"Asceticism is the trifling of an enthusiast with his power, a puerile coquetting with his selfishness or his vanity, in the absence of any sufficiently great object to employ the first or overcome the last."
~Florence Nightingale
"A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth."
"In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed."
~Charles Darwin
"Bridges and ramps are diplomatic."
~Tarik Ahlip
The phrase 'an improbable mausoleum of air' occured to me when I was thinking about how improbable a 256 by 256 concrete cube projecting out of a cliff would be, and I was immediately taken by the strong metaphysical connotations of the image that phrase conjured. It seemed to perfectly sum up the dual contrasting qualities of gravity and vitality that I feel are evident in the quote from Florence Nightingale. So I decided to try and design a space for Nightingale around this idea, a space that would be very open and benefit from lots of natural light, but would also give a feeling of gravitas and sombre propriety.
Reading the quotes from Darwin I got the impression of a deeply committed humanism and I decided to construct the spaces around the principle of collaboration. I felt that considering the quote from Darwin regarding the scientific man's 'heart of stone' on its own would lead to the creation of a space that was too ascetic and isolated.
I imagined a series of spaces that would enable collaboration and engender a sense of optimism and gravity at the same time; that would enable a dialogue between Nightingale's 'mausoleum of air' and Darwin's 'morbid cavity', engaging Nightingale in the capacity of diplomat and reconciliator.
The following links lead to the original sources of these quotes:
Florence Nightingale - Charles Darwin
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