The campus of Trinity College Dublin reminded me anew of the role of brutalism in modern architecture. It was the great throat-clearer, expelling the dusty phlegm of old buildings that can oppress architects and other creators. Here’s a building right on the college green:
This building is so obviously, facially new, and is 200 meters away from the Book of Kells, which was created around 800 and is house in an ancient-looking library:
That makes me feel good. I think it’s easy to feel cowed in an environment where everything is revered and treasured. There’s got to be mental space for thinking up new things, and the Brutalist movement seems to me a successful attempt to create physical space as well.
It’s easy to see this in places like Boston, where the shockingly muscular City Hall just brushes aside the fetishized old structures that surround it.
I was surprisingly unmoved by the Book of Kells. I think perhaps it was too old for me to feel for the authors. I just couldn’t leap through and high-five them the way I want to put my arm around Carravaggio and take a walk with him.
One thing I did get out of it, though, was the lost symbolism of the peacock. Apparently it is an indication of the incorruptibility of Christ, given the (mistaken?) belief that its carcass does not go fetid.