A HOUSE FOR JOAN OF ARC

With great emotion we learned that this year, on January 6th, France and the world celebrated 600 years since the birth of Joan of Arc.

What is the relevance of this date, and of Joan, for us…? After all, she lived 600 years ago, in a very different world…!?!

But was that world truly so very different than ours…?

It is enough to watch the great movie by Carl Dreyer called “The Passion of Joan of Arc” (made in 1928) to tremble with an emotion that very few other works of art, or events, could generate!

This is one of the greatest movies ever, about one of the greatest human beings, ever.

So “different” was Joan’s life than most people’s that it is almost hard to believe that hers was a “real” life and not a “myth.”

But the best biographies are just like this: they seem only half “real,” if we persist in thinking that the real excludes the “fantastic.”

Indeed, how could a “mere” human being accept to be burned to death “simply” out of an infinite love for God…?!?

The fat churchmen, as hypocritical then as now, burned her.

They burned a saint, as one of the characters in the movie rightly says.

Indeed, the Church burned a Saint.

As in other cases when exceptional human beings have been forced into martyrdom. It seems, truly, that human beings are not quite capable to avoid sacrificing some of their best sons and daughters...!?!

We ask you, as intensely as we can, to try to see this movie, by Carl Dreyer, if you didn't see it already.

And then design A HOUSE FOR JOAN OF ARC.

It is hard to find a more inspiring film and a more inspiring biography.

Through Joan of Arc our own wings, prospective or not, refuse to be immobilized.

Through Joan of Arc we are connected with the past and the present and the future, with time and space, with longings and dignity, with poetry and sacrifice, with truth and unfortunately with a plethora of adversaries.

Please dream, dear architect, descend into the bowels of time and embrace the great Joan of Arc through an uplifting “house” that expresses her spirit and sings a celebratory song for her!

We must dream again, we must conquer fear, we must remember that at our best we too are birds…! We too can fly…! We too can defy the prose of a life that is worthless without that which Joan, this French peasant girl of nineteen when she died taught us, through her own example and sacrifice.

Serve the dignity of human existence with a great / humble HOUSE FOR JOAN OF ARC, that Joan who is, or could be, WITHIN OURSELVES. We know that the house Joan of Arc was born in is still standing, in Domremy-la-Pucelle , France .

But we ask you to envision another house, a house that expresses her beautiful spirit, a house that can be located anywhere in this world, where her uplifting spirit could find a much needed and inspiring reflection. A house that expresses in today's architectural language what 600 years ago she expressed differently, through her own faith and life and sacrifice. A forward looking house, inspired by her magnificent example.

We accept ANY work, ANY size and ANY format. We will publish all the works received on our website. The deadline is May 30th, the very day when she died, defending truth, against a group of fat, hypocritical churchmen, defending their dogma and their asses against a girl only nineteen years old, who accepted and invited death (by flames), but did so by defending a truth she simply couldn’t abandon!

What an admirable devotion!

This should never be forgotten!

And A HOUSE FOR JOAN OF ARC intends to do just this.

Help us dream again, dear architect!

We need your dream.

We quote from Wikipedia: “ Famous writers and composers who have created works about her include: Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (The Maid of Orleans poem), Schiller (The Maid of Orleans play), Verdi (Giovanna d'Arco), Tchaikovsky (The Maid of Orleans opera), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), Arthur Honegger (Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher), Jean Anouilh (L'Alouette), Bertolt Brecht (Saint Joan of the Stockyards), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan) and Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine). Depictions of her continue in film, theatre, television, video games, music and performance.”

Why is architecture missing…?

How come that “The Queen of the Arts” (as once architecture was called) finds it unnecessary, or even unthinkable, to pay homage through its own specific means to a subject that inspired so many other important artists, writers, etc…??????

We feel that the architect should also be an initiator, not just a commissioned servant.

Perhaps one way through which the architect could again assert his / her dignity and nobility and independence is through trying to be AN INITIATOR and an intense CONNECTOR with important celebratory moments.

Nobody commissioned us to imagine A HOUSE FOR JOAN OF ARC.

But equally we think nobody commissioned Shakespeare, Verdi, Voltaire, Schiller, Tchaikowsky, Mark Twain, Honegger, Brecht, Shaw and so on… Can’t we add our own names, the name of an architect, or several architects, to this list…?

Why not try…?

Why shouldn’t we allow our own hearts and minds and imagination to be fired up by such an inspiring biography…?!?

And who knows, maybe a social agent, be him / her a politician or who knows what, might one day actually attempt to build  such a dream.

Let’s try.

Thank you,

ICARCH Gallery
 
 
We dedicate this event to Tawakkul Karman, a Yemeni journalist and political activist who, at 32, is the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the first Arab woman to receive it. Surnamed "the Mother of the Revolution" in Yemen, she shared this award last year with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee.