2024 heralds the advent of self-care. The home has become a place of hybrid well-being, somewhere between intimate and professional life, a reassuring, almost medicinal refuge against a complex world. These include enthusiasm for sensory experiences that harmonise the energies of the home, from Vastu Shastra (the sacred science of the home) to marmatherapy (home acupuncture), as well as the home automation performance of the ambitious new U- gadget, the "connected urine analysis laboratory" which, placed directly in the toilet bowl, sends the results live to our mobile phone.
By extension, this reconnection with ourselves also means a reconnection with our home, both literally and figuratively. Our home must not only look like us, our self interior, hence the explosion of tableware collections from luxury houses such as Hermès or Christofle, but it must also, and above all, fit in with our intimate home, our inner construction, more specifically our body and its aches and pains, both psychological and physical. And in the face of this 'holistic self' and all these identity practices, we become more attentive and sensitive. To the walls, the waves, the sensations. Alive, in short.
Who hasn't felt a sense of unease or, on the contrary, total well-being when arriving at a place, a friend's house or a holiday rental? Who hasn't been tempted to put coarse salt in all four corners of their living room or burn white California sage like Pamela Anderson to ward off bad energy? But what are we really referring to? What energies are we talking about, whether benevolent or polluting, and what purpose do these harmonisation practices serve?
Because if we take the example of Vastu Shastra, which seems to be a complete harmonisation practice, we're a bit lost. According to the French Vastu Institute, "the Vastu Shastra is the oldest known architectural treatise in the world, at the crossroads between architecture, geobiology, Feng Shui, sacred geometry and the memory of places".
To find out more about what surrounds us and how we can influence our internal environment in the face of all these energies, we spoke to three experts: Igor Bézard, President of the French Academy of Professional Geobiology, Caroline Watelet, a holistic decorator, and Vincent Houba, an architect and psychoanalyst specialising in invisible architectures.
IGOR BÉZARD
Geobiologist and President of the French Academy of Professional Geobiology.
We began by looking at geobiology, a discipline that studies the influence of the environment on living beings. It detects natural disturbances (underground water veins, cosmic rays, etc.) and those caused by humans (chemical pollution, light pollution, noise, radioactivity, etc.), and "treats" the place and its inhabitants holistically and sustainably by studying its structure (terrain, orientation, layout, etc.) as well as the emotional dimension, such as the memory of the place.
It's a bit technical, but essential to understanding how to clarify a place, so that you can feel good about it. For let's not forget that we make new things out of old. "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed", according to Lavoisier's law. So building a beautiful house on polluted or poorly oriented land wouldn't be of much use. For "The house is not just a pile of breeze-block blocks topped with a roof, it's a living place with its own energetic logic" (excerpt from the book "Vastu Shastra, an ancestral Indian art for feeling good at home"), whose memories are more or less activated in the form of emotions, visions or sounds, by each person's own energy. In other words, a complex mix... which can manifest itself in sensations of presence, a business premises that won't sell, family conflicts or even chronic fatigue.
But fortunately, solutions do exist! As demonstrated by our detailed conversation with Igor Bézard, geobiologist and President of the French Academy of Professional Geobiology.
The origins
For some time now, we've been hearing a lot about living and well-being in the home. Geobiology, or "home medicine", helps you to feel better at home.
So what exactly is geobiology?
"Human beings, and all living entities, are formidable transmitter-receivers, far more powerful than any artificial antenna designed and built to date (...). We are all calibrated to resonate with certain frequencies. Some are even highly effective instinctive warning messages that have developed throughout the evolution of our species, and are integrated into our genetics."
"Geobiological influences are radiations that are invisible to the naked eye and originate either from the very structure of our planet (underground water veins, natural radiological activity, cosmic rays), or from the direct or indirect products of human activity (chemical, biological, soil and air pollution, noise, light pollution, radioactivity from industrial or military sources, artificial low- and high-frequency electromagnetic waves that constantly bathe us, etc.)"
"Invisible subtle phenomena, often mistakenly called paranormal (it's just normality not understood), are extremely varied and protean (...). As consciousness, we leave our energetic imprints all around us, human beings of the present or the past, 'Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed', according to the apocryphal quotation by chemist Antoine Lavoisier."
"Geobiology is also involved in wine production, as the yeasts that transform grape juice into wine in the winery are also, as elementary living organisms, highly sensitive to geobiological exposure."
"For example, before a city was established, the Etruscans would graze sheep for a time on site, and a soothsayer priest called an aruspice, would sacrifice some of them to analyze the characteristics of their entrails, and decide accordingly on the salubrity of the place."
"In geobiology, we learn to observe, from the earliest stages of formation, how a tree located in vertical proximity to the bank of a vein of underground water will push outwards at an angle, to distance itself (as it can) from the phenomenon!"
"Certain people's own energy will activate these memories present in certain places, which can manifest themselves in the form of sensations, emotions, but also visions or sounds... like an automatic projector that would be triggered under certain conditions."
"Ants seem to follow part of the Hartmann network's pathways to get around... bees are sensitive to telluric radiation, but also to cosmic and solar radiation in particular, for the development of their swarms and their production within the hive."
"These memory fixations are most likely taking place at the most intimate level of matter (...) the type of matter is of little importance, everything will depend on a process taking place at another level (...) A rock that has been present on earth for several billion years probably has more to say than a ballpoint pen that has just been manufactured in a factory, using synthetic products derived from the oil industry!"
"Influence is a two-way street. We also influence the spaces we permanently occupy. These subtle phenomena totally escape modern science, which fails to recognize them, even though all the most ancient human civilizations had already described them thousands of years ago."
Many sacred geometry symbols can also create favorable resonances. Among the best-known is the famous "flower of life", which can generate special subtle radiations known as form waves. These elements are also complements, pluses, but cannot compensate for poor telluric geobiological exposure."
"Coarse sea salt has a very interesting virtue: thanks to its crystalline molecular form, it can partially absorb information, memories or low-frequency energy stasis. It won't protect you from everything, but it will nevertheless be effective (...) in a bedroom, place a plate under your bed. However, don't leave it in place for more than two days."
Invisible pollution, wall memory, entities: how can you tell the difference, and where does geobiology come in?
What invisible pollutions are we unknowingly subjected to in our homes? And can we divide them into two origins: human (chemical, electrical, wifi, 5G...) and natural (telluric faults, Hartmann nodes, magnetic waves...)?
Geobiology can potentially intervene in all situations where living beings (humans, animals and plants) are permanently stationed in certain places. In our modern societies, which have become essentially sedentary, the field of application of the art of geobiology is vast and varied. First and foremost, of course, we think of housing in all its forms: this is the primary field of intervention for geobiology, whether as a preventive measure (i.e. the assessment of building plots before the final installation of structures) or as a curative measure (i.e. the assessment of the dwellings themselves, when they already exist). Surveys can also be carried out in professional structures, offices and production sites, whatever the sector of economic activity. Geobiology is currently undergoing significant development in the primary sector, including agriculture and livestock farming. For example, for several years now, recurrent cases of suffering livestock alongside telecommunication antennas or high-voltage power lines have been making the regional news, and mobilizing geobiologists. But geobiology is also involved in wine production, as the yeasts that transform grape juice into wine in the winery are also very sensitive to geobiological exposure. In the secondary sector, geobiological impact studies have been carried out on wind turbine siting and energy production projects. Real estate developments (usually luxury) have called on geobiologists to validate designs and/or layouts, with "biotic quality" becoming a marketing argument, a marketable added value for the project...Generally speaking, all establishments open to the public, whether public or private, can and sometimes have benefited from geobiological expertise in the fields of health, education, commerce or leisure.Over the last decade, the increase in activity within the company has been significant, but still far from meeting needs.However, progress is being made at a snail's pace, as geobiology, although increasingly well-known, is still very controversial, often due to the excesses of certain practitioners, as the discipline is not yet specifically regulated. To return to your question, differentiating between all geobiological disturbances is difficult and requires in-depth knowledge and practice of these phenomena. In fact, these influences are never isolated from one another; they combine and multiply. Untangling them and taking them into account requires the expertise of a competent geobiologist. These influences are often experienced by the sufferer as a general malaise, an overall feeling of discomfort, which can sometimes tend towards pathological states, in conjunction with other co-factors. Often, the geobiologist is called in when all medical, psychological or material investigations have failed to make sense of what is being experienced.This is a pity, because geobiology should be the basis, as Hippocrates of Cos, the father of modern medicine, expressed it in his famous "Treatise on Airs, Waters and Places" 2400 years ago.Subtle, invisible phenomena, often wrongly referred to as paranormal (it's just normality not understood), are extremely varied and protean, and simplifications and categorizations on the subject often lead to caricatured and often false ideas on the subject. Matter, as densified energy, can carry specific information - positive, neutral or negative - and the human being is a powerful energetic and informational transmitter who unknowingly interacts in a very profound way with his environment. As consciousness, we leave our energetic imprints all around us, human beings of the present or the past. "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed", according to the apocryphal quotation by chemist Antoine Lavoisier. On the other hand, are there any disembodied consciousnesses around us? I'd say, to stay on the doorstep, that whoever seeks them, finds them...
First and foremost, it's always a good idea to remember something essential: planet Earth is an extremely suitable place for life. We need only open our eyes to see its extreme strength and abundance all around us, almost miraculous even for modern science. It's obvious, therefore, that life-damaging environments are far and away in the minority, and this is what geobiology is all about. To simplify things a little, we can say that since the industrial era in the West, followed by its globalized development with its demographic and economic corollaries, the issue of housing and habitat has essentially been approached quantitatively. As is still the case today, the aim was to house as many people as possible, as conveniently as possible, at the lowest possible cost. In so doing, the qualitative aspect became very much secondary, except in marginal cases such as high-standard or luxury construction, where it is partially (and still only to a limited extent) integrated into the equation.
