The beginning

Ahh, how to start a blog. It seems as momentous — and as daunting — as the white, unwrinkled page in a new leather journal, just without the benefit of a pencil eraser. What I put here, they tell me, will last forever.

Well, so be it.

As a budding architectural historian and a newspaper reporter, I’m intrigued with the concept of a “Sense of Place.” Any writer worth his ink will tell you it’s foundational to a good feature story. And any historian — architectural or otherwise – knows that the context of an event (or building) gives it its meaning. Without place, it’s nothing.

As a Catholic, place takes on an entirely different level of meaning. The absurdly prolific Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton wrote, “I have become a pilgrim to cure myself of being an exile,” which speaks to the human condition, as understood as Christians. It is heaven, not this life, which is our destination. However, because the Catholic faith is incarnational, we believe that the things of this world have profound meaning. Thus, place — in an actual, material sense — is essential. That’s why, historically, Catholic churches have been beautiful, well-crafted and well-positioned structures.

I intend this blog to address Place in these three manners: the physical, as in buildings and city planning; the metaphysical, as in the atmosphere that one associates with physical places (what is often called “a sense of place”); and the spiritual, which transcends the senses though it is perceived, and speaks to the larger questions in which we often ascribe “place-like” metaphors, which as “Where are going?” and “What is home?”

This thing isn’t intended to be too heady, but it I hope it is interdisciplinary.

Welcome to Place + Meaning.