I was driving over to a primary school in Ilkley this morning (dribbly rain and mist over the wild moors) and listening to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was being interviewed about the British Government’s apparent approval of the idea of a new London airport (after Heathrow, Gatwick and City – Luton and Stansted don’t count as they are nowhere near London). The wisdom and feasibility of such a new venture will continue to be debated, but that isn’t what grabbed my attention.
Boris responded to an insinuation that it would take decades to build the thing and would, therefore, not be worth starting. He said that just because it might take a long time didn’t mean it shouldn’t be started. And this reminded me of something else: cathedrals.
When the architects and builders of our great cathedrals began their work – driven by imagination and a vision for a future – they knew they probably would never see the finished article. They would be dead – the building would take generations. Liverpool Cathedral (Anglican) was started in 1904 and almost everybody involved in imagining, designing and building it was dead by the time it was finally completed at the back end of the twentieth century.
Or think of gardens. Capability Brown designed some of Britain’s most glorious gardens, but knew he would never see what he had designed because by the time the trees and plants had grown, he would be long gone. This didn’t stop him doing it.
I took a couple of academic friends to the pub this evening to talk about a range of matters. At one point the conversation ran onto the shortsighted utilitarianism of current university funding methods in England. It seems as if the ‘now’ is all that matters and the Market will control all our destinies. Any idea of vision (what should a university actually be – and for whom and for what end?) or long-term constructiveness gets lost under the pressing immediacy of instant financial viability. Yet, I guess this is just one more example of a pragmatic culture which has lost track of its guiding narrative, its traditions and memory – living in and for the ‘now’ and hesitant about building for someone else’s future that can’t be guaranteed anyway.
Pessimistic? Maybe. But, any culture needs people who imagine a future, invest in it, know why they are doing it and who it is for. They must be driven by a vision for a society that doesn’t confuse ends (people/society) with means (the Market).
I don’t know if Boris is right about the airport. But, he has the right perspective on time and investment.
January 19, 2012 at 1:09 am
Golding’s The Spire a magnificent exploration of cathedral building. Or life.
January 19, 2012 at 4:20 am
Wonder if the whole lack of historic perspective is due to the loss of a guiding narrative to suggest where it might all be heading. If you’re heading into a fog, ‘full speed ahead Cap’n!!’ isn’t the best advice
January 19, 2012 at 5:05 pm
This also means it’s not about the great individual to do it all but about a community across time who catches the vision and commits to it. Interestingly, since you mention Capability Brown, on a visit to his home in Northumberland in later life he designed a park, the sketch of which was presumably left as a gift. In the last few years, after its discovery in an old drawer, this design has been brought to life. Well, not quite – life in infancy. It will take many years but today’s people caught the vision and committed to it.
See here http://www.kirkharlecourtyard.net/lake.php
January 20, 2012 at 5:13 am
Nick, thanks for this. This utilitarian thing has, at its root, this individualist thing that unless I can see the fruit of my labour, get something out of my effort for my own betterment/wealth/happiness/whatever, it is not worth doing. I have just planted 40 trees in my school that I know I will not see to their fullness, but the children of those in school certainly will enjoy the purpose I had in providing them. Thinking forward is communal, as Dagmar says, a community of time and a link to the community of idea and faith (why else plant a tree or lay the foundation stones for a cathedral). The trees might die, of course… but even the planting of them contains the meaning and the hope.
January 20, 2012 at 9:37 am
Long term investment would mean beginning an investment before it is necessary to avoid having to find suddenly urgent solutions later. That’s a difficult stage to get to when there are so many urgent investments to be made, precisely because there have been no long term ones for so long.
It’s just as well that ancient cathedrals didn’t have to be financed through PFIs.
January 20, 2012 at 2:59 pm
I would just like to sound a word of caution about romanticising the past. The architects and builders of Cathedrals did not build their long term vision because they believed it was worthwhile to have a long term community project but because it was the only way they were going to get built. The individual glory would lie in being associated in a major way with the process.
And Capability Brown had no option but to plant slow growing trees – growing slowly it’s what they do.
We build short term and for the more immediate benefit simply because we can.