You're right, the return to the protective and beneficial virtues of the living environment is making a strong comeback at the moment, and it's fair to say that the outside environment is increasingly perceived as insecure, aggressive, or even dangerous in the worst cases. Times of crisis bring back the fundamental and primary need of human beings to create a protective, sanctuary-like, beneficial bubble; naturally, it is most often the home that takes on this role, if the conditions are right, which very often excludes the victims of social insecurity, for example. The aim is to put people in positive resonance with their immediate environment, because it is the discomfort experienced by the person that is taken into account. What's more, the word 'medicine' also carries a risk of confusion, leading people to think that geobiology is a medicine in itself, on a par with our modern healthcare system, or with other so-called alternative or complementary therapies. In France, the sensitivities of certain corporations are very strong on this subject, and it is important to make things clear to avoid, as is regularly the case, geobiology being branded as "fake medicine" or "pseudo-science". For the sake of completeness, it should be pointed out that the word 'geobiology' (which appeared at the beginning of the 20th century) covers two different meanings. The first is the name of a scientific branch of palaeontology, which studies the co-evolution of the biosphere and its environment over the geological eras; the famous Jesuit father and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was one of the pioneers of this field of knowledge. The second sense, the one we are talking about here, is an art that brings together the multi-millennia-old heritage of all human civilisations, which have examined, for secular or sacred reasons, the influence of place on human beings, and vice versa. At the Académie Française de Géobiologie Professionnelle (French Academy of Professional Geobiology), we define things a little more precisely, including its purpose and means: geobiology is the art of identifying the most favourable locations for living beings in our environment and its various aspects, and of implementing appropriate practices to preserve life in its full integrity. To be truly relevant, even this definition requires most of the terms used in it to be developed. Quantum physics has taught us that each atom that makes up our universe is made up of a vacuum (probably not quite empty!) and particles, which are also waves; in short, everything that exists in the universe radiates in the form of waves! The geobiology of places seeks to detect, avoid or exploit as widely as possible the radiation that will have a positive or negative impact on people (and other forms of life) who take up permanent residence in a particular place.
The expertise
When is it worth consulting a geobiologist?
Any form of discomfort, persistent discomfort or vital damage to living beings (human, animal or plant) that occurs systematically at a long-stay location, should evoke the geobiological factor. This does not, of course, dispense us from checking all other possible influencing factors, including, above all, individual health conditions, in the broadest sense of the term. As our ancestors have done in just about every civilization in the world since the dawn of time, the condition of a site was assessed prior to any settlement. For example, before establishing a city, the Etruscans would graze sheep for a certain period of time on site, and a soothsayer priest called an aruspice would sacrifice some of them to analyze the characteristics of their entrails, and decide accordingly on the salubrity of the site. Of course, today this folklore seems ridiculous, although in some parts of the world, still imbued with animistic or polytheistic beliefs, there are still comparable traditions. But this heritage of humanity also holds treasures of wisdom and knowledge that modernity has swept away with the rest. Scientific progress has also brought us a wealth of extremely useful knowledge and technological applications, but it too is not exempt from harmful aberrations. Professional geobiology seeks to draw on all these fields of knowledge, without ideology or prejudice, to shed useful light on a problematic situation involving man and his environment, and to provide solutions. Geobiology unfolds its full potential when consulted preventively, before building for example, or before moving into a place to live or work.But more often, as I mentioned earlier, we intervene afterwards...In these cases, geobiology is also very useful.It provides a perspective that makes sense, and concrete solutions that are very often effective. Finally, geobiology is even more useful when it can be used in cooperation, or even as part of a team, with other construction, health and environmental professionals.
What tools does a geobiologist use, and what solutions does "cleaning" bring?
The core of a geobiologist's expertise is the detection of subtle telluric and energetic influences, and therefore the use of radiesthesic research tools (such as the Lecher antenna), since no technological tools exist today to detect these types of radiation. A well-trained and competent geobiologist has therefore developed this channel of biosensitive information, enabling him to extend his spectrum of knowledge of the environment to what science cannot see (yet). But around this core area of expertise, the geobiologist also has a very important role to play in alerting and educating. Even if he's not an engineer trained in these fields, he must be able to understand and make informed recommendations about exposure to electromagnetic waves, ionizing radiation, air and food pollution, for example. In these cases, he or she can use technical measurement tools, in compliance with the appropriate protocols, and draw up geobiological recommendations. He or she must also understand the issues and basic principles of eco-bio-construction and bioclimatism, as he or she may be able to guide one decision or another on construction or renovation projects. In short, geobiology takes a holistic approach. It considers that parts cannot be isolated from the whole, and that a geobiological problem is above all systemic. Geobiological practices are very diverse, and so are the solutions they provide. In professional geobiology, we take a very pragmatic approach to our expertise: we establish a complete, precise and detailed diagnosis, and produce written deliverables (site mapping, measurement tables, detailed recommendations, all in reports of several dozen pages). The beneficiaries of the expertise are encouraged to take ownership of the information so that they can make the decisions they want, right from the end of the expertise. What's more, the recommended solutions are always simple and free of charge, or at most inexpensive. They can immediately position themselves in favorable zones and use strategies to eliminate or avoid the geobiological disturbances identified. When you speak of "cleansing", I think you're referring to more subtle phenomena, such as the "memory of walls" or the presence of entities. Personally, I don't use this word, as it seems both pejorative (in the sense that the phenomena in question would be garbage!) and doesn't actually correspond to the process as it actually takes place, either in substance or form. We prefer to speak of "clarification", as the term is closer to what actually happens. What's more, approaching these phenomena calls for the utmost humility: we're certainly only seeing a small part of the tip of the iceberg! In short, we re-establish energy circulation where it has been frozen, and increase the vibratory frequencies resonating in the area... Where there are waves, there are frequencies! At the very least, whatever a person's sensitivity, the difference in feeling between before and after is generally very clear...
Are the results immediate? And how do you know if it has worked?
The results of an intervention manifest themselves on several levels, from the material to the more subtle. Generally speaking, the effects take longer to appear at the physical level than at other levels. This is because the inertia of matter, its density, tends to slow down processes. At the most subtle levels, the effects are instantaneous, and we can see a domino effect from the informational to the energetic and finally to matter. By the way, the observation of this phenomenon confirms the idea that energy is in some way a matrix of the physical world...
We can therefore say that the manifestation of the effects of an intervention extends from the moment it is carried out, to several days or even weeks later. Apart from this general rule, each case is totally individual, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to foresee precise rules of duration.
When it comes to technically measurable phenomena, assessing efficiency is very simple. For example, we can assess the level of particles in the air (known as ppm), and I'll measure their number before and after an air filtration operation; it's the difference in the measurements taken that's the judge! For phenomena that cannot be measured technically, things are naturally different.In this case, it's what the beneficiaries feel that counts.Often, it's just as spectacular as the technical measurement!In the case of animals or plants, it's generally even more telling: it's difficult for critics to invoke the placebo effect for them.Many geobiologists, including myself, decided to devote their careers to geobiology following the many positive and often moving testimonials they received after certain interventions.
The pollutions
If you live in a house in the middle of the countryside or in a flat in a big city, you tend to think that the countryside is less polluted. Is it possible to map pollution today?
As far as geobiological pollution is concerned, the most reliable data we have at our disposal is that which can be obtained on the basis of technical measurements, carried out as part of protocols relating to phenomena that are scientifically known and studied.
For example, IRSN has mapped the risk of exposure to Radon 222 (a radioactive natural gas) in each commune of France. We also have a network of airborne sensors that enable us to monitor exposure to fine particles, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide, particularly near certain large urban areas (AIRPARIF). In the same way, we can also access maps on noise pollution (BRUITPARIF), or on high-frequency electromagnetic waves used for telecommunications (CARTORADIO). You can also find data on areas at risk from natural hazards or soil pollution (GEORISQUES / BRGM), and so on. Professional geobiologists use this data on a regular basis.
As far as local telluric disturbances are concerned, there is no such thing as micro-scale mapping of hydrogeological networks, geobiological faults, Hartmann and Curry networks and so on. In fact, it's virtually impossible to do so, because every square metre of the earth's surface has a unique configuration, which can, in some cases, change over time.
It is often misleading to think that living in the countryside systematically protects you from most modern forms of pollution. Here too, any hasty generalisations can be misleading, and can lead to major disillusionment. Each geobiological configuration is unique. To give you a theoretical example, but one that could be quite real: on the one hand, you have a beautiful house in the countryside, in the middle of fields, between beautiful mountains; wonderful! But in the field next door, a farmer regularly uses pesticides and chemical fertilisers that saturate the groundwater and the air with toxic compounds, including your kitchen garden, whose vegetables you regularly eat. A kilometre from your home, there is a landfill of chemical waste that has reached the water table, and traces of which can be found in the water supply, despite filtering, which is a real embarrassment for the local authority!
On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to live in a quiet, green, residential suburb of Paris, consume high-quality produce and water, and be sheltered from major pollutant exposure... But in either case, there's no way of knowing whether your telluric exposure is good or bad, and this can be a determining factor in your quality of life. Having said that, I could end on a truism by telling you that it's better to live in the countryside in a healthy, quiet place, than in the middle of a city full of concrete, noise and car exhausts!
Is human pollution more dangerous than natural pollution?
First of all, it's very difficult to judge how dangerous each type of pollution is in relation to the others... In reality, all disturbances, whatever their origin, accumulate, and their effects multiply each other. Just think: beyond the combination of 2 artificial chemical molecules, science is incapable of predicting the biological effects of their combined action! All we can say is that today's environment is more polluted than ever before, since we have added direct and indirect artificial pollution to natural disturbances...
It must also be said that mankind has evolved over tens of thousands of years within an environment with which it has had to contend, if only to sustain itself as a species and as an individual. In the case of all modern pollutions, it takes at most a few centuries, and especially a few decades, to adapt to a sudden and drastic change of environment. It's certain that our genetics haven't prepared us for this (according to ANSES, around 5% of the French population now suffer from electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome, which is constantly on the increase).
Ultimately, what is really dangerous is the accumulation of pollution, which risks (or has already) exceeded the human capacity to maintain good health naturally, by creating a "biological threshold effect" that is extremely deleterious in the medium and long term.
What are the physical or psychological symptoms that indicate a possible problem of invisible pollution at home?
Remember two more things: firstly, the geobiological factor is always a cofactor acting in concert with others, like a resonance chamber, and secondly, the potential presence of a geobiological factor implies long-term, regular residence in the same place (this is often the case with a bed, but it can also be a sedentary workstation), or frequented places with the same geobiological configuration (this is rarer but it does exist).
Symptoms may be general or localized, but are usually non-specific. In the first case, there is often a significant loss of vitality, and a feeling of not being able to recover. Sleep and metabolism are often disrupted, and these are strong indicators of geobiological factors; more diffusely, there may be a permanent feeling of recurrent unease in the place, a particular heaviness without it being possible to objectively define its origin. A certain mental confusion may appear to varying degrees, with difficulty in remaining anchored and fully present to one's daily activities.
In the case of more localized symptoms, there may be recurrent pain that always manifests itself in the same area, in the form of cramps, or sometimes more profound vascular or bone disturbances. Nervous system disturbance is generally a frequent marker of negative geobiological exposure.
What are the long-term consequences of sleeping or staying in a polluted area?
Quite simply, the symptoms mentioned above take root and worsen. It's not uncommon for geobiological exposure, as a cofactor, to play a part in triggering pathologies that can be serious, when exposure has been significant in terms of intensity and/or duration. At present, however, it is impossible to determine exactly how much responsibility each factor bears. Here too, "cocktail" effects are probably the most significant. That said, my deep conviction, based on intuition and experience, leads me to believe that the geobiological factor is often the determining factor.
