I’m interested in the landscape and architecture of human places, and I often seek out specific places with a resonant hum. This one, though, caught me by surprise. I was looking for something else — Eastworks in Easthampton, Massachusetts — and I came around this corner to find this simple, well-balanced Roman Catholic church at the top of a “T” intersection. Christopher Alexander talks about the power of T intersections in A Pattern Language and it was useful to experience it yet again. The eye is drawn up the spire as you look down this street, and even all the wires and extraneous elements don’t detract from that reality — the church feels small for the street, and yet it directs the eye toward the Higher, of the sky above, and the big questions. I like that.
