The following is re-posted from my Curating Architecture class blog.

I waddled into my dorm room in the kind of contended daze that can only come from having just digested a full meal of dining hall food. Little did I know, however, that my state of pleasant complacency was about to abruptly end, as soon as I noticed the strange orange glow lurking on my wall …

Puzzled, I look around for the source of the light. Could it have been reflecting off of the nearby Sulzberger tower, which happened to stand across the courtyard from my room’s window …

… and was now soaking up the last rays of a setting sun? Apparently so. I had no idea that bricks could project a light reflection approximately 100 feet away, but I guess you learn something new every day.

I looked back up to see that the light on the wall had changed. All exuberance dissolved as the tower shifted back to its usual businesslike poker face of gray:

The spirit of the moment had vanished. My vision darted back to the spaces of my room as I frantically searched for any last glimpses of the fading magic, only to find that my walls had safely returned to their usual state of dreariness. It was as if nothing interesting had ever happened.

Although I have now landed back within my standard expectations of reality, I cannot help but remember the moment. It was almost as if the tower’s familar brick face had, for just an instant, managed to slip free of its daily toils of firmitas and utilitas and beam me a wink as a sign that the world can be a more beautiful experience, if only one finds the right places and times where unexpected events can happen.

But then I realized that it was time for me to stop pondering by the window and get back to work.

A layover in the Detroit airport did not sound particularly enticing. Everything I had recently heard about the city involved horror stories of empty homes and economic depression. And I would be there for three hours. I soon found out, however, that my worries had been exaggerated, and not just because my Kindle battery was still holding a charge. Upon stumbling into the airport terminal, I encountered a pleasantly optimistic surprise: an entrance to another world.

A tunnel of blue, as though I was descending under the ocean. I crossed the threshold. The experience inside was something beyond whatever emotions you might typically hold for an airport moving sidewalk. I was floating through the dark, surrounded by spectral echoes …

… while the world shifted around me. One moment I was amidst the greenery and bird chirps of an enveloping forest, the next I might be inside a raging red inferno. I stood there mesmerized.

Other travelers seemed oblivious to the performance as they hurried past me on their way out of the city …

… but I paused to take in the fact that the local citizens who built this installation were, in spite of their present struggle through their darkest hour, still unafraid to contribute something beautiful to their city.

The infamous CFL light bulb is never afraid of chronological or stylistic incongruency. Its presence on the Columbia University campus reminds me of a passage in Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s Experiencing Architecture, in which a performer dressed as a Danish Renaissance king perches precariously astride a sleek 20th-century bicycle.  According to the author, “The costume, of its kind, is undoubtedly a handsome one, and the bicycle too is of the best. But they simply do not go together.” Past styles will inevitably appear to be out of context with the present.

This morning, I didn’t want to think about architecture. I tried to — I racked my brain attempting to produce original, compelling ideas to share with you. I came up with false starts and wacky theories, and tried to find events in the world around me that I could somehow relate to design. But all my ideas simply fizzled and fell flat. None of my theories made sense, and none of it seemed to really matter.

And the snowstorm outside kept distracting me.

The snow streamed down in hypnotic rhythm. My room’s window sill reminded me of the proscenium arch used in a theater, framing my view of the white landscape so that it seemed to be some exotic other world disconnected from my reality.

I wanted to just hole up in the familiar surroundings of my own warm, cozy room and go back to sleep.

It was at that point that I realized that I was experiencing one of the most fundamental aspects of architecture. The building, for once, is shelter.