The energy
Is the energy of the walls, the Genius Loci (the protective spirit of the place in ancient Rome, which today could be defined as the atmosphere of the place), the memory of the walls?
Energy and memory are two different things. Memory is more like information. We could take the analogy of content and container: in this case, content is information, container is energy; or information is computer code, and energy is the result of the program; or essence and form, Yang and Yin... There's a polarity link between the two, which is probably the basis of our universe. Information alone has no form to be active, and energy alone has no structure; it is pure entropy.
The memory of the walls will be information programmed into the structure of an element of matter, a bit like a quartz crystal used to store data (the technological process exists: we could store 360 TB for 14 billion years in a piece of crystal the same size as a 1 euro coin! ). Depending on the energy to which this information is subjected, it will manifest itself in a particular way.
Often, certain people's own energy will activate the memories present in certain places, and these can manifest themselves in the form of sensations, emotions, visions or sounds... like an automatic projector triggered under certain conditions.
Your reference to the Genius Loci is very interesting. Of course, at first glance it reminds me of the guardian of places in ancient Rome. But in this case, it's more a reference to an independent yet invisible consciousness that is somehow associated with a particular place. Wall memory is more a process than a consciousness... Having said that, I can tell you from experience that this idea of the guardian of places is far from inane, and has been present in all the great human civilizations. For the more spiritualists, we could say that these guardians are the "territorial agents of Gaia", who watch over the harmony between the human world and that of the more subtle consciousnesses that surround us omnipresently...
For the more materialistic, we could explain that it is at least the projection of the type of link we maintain with our environment. Indeed, the term Genius Loci has been taken up in the context of architectural phenomenology by Christian Norberg-Schulz, himself an architect, historian and architectural theorist; place is above all where life takes place, with its singular experiences...
Sometimes, certain places soothe us, while others cause us anguish as soon as we enter them. How do we, as living beings, capture these energies, and are we all concerned and able to feel them?
Human beings, and all living entities for that matter, are formidable transmitter-receivers, far more powerful than all the artificial antennae designed and built to date... Remember when I said that everything in the universe is a wave, and that it's all a question of frequencies? Well, it's a well-known process in physics. When a transmitter is tuned to pick up a particular frequency, when that frequency manifests itself, it enters into resonance with it, and starts vibrating at the same frequency or, alternatively, at what we call, harmonics. We are therefore all calibrated, for different reasons, to resonate with certain frequencies; some are even highly effective instinctive warning messages, developed throughout the evolution of our species, and integrated into our genetics.
So, as you say, we're all concerned and impacted, whether on a conscious or unconscious level. This is where another parameter comes into play: all our education and our modern, materialistic, consumerist lifestyle cut us off from the messages our body constantly receives from our environment.
Our most highly-developed muscle is our mind, which tries to manage everything, censoring anything that doesn't fit into its constructed frame of reference: this is the case with the more or less vague intuitions and sensations that each of us may have felt at certain times in our lives. The intelligence of the body, which can make 30 trillion cells live in harmony most of the time, is infinitely superior to that of the most muscular mind and intellect! So you can put your trust in it! To reliably, usefully and repeatedly sense these natural messages of danger or safety, you need to learn to master your mental information channel, and open up that of intuition and instant awareness. The two are normally designed to work in perfect harmony, a fact we have totally forgotten in our contemporary world.
What about animals? I've read that cats are more sensitive to invisible energies, apparently you shouldn't sleep where they sleep, often on an upright Hartmann node?
As with many subjects, we often hear things that are reported and spread around, but either have no basis in fact, or have probably been distorted along the way. For example, one of the urban legends of geobiology is that cats prefer to sleep on telluric disturbances (notably Hartmann crossings), rather than elsewhere... Well, it's true that cats do have a rather sulphurous reputation, which has led to a number of setbacks! Generally speaking, simple Hartmann crossings not superimposed on other disturbances are not very active geobiological zones in themselves. All living things pick up geobiological radiation, and all animals, especially mammals, systematically and instinctively seek out favorable geobiological zones, including cats. It is therefore very interesting to observe, without preconceived ideas, how animals interact with geobiological radiation, especially telluric radiation. I'm thinking in particular of certain insects, such as ants, which seem to follow part of the path traced by the Hartmann network in order to move around, or bees, which are sensitive to telluric radiation for the development of their swarms and their production within the hive, but also to cosmic and solar radiation in particular. All living things pick up geobiological radiation, and all animals, especially mammals, systematically and instinctively seek out favorable geobiological zones, including cats.It is therefore very interesting to observe, without preconceived ideas, how animals interact with geobiological radiation, especially telluric radiation.I'm thinking in particular of certain insects, such as ants, which seem to follow part of the path traced by the Hartmann network in order to move around, or bees, which are sensitive to telluric radiation for the development of their swarms and their production within the hive, but also to cosmic and solar radiation in particular.Horses are extremely sensitive to geobiological influences, and it's not uncommon for stud farms to be visited by geobiologists, after certain animals have behaved very differently, moving from one stall to another...What can we say about livestock too, and the many cases of milk production collapsing or illnesses exploding disproportionately close to cell phone masts, high-voltage power lines or faulty electrical installations? In short, it's hardly surprising that animals are just as receptive as we are to the deleterious influences of their environment.
As far as plants are concerned, are there plants that are more receptive to certain types of pollution, and can we trust our plants in poor health if we're not personally receptive? Is there a living being that can serve as a barometer and guide us?
The plant kingdom is of course subject to geobiological influences, like all living beings, but because of its structural sedentariness, it has developed its own strategies for adapting to these environmental influences. The plant world, like the animal world, is the subject of a huge diversity of species and adaptations to the environment, and it's indisputable that some species are much more robust than others, when faced with the same disturbance.
So yes, the health of your plants is a very good indicator of the healthiness of a place. In botany, we are well aware of the sensitivity of plants to electric fields, known as galvanotactism. In geobiology, we learn to observe, from the earliest stages of formation, how a tree located in vertical proximity to the bank of a vein of underground water will push outwards at an angle, to distance itself (as best it can) from the phenomenon!In fact, observing the flora that lives there is an excellent way to become aware of the impact of telluric structure on living things. How many hedges have holes always in the same places, how many fruit trees have been planted but remain stubbornly weak, how many areas in the garden where no plants grow at all, and how many places in the house where our beautiful green plants systematically wither?
Simply observe any plant, and its visible state of health will inevitably tell you whether other factors are at play (hygrometry, luminosity, etc.), whether the place where it's staying is salutogenic or pathogenic. In the latter case, move them and trust them to give you reliable indications of geobiological exposure... which you, in turn, can follow!
Do the walls of a place always retain the energies (negative or positive) of the past, or is this linked to the material (does stone hold energy better than wood or insulation, for example) and the passage of time? And in a new home?
Information or energies become embedded in physical structures when they are sufficiently intense to do so, which is fortunately not the case for all of them. Everyone has at least heard of those places where tragic events took place, and which still carry, sometimes centuries later, a heaviness and unease that just about everyone feels in their bodies. For the more doubtful, take a stroll amidst the lunar remains of the Battle of Verdun in Lorraine, which claimed 700,000 victims, and you'll understand what it's all about - it's sensations that overwhelm you. Or perhaps take a tour of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, and you'll realize that the body can speak louder than the mind! These are the most common examples of memorizing dramatic events. But you're right, it's also possible to memorize information or positive energies. These phenomena can be found in certain spiritual high places or sacred sites, which are not necessarily the best known! Here too, we're talking about processes that create polarized resonance phenomena.
These memory fixations most probably take place at the most intimate level of matter, where forms are still indistinct, and at more subtle energetic levels. Although I'm not quite sure, I'd say that the type of matter is of little importance, as everything will depend on a process taking place at another level; nor am I sure that the natural or artificial origin of the medium is decisive. Older objects or things, having therefore lived longer than others, are probably able to retain more traces than objects or matter of more recent existence. A rock that has been on earth for several billion years probably has more to say than a ballpoint pen that has just been manufactured in a factory, using synthetic products derived from the oil industry!
For these reasons, it's statistically more likely that older homes carry more information in their floors or walls than new ones. But the latter are not exempt from these phenomena, which largely escape material forms. Don't forget that matter is, in the final analysis, nothing but densified energy.
There's a lot of talk about negative energies, but a place can also retain beautiful positive energies. Can you measure them and identify the benefits for living beings?
There are, of course, many places that resonate harmoniously with their occupants. In fact, the influence is bidirectional. We also influence the spaces we permanently occupy. These subtle phenomena are totally unrecognized by modern science, even though all the most ancient human civilizations had already described them thousands of years ago. It is therefore not possible to speak of real measurements, in the technical sense, as this would require a frame of reference and calibrated instruments, recognized academically by all; which is not the case for these phenomena.
These vibratory levels can therefore be evaluated using dowsing, which is a special method of seeking information that primarily involves the physical and energetic bodies, and not the mind. There are various graduated radiesthetic scales (the best-known is the Bovis scale), which allow you to obtain a value, which is only meaningful when it can be compared with another. In fact, in absolute terms, a single figure provides no useful information, since much of its quantification will depend entirely on the operator and his reliability, and each operator, depending on his calibration, will obtain a different value. Properly mastered, however, it is a very useful means of testing the polarities and resonance levels of objects or subjects, and in particular living spaces, whose biotic quality (ability to support all vital processes) can be assessed.
The golden ratio, Phi (1.618...) symbolizes harmony and balance. The most pleasing ratio for human eyes. Many sacred monuments (temples, cathedrals, pyramids...) are based on it. What role do sacred geometry and the golden ratio play in the energy of a place?
Sacred geometry and architecture go back to the early days of what much later became known as geobiology. 6,000 years ago, Vedic India, and later ancient China, observed an analogy and harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm. For sacred reasons, it was fitting to reproduce on Earth the forms and processes that governed the observed rules of the cosmos, as well as those of Nature, in order to live harmoniously and peacefully in harmony with the universe.
Sacred proportions, of which the golden ratio is just one example, are based on mathematical harmonies and often on proportions found in Nature. For example, the golden ratio is a geometrical relationship found in the arrangement of sunflower flower heads and snail shells. These proportions, considered to respect the laws of Nature, create favorable resonances, but are not enough to determine the general polarization of a place. It's a favourable factor, but it's not the only one, and it's not necessarily the most effective. Many sacred geometry symbols can also create favorable resonances. Among the best-known is the famous "flower of life", which can generate special subtle radiations known as form waves. These elements are also complements, pluses, but cannot compensate for poor telluric geobiological exposure.
The trends
In the age of self-care, have you noticed a boom in requests for assistance?
Over the last ten years or so, we've seen a real change in the number of requests for geobiological intervention. Previously, geobiology was virtually unknown, except to a few enthusiasts of ancient traditions or alternative therapies, and was therefore shelved in the cabinet of curiosities. But then environmental problems and the growing awareness of their impact on our quality of life brought geobiology out of the woodwork! The global situation of our societies tends to push us to take a closer interest in our safety, well-being, comfort and "home".
