Document transcript

ON THE NATURE OF THE PILLAR

The pillar found in the Crossroads is best described as an onyx spike that protrudes from the cave floor like an imposing stalagmite. Despite its aggressive silhouette, the structure has an undeniable allure. Freud would certainly have something to say about the pillar's overly “erect" nature, but I’m more drawn to Witmoore’s essay on dynamic layers, structures within structures, the fractal mirror in every being. Given its significant location, I believe the pillar is either the very heart of the Oldest House or an intrusion within that heart.

Or perhaps it's like the husk of a seed, from which the Oldest House sprouted. Trottier wrote that great architecture isn't built; it grows. But then why does the pillar look so different from the rest of this place’s concrete walls and rocky caverns? It’s easier to see it as an anomaly, a buried artifact, a foreign body, a demonic phallus.

I wonder if this pillar is any more welcome here than we are.