Michael Powell

 

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Spirituality & Perception - Paper 4

BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY  

Reflections at Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford Rivermead Campus

 

INTRODUCTION

AT THE CAMPUS BOUNDARY

THE STUDENT VILLAGE

Queen’s, Sawyers and Ashcroft Buildings

THE THROUGH WAY

Faculty, Tindal, Mildmay and William Harvey Buildings – AND ANOTHER!

SOME GENERAL CONCEPTS OF SPIRITUALITY

IN CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

 

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this paper is to discern the nature of ‘spirituality’ in relation to a new modern university campus from a built environment viewpoint.

My approach is to study and reflect on the particular scenario of the Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford Rivermead Campus and then relate my observations to some general concepts of spirituality.

I am taking ‘built environment spirituality’ to mean what we come to know spiritually and what we sense coherently and sensibly, when we consider various facets of a built place.

Built environments can, it seems to me, be viewed as three-dimensional:

·         Temporal – the past, present and future of a place

·         Spatial – the buildings, outdoor locations, paths and routes, all that makes up a place

·         Human – the people associated with a place, those who made it, those who live study and work there, and not least those who simply walk through or look at the place and all that happens there.

These three dimensions are inter-related; they create wholeness of experience and insightful ‘seeing’. In addition, they resonate with the words frequently occurring in Christian liturgies in which ‘people of all places and times’ are united in the praise of God. Spirituality in part is seeing how these people, in this place and in these times are in fact part of the world’s life expressing praise.

The Chelmsford Rivermead campus of Anglia Ruskin University is a newly built place. All that was here before by way of factories and industrial plant has been completely cleared away. After some fifteen years work, the planners, architects and builders have completed almost all of their projects. All the students and staff are here together for the first time, some having moved in as early as1995 and others as recently as 2009. The story of the transition is fully documented in Anthony Kirby’s history of the University.

In my exploration I am going to walk through the site following the University’s campus map (available on the Chelmsford Campus section of the website).

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AT THE CAMPUS BOUNDARY

We approach the campus from New Street , passing under the railway bridge. Before reaching the campus, off to the right is Ashby House, the work-place of some of the University’s essential administrative staff, never to be taken for granted. 

Coming to the main roundabout, the road to the right, Hoffman’s Way, reminds us that in the 19th and 20th centuries this was a large industrial area, and Chelmsford, some say, the only truly industrial town in the south of England. Industry is essential to our lives, as are flour and bread. Today, the still operational Marriage’s mill is living, real industry right here. Going left from the roundabout we come to the Rivermead Gate shops and surgery, basic services to support everyday life, whoever we are, whatever the reason we are here.

The main entrance sign carries the University coat of arms. The motto in translation means ‘Excellence Through Partnership’ and the illustrations include representations of East Anglian sea, agriculture and industry.

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THE STUDENT VILLAGE

Behind Rivermead Gate is the Student Village , home for some 500 students at any one time. The red brick walls and sloping tiled roofs do speak of English villages and English homes but, for some of each succeeding 500, their true homes are a very long way from England and their domestic buildings very unlike ours. John Ruskin loved English domestic buildings but what he would have made of the industrially produced service pods in each flat incorporating showers etc, I dare not think!  The builders of the Student Village were one of the well known Essex design and construction companies, with whom some Built Environment students have spent the early (and may be later) parts of their careers. It is good to know that there is a hidden but living connection between these buildings, this firm, and these students. 

All but one of the flats in the Student Village is private to its occupants and their guests. The one exception is the farthest flat on the ground floor which is the Chaplaincy Centre, which is a place for everyone, open to all. It is a place where small things happen – hospitality, food, refreshment, company, space to be still or quiet for a moment or an hour. This is just an ordinary flat that has been set apart for a special use, for anyone’s use. When chaplaincy runs events such as a barbecue, the centre overflows on to the lawn areas outside.