The number of expert appraisals has increased significantly over the past few years, but we can't really talk about a boom. On the other hand, there has been a marked difference in the demands and level of knowledge of the customers who consult us. We are now often dealing with people who urgently need to find concrete solutions to problems for which they have otherwise found none, and which have been going round in circles for too long. They are often living with the results of harmful environmental exposure, as in the case of multiple chemical hypersensitivity syndromes (MCHS) or electromagnetic hyper-sensitivity (EHS). On the other hand, these people are generally much more and better informed about geobiology and Feng Shui, and these disciplines are no longer seen as a luxury for the affluent or idle, but as a genuine alternative way of effectively resolving difficulties linked to their quality of life.
Often, the difficulty lies in finding competent practitioners. Increased demand has mechanically led to an increase in all types of training and expertise. Some good, some not so good!
It's all very well to listen to music at 639 Hz, lay out energy stones or smoke your home with white California sage, but if your home isn't geobiologically healthy, it's useless?
Indeed, what you're describing is, as the saying goes, "putting the cart before the horse"! I'm not saying that these actions are useless, but they are when they are part of an overall coherent intervention, and a precise understanding of their objectives and modes of action. To put it more bluntly, you need to know precisely what you're doing, why you're doing it, and when you're doing it, otherwise you're unlikely to get results, except by chance. And that's often not the case... At worst, it doesn't hurt, but... !
There are some basic conditions that must be respected, unless you're pouring water into a pierced saucepan, which you'll agree is of only relative use.
For us, geobiology is the basis, enabling us to position ourselves in a safe zone, allowing the body to mobilize its normal resources of homeostasis and recovery, both physical and energetic. Once this objective has been reached, it can be very interesting to work on the circulation of energy, to absorb stasis and to increase the vibratory frequencies of the place, i.e. to create beneficial resonances between the inhabitants and their living space. The traditions and experience of each practitioner provide a wide range of means that must be used wisely.
For my part, I make extensive use of sound, whose mechanical force of waves and certain frequencies have an extraordinary capacity to decrystallize energy blockages. Light is also very interesting: depending on the color, and therefore the wavelength, it carries information that can be very useful for energetic, psychic and biological restructuring, and for working on the memory of walls. You also mentioned fumigation, and indeed incense and other resins and plants also have very interesting properties when it comes to creating positive resonances.
To be effective, these different procedures must be carried out according to very precise protocols, with sequences and ways of doing things that owe nothing to chance. I'd also like to take this opportunity to talk briefly about energy stones. Be careful not to fall for miracle cures that supposedly provide a panacea to protect you from all negative vibes! There are a lot of scams out there. I've seen such objects on the premises of certain customers, which not only failed to protect against anything at all, were of dubious aesthetic quality and exorbitantly expensive, but worse still, emitted negative radiation. It's better to be advised by neutral, competent people than by grigris sellers.
Do you have any tips on how to clean or protect yourself if you're not an expert?
There's no miracle solution for cleaning or protection, even for an expert. However, you've certainly heard of using coarse salt to protect yourself from negative energies? Many people do it, but badly! Coarse sea salt has a very interesting virtue: thanks to its crystalline molecular form, it can absorb information, memories or low-frequency energy stasis. Depositing salt in a disturbed area has the effect of capturing and retaining these elements. However, once its maximum absorption capacity has been reached, it will start to re-emit, in concentrated form, what is beyond its capacity, and will thus itself become an agent of energy pollution.
You can use coarse sea salt, unpacked from its plastic wrapping, in a durable parking area, such as a bedroom, by placing a plate under your bed. This won't protect you from everything, but it will be effective nonetheless. However, don't leave it for more than two days - you've seen why! Change it regularly, or when you see it starting to turn into soup. To get rid of it, flush it down the toilet, or in any case, take it out of the house and throw it away, even in nature, where the earth will metabolize it physically and energetically.
And to open yourself up to a better sense of place?
It's quite difficult to answer this question, because it really depends on each individual, his or her life path, level of awareness and sensitivity (I'm not talking about ability here, because everyone has it innately). Even if it seems obvious, I'd say you have to start by really wanting it. What is generally ignored is the power of human intention, accompanied by focus (i.e. an individual's energetic, mental and physical levels converging towards the same goal). Just really wanting it and trusting yourself is enough to open the door...
Nevertheless, the mind often blocks intuition and direct messages that don't pass through its filter. We need to unlearn a certain number of mental reflexes that have been instilled in us from an early age, where information is discriminated against even before it is received in its entirety. Naturally, infants and young children have a very sure instinct for the influence of the environment on them. In a cradle, a healthy baby will systematically try to avoid any geobiological radiation that may be bothering him at a particular point, by changing position, without any mentalization, as he is not yet capable of doing so.
The real difficulty starts when the door is ajar and you want to go through it, because at that point, if you're not guided, there can be risks of drift, confusion and disorientation. And the more sensitive you are, the greater the risk. When you begin to experience these phenomena on a regular and significant basis, the best thing to do is to take the next steps with a competent and reliable person who has already gone through them himself, and who can act as a bridge-builder. But later on, you need to know that you always end up coming back to yourself, but equipped with the necessary baggage and an autonomy that you don't have at the beginning...
Unfortunately (or not!), there's no directory of competent, reliable people on the subject! Generally speaking, if the intention (and the focus) are there, the synchronicities dear to Jung end up putting the right person on the right path at the right time. The process isn't without its pitfalls, but I firmly believe that, partly for this reason, it's the only one that allows the necessary opening of awareness, but doesn't dispense with the need to be active and vigilant.
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CAROLINE WATELET
Holistic decorator.
To help us better perceive the effects of all these theoretical practices, I met with Caroline Watelet, holistic decorator, for a discovery session in my home. We met in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, on the 7th floor, on a winter's day.
The test !
As soon as she arrived, Caroline immediately picked up on the energy of the place. High vibratory rate, lots of joy (no doubt due to the pink color that predominates in my decor), good vibes. Phew! Then she settles down, takes out her compass and determines the cardinal points to create the map of what will be the Bagua, a key tool in Feng Shui analysis, which determines the colors and materials recommended to improve harmony according to the sectors of life (career, love, health, work, etc.).
But Caroline doesn't just use Feng Shui, which arrived in the West in the 1980s and is now being overtaken by its ancestral Indian cousin, Vastu. A practice which, unlike Feng Shui, is perennial in the sense that it "treats" the structure of the place, notably through geobiology, whereas Feng Shui allows for a rather "made-to-measure" diagnosis, more in line with the inhabitant, but evolving over time.
So Caroline mixes geobiology, a discerning eye, Feng Shui and domo-detox (organize, sort, purify). She creates her own recipe, adapted to each place and, above all, to each person. We learn in the process that color takes precedence over matter. A wooden table painted black will be a "water" element, not a "wood" one, as black is one of the colors of water in Feng Shui.So it's with pencil in hand that Caroline draws the floor plan of my apartment, calculates the missing sectors, and begins her analysis. Relevant, and above all, psychological. With just a few observations, she spotted the links between a painting there and a wound not yet fully digested. So she hunts down the past and restructures the future. With complete confidence.
And in a few hours, I find myself as if after a shrink's session, but decorative, ending with soothing energetic vibrations using a crystal bowl, a few objects thrown away, and others that have changed place. So you feel a little unsettled at first. It may take a few hours to get used to the antique armchair that's been moved or the mustard stool that's replaced the pink one, but eventually you feel a sense of relief. Like a breath of fresh air. A new lease of life!
Thank you, Caroline! By the way, who are you?
Natural cycle of the elements and Bagua, from the book "Toit et moi" by Caroline Watelet and Billie Blanket © Le Chêne (DR)
"Holistic decorating is decorating that will also take care of our health and well-being and promote a better quality of life and personal fulfillment."
Vincent Houba
"We are not shaped by sacred geometry, we are part of it; we are the manifestation in the visible of the great order of the living in the invisible."
"When a person is in a place where he can't radiate his being, he's forced to overdevelop part of his full potential to meet the skill required by the employer, and this will eventually exhaust that part of potential and cause the other parts of his fallow full potential to go into depression."
"The important thing is not what you do, but who you are when you do it."
Neale Donald Walsh
Vous
What's the special thing about being a "holistic" decorator?
I seek to reconnect people with their environment and re-establish an intimate and singular communication with their home and therefore with themselves.
A holistic approach to decorating means thinking of the whole person: physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually.
Society is in a state of flux. We're moving from a society based on "having" to one based on "being". Home decoration and design are wonderful tools for getting to know ourselves better and setting up a décor that will support us in life, reflect us as well as possible and correspond to what we wish to be, by stripping ourselves of our family and cultural heritage and freeing ourselves from the effects of fashion, which are not necessarily what really corresponds to us.
Holistic decoration is decoration that also takes care of our health and well-being, promoting a better quality of life and personal fulfillment.
The psychology of living
You've been interested in the work of Alberto Eiguer, psychoanalyst and author of "Votre maison vous révèle", and Patrick Estrade's "La maison sur le divan". What are your techniques for uncovering your customers' inner selves, sensing what they need, and how do you make the transition from psychology to decoration?
People contact me first and foremost with a very specific problem, often expressing an unhappiness, stress, fears, poor sleep, a home in which they don't feel good. Things that are sometimes clearly identified, but also more unconscious and blurred. Because, as Alberto Eiguer says in his book, our decoration is a reflection of our unconscious. You can't hide much from me, and I quite naturally take a more precise and intimate reading, beyond aesthetics, of the people living in a place. Over time, analyzing a setting has become like a second language of my own. I start a conversation with my customers' walls! Feng Shui is a wonderful tool for this. My approach is to bring to light blockages, prohibitions, inconsistencies and certain dysfunctions in a family, in a more conscious way. I don't claim to be a psychologist or a therapist, but I'd rather talk about helping people to get to know themselves better and to identify the areas of their lives they want to change.
The technics
Domo-detox, Feng Shui, geobiology, energy purification - what are the fundamental differences and how do you direct your customers towards one or other of these harmonizations?
In the past, my sessions were very specific, depending on the demand, and people would call me for a particular service.
Today, I've created my own protocol, which brings together all these tools, and I never know in advance which ones I'm going to use. Afterwards, for people who are completely redoing their house, or who are lucky enough to have built one, carrying out a Feng Shui study beforehand and creating a bagua can be an extraordinary piece of work. This study allows you to balance all the materials, colors and shapes, and make choices that will bring great harmony and well-being! In fact, I often work with architects. They no longer see it as a constraint, but rather as a valuable tool for making choices with their clients.
You'll find the essence of my approach in the book we co-wrote with Billie Blanket, "Toit et Moi", published by Éditions du Chêne. We're currently working on a new book!
