Journalism // A Secular Chapel (SUITCASE Magazine Vol 22)
I organised a stay at The Life House in Wales, one of several unique architectural retreats belonging to the organisation Living Architecture. The resulting article was published in the Design Issue of SUITCASE Magazine and I was subsequently nominated for Young Travel Writer of the Year at the Travel Media Awards 2017.
"Our visit has religious overtones from the start. Floundering on a darkening Welsh hillside, staring at an impenetrable set of directions that give a vintage postbox and cattle grid as waypoints, hysteria is beginning to set in. “I can’t do this any more!” my mother wails, as we slide down a muddy track into the deepening black, the satellite navigation cheerily (and erroneously) announcing that we have reached our destination.
Some clueless crawling of country roads and melodramatic bickering later, we round a bend and are suddenly confronted with a curious, angular shape squatting against the sky. As if the hand of God has scooped us up and placed us there, we’ve somehow stumbled upon the Life House. Swinging open the gate and walking into the driveway, I feel much as I imagine the monks who once inhabited the monasteries that dotted these valleys did: in awe of the quiet, stone chamber that welcomed them. (Unlike the monks, I also feel in dire need of a stiff drink.)"
"That night I open the door to the monkish contemplation chamber and lie down on a stone bench, staring up at the sky. Although I might not have had any grand epiphany (other than that my family should stay away from maps and cars), I’m surprised to discover that in a short time I’ve become convinced of de Botton’s idea that architecture can be akin to a religious experience – and that we owe it to ourselves to set loftier ambitions for the places where we live, interact and evolve.
Leaving the next morning in the soft first snow of winter, I make a resolution to make time to sit, think and be still even in my London flat, reflecting on the words of Thoreau that are carved into the hillside here: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
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