Architectural Enlightenment

by Mike Rosen

When I teach architecture courses, one of the things that I try to convey to the class is the different levels of complexity/interconnectedness/theory that exist within architecture. It is not the goal of the course to make people experts at meta-models, but it is important for an architect to understand that architecture is founded on architecture of its own. I was recently discussing this with a fellow architect, who also happens to be a Buddhist and who compared this to the different levels of awareness -- or enlightenment -- for which a Buddhist strives. I wouldn't try to compare architecture to a system of spiritual belief but there is something about the increasing levels of awareness that an organization and individual architects obtain as they conduct their journey.