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Queen’s, Sawyers and Ashcroft Buildings

I shall now take you back once again to the main roundabout, this time to explore the Queen’s, Sawyers and Ashcroft Buildings . Often when I approach the main courtyard with the Queen’s building on my right and Ashcroft ahead of me, I have similar thoughts. I remember watching Queen’s being built, thousands of bricks, each one individually laid by skilled hands, each one of the same material as all the others but with its random, individual mix of colour. Human communities, including this University, are like that. From the forecourt, there is no hint of the technology of Queen’s building. It is only from a distance that the large roof lantern can be seen with its automatically opening and closing windows. Ashcroft is the opposite. It highlights the name of one particular alumnus-donor against the background of a high metallic-coloured wall. The technology of the building is highly visible with the wall claddings apparently varying in colour with time and climate. One cannot choose between the aesthetics and technologies of the two buildings but one can look for each to perform with its particular excellence. Technological excellence and human associations combine to form an aspect of spirituality.

Sawyers is so called because it houses primarily the Faculty of Education previously located at Sawyer’s Hall Lane in Brentwood . Its position is such that it can easily be missed; it is necessary to specifically approach it and look at it. It has a highly visible contemporary technology comparable to that of Ashcroft but personal anonymity comparable to that of Queen’s. The repetitive regularity of the elevations resonates with the peace of the art gallery area at the Queen’s end of the ground floor. 

Having reflected on the three buildings, we must think for a moment about their primary academic roles, Queen’s as University Library, Ashcroft as International Business School and, as already said, Sawyers mainly as home of the Education Faculty. I ask, is there a point in this three-part building where one can see all three. And conceptually, is there a point from which education, business and knowledge can be viewed, something that brings them into relationship with each other? Is wisdom such a point? Or humanity? Or wealth? Or something else? I ask myself, if I could commission a small sculpture to be located at this point, what would it be? Or, alternatively, inlay a pattern or sign to the floor? A possibility would be Julian of Norwich holding in her hand the hazelnut in which she saw the whole world; or her haunting words, ‘All shall be well, all manner of things shall be well’. If we can see the whole, then wellness becomes a possibility. If we can only see library books, or business balance sheets, or educational curricula we are confined, but if we can see in various directions are we not more free?

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THE THROUGH WAY

Let us come back to the courtyard between Ashcroft and Queen’s. The angle of the L gives protection, enclosure and safety but the open, opposite corner leads one on into the main route through the campus.  Often before I set off, I like to absorb this corner place. It is not an arcaded monastery cloister fully enclosed, but neither is it completely open, an unbounded nowhere. It is a happy mix of care and challenge. Sometimes the colours from the claddings of Ashcroft are reflected onto the courtyard, in a similar manner to the reflections of medieval stained glass onto the floor of a cathedral.

Let us move now to where we can see the pedestrian way leading into the next part of the campus. It is a public right of way so children who are not yet students are discernible; however adults who are also not yet part of the University community in fact merge into it. For such passers-through, this is their local community. But if one listens to students talking among themselves there is a variety of languages confirming that the world too is here.

On our right is a large area of well mown, green grass dropping down to the waterside. On days when the sky is blue the contrast between it and the green is gripping. It is not surprising that early man thought in terms of the three-decker universe. The water too is part of creation mythologies; here it is clear, still and reflective. Overlooking it, in the corner behind Ashcroft is the memorial corner where people the University community has lost can be remembered and cherished.

Looking down the pedestrian way we see the end elevations of the Faculty, Tindal and William Harvey Buildings . They incorporate some areas of weather boarding, symbolic, a colleague tells me, of renewable building materials and sustainable construction. Further in the distance is the wide elevation of the Mildmay Sports Hall largely green in colour with a newly-planted hedge in front of it. The public footpath goes around Mildmay and out into an area of allotments and avenues of houses, reminding us that mostly we pass through University and go on to the routines of life, here in Chelmsford or elsewhere. 

If one walks along this path in busy term time it is the people who are most prominent. But in the quiet days, such as those of August, the place itself shares its restfulness and gentle orderliness.

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Faculty, Tindal, Mildmay and William Harvey Buildings – AND ANOTHER!

Note: The Faculty Building has now been renamed Marconi after Guglielmo Marconi, much of whose pioneer work on wireless transmission was undertaken in Chelmsford.

