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building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

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Schinkel posed <strong>the</strong> question which suggested that <strong>the</strong> old relationships between<br />

man, town, nature and <strong>the</strong> architect were, in o<strong>the</strong>r words, in crisis. Something<br />

similar was also taking place in America. In 1836, Emerson wrote <strong>the</strong> work<br />

Nature161F161F168<br />

, <strong>the</strong> manifesto of transcendental philosophy, in which he expressed<br />

thoughts very similar to those of Shinkel. The incipit of Nature, which impressed<br />

Frank Loyd Wright so deeply, exhorts man to live his time to <strong>the</strong> full by creating new<br />

works and thoughts suited to <strong>the</strong> time in which he lived:<br />

Our age is retrospective. It builds <strong>the</strong> sepulchres of <strong>the</strong> fa<strong>the</strong>rs. It writes<br />

biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld<br />

God and nature face to face; we, through <strong>the</strong>ir eyes. Why should not we<br />

also enjoy an original relation to <strong>the</strong> universe? Why should not we have<br />

a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by<br />

revelation to us, and not <strong>the</strong> history of <strong>the</strong>irs? […]There are new lands,<br />

new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and<br />

worship 169 .<br />

The effects of culture called men to reflect on <strong>the</strong> role of industry and on certain<br />

changes due to machines in daily life, <strong>the</strong>y suggested a significant shift in natural<br />

space and towns. Emerson understood <strong>the</strong> relationship, which was being created<br />

between man and machine and he pointed out a dualism, which had sprung from<br />

new inventions capable of evoking or emulating provocative, anti‐conventional<br />

experiences: “What new thoughts are suggested by seeing a face of country quite<br />

familiar, in <strong>the</strong> rapid movement of <strong>the</strong> rail‐road car! Nay, <strong>the</strong> most wonted objects,<br />

(make a very slight change in <strong>the</strong> point of vision,) please us most […] Turn <strong>the</strong> eyes<br />

upside down, by looking at <strong>the</strong> <strong>landscape</strong> through your legs, and how agreeable is<br />

<strong>the</strong> picture, though you have seen it any time <strong>the</strong>se twenty years!” 170 .<br />

According to Emerson, this new relationship highlights <strong>the</strong> distance between man<br />

and nature resulting in “a pleasure mixed with awe” 171 , that is to say an entity with<br />

a form of excessively refined style aiming to capture <strong>the</strong> sublime. Man realises that<br />

“whilst <strong>the</strong> world is a spectacle, something in himself is stable” 172 .<br />

168 The essay Nature was published anonymously by Emerson in 1836<br />

169 EMERSON, Ralph Waldo, Nature, Boston, James Munroe and Company, 1836, pp. 5‐6 (Italian<br />

translation by Iginia Tattoni, Natura, Rome, Donzelli, 2010, p. 19)<br />

170 Ibid., pp.63‐63 (Italian translation pp. 52‐53)<br />

171 Ibid., p. 64 (Italian translation p. 53)<br />

172 Ibid.<br />

99

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