Going home.

Ben and me at Mühlekram, Neuthal, Switzerland. Photo: D. Moedinger. Jan 2011.

Ben at Mühlekram, Neuthal, Switzerland. Jan 2011.

While in Switzerland, we were lucky enough to visit the original Wäber homestead of Mühlekram, in Neuthal. Though we discovered that the house had been rebuilt in the 1830s, the land was still in agricultural use, over 300 years after our ancestors left. The area was [up until recently] inhabited mostly by weavers, hence our ancestors' surname, and my brother Ben's and my middle name: Weaver. They were forced off their land because of their religious beliefs [Mennonite], which ran counter to the state churches [both Catholic and Protestant]. Our great-X11 grandfather was imprisoned for 18 months in Zürich, the family lost their farm, and after fleeing through Germany, they settled with several other families in Lancaster, PA in the first quarter of the 18th century. 

Visiting Mühlikram was a profound experience - quiet and still. I love the picture of Ben walking amongst the footprints left in the snow, casting a long shadow into the trees. 

In the architecture world, words like "place" and "home" get tossed around so much it's easy to forget what profound concepts they are, what deep associations and meanings they have, and how complicated they can be. These concepts are charged - with history, culture, emotion - and it's in the context of pondering those concepts that filling out my weekly IDP hours [Did I spend 5 hours on Code Research, or was it Systems Coordination?] seem so silly, so completely counter to what an architect actually needs to know, and is called to do.

I think IDP could do with a few additional categories: Thinking, Drawing, Making, Traveling, Looking, Listening, Building, Reading. Oh, and Writing Blog Posts. Meanwhile, I should probably get back to work.