevents outsiders from entering at will. Normally it is a space over which one has a certain amount of control, and is a space which one can modify (or to which one can move) according to one’s needs.
The home consists though just as much of a psychological space: it presents a stable and predictable social environment, an existential foundation upon which one can rest and branch out to explore other aspects of life. Perhaps no one describes the home and its relation to memory better than Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Space (2), who describes beautifully how "inhabited space transcends geometrical space". He writes also that a house and the space within it "are not merely two juxtaposed elements of space. In the reign of the imagination, they awaken daydreams in each other, that are opposed". Indelible from a positive home is a sense of security. If one’s home is not in order, it is as if one does not have roots and is being carried along in a stream. While this can undoubtedly sometimes be an exciting experience that can be desirable in some stages of life, it is perhaps a universal need nonetheless to be able to return after some time to a protected and stable space of one’s own.
What then is homelessness? Is homelessness only the lack of sufficient shelter, or is it also an underlying, subtle experience that follows as a consequence of dense and repetitive construction methods, modern urban lifestyles that are dependent on commuting in a rigid schedule that separates work and free time, the generic character of many cities, or the loss of a connection to a common, recognized culture and history? In a time where more people than ever before have at least the illusion of mobility, and where fewer and fewer people have the financial means to acquire for themselves a site of their own upon which to build a dwelling that they own, what can it mean to have a home?
It can be said that in a time where the average person moves between dwellings quite frequently, and is more limited in what one is allowed to do with one’s surroundings than ever before, it is most important to start by establishing a home in oneself and one’s own personality and character. From there, even a temporary home space can be filled with things from one’s own life, which reflect one’s own history and tastes. Within the frame of a generic urban apartment, it is always a delight to come to visit and see carefully selected items, furniture or pictures on display which themselves have personal meaning and offer insight into the unique person or family that lives there. Modern conditions have perhaps limited the spatial and structural possibilities for how a home can be expressed for much of a given lifetime, but it is always possible to work with what one has to foster a feeling of being at home, wherever one might be.
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1) Kenkō & Chōmei. Essays in Idleness and Hōjōki.
2) Bachelard, Gaston. (1958) The Poetics of Space.
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I post these visual narratives/essays also over on my Substack, "Archetypal Spaces".
