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The Return of the Middle Ages
In his essay ‘Architectural Space and Awareness’, Tuan discusses the ritual quality and context of place. He also discusses how a place (a designed/man-ipulated space) serves an educational purpose. From plan and layout to materials and details, Tuan suggests that each place tells information of the person or group of persons that inhabits or makes use of the structure. Some places have instructional details inherently in them. For instance, the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages make use of symbols and pictures to illustrate Christian teachings. Stained-glass windows are substitutes to scripture texts to proclaim the Word to the illiterate. Similarly, the cross is used to suggest ‘suffering, atonement, and salvation’ (114). As Tuan notes, “The symbol to the medieval mind is more than a code for feelings and ideas that can readily be put into words. The symbol is direct and does not require linguistic mediation. An object becomes a symbol when its own nature is so clear and so profoundly exposed that while being fully itself it gives knowledge of something greater beyond. (114)” By meditating in a place with such magnificence, the worshiper can effortlessly understand the existence of a greater being. 
Chartres 1134, Rebuilt 1194
Tuan goes on to discuss how buildings today are no longer designed with such ‘illustrated language’ because the modern society is increasingly literate. This can be seen in Modernity’s influence on churches. Le Corbusier’s Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp moves away from the basilica plan and Gothic details. The walls and roof are made of concrete, which point upward at one corner like the prow of a ship, a reference to the ark or St. Peter’s fishing boat. The elaborately designed windows of previous cathedrals are replaced by simplistic, stained-glass windows recessed into the walls. All symbols are removed, except for an abstracted cross at the altar.
Tuan discusses how the growth of literacy has affected all aspects of design. There is no longer a need for ‘physical environment to embody the value and meaning of culture: verbal symbols have progressively displaced material symbols, and books rather than buildings instruct (117).’ To Tuan, symbols are now indistinguishable from signs.
Tuan points out the many differences between the Middle Ages and contemporary life especially in terms of building construction and design. However many theorists argue that there are distinct parallels between the Middle Ages and modern culture. Umberto Eco discusses these parallels in his essay “The Return of the Middle Ages.” Eco discusses how the elite of the Middle Ages translated the ideologies into images, just as modern media tries to translate learned and popular culture into visual communication. He states, “The Middle Ages are the civilization of vision where the cathedral is the great book in stone, and is indeed the advertisement, the TV screen, the mystic comic strip that must narrate and explain everything, the nations of the earth, the arts and crafts…the mysteries of faith, the episodes of sacred and profane history, and the lives of the saints (82).”
Notre-Dame-du-Haut, 1950-55 Eco also discusses the erosion of the city of the Middle Ages due to decline in population, famine, abandonment, difficulty of communication, erosion of roads, etc. Eco argues today’s wreckage of the city is due to ‘an excess of population that interacts with excess of communication and transportation, making the cities unhabitable not through destruction and abandonment but through a paroxysm of activity’ (77). He goes on to compare the erosion of buildings from ivy in the Middle Ages to the present day erosion caused by air pollution and garbage.
Eco suggests that a ‘Middle Ages’ is brought on by the collapse of the Great Pax (military, civil, social and cultural), which causes a period of economic crisis and power vacuum (75). His theory seems strikingly familiar with the collapsing of the modern economy.
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Eco, Umberto. Travels in Hyperreality. Harcourt. New York. 1986.
Spatial Literacy
I just wanted to briefly comment on two things. First, that "each place tells information of the person or group of persons that inhabits or makes use of the structure." For those interested in the construction of spaces for particular purposes or uses, this assumption is key not only to the product itself, but also to justifying the process of design in abstraction. The idea that a designer--whether a potential user of the space or not--can influence use through space opens up some interesting questions about the nature of that influence, or more harshly, of that control. Which leads me to the second point, "how the growth of literacy has affected all aspects of design." In other words, how has the role of the designer changed as the people who use the space become more aware of their consciousness and how it relates to their physical surroundings?
An interesting wrinkle here is of particular interest to me as someone who is concerned with designing educational spaces. These projects, when cast in Tuan's light, take on a certain ironic sense: as a person becomes more educated, potentially through effectively designed learning spaces, their relationship to that space is fundamentally changed. The nature of this change, and how a designer should account for it, are more lengthly commitments than I will take on here.
Nonetheless, I'll make one suggestion--a simple one. If people are changed by a space, it makes sense that the space itself should have similar transformative properties. That is, a space should either serve multiple purposes or have some possibilities for interaction that are built into the original design. I'm not exactly sure what that would look like, but intellectually, it makes some sense. Hmm....