Do buildings have a soul?

Do buildings have a soul? I teach in a school with almost a thousand students. We recently moved into a brand new building. I spoke with a professor of architecture who served as a consultant for the planning of our new campus. He introduced me to the idea that buildings have a soul. According to our consultant, an architectural concept for any building, be it a school, an office or a house, should really be a metaphor or image of the dreams and values ​​of the people who will use that building. Articulating and defining the soul of a building is a process that should include as many people as possible who will inhabit the finished structure.

At our school we try to define your soul in a unique way. First we organized a contest where anyone associated with our school could submit a drawing, story, sculpture or film about what they thought constituted the ‘soul’ of our school. A student made a 3D model of children playing soccer. A parent sent in a series of pillars, each with a “hero” from one of the eight areas of knowledge. Galileo, for example, represented science. A teacher wrote a story about how a young woman with autism had been accepted and loved at our school. A graduating senior wrote an article about why our sports team name “The Warriors” embodied the ‘can do it’ and ‘never say die’ spirit of our students. All submissions became part of a brochure to advertise a design image contest for architects. They were invited to create a conceptual design for the ‘look’ of our school based on the ‘soul’ visions provided by our school community.

The entries in this competition were diverse and exciting. An architect had designed what looked like a multi-level tree house. Another had created a kind of butterfly design to show how our school wanted to transform the lives of children. Another had devised a plan that resembled an eagle’s nest, as our school was to be a place where children could safely learn until they were ready to fly on their own. One design was in the shape of a Noah’s Ark. The winning entry resembled the open, outstretched hands of God. Since our school is a religious institution, the architect had made the primary and secondary school wings of our school each represent the hands of God with a large courtyard in their open palms where members of the community could gather. If you walk into our school today, that’s exactly the design you’ll see.

I asked our consulting architect how we could know for sure that a building accurately reflected the “soul” of the community it housed. He told me that the ‘soul’ of the building could not be measured in any way. It was something that could only be discerned with the heart.