Thread by @j_g_allen

1/ I know #SoTU as so 12-hours ago, but did you know there's a buildings connection? (there always is...)

Short excerpt from my book, #HealthyBuildings

"We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." -Winston Churchill

2/ "THE WORLD IS CHANGING around us, and buildings are at the center of that change. So much so that the decisions we make today regarding our buildings will determine our collective health for generations to come. Winston Churchill’s famous quote has never been more apt.

3/ You may know that quote; many in the building world do. But you may not know that Churchill wasn’t making some grand statement about the societal impacts of our urban fabric when he uttered this now famous phrase.

4/ What Churchill had in mind was something very specific and relevant to him: how the parliamentary chamber had shaped Britain’s government, and therefore its people (the “us” in “our buildings shape us”).

5/ In 1943, the Commons Chamber was destroyed after a German Luftwaffe sortie dropped incendiary bombs on it during the Blitz. If you’re not familiar with the British Commons Chamber pre-1943 (why would you be?), it was a fiercely intimate setting.

6/ The intimacy was in fact its key feature. In this room, there was nowhere to run or hide. You made your argument face-to-face with your colleagues. Friend and foe alike could see fear or conviction in your eye. They could smell your breath.

7/ The convenings were, by design, a raucous affair (and often filled with colorful vitriol).

8/ The fire from the Luftwaffe’s incendiary bombs tore through the chamber, turning it to rubble. There was immediate discussion of replacing it with a bigger, more expansive chamber hall. (One with enough seats for all, for starters!)

9/ The idea of a vast chamber with semicircular seating was floated. That’s when Churchill made his famous declaration, “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.”

10/ Churchill recognized that the building had shaped their debate, their society, them. The intimate quarters of the Commons had shaped Britain. He was vehemently opposed to the semicircle idea.

11/ Now compare this with the US House Chamber.

Expansive, regal even, and lacking in intimacy: the semicircle that Churchill disdained. The room is not a boxing ring like the British Parliament.

12/ The US chambers inspire civil, comfortable, but wholly detached debates. The people in the back are a hundred feet from the person speaking. They definitely can’t see the speaker’s conviction, fear, or passion. The building shapes the debate."

13/ Thanks for reading! There's more to the Churchill story (and this short story is part of a chapter titled, "The Global Mega-changes Shaping Our World, Our Buildings, and Us) #HealthyBuildings
amazon.com/Healthy-Buildi…