THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

Page 745
proportion and ornamentation. According to Hegel's true and not merely idealistic definition, architecture sees it as its task to work inorganic nature into such a shape
that it becomes allied to the mind as an artistically valid outside world. The mind, in other words: the human subject, which is itself still in search of that which can be
called allied to it, this phenomenon always develops in various societies different angles, arches, domes, towers of an earth concentrated towards man. The architectural
utopia is thus the beginning and the end of a — geographical utopia itself, of all this searching for precious stones in the druse of the earth, of the dreams of an earthly
paradise. Great architecture sought to stand as a whole like a constructed Arcadia and more; and if it brought something lamentable, tragic mysteries with it, as in the
Gothic period, then this was only in order to contribute it to the difficult harmony. The wealth was enormous, drawn from a few basic elements, the alternative was
enormous between a pillared hall in Karnak and Sainte Chapelle in Paris, between our image of homeland in stone on the one hand, in strut frames and an influx of light
on the other. But a protective sphere, a homeland built in advance: this is what the outlines of a better world suggest as far as its actual construction in architecture is
concerned. The aesthetic form emerges here, as an encompassing one, so that all other pictorial forms have room and classification within it: the paintings on the wall,
the sculpture in the niche. The encompassing element furnishes a homeland or touches on it: all great buildings were sui generis built into the utopia, the anticipation of a
space adequate to man. And the thus erected Humanum, transposed to strictly significant spatial form, is as a task both migration from the organic and humane into
crystal, and above all permeation of the crystalline with the buoyancy developed within it, Humanum and profusion. When the conditions for the order of freedom are
no longer partial, the path finally becomes open again towards the unity of physical construction and organic ornamentation, towards the gift of ornamentation. It
becomes open in reality for the first time, without Egypt on the one hand, Gothic on the other, i.e. that which is thus described as crystal or tree of life, having to be
alternated over and over again, mixed or envied in isolation. The crystal is the framework, indeed the horizon of repose, but the ornamentation of the human tree of life
is the only real content of this encompassing repose and clarity. The better world, which the grand architectural style expresses and depicts in an anticipatory fashion,
thus consists very unmythically, as the real task vivis ex lapidibus, of the stones of life.