POWER OF INSTITUTIONS

Journal, Art.4

I think that institutions (and I might change one day my mind, but at the moment this are my thoughts) , if they find the right crowd and the correct speaker, can become very powerful.

This is not something that can be defined right or wrong, it is just something that has happened and probably will still keep on happening, because it is almost belonging, somehow, to human beings nature.

And this happens with institutions, but what are institutions in their origin: different thinking currents, groups…that then, once they’ve exposed their idea, found some followers through a good speaker, become some sort of institution, some are bigger, other smaller…

But when an Institution finds a majority of followers, and starts having more than one good speaker, and a main leader is elected, consequentially they start needing more spaces, and this spaces can’t be whatever space, but they need to be central, powerful, in a way they need to attract people, but on the other hand ‘scare’ them through their grandiosity.

One of the major examples can be considered, related very much with the Romanesque and Gothic periods, the diffusion of the Catholic-Christian Church, which after having increased their power, founded many followers, elected some sub-leaders and a main leader, and in itself having had some differences, created smaller different groups, that had their one ‘ rules ‘, all among them very similar, but with a little difference, that made them enter in competition among them…

All of this has definitely affected the city/village patterns.

As a matter of fact, these buildings, which probably found their ‘root moment’ in the Romanesque and Gothic periods, became, and, for many still are, important centers for many different actions.

At that time they needed to guide the people (big buildings, with time always more and more eye-catching), they needed to teach them without them necessarily knowing how to read (drawing, sculpture, symbolism), they needed to be imposing and authoritarian and, at the same time, make people feel somehow free (game of light and shadow), where they could feel both: individuals and belonging to a society (church layout)…

So these constructions ended up modifying the pattern of cities and villages, not only situating them selves at the center of attention, and consequentially directly modifying the layout of the city and indirectly entering in a building competition with, depending of the place, other religious groups, whom would start building something more vast; but mainly with the political groups, generally the one that was governing at that time, that could not allow them to be the main focus or center, even less when religion started to have more power than politics.

So all of a sudden the major institutions entered a competition among them to see who would succeed the best, to demonstrate themselves who really had the power.

An interesting example could be, among the little villages generally in plain areas, the necessity of having the highest bell tower, so to let the other villages now, how powerful and rich that village was!

And this generic example about Catholic-Christian Religion can be perfectly applied to all Religions, and not only, also Politic thought and groups. I imagine it can be applied and it’s valid for all Ideologies, mainly the ones that at some point succeeded, but not only, ‘cause also the minor ones, needed places where they could meet.

So, everybody needed to BUILD!!