What Lies Within

Of course material matters.

The way a material reflects light, absorbs sound, stores heat, responds to moisture, and ages over time profoundly influences how a space feels. Every material contributes differently to the environments we inhabit and, in turn, to our experience of them.

But what if material selection carries less significance than we tend to give it.

Once we have determined how a space should feel, and identified the material qualities that will help create that feeling, the choice between one material and another despite perceived inherent value may be less significant than the skill and imagination applied to them.

Beauty has never belonged exclusively to any particular material. In the hands of an artist, designer and artisan, even the most humble material can become something extraordinary.

We often assign value to materials themselves.

Marble or concrete.
Walnut or pine.
Bronze or steel.

Yet beauty has never belonged exclusively to luxury.

The richness of a finished work is rarely the result of the material alone. More often, it is the product of the minds and hands that shaped it.

As Adolf Loos observed, the ambition of the artist is to master a material in a way that makes the work independent of the value of the raw material. The success of a work should not rely upon the prestige of its ingredients, but upon the imagination, judgement and care brought to them.

A masterpiece remains a masterpiece regardless of the cost of its constituent parts.

A beautifully crafted pine table can hold more meaning than an indifferently made piece of mahogany.

—

Concrete can feel warm and inviting.

Stone can appear weightless.

—

Material provides possibility.

Creativity and craft give it life.

—

When considering material choices, perhaps we should spend less time asking if it will be marble or granite, concrete or stone, and rather ask; how it will be shaped, and by whom.

Who understands its character, and can reveal the potential within.

Perhaps this is the question.

What lies within the material, and furthermore what lies within those shaping it.

For beauty emerges from neither matter or imagination alone, but from the marriage of the two.

A tree is still a tree.
A rock is still a rock.

Poetry is not simply found in words themselves, but in the way we arrange them.

And while materials possess beauty in their own right, a deeper beauty emerges through what we choose to make of them.

A beauty founded on the belief that we feel much more than we see.