HOPE

Is there a possibility for hope with reason, when there's no reason to hope? There seems to be a slight and subtle difference between faith and hope, even though they may appear as synonyms in the dictionary. In christian philosophy both are part of the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity (or love). The first being a resolute ability to believe; hope being the capability of not giving up; and charity or love an unconditional compassion for life.

But can the capability of not giving up be reasonable? Or should it be tied up with faith, the resolute ability to believe. In the scientific mind frame we were taught believing seems awkward: we don't believe, we disbelieve until proof is made. To doubt, rather than to believe, is what we are expected to do. To hope, rather than having faith. To resist even though we don't believe.

The idea to build the word, was to bring a watering can to a beach and use water to darken the sand in the shape of the letters of the word hope. But the unsuspected plays part in our endeavors. The thing was that the Wallmart store we went to, on our way to Stinson Beach, didn't sell watering cans. And we didn't have that much time to get the word done. But they sell chinese umbrellas. You know, the ones in cocktails?

For sure there's no relation between a watering can and a chinese umbrella for cocktails. But in new Mexico we were given the idea of writing the word with ice cream cones. That was when we planned on traveling with an iranian architect to San Francisco. We thought that it would be nice to have the word written in Farsi and then Alexis found out that the Persians were the inventors of ice cream. So we would do the word in Farsi using ice cream cones. Ok, that may have been a twisted thought with a political innuendo.

But we were traveling alone and the idea of having chinese umbrellas for cocktails also seemed related to a certain idea of Californian lifestyle.

So we took three bags of umbrellas and went to the beach.

We laid a grid, the Grid, as referred to by Rem Koolhaas in Delirious New York, and populated it with umbrellas. They resembled little sundials or some sort of a parade. Each member of the parade becoming a sundial.

Then we opened the umbrellas in order to get the letters done. We could have tried to write hope in Farsi using the Grid. The Grid would allow for all languages to be written. Hope resides in Babel? Is architecture entitled to lay a claim on hope? How?

We are in an architectural journey and the Grid came in our rescue. Hoping with reason, when there's nothing reasonable to hope for.