As one looks down the pedestrian way at this series of buildings, one notes that they are all flat roofed. John Ruskin would see no Gothic towers or spires or pitched roofs. There is nothing pointing upwards. In one way, this is quite rational; today we have the technology to build good flat roofs and there is no need to waste money on roof space which can often be expensive to heat or awkward to use. In another way, it is symbolic. Much of our society is not at ease with the idea that through upward aspiration we shall find our meanings and truths. Our searching and exploring is at ground level and within ourselves and our societies.  I do not think that one is right and the other wrong; it is just that they come at different times and speak to us in different ways.

As is often noted, the Faculty and Tindal Buildings are not straight in plan but gently curved to follow the line of the River Chelmer. The curves make the elevations look good. I am reminded of Stephen Langton’s line, ‘What is rigid, gently bend’. I know that being part of this University has taken many rigidities out of me.

Opposite, the William Harvey Building is the focal building for the Health Faculty. Its west (front) elevation is, I understand, technologically a ‘rainscreen cladding’ (a technique for managing the flows of water on the face of a building) while visually it is designed to illustrate human DNA. I know a little about the former but practically nothing about the latter. Thus here there is, for me at least, a mystery. I could do some research and improve my factual knowledge of both but that would not enable me to see any more deeply. It is amazing that building technology can be used to illustrate fundamentals of medical science. They are united in their witness to integrity. Each expresses the truthfulness of the other. The building technologists give purpose and attractiveness to the medical work, while the medics give a human purpose and dignity to the skills of the technologists. Each by itself is just technique or factual knowledge; together they have meaning. That is a facet of spirituality.

The Faculty Building contains both a mock law court and architectural drawing studios, an interesting juxtaposition – even though the student occupants of one may rarely if ever visit the other. For built environment professionals, the law is a regulator, disciplining what we do as in planning law or construction regulations. Contract law  and associated practices such a s arbitration provide a framework for orderliness and justice in the carrying out of construction projects. The reciprocal pattern is that built environment professionals design and build the essential facilities, varying from child-sensitive juvenile courts to high security prisons, which the law needs in order to carry out its activities. Some of the best views on this campus are from the upper floors of the Faculty Building looking east over the lawns and riverside area. I wonder what lawyers and built environment professionals would ‘see’ if they went there together regularly and talked and looked. As Anglia Ruskin is not a collegiate university such cross-disciplinary interaction does not come about naturally.

Although non-collegiate, Anglia Ruskin’s relatively democratic life is exemplified by the fact that the Students’ Union, the Vice Chancellor’s Office, and one of the refectories all inhabit the Tindal Building .

On the land adjoining Tindal, each October a large temporary building is constructed to accommodate graduation ceremonies. How symbolic! Here, unlike some other universities, there is no Great Hall or similar facility epitomising permanence and wealth. Here life is transient; everyone is on a journey; graduation, perhaps, is one of a number of small steps, not some great climax or inter-change point between youth and adulthood. To see the nature of this one only has to look at the varied types of family groups walking around on graduation days.

I have said earlier that the last building on this campus – or the first if one is coming the other way – is the Mildmay Sports Hall, a reminder of the importance of exercise and relaxation in all our lives.  

But nothing is ever complete. A new medical building is under construction. On a clear June day I am struck by the orderliness of the site. The blue hoarding is clean and the observation windows in it well-cleaned. The partly complete steel frame depicts the beauty of straight lines. It will not be visible for long; like the metal floor deck it will become the hidden but essential structure. Various prominent signs and various colours of hard hats are reminders of the value of human health, safety and life. Noise is mixed, the constant background noise of construction machinery and the unpredictable noises coming from operations on the metal work. This building is for a post-graduate medical facility. It doesn’t say so anywhere. How then do the construction workers know what they are doing? Does it matter anyway? A spiritual way of thinking suggests it does.

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SOME GENERAL CONCEPTS OF SPIRITUALITY

I want now to relate the particular campus scenario I have studied to some more general views on the nature of Christian spirituality.

  1. I start with my own Reformed, tradition. In Letting God be God, a study of Reformed spirituality, David Cornick has written, ‘Reformed spirituality is about public space... about the “theatre” of God’s glory, the world. It is about building a city of the saints, creating an academy of vocations’.  That is a very succinct aspiration, towards which I believe this campus can be seen to point. This campus is a theatre and the people actors participating in education related to a range of professions – business, health, education, technology, law and architecture and building itself.