The tip
What advice would you give to raise the vibratory level of your home?
Mix the elements - wood, earth, fire, water and metal - to reproduce the natural cycle of elements in nature.
Imagine an earth-only landscape with no trees, no sun, no water - your energy wouldn't be the same! The cycle of the 5 elements in Feng Shui illustrates the energetic interconnection between wood, fire, earth and water. Each element influences and nourishes the next, creating a dynamic equilibrium that promotes energetic harmonization and thus a higher vibratory rate for the space.
This philosophy is similar to the biophilic approach that more and more architects are experimenting with. It involves integrating natural elements (vegetation, fountains, etc.) into the design of buildings to enhance the health and well-being of users.
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VINCENT HOUBA
Architect and psychoanalyst, specialist in invisible architectures.
As we have seen with geobiology, our body is a formidable source of information, an antenna for the reception and broadcasting of energies that resonate according to our experience, our upbringing and our genetics. But we still need to be able to tune into it.
So if our body is a structure that holds us together in the same way that our home shelters and secures us, what about the way it works internally? How can we reconnect with our intuitive power and decipher our emotions, our visions, our feelings and our needs, to help us feel in our right place, at home or elsewhere?
Architect and psychoanalyst Vincent Houba, a specialist in invisible architectures, sheds some light on the subject.
The invisible
What is invisible architecture?
Personally, I don't talk about invisible architecture, but about invisible architectures, because there are so many of them. The invisible space that lies behind everything visible is a vast field of investigation and exploration. To simplify my task, I approach it through the prism of human relationships and the human unconscious, building bridges with my profession as an architect, which I practiced for 25 years. Through this doorway, the invisible architectures are all that we create from our unconscious and all that governs our actions and words without our knowledge. The aim is to highlight the fact that we are governed far more by the invisible and the unconscious than by the visible and the conscious. It's also about shedding light on the fact that, even if on the surface we feel free to act as we please, we are directed by invisible inner forces that guide our steps, as if we had magnets under our soles.
Unbeknownst to us, we are driven by our childhood wounds, which are seeking to be repaired or filled, and by the incessant attempt of our inner self, our soul, to reclaim its rightful place, which has been squatted by our ego, which took control very early in our incarnation to ensure our survival in reptilian mode.
In adulthood, we find ourselves believing that we are free to act according to our vital impulse, when in fact we live most of the time in reactionary mode, either in submission or rebellion. And we end up confusing life with survival. When we live in survival mode, we transmit this energy through everything we create: words, actions, projects... And what's created with this energy can't be sustainable, because it's an energy that's overexploited and will therefore run out over time
© lessuperficiels (photo 2) & © adyliu (photos 1 and 3)
The self
It's often said that you have to do what you love to shine. To create your own beauty. Is this man's instinctive quest, and how do we go about it?
It's a complex question, so I'll give you a terse answer! I'd say that, first and foremost, you need to know yourself to discern the living from the surviving, the being from the survival character. Both can "love". But it's not the same "love" and therefore not the same energy. I'd like to quote a phrase of Neale Donald Walsh's that I'm very fond of: "It's not what you do that's important, but who you are when you do it."
Doing what we love to radiate would be tantamount to saying that we're dependent on what we do (the visible) to radiate. Which is totally false. But it's also the trap in which many people in search of personal or spiritual development find themselves trapped. We can radiate anywhere once we've regained our freedom to be. Being doesn't need any particular conditions to radiate. There are simply external conditions that favor our reconnection to our being. But our being is not given to us by the outside, it is installed deep within us. There's this trap in personal and even spiritual development of becoming dependent on methods or gurus to "be". There are indeed approaches and guides that promote access to our being, but we must strive to stabilize our states of being (which these approaches or people awaken) so as not to sink into dependency. Every being is supposed to be autonomous, but needs relationships to become so. So it's not enough to elicit touches of being, there's a personal work of engagement in certain personal practices to maintain and stabilize the states touched. This is what will enable us to radiate in any place and at any time, without having to "do" anything.
As for man's instinctive quest, I'm convinced it's Love. I'm convinced, after accompanying beings on their evolutionary path for some thirty years, that every being is just looking to love. Very unconsciously, very clumsily. And so very often with completely twisted and deviant strategies that often lead to the opposite effect to the one sought by the unconscious. It's our conscience that can help us correct this quest.
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Our bodies as building materials?
Yes, in a way. I realized that by switching from my job as an architect to that of a human being coach (whether in an individual or an organization), I wasn't really changing my job in essence. Indeed, to construct a building, a human being through an educational or therapeutic posture, or a human organization whether corporate or institutional, you have to respect the same rules of living: you don't build the roof before the foundations, just as you don't develop your spirituality before stabilizing your psychic foundations. The architect, often without really being aware of it, obeys the universal laws of life, since he builds in accordance with the laws of physics. If he doesn't, he can't guarantee the stability and durability of his edifice. When building with human material, as is the case with companies, institutions and other groups of humans gathered around a common project, these laws are not respected because these humans are not recruited on the basis of their innate potential but on the basis of skills acquired for their survival. This is one of the main causes of psycho-social problems in the workplace.
Architects spend a great deal of time during their studies analyzing the nature of materials, so that they can build with materials suited to the conditions and qualities required. You can't build foundations with glass, or load-bearing walls with loose earth. Respecting the intrinsic characteristics of materials guarantees the durability of a construction.
In the world of human organizations, this respect is not de rigueur. People are recruited not on the basis of who they ARE, but on the basis of what they can DO, without bothering to check that what they can do is in keeping with who they are, and thus guaranteeing that they won't exhaust their energy in the job to which they will be assigned. Indeed, when a person is in a position where they cannot radiate their being, they are obliged to overdevelop part of their full potential in order to meet the employer's skill requirements, and this will end up exhausting this part of their potential and causing the other parts of their full potential to lie fallow.
So, before we can claim to be contributing to the construction of a new, more humane and ecological world, we need to ensure that our education focuses on self-knowledge, self-esteem and self-respect.
In this way, we'd have healthy, adult human material to build a world in harmony with the laws of the living world, rather than grown-up children carrying around their buried wounds as an identity card.
How to build yourself from the inside? In rebellion / submissions?
That's the crux of the book I'm currently writing!
First and foremost, by ensuring an education that respects the living world, listens to the child's needs, and provides support to ensure that these needs are met (which by no means means means satisfying them at all times and in all places, which would be lax). An education that recognizes the child as a being equivalent to the adult, and that integrates nature into the evolutionary process. I often use the image of the walnut, a shell that seems dead and inert, yet contains absolutely everything needed to produce a unique and singular walnut. All it lacks is the fertile soil to unfold its full potential. It's the same for the child, who from birth contains all the potential needed to become who he or she really is. We therefore need to hire gardeners in schools, rather than teachers (and parents!) who expect certain children to produce what is not part of their full potential, and are therefore not good breeding grounds for these children. Fortunately, this is gradually changing...
This new educational posture would guarantee the entry into society of healthy, responsible adults, respectful of the laws of life because they are imbued with the experience of respect.
Then, while we await the fruits of this new education, what do we do when we've built a TCP/TCM (Tout Comme Papa, Tout Comme Maman) or TSP/TSM (Tous Sauf Papa, Tout Sauf Maman) survival character? There are several stages to the process:
1. Finding a therapeutic place where I can deposit my history, my wounds, my doubts, my resentments, my blockages, so that I can come to feel recognized as a victim of my parents (of the toxic part of the parents, i.e. the part that wasn't able to be there for us as we needed; it's not a question of judging the parents, who often did the best they could with their own history). This is the phase of self-knowledge and pacification of one's history.
2. Find a therapeutic place where I can take my inner child who is lacking to a kind of ideal replacement parent, from whom I can receive what this child has been missing. This is the refounding phase, comparable to patching up a building's inadequate foundation. The child needs to be nourished by the "presence" of an adult who chooses to be there for him without needing him (which is rarely the case in parental postures).
3. Updating our daily life and environment in line with this posture of being finally made possible.
As long as we have not been nourished healthily where we have been deficient or malnourished, we have no means of behaving other than in reactionary mode. It's in the relationship that we've been wounded, and it's in the relationship that we're rebuilt. It's an ego trick to believe that we can do it alone. That's the red carpet of the spiritual ego. In-depth work in conscious relationship gradually leads us to a fully responsible adult posture and a healthy contribution to any collective.
The sacred geometry
From our embryonic state, we are shaped from within by sacred geometry, which also shapes nature and architecture, by the hand of man. Does man make what he considers "beautiful" (Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, for example) according to a natural geometric instinct rooted and modelled in his DNA?
We are sacred geometry. We neither produce it nor create it. We are within it, and are made up of it. The energy of creation is love and only love. In the invisible. In the visible, it takes many forms, all governed by the sacred geometry that is the necessary structure for the energy of love to radiate on our Earth. Our upbringing always pushes us to separate things, to segment them into boxes, categories, in an attempt to understand the incomprehensible, to keep at bay the anguish and fascination of the "great mystery". This is how we separate the visible from the invisible, energy from structure. But it's an alliance of opposites to manifest the ONE. We are not shaped by sacred geometry, we are part of it, we are the manifestation in the visible of the great order of the living in the invisible.
And that's where things go wrong, because humans have been given free will. And with this gift, man will attempt to create his own order above the laws of the living.He will attempt to create structures other than those of sacred geometry, and thus participate in the construction of great disorder and unsustainable structures. Or he will appropriate sacred geometry as if it were his own creation.The middle way is to discover it, learn its laws, and learn to build according to these laws, thus producing sustainable constructions in harmony with the order of life.The result is harmonious environments that generate sensations of well-being and peace, and induce human behavior at the service of the entire ecosystem.
As far as "beauty" is concerned, the question is more delicate because it's a completely subjective criterion. Beauty is a personal judgment of the observed thing, which depends on the filter of a personal context.
Constructions based on sacred geometry are not necessarily beautiful in the aesthetic sense of the term. It's more a question of an invisible beauty, an energy that respect for the natural order induces and radiates. Some buildings can be considered beautiful in the eyes of the human sensibility, even though they are not designed on the basis of sacred geometry. What we're talking about here is a more subtle kind of beauty, one that doesn't relate to the meaning of life, but to a less emotional sense of well-being. This energetic emanation touches the being, not the heart.
Le Corbusier was a purist of the golden ratio, and many sacred monuments (temples, cathedrals, pyramids...) are based on it.What is the energetic power of the golden ratio, in the construction of a monument, on living beings?
A specialist in sacred geometry will be able to give a more detailed, even scientific, answer than I can.All I can say is that constructions based on the golden ratio generate an energy field that invites and calls for order, and subtly helps us to live "in order".They can therefore sometimes generate the collapse of human structures that are not in order, inviting them to correct themselves.
The living
There's a lot of talk these days about living things in design and architecture (using hair, tree bark, earth, etc.). Are all building materials alive?
All materials are indeed alive, in the sense that everything is energy. Even plastic is alive. We need to distinguish between what is "living" and what is "natural". So we need to distinguish between natural materials (which are alive and come from nature without any transformation), transformed materials (which are alive but have undergone a transformation from their original state) and synthetic materials (which are alive but have been created artificially). The more transformation there is, the greater the risk of deviating from the original, natural arrangement based on the sacred geometry of the golden ratio. Synthetic materials are generally not designed on the basis of a molecular arrangement based on the golden ratio, but with the sole aim of technical performance or financial savings. They are nonetheless alive in the energetic sense, including so-called inert materials.
All materials are therefore alive, in the sense that they all emit their own vibratory frequency. The more natural a material, the higher its oratory vibratory rate, helping to build high-vibratory buildings that will help humans living there to raise their consciousness. All living beings are unknowingly sensitive to the vibratory rate of their environment, and are impacted at more or less subtle levels by this vibratory frequency.The use of the most natural materials possible, combined with the design of plans based on sacred geometry, contributes to the elevation of human consciousness.Indeed, if we are bathed in a high-vibration electromagnetic field, we are automatically invited to raise our own vibratory rate to harmonize.But this can be unbearable for some people when the vibratory delta is too high and they need time to move to a higher vibratory rate.The higher the consciousness, the higher the vibratory rate.This is how some beings manage to gradually raise the vibratory rate of a place by living there.It works the other way round too.But it also works in a negative sense, i.e. a place with a low vibratory level has the power to lower the vibratory level of its inhabitants, unless the latter have well-established and regular practices for "maintaining" their vibratory level.
All this to say that a place designed in sacred geometry on the invisible plane and built with natural materials on the invisible plane constitutes an environment conducive to the health of its inhabitants on all levels, as well as to their elevation in consciousness.
Is the theory of the golden ratio in a living material, destined to "move" over time, viable? The living being itself a product of sacred geometry...
All natural materials are both alive and higher in vibration. As it ages, it risks altering and modifying its molecular arrangement and moving away from the golden ratio.It could be said that, over time, order fades.As a result, its vibratory rate drops.But despite this "aging", natural materials remain vibrationally high for much longer than processed or synthetic materials.You can see how quickly contemporary buildings age, compared to very old buildings made only of natural materials.There are also buildings, such as the Lichtung in Rastenberg (Austria) built by architect Georg von Thurn (a specialist in sacred geometry and geomancy) which, built with natural materials on the one hand and designed on the basis of sacred geometry and geomancy on the other, give the impression of being new after several decades of existence.
The sacred geometry
Since our embryonic state, we have been shaped from within by sacred geometry, which also shapes nature and architecture, by the hand of man. Does man make what he considers "beautiful" (Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, for example) according to a natural geometric instinct rooted and modelled in his DNA?
We are sacred geometry. We neither produce it nor create it. We are within it, and are made up of it. The energy of creation is love and only love. In the invisible. In the visible, it takes many forms, all governed by the sacred geometry that is the necessary structure for the energy of love to radiate on our Earth. Our upbringing always pushes us to separate things, to segment them into boxes, categories, in an attempt to understand the incomprehensible, to keep at bay the anguish and fascination of the "great mystery". This is how we separate the visible from the invisible, energy from structure. But it's an alliance of opposites to manifest the ONE. We are not shaped by sacred geometry, we are part of it. We are the manifestation in the visible of the great order of life in the invisible.
Et c’est là que les choses se gâtent car il a été offert à l’humain le libre arbitre. Et par ce cadeau, l’humain va tenter de créer son propre ordre au-dessus des Lois du Vivant. Il va tenter des créer des structures autres que celles de la géométrie sacrée et participer ainsi à la construction d’un grand désordre et et de constructions non durables. Ou bien il va s’approprier la géométrie sacrée comme si c’était sa propre création. La voie du milieu est de la découvrir, en connaître les lois, et apprendre à construire suivant ces lois en produisant ainsi des constructions durables en accord avec l’ordre du vivant. Il en résulte des environnements harmonieux qui génèrent des sensations de bien-être et de paix, et induisent des comportements humains au service de tout l’écosystème.
En ce qui concerne la "beauté", la question est plus délicate car c’est un critère tout-à-fait subjectif. Le beau est un jugement personnel sur la chose observée qui dépend du filtre d’un contexte personnel.
Les constructions érigées sur la base d’une géométrie sacrée ne sont pas nécessairement belles au sens esthétique du terme. Il s’agit plus d’une beauté invisible, d’une énergie que le respect de l’ordre naturel induit et rayonne. Certaines constructions peuvent être jugées belles aux yeux de la sensibilité humaine alors qu’elles ne sont pas conçues sur la base de la géométrie sacrée. Il s’agit ici d’une beauté plus subtile qui ne s’estime pas avec le sens de la vie mais avec un ressenti de bien être moins émotionnel. Cette émanation énergétique vient toucher l’être et non le coeur.
Le nombre d'or, Phi (1,618...) symbolise l'harmonie et l'équilibre. Le ratio le plus agréable à regarder pour l'homme. Le Corbusier était un puriste du nombre d'or et de nombreux monuments sacrés en sont issus (temples, cathédrales, pyramides…). Quel est le pouvoir énergétique du nombre d'or, dans la construction d'un monument, sur le vivant ?
Les constructions érigées sur la base du nombre d’or génèrent un champ énergétique qui invite et appelle l’ordre, et nous aide subtilement à vivre "en ordre". Elles peuvent donc parfois générer l’effondrement des structures humaines qui ne sont pas en ordre, les invitant à se corriger.
The living
There's a lot of talk about living things in design and architecture at the moment (using hair, tree bark, earth, etc.). Are all building materials alive?
All materials are indeed alive, in the sense that everything is energy. Even plastic is alive. We need to distinguish between what is "living" and what is "natural". This means distinguishing between natural materials (which are alive and come from nature without any transformation), transformed materials (which are alive but have undergone a transformation from their original state) and synthetic materials (which are alive but have been created artificially). The more transformation there is, the greater the risk of deviating from the original, natural arrangement based on the sacred geometry of the golden ratio. Synthetic materials are generally not designed on the basis of a molecular arrangement based on the golden ratio, but with the sole aim of technical performance or financial savings. They are nonetheless alive in the energetic sense, including so-called inert materials.
All materials are alive in the sense that they emit their own vibratory frequency. The more natural a material, the higher its oratory vibratory rate, helping to build high-vibratory buildings that will help humans living there to raise their consciousness. All living beings are unknowingly sensitive to the vibratory rate of their environment, and are impacted at different levels.
Indeed, if we are bathed in a high-vibrational electromagnetic field, we are automatically invited to raise our own vibratory rate in order to harmonize. But this can be unbearable for some people when the vibratory delta is too high and they need time to move to a higher vibratory rate. The higher the consciousness, the higher the vibratory rate. This is how some beings manage to gradually raise the vibratory rate of a place by living there. It also works the other way round. But it also works in a negative sense, i.e. a place with a low vibratory rate has the power to lower the vibratory rate of its inhabitants, unless the latter have well-established and regular practices for "maintaining" their vibratory rate.
All this to say that a place designed in sacred geometry on the invisible plane and built with natural materials on the invisible plane constitutes an environment conducive to the inhabitants' health on all levels, as well as to their elevation in consciousness.
Is the theory of the golden ratio in a living material, destined to "move" over time, viable? The living being itself a product of sacred geometry...
Tout matériau naturel est à la fois vivant et vibratoirement plus élevé. Son vieillissement risque d’altérer et de modifier son agencement moléculaire et l’éloigner du nombre d’or. On pourrait dire qu’avec le temps, l’ordre s’estompe. Alors son taux vibratoire chute. Mais malgré ce "vieillissement", les matériaux naturels restent beaucoup plus longtemps vibratoirement haut que les matériaux transformés ou synthétiques. On peut observer la rapidité de vieillissement de bâtiments contemporains par rapport à de très vieux édifices qui n’étaient constitués que de matériaux naturels. Il y a aussi des bâtiments, tels que la Lichtung à Rastenberg (Autriche) construite par l’architecte Georg von Thurn (spécialiste de la géométrie sacrée et de la géomancie) qui, construits d’une part avec des matériaux naturels et d’autre part conçus sur les bases de géométrie sacrée et géomancie, donnent l’impression d’être neufs après plusieurs décennies d’existence.
Le moi
On dit souvent qu'il faut faire ce que l'on aime pour rayonner. Créer son propre beau. Est-ce ça, la quête instinctive de l'homme et comment s'y essayer ?
La question est complexe et la réponse sera donc lapidaire ! Je dirais qu’il faut avant tout se connaître pour discerner en soi le vivant du survivant, l’être du personnage de survie. Les deux peuvent "aimer". Mais il ne s’agit pas du même "amour" et donc de la même énergie. Je citerais une phrase de Neale Donald Walsh que j’aime beaucoup et qui dit « L’important n’est pas ce que tu fais mais qui tu es quand tu le fais. »
Faire ce que l’on aime pour rayonner reviendrait à dire que nous sommes dépendant de ce que nous faisons (du visible) pour rayonner. Ce qui est totalement faux. Mais aussi totalement le piège dans lequel sont prisonniers beaucoup de personnes en quête de développement personnel ou spirituel. Nous pouvons rayonner en tout lieu lorsque nous avons reconquis notre liberté d’être. L’être n’a besoin d’aucune condition particulière pour rayonner. Il y a simplement des conditions extérieures qui favorisent notre reconnexion à notre être. Mais notre être ne nous est pas donné par l’extérieur, il est installé au plus profond de nous. Il y a ce piège dans le développement personnel et même spirituel de devenir dépendant de méthodes ou de gourous pour "être". Il y a effectivement des approches et des guides qui favorisent l’accès à notre être mais il faut s’attacher à stabiliser nos états d’être (que ces approches ou personnes réveillent) pour de pas sombrer dans la dépendance. Tout être est censé être autonome mais a besoin de la relation pour le devenir. Il ne suffit donc pas de susciter des touchers de l’être, il y a un travail personnel d’engagement dans certaines pratiques personnelles pour maintenir et stabiliser les états touchés. C’est cela qui permettra de rayonner en tout lieu et tout instant sans avoir rien à "faire".
Quant à la quête instinctive de l’humain, je suis convaincu que c’est l’Amour. Je suis convaincu, à force d’accompagner des êtres sur leur chemin d’évolution depuis une trentaine d’années, que tout être cherche juste à aimer. Très insconciement, très maladroitement. Et donc bien souvent avec des stratégies complètement tordues et déviantes qui conduisent souvent à l’effet inverse à celui recherché par l’inconscient. C’est la conscience qui peut nous aider à corriger le tir de cette quête.
Plus d'infos sur youtube.com
High-rise buildings, concrete slabs or even an invasion of tags, we have been observing for several years a surge of the aesthetics of the suburbs in the popular culture.
On one hand, many artists from these cities are exploding, such as Maes in music, JR in contemporary art or Mohamed Dia in fashion, and on the other hand, luxury or lifestyle brands are appropriating the codes and iconography of this urban culture as a pillar of their communication.
Recently on Netflix. Romain Gavras took the district of Evry-Courcouronnes and its slab of the Parc aux Lièvres as the central character of his punchy film, Athéna. It is precisely from this city, and in particular from Building 7, that the leading artists of the moment have come, including Koba LaD, Shotas, Kodes and Bolemvn. In Florence, the famous luxury brand Gucci has adorned itself with a Gucci Garden with stairs tagged (with words of love). Aspesi, the traditional, sophisticated and minimalist Italian brand, draped Kendrick Lamar, the "king of hip-hop" from Compton (known for its gang violence) for the release of his album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. Or Aya Nakamura, who is no longer introduced, became the new international muse of Lancôme.
Over time, urban culture has become ultra dominant at the scale world, totally pop culture.
Le Corbusier, Plan Voisin, Paris.
But Le Corbusier put the idea back on the table in 1933, with the Charter of Athens (Athena), setting out the precepts of "the functional city" and in particular its towers ofdwelling. At the time, it was a question of meeting the need for housing in cities in a context of rural exodus linked to economic development, particularly after the war (the 30 Glorious Years). France is also the only capitalist country in the Western world to have opted for this approach to town planning. And it was a few years later, between the 1950s and 1970s, that large housing estates appeared, sort of heirs to this vision carried by the "starchitect", including the Parc aux Lièvres, and many others. The 4000 in La Courneuve, the Empalot in Toulouse, the Grande Borne in Grigny, the Résidence de l'Espace in Vitry-sur-Seine, and 113 rue Camille Groult, the mythical address which gave its name to the 113 group... of cities erected on the outskirts of large cities, whose original utopian approach ended too often in a dilapidated dystopia.
The breaking point can be dated to the summer of 1981, when “young people from the estates” of Lyon (the Minguettes) expressed their feeling of being rejected by society. Urban rodeos, vehicle thefts and car fires, all the ingredients for the problems of the next 40 years are then brought together. If the phenomenon is not entirely new, it is on the other hand the first time that the media have pointed their cameras at the towers and the concrete serving as decorations for this phenomenon which will continue to grow. We will not venture here on an in-depth analysis of the issues related to housing estates, to be distinguished from suburbs, because they are multiple and complex. However, we can highlight three main determining processes in the construction of the problem: social housing policies (with architecture in mind), employment, and the place given to populations of immigrant origin. In addition to the consequences of each of these processes, there are the social effects of their concentration on the same territory.
However, these large complexes have also become fertile ground for a rich and dense culture, acclaimed by all strata of the population, especially among the younger generations, to become the central element of current pop culture: urban culture or street culture.
So how do we define it? Huge question. We can all the same consider that it is a coded interpretation of several disciplines, in particular cultural, sporting and artistic, such as music, fashion, photography or architecture (note that if the vast majority of these disciplines are legal, others have been or are still outlaws, such as the graffiti).
And if it is difficult to define it, we can on the other hand precisely date the birth of this movement.
Urban culture appeared in France in the early 80s, but its origins date back to the late 60s and 70s in the United States. And especially during an evening organized, on August 11, 1973, by the legendary Kool Herc, an American DJ from Jamaica for his sister's birthday, the date on which hip-hop was officially born. His cradle? A building where the family resided, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, in the heart of the Bronx, red-light district (especially at the time) of New York. A mythical building now fallen into oblivion, threatened with destruction but still standing, silent witness of bricks and steel to the birth of a movement that would profoundly change popular culture in the Western world for the next 50 years.
As any counter-culture is essentially built in opposition to a dominant culture, the new Hollywood for cinema, blue jeans in fashion, Bauhaus in architecture, or even jazz, rock or hip-hop in music, it is clear that architecture has played, despite itself, a central role in the emergence of this urban culture by promoting the concentration of populations in housing estates, with limited or even non-existent access to "classical" culture.
From museums to architectural happenings via “Modular Folies”* (ultra-ecological vertical village in Montpellier), Stéphane Malka builds. Author of two books, "Petit Paris" and "Crossed Utopias", he experiences the city from the inside, questions the impact of "non-places" and the place of culture and citizen movements in the capital, with passion. Native of Belsunce, in the city center of Marseille, he started, as a teenager, with the art of graffiti.
And Paris was his first source of urban inspiration. "It was a shock to see the subways tagged! I found it super fun, I liked it right away. My playground was the depots and vacant lots on weekends, and the subways during the week."
Already, around the age of 10, it was in New York where part of his family lived that he perceived the energy of the city. A few years later, he began to conceive of public space as a common space, a negative of private space. Then begins a certain notoriety in the world of graffiti, between Paris and Marseille. "I didn't hesitate to climb on the roofs, paint facades, under bridges, with hollow teeth because I respected the limit of the private, which stopped at your window. The rest was the domain of even if these are private buildings on the land, they are visible to all".
Influenced by alternative cultures (in particular hip-hop, at the beginning of the 80s), it was after having tried the Fine Arts, from where he was kindly thanked when he arrived with his photos of tags perceived as “illegal”, that he takes the path of architecture, in Paris. Interview.
Le parc aux lièvres, Evry-Courcouronnes.
We asked ourselves what was the impact of buildings towers on creativity and the foundations of urban culture. Because if the links between urbanity and architecture are unbreakable, what role does architecture play more precisely at the heart of this dominant culture?
Let's go back a few decades to the origins of the urban planning policies that led to the emergence of these cities, “the large housing estates”.
In the 1920s, the famous architect Le Corbusier had imagined the "Plan Voisin" whose objective was to invent the city of the future. This mind-blowing plan envisaged to raze the right bank of Parisand its historic heart, to erect eighteen skyscrapers of 60 floors each, capable of accommodating up to 700,000 people. But this project remained in the state… of a project.
What is your relationship to town planning?
For me, the city is rather organic. Architecture and town planning must leave room for reality, for life, provide flexibility. Otherwise we find ourselves, at best in a museum, at worst in an abandoned place!
Speaking of town planning, how did the aesthetics of the suburbs buildings come about (towers, concrete slabs, etc.)?
The beginning of the 20th century was a kind of architectural apotheosis, especially with art nouveau, which used materials such as iron or concrete for stylistic purposes. Then the so-called “international” movement (resulting from the modern movement, editor’s note) was built with the desire to wipe the slate clean of the past, to eliminate the details and the superfluous of an aesthetic considered too “bourgeois”. But this movement, which accelerated in the interwar period, did not give architects time to develop their style and get to the bottom of things. We put a red carpet on something experimental that deserved to be developed better.
Who invented this concept? Le Corbusier, with his Plan Voisin?
It's almost a maieutic, like a system that probably gives birth to itself. We didn't wait for new times to make concrete, the Romans were already doing it, and much better than us. The resurgence of this concrete has been linked to times when it was quickly realized that stone buildings were heavy, expensive and did not fit with post-war reconstructions. Le Corbusier was in that vein.
Can we speak of an oriented, controlled architecture?
Oriented, control, it is inherent in architecture. Architecture is a tool of massive alienation. It is essential for me to remember this. It makes it possible to control and alienate all the masses, hence the fact that it is an environment considered as elitist. We have every interest, if we want to park people, that they are not too interested in it, whereas on the contrary everyone should have a point of view on architecture!
Why is city architecture so popular today? What does this reflect of the era of time?
I can only give one point of view. We are in a hegemony of street culture. The rougher it is, the rougher it is, the more it gives an authentic side. That's why fashion houses want to shoot in historic places, all the way to the Pyramids! We take the authenticity and power of an old building and transcribe it into a new, totally ephemeral world. I don't throw stones, I worked very early in fashion, in the 90s, for Thierry Mugler, I designed the catwalks.
Coming to the bars, it's fine if you do one or two, but a whole crown or whole areas, it's problematic. Just like the budgets allocated to the maintenance of these areas, even if today there are aids which make it possible to settle there. But for too long the idea was only to park, let's be clear, in very poorly maintained places. The question is more to know “how do we bring not only life but first and foremost the city to these areas, how do we communicate between the city and the suburbs, the suburbs and the city”.
What influence does the suburbs cities have on the creativity of the artists who come from them?
I'm not sure it's related, that concrete has more porosity to bring creativity. There are people that it breaks or that it boosts. These lyricists who write completely crazy texts, it's not because they come from the Bronx, and if they were born in the sewers it would be even better! Creative potential is everywhere and creativity is inherent in everyone. It is an ability to be able to marvel and open up, which we can all have in a transversal way. Then there is rabies, the eye of the tiger. I had come to fight it out in Paris, I really wanted to develop my architecture, try as much as possible to build it, at least to think about it, think about it and transmit it. There is also a culture of reaction, of urgency / instantaneous, and the fact that you have to develop and assume financial responsibility.
In architecture, what did it bring?
Nothing. Because she is still stuck in the 1930s and cubism!
Afterwards, if we take the example of hip-hop, a global phenomenon, I like to see the birth of this movement as a plant emerging from the asphalt, from a fault, where nature takes back its rights. What interests me is that with not much we can do something. That's how I came to understand architecture and how I started upcycling about fifteen years ago. This term did not yet exist, I called it “architectural diversion”. I took elements that were not all from the world of architecture to transfer them to the world of architecture.
© Stéphane Malka architecture: Dunk house in Los Angeles and Les abris furtifs in Marseille.
Precisely, "nature takes back its rights", can we draw a parallel between the art of graffiti and nature?
This is the subject of my book, Le Petit Paris! All these destitute and abandoned places in the city are the ones you want to paint as a tagger. Not just because they are in disrepair, but because they are real places in their own right. This is why, in my book, I called it an “architectural Kamasutra”, with chapters entitled “above” (for “on the roofs”), “below” (for “under the bridges"), “in-between” (buildings). The graffiti is really a spotlight on the urbanity of the city, in a given timing. Nature has another time scale.
Is there a parallel between the building towers built to respond to emergency constraints and the ecology of emergency?
Today in architecture, ecology is a question of label, of money. So much the better, it allows policies to evolve quickly. But you have to be vigilant. Today, if we want to build ecologically, we don't need an old vision consisting in making a clean sweep of the past, but rehabilitating as much as possible. This is necessary. And it's not because we work in a hurry that it's ecological.
How do you work on your ecology?
I try to work on flexibility, modularity and mobility. This trio makes it possible to have any change of program in the architecture and the layout. Let's imagine a modular building, made up of housing units, we can add or remove housing if necessary. This mobility brings flexibility. I designed offices converted into housing because everything I had designed was mobile, not commercial. These strategies are important. Today, we have gone around the rigid architecture as it was designed in the 20th century for factories. We know that architectural thought, if it is not pragmatic in all uses, does not work.
What does this notion of modularity bring?
An economy of means, and not just an ecology of means. There it is, the real ecology. It's not creating a new wooden eco-district, which we're going to destroy in 15 years. It's better to have a conscientious architecture, in which each element has the possibility of evolution. It is fundamental. I also have this approach on existing buildings. At the agency we have projects for existing facades, such as putting back developed loggias into a prefabricated system, which can even be transported elsewhere if people move. So there's a little more research and detail to do, but at least there's the satisfaction of always having something custom-made, no matter where you install it. The loggias, also make it possible to make a thermal buffer, it is important because the standards make lower the sizes of the windows, and increase the thicknesses of insulation.
14 min read
© Les Folies Modulaires of Stéphane Malka. An ultra-ecological vertical village.
Located in the heart of the St Roch district of Montpellier, the objective of this project is to create an alternative creation center associated with self-managed places of life, giving birth to a new iconic and cultural destination. All in an ultra-ecological logic and an innovative architecture, without destroying anything or impacting the floors of an additional construction. This storey elevation retains the entirety of the existing 19th century building that it crowns.
Is the policy of the city of Paris and eco-districts well thought out or “greenwashed”?
A bit of both, on a case-by-case basis. What is tricky is that we only have the announcements, but as long as it is not done... Let's imagine a "positive energy and low carbon footprint" building, has the import of materials or the destruction been taken into account?
You have to judge on the spot. To be clear, as long as we do heavy classical architecture, we won't succeed. An ecological architecture is measured by weight, the heavier it is, the more it requires the transport of materials, etc. Ecological building? Let's build light!
In height?
Yes we can. But let's take the example of Los Angeles. It's very low, and it's not eco-friendlyat all ! Because we cannot create an urban space. Everyone has their car. In Los Angeles, we concrete we tar, to the sea! You have to be realistic, all these suburban areas are ecologically horrible. Urban sprawl is dramatic for the planet.
There is no perfect building?
Yes, the aborigines! We have this crazy idea that we're going to live through eternity, but it doesn't make sense. We love changing clothes every month! And in architecture, we like old stone because we tell ourselves that we will live a long time, when it is useless. Today, in an old building, it takes hours to drill a hole in a wall, it's not consistent with the way of life we have. The interest in doing light architecture can completely redefine the city. Let's imagine: “If your architecture is light, and you want to settle in a neighborhood where artists live, you go there, with your transportable house and vegetable garden, and a spontaneous community is created! Six months later you change if you wish!”.
The temple and the dwelling are confused. Today we don't have to live in places that are there for eternity. Especially since access to purchase is very complicated. If you don't inherit, it's very hard to have access to housing. So when you have enough to create housing that could cost 20,000 euros, for X time… It's a different city policy but it's playable. Programs are emerging today, co-living for example. Library, shared kitchen, space with swimming pool and shower around, we can recreate living together, and even if it's done initially out of necessity, we realize that it works very well. You have to have the social mix you want. On the other hand, the houses in the trees excite the imagination, it's a return to origins! It is in the collective unconscious of our first shelters as the history of humanity. Genes have memory. Shelter was necessary and fundamental for cold, heat and shelter, but today there are no more predators, no wars, we no longer need to live on such solid structures.
Like the tag, your architecture allows you to campaign in the urban space, in particular with Auto-Défense (2006). Can you tell us more ?
There were evictions and lots of demonstrations for undocumented migrants. So I said to myself that we had to build shelters for the dissident people in the system, the stateless people, the utopians, that they needed a shell, and storm the places to bring something positive and create a new social scenario other than “It manifests, it breaks, we get gassed”.
It would in fact be necessary to federate these energies and to elaborate scenarios accepted by the State, or not, and to make an insurrectionary pocket in the city. This would bring back people who have common ideals. Because today, it is the confrontation of the blocks, inside society itself! Vaccines VS anti-vaccines, demonstrators VS police, we would need a round table to discuss all that, hence the idea of the project called Auto-Défense.
Is architecture pop culture?
Architecture and pop culture are thought of as a common entity. I am the product of pop culture, completely uninhibited! I grew up with Goldorak, my walkman and my pair of sneakers. And it's super important to reinject that into the architecture. I try to do this in all my projects. For some it's heresy, for me it's a coherent way to bring architecture to the general public. So some will say that they grew up in a wooden cabin without watching TV, why not, it was trendy at one point to say that, but most of us don't, let's be realistic. I am that child, through hip-hop and Sydney shows, like “H.I.P.H.O.P”. You have to assume your decomplexion. In his way of working, of dressing, and his art.
"The rougher it is, the more it gives an authentic side. That's why fashion houses want to shoot in historic places."
What do Jung, Lenin, Gropius or even Isadora Duncan have in common? All have stayed at Monte Verita (“mountain of truth”, Editor's note), the little-known cradle of an avant-garde culture.
Nestled on the heights of an old uncultivated vineyard, on the shores of Lake Maggiore, in the discreet and refined seaside resort of Ascona, in Italian-speaking Switzerland, this movement, founded more than a century ago (early 1900), is always and more relevant than ever: a life close to nature, in self-subsistence, against the current of an outrageous consumer society dictated by a dominant thought, in search of a spirituality leading to the discovery of self, and demands for women's rights, if we are to believe Ida Hofmann, one of its main founders: "Don't be dolls anymore, become real people!."
The main idea, inspired by the Lebensreform, advocated a “back to nature”, refuted the values of consumerism and patriarchy, industrialization and urbanization, deemed unhealthy.
The main founders, Ida Hofman and her companion Henri Oedenkoven, precursors in the soul, took on the spiritual hat of “seekers of truth”, and had fun establishing a way of life in cabins where naturism intertwined, dance, painting, poetry, theosophy, gardening in orchards, natural medicine, light therapy, south-facing open-air showers, vegetarianism, absence of possession, female emancipation and free union. All drugs and stimulants such as tobacco, alcohol, tea, coffee and even salt were banned.
A summary daily newspaper but so eccentric for the time that thiscolony of curiosities afaroused and attracted the most famous intellectuals, artists, reformers, pacifists or utopians of Europe, better inclined to base their great currents of thought far from the ideological tumults of the time. The alternative Rudolf Steiner, the anarchist Bakunin, the revolutionary Lenin, the psychiatrist Jung, the choreographer Isadora Duncan or even the philosopher Max Weber, came there to experience what was to become the matrix of another community much more publicized a few decades later, thehippies… and also the greens!?
Pianist emeritus, Ida Hofmann is one of the co-founders of Monte Verita, which advocated a kind of bodily ecology, or holistic way of life (body, brain, spirit) detached from all authority.
With Henri Oedenkoven, a Belgian socialite whom she met during a naturopathic treatment in Austria at the end of the 19th century, they had the idea of exporting the benefits of thisnaturist lifestyle founded by Arnold Rikli, known as the “Doctor Sun”. Using natural medicine cradled in outdoor sunbathing, this self-proclaimed Swiss doctor “heliopath” (person suffering from a condition linked to solar radiation, CQFD) will follow the two protagonists in the adventure.
Ida Hofman will then write several writings devoted in particular to thestatus of women, ”Wie gelangen wir Frauen zu harmonischen und gesunden Daseinsbedingungen?” ("How to achieve harmonious and healthy living conditions for women?") in 1902, but also infood vegetarian and vegan with ”Vegetabilismus! Vegetarismus!” in 1905.
"Do not be dolls,
become real
people!"
It is through this iconic hotel perched on the heights of the reforming and utopian hill of the end of the 19th century, that the myth of Monte Verita lives on, in the canton of Ticino in Italian-speaking Switzerland.
Pioneers of all forms of free expression, from dancing to painting, the "residents" of the colony also worked on architecture and its relationship with nature in the mountains, up to the rigorous and geometric lines of theBauhaus, whose founder, the German architectWalter Gropius, stayed there for some time.
In 1926, a German art collector banker bought the hill. The Bauhaus Hotel was then built by Emil Fahrenkamp, transformed into a social address and furnished in the purest tradition of the Bauhaus style, so well that it distinguished itself in 2013 by winning the prestigiousIcomos price. The building, with its lines preserved almost a century after its inauguration, thus confirms the iconic and timeless status of this architectural movement.modernist.
5 min read
To enlighten us on Monte Verita, we met Fanny Parise, socio-anthropologist, specialist in the evolution of lifestyles and consumption.
Author of the books "Spoiled children, anthropology of the myth of responsible capitalism" and "The myth of responsible consumption: towards a new golden age of the hyperconsumption society", to follow on @madame_lanthropologist!
Who are the architectural heirs of Monte Verita, this quasi-prophetic movement founded around 1900, with a lifestyle in huts, close to nature, healthy, sober, spiritual and veggie!?
“The architectural heirs are numerous. I am thinking in particular of all the alternative habitats : like the light, mobile, vernacular habitats or small surfaces (tiny house) echoed in the press. I am also thinking of experiments on the scale of a residence or a territory, as with theeco-hamlets or different life experiences. But we must also not forget that our society is currently traversed by new forms of living: pooling in social housing, versatility of apartments in residences, etc. All these architectural evolutions testify to the adaptation of the building to the evolutions of society (flat sharing, single-parent family, local solidarity, etc.).
Architectural developments that adapt to price and environmental constraints: because not everyone can withdraw from the world, but on the other hand,each person aspires to more interiority (psycho-spirituality, personal development, etc.) on the scale of his accommodation."
Are the upper social classes of today the heirs of the Lebensrefom, a German social reform movement of 1900, aiming for a minimalist, sober and close to nature way of life, which so inspired Monte Verita?
“It seems that the people who followed this movement werehippiesbefore the hour. Like the communities of the 1960s and 1970s, the tension between the desire to withdraw from the world and the need to find an economic balance, in particular by relying on that of the rest of society, testifies to the ambivalence of these alternative ways of living inhabit the world.
We want everything to change so that nothing changes. Like today with responsible capitalism, history repeats itself: it is always a question of a fraction of the upper classes which, in reaction to societal changes and aided by their start-up capital (heritage, self-segregation, culture) decides to build another company. A world that is fairer, but above all that allows them to stay away from socio-cultural upheavals. It is a classic socio-anthropological phenomenon: the upper classes are always fighting forimpose a new legitimate culture,in a top-down manner and which allows them to reconcile the preservation of their privileges with the prism of the inevitable changes in society.
Thanks to their start-up capital, they are in the best position to deal with the shock of the upheavals to come and they are good indicators of thecultural transformation: following a magnifying glass effect, they allow a more detailed analysis of the issues of a moment in society."
THE PYRITE
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THE ANTHROPOLOGIST
"Who are the architectural heirs of Monte Verita?"
"Are today's upper social classes the heirs of the Lebensrefom?"