THE HOUSE OF SEVEN

How many of us still think, today, of the symbolism of numbers…?

Living in a desacralized world, number seven is just a “number,” inasmuch as three, or five, or nine, or ten.

But it was not always so. In actuality for a very long time, numbers exerted a fascination that extended beyond their lucrative force.

But at that time numbers were not “commodities,” as they are now.

Number seven was considered a perfect number and its significance in most religions and systems of belief is amply documented. It is enough to just type in, on the web, “number seven,” to discover a very rich material about this very potent number.

Not the least of it is the fact that 3 + 4 = 7, and this seven appears to contain both the masculine principle (3) and the feminine one (4). But there are many other layers of symbolic content connected with this “perfect number.”

We ask you to explore consciously the virtues and powers of this number, as it applies to architecture.

The House of Seven will thus be a house that employs this number in symbolic ways, connecting with long forgotten traditions. We like to think that a new reverence for numbers will have as a positive effect a renewed reverence for life in general.

It is quite possible that THE HOUSE OF SEVEN will connect (or re-connect us) with the seven planets, with the seven days of the week, the seven days of creation, the seven deadly sins or the seven cardinal virtues, the seven heavens to which Muhammad ascended, the Sabbath, or the perfect union of the male tri-part (soul, mind, body) and the female four parts material elements (earth, air, fire and water) of Zoroastrianism and so on.

We are certainly a very long way from “biologizing” again a triangle the way the ancient Egyptians did with the famous one with the side ratio 3:4:5, where the 3 was the male, the 4 the female and the 5 the offspring… but maybe we can start again to think / feel (nay, to feel / think) such numbers in all their plenitude, symbolic and factual.

Please design A HOUSE OF SEVEN that would make an Ancient Egyptian, or a Sufi mystic, or a Dogon sage, or a faithful Muslim, or a Cabalist happy.

Let’s try to enrich our lives again through different kinds of riches, not those normally offered in our ubiquitous supermarkets (although, we are afraid that maybe soon even the discreet spirituality of numbers might become a selling commodity for the ever voracious capitalist).

But we will stay away from the supermarket, and from a distance, from the periphery of our solitary activity let’s sow the seeds of a different kind of wealth, a more poetical and spiritual one.

Design THE HOUSE OF SEVEN.

Please send us ANY work, ANY size and ANY format that responds to the theme to house_of_seven@icarch.us.  We will publish all the works received on our new website: www.icarch.us.On the occasion of celebrating seven years of existence we do not charge any entry fee until the end of the year. The deadline for registration is December 31st, 2010. The deadline to submit your work is December 31st, 2010. If you have any questions please contact us.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery