The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

The House of Shadows
Draw an image of a house that contains both the positive and negative
traits that have been expressed in the self test. Use the house and its
setting to spontaneously create an image or series of images that bring
difficulties and talents into one symbolic house. Remember to share the
final “design” with a friend, teacher, or counselor.
The Built World as a Barometer of Wholeness
Considering that the evil of our day puts everything that has ever
agonized mankind in the deepest shade, one must ask oneself how it is
that, for all our progress in the administration of justice, in medicine and
in technology, for all our concern with life and health, monstrous engines
of destruction have been invented which could easily exterminate the
human race.
–C.G. JUNG
PART THREE | INNER RESOURCES
Our cities cast a psychological shadow, as do our governments and
institutions. These shadow elements manifest in built form the
unacceptable and unacknowledged aspects of their collective
cultures. We need only look at what we overvalue to see what has
been left out. A society that overvalues efficiency loses touch with
beauty. A city that single-mindedly puts thinking ahead of feeling
is empty and ugly because the places where people can gather are
going to be less valued.
The long line of commuters in traffic represent an unconscious
reluctance to arrive at jobs we don’t like and to return home to relationships
we don’t enjoy. Would traffic be less of a problem if we
were more conscious of our personal needs and desires? Everyone
who can recall their dreams has probably experienced a part of a
city that is the setting for a narrative filled with anxiety, violence, or
despair.
I feel particularly aware of places that are plainly counterintuitive,
places where water, earth, and air are toxic. These places have
a conscious and unconscious impact on us. Why are such basic
ingredients of life so undervalued? These places always leave me
feeling drained and defeated about our relationship to life. They
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