  2. Although not using the word spirituality, I believe the Franciscan Joan Puls, writing in 1985 for publication by the World Council of Churches, was in fact talking about it. She says:

All of it [life] is sacrament.
All intended to be noted and decoded and sanctified.
All meant to speak to us of the voice that speaks from the burning bush,
or the blazing gunfire in Belfast or the burned out building in Beirut .
Spirituality embraces all of life.
It is the seamless robe worn in all our roles,
It is the style of our judging and acting.
It is the silence of our struggles and the echo of our cry for justice.

This is the hard side of what goes on here and beyond in all the work that will be done by graduates of this University

  1. Edward Robinson writes from a Christian artist’s point of view in a way relevant to spirituality. During this study I have found myself relating to a range of mini-physical places and mini-meanings; there has been no one thing that has focussed my thoughts. The advantage of this is that any place can be a focal place, any meaning a focal meaning. Robinson says:

... I like to think that any Londoner who went to work every day past Naum Gabo’ s marvellous rotating fountain in the courtyard of St Thomas’s Hospital might feel in him- or herself some stirring of the creative spirit – not of course to be expressed as a desire to design sculpture, but perhaps as no more than a wordless reminder that there are still an infinity of possibilities in life to be explored ...

This campus is indeed a place for exploring the possibilities of life.

  1. My late friend Michael Ranken, a food technologist, encapsulated his own spirituality in a small book entitled How God Looks If You Don’t Start in Church – A Technologist’s View. Michael’s picture of God as Trinity begins with a chapter on God as Spirit. He says, ‘In my spirit I recognise such things as truth, beauty, goodness and love and their opposites, falsehood, ugliness, evil and hate. His spirit, he believes, is related to the universal Spirit of goodness. That Spirit is seen through the laws and beauties of science and through the professional services rendered by technologists.  His Trinitarian picture is completed in chapters on God in Creation and God and Humanity. This campus, this created place, with all its people contains within itself, and in all that goes on here, what Michael sees as the expression of spirit, t is that relationship which is spirituality.

  2. And do I myself have a theory? Perhaps. I remember one August afternoon when the campus was all but deserted. I had made my draft notes for this paper but not yet looked up the work of Cornick, Pels, Robinson and Ranken. I sat for a long time trying to work out what I thought spirituality was here. I scribbled the following list:  

Spirituality:

  1. probes the depths
  2. evaluates the values
  3. integrates the parts
  4. acknowledges the mystery
  5. clarifies the truths
  6. scans the horizons
  7. is aware of the absences
  8. not yet discerned

Subsequently I have not taken this as a checklist to see if it can be precisely tied back to my observations. In spirituality, the end is never reached, the question never finally answered, the loose ends never completely gathered up.

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IN CONCLUSION

It does seem important to say that for the Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford Rivermead Campus in its present form, this is a moment that will not recur. This campus will never have so much newness again. Never again will it be seen to rise as a whole. It will inevitably develop the rich patinas and tiresome defects of age, but theirs will be a different quality. Additions will doubtless be built and alterations made but they will open up different images and experience.

Christian traditions in the end come back to Scripture. In relation to spirituality, the Wisdom literature often seems particularly apposite. This passage from Ecclesiasticus picture’s Wisdom’s house and man’s tent secured to it and shaded by it:


Happy is the man who fixes his thoughts on wisdom and uses his brains to think,
the man who contemplates her ways and ponders her secrets.
The man who camps beside her house, driving his tent-peg into her wall,
who pitches his tent close by her
where it is best for men to live,
sheltered by her from the heat,
and dwelling in the light of her presence.

Ecclesiasticus 14: selected from verses 20-27

 

All our efforts to discover built environment spirituality are best placed in relation to Wisdom.

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REFERENCES

Cornick, David (2008) Letting God be God: The Reformed Tradition London : Darton, Longman and Todd

Kirby, Anthony (2008) Anglia Ruskin University : 1858-2008 A Celebratory History Chelmsford : The University

Puls, Joan (1987) Every Bush is Burning: A Spirituality for Our Times Geneva : World Council of Churches

Ranken, Michael (2001) How God Looks If You Don’t Start in Church – A Technologist’s View Sheffield : Cairns Publications 

Robinson, Edward (1993) Icons of the Present London SCM Press

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