Symbiosis

It was interesting to read Anella's article after discussing the value Puritans place on landscape. While both seemed to appreciate nature, each did so in different ways. The Puritans looked at nature with awe and splendor as a representation of God within our world. They took a spectator's perspective, just appreciating it from a distance. The Pueblos, on the other hand, appreciated nature by completely wrapping themselves into it and making it a part of their way of life. Their housing was built in symbiosis with their landscape, each aspect incorporating something from the world around them, such as the river that divided one settlement in half or the orientation towards a specific set of mountains. I was particularly interested in the town plazas aspect. Traditional western plazas close themselves off to nature, becoming a part of the city and enclosing those around them. It ignored the nature around them and maybe that's what eventually put them in their spectator position. Perhaps if we took the perspective of the Pueblos, completely open to nature and used as a space for gathering, we would have a better perspective on nature right now. Maybe the concept of sustainability would have traveled down through our generations, and being concerned about environmentalism would be engraved in our habits, not forced as it is now.