What will inspire you?
What Pillars of the Earth tells us about our species and our future
“Star” by Kiwi Tom is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Recently, I finished the book ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follet. It’s about the fictional village of Kingsbridge that undertakes the building of a cathedral in 1100’s England. Truthfully, such a subject isn’t one I normally would be curious about, but Pillars is really a tale about the ruthlessness of politics, the will to power, the technical challenges of the age and the perseverance to overcome these. And it made me think about the architecture of today. Our modern society has significantly more resources, technology and materials to create buildings of such magnificence. But we rarely do. So how is it that a village of half-starving peasants managed to create something so grand, and we, with all our abundance choose not to? It’s because we lack something they had, something humans need, and without it, our future on this planet will be very bleak.