A HOUSE FOR A DRUID

About half a century ago, our genius par excellence, Mr. Albert Einstein, proclaimed in his forward to the book “The Religions of Man,” by Huston Smith, that the animistic tendencies of the past were fantasmagorias.

Obviously an artist like Ingmar Bergman would have disagreed, with his belief that there are “spirits” all around us, explicitly stated in his film “Fanny and Alexander.” And much earlier, for example, William Blake beautifully epitomized a magnificent quest for totality, that comprised insect and tree, stone and man.

Such dream of totality quite strangely the “major” religions do not seem to have any longer. The Abrahamic religions, obsessed as they are with a sole creator, supervising from above everything, forgot the little insect and the blade of grass. They condemned the little things to an insignificance that is all the more deplorable since their “big sisters and brothers,” the stars and the galaxies, are equally relegated to oblivion, from a religious point of view at least

But change is in the air, it seems. Obsessed with the creator above and the “afterlife,” in its two dichotomically opposed stances, Hell and Paradise, we neglected the earth, to the level of no return.

But reactions seem to manifest themselves with increased force, if we are to consider that just days ago in Britain a very old, pagan religion was given “official” status. Yes, now the Druidic religion stands “officially” in the pantheon of other “official” religions.

We only hope this will not validate even further the biting comment someone had that “we should believe anything, as long as it is officially denied…!?!”

So we ask you to design THE HOUSE OF DRUIDRY.

The house that acknowledges the sun and the thunderbolt, the oak and the river, the mountain and the stone, the equinox and the moon, as valid recipients of our wonderment.

And let us not forget too the very Christian Andrei Rublev, who, facing a pagan ceremony, didn’t fall, all too easily in accusatory superiority, but acknowledged that there might be sufficient validity in other forms of spirituality, besides the “major” ones.

How would a DRUIDIC HOUSE look like…??? Would it be a “house” at all…?!? It would certainly be very simple, monolithic, heavy, or quite light, BASIC… it would reconnect with COSMOS in ways in which Abraham apparently forgot to do it… Nothing will be excluded. To wonder again what the Sun is, what the Thunderbolt is, what the Mountain is, what the Insect is, what the Turtle is, or what Man is, could indeed sum up to a great renewal.

So please rethink yourself from a premise that excludes the dominant religious dogma. Celebrate life again from a pantheistic position, in this case colored, more or less discreetly (since certitudes in this field aren’t so many) and pave the way (without asphalt) to a more wholistic approach to architecture, and life.

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format to house_of_druids@icarch.us. We will publish all the works received on our website,. There is no entry fee. The deadline for registration is the winter solstice, December 21st, 2010. The deadline to submit your work is the Spring Equinox, March 21st, 2011. If you have any questions please contact us.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery