"Turn your face away,
From the garish light of day,
Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light"
- from the musical, The Phantom of the Opera
by Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Charles Hart
A stark desire to withdraw from the world has occupied my mind in recent months.
To turn away and not care about an ailing education system that could greatly benefit from greater student initiative; To lose hope and give up on a capitalistic society drunk on the cheap wine that is the prosaic hyper-formal garbage we see these days as decantered from the bowels of dishonest artists masquerading as architects – the presence of such tumors in the profession only serving to diminish our influence in the crafting of buildings - as Harry Gugger so beautifully professes, and birthed only because of ailing architectural education the world over.
Disappointment, in establishments, in so-called friends, is a drink best served cold on a winter's day, downed in the contemplative solitude of nightly walks home from the studio. The furnace that once raged as a result of an incensed soul which felt compelled to right a world of wrongs has now been reduced to a mere brazier of glowing coal.
But Responsiblity is a dear bed-fellow who grabs you by the arm and turns you around; Reputation is a prized gem that once scratched will never be fully restored. Now that the hand has been put to the plough, now that's it's time to walk that way, one can only endeavour to walk it well.
