The Inner Studio - Riverside Architectural Press

PART THREE | INNER RESOURCES
cism; they embody an ideal. Every monument repeats the ritual of
rising up to the interior as though the visitor was entering a temple.
They are all symmetrical, and the grand moment of entry is carried
internally into a large rotunda that contains white marble representations
from the pantheon of great leaders. These places are
built instructions, an invitation to emulate, celebrate, and follow
the example. Who knows or really has time to ask if we are still so
confident or excited about declaring what we stand for? Who is
going to dare question these powerful symbols we aspire to
become? This area of Washington is a living symbol and the spiritual
center of the United States.
Entering the Viet Nam Memorial
We go down to it. Down is to modernity what the Pacific Ocean
was to the age of exploration: our last, eternal frontier, the last great
unknown. The monument is everywhere and we can barely summon
the courage to look at it, let alone set out to explore it. But
journey down we must because everything except the great deep
spaces that go down forever inside us has already been discovered.
We know instinctively that once we descend, we can never again
rise as innocently into the sweet blue sky. We go down into earth,
where trenches and graves are dug and battles are fought. With a
shimmering dark wall beside our path, we find that we suddenly
want to go down.
We need to know about the going down–not just the direction,
but also the experience of descent. Are you aware of the act of giving
up the possibility of all other directions? There will be no going up
and out, we are heading down and when we go down, we are
inevitably going in. There are names to read and the names on a war
monument are death. Death is spoken here–it’s heavy–and we’re
beginning to go down. We have forgotten that this trip to below the
horizon is temporary. Once you begin to go down, a strange familiarity
creeps in us. The sky is still blue overhead, the possibility for
courage is with us. We are not alone; this is, after all, the Mall in
Washington. This is the center of the power of the brave and the
home of the free. We all go down into the great black box of
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