Building with Earth is Sacred Work
An Interview with Nader Khalili (full
text)
Introduced by John Sullivan
Interviewed by K. Lauren de Boer
Large excerpts of this interview appear in
EarthLight Issue #32, Winter 1998-99, p 21.
INTRODUCTION
In 1966, Nader Khalili, an Iranian architect
working in the United States, was crossing a street in Los Angeles when
he had a flash of insight. Why not, he thought, build a house of clay and
fire and glaze it like a huge overturned pot?
He was responding to the need for inexpensive
housing that could withstand the earthquakes that happened in his native
Iran and in California and that would not contribute to the environmental
crisis.
After having this sudden inspiration, he talked
about it and held the image in his mind, but, as he admitted later, he
was too busy working and making money to do anything about it. Only after
a transformative experience did he put himself on the path to realizing
the dream.
A trip to a park with his young son in 1975 (described
in the interview below) convinced him to quit the rat race, sell his business,
and devote himself to finding how his vision of ceramic dwellings could
be realized.
His journey of discovery took him to the villages
of Iran to study the ancient technology of his native land and how it could
be used in the modern world. It put him in touch with the values of the
villagers and also with the poetry of the Persian Sufi mystic, Rumi.
With inspiration from these sources and much
trial and error, he perfected his method of building, using the traditional
basic elements of earth, water, air and fire. These elements were very
close to him there in the desert of Iran. He also found them as constant
themes in the poetry of Rumi.
The use of clay in building ensures that no trees
are cut down or fossil fuel used to produce steel. Because it is a material
close at hand, underfoot actually, the cost of producing the material and
transporting it is minimal. Inexpensive, earth-friendly housing can now
be a reality all over the world because of the work of Nader Khalili.
This visionary architect now lives and works in
Hesperia, California where, in 1986, he founded the California Institute
of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth). There, he has built prototype
ceramic homes and other buildings such as the Rumi dome which he discusses
in the interview with Lauren de Boer that follows.
Cal-Earth also conducts an apprenticeship program
which teaches people how to build homes, schools, and other buildings using
Khalili's methods. There are also children's workshops in which the young
people learn new skills and bring out their inborn creativity.
Nader Khalili is continuing his visionary work,
and EarthLight hopes to make it known to more people. Thus we present here
the words of Khalili himself and those of the poet Rumi from whom he has
drawn such inspiration.
INTERVIEW
LdB: You began by practicing traditional Western
architecture,. building high rises.
NK: Yes, until 1975, I was practicing and lecturing
around the world. I was one of the 300 known high rise specialists.
I had been running an office in Tehran during the time when there were
about 30,000 Americans in Tehran creating a lot of projects. We were
in this whole building and promotion rat race.
Something happened one day to change my direction.
My little four and a half year old boy, Dastan, was running with the children
in the park. Soon their play was changed from a game into a race.
The parents were encouraging their children to run faster, faster and my
boy, because he was the slowest and the youngest, came out last every time!
One time he came to me and he was crying, and he said "Baba, Baba, I want
to race alone!"
I said "What do you mean you want to race alone?"
Then it dawned on me: why can't he race alone? After everyone
had left, I drew a line for him and I counted "one, two three, go!"
He went and came back and this time he brought a yellow sycamore leaf in
his hand. The next time he found flowers. He was really enjoying
his own race and I noticed that every time he was coming out first!
So his exact words became the title of my first book. It just had
such an impact me—that in this whole rat race of life, you don't need to
race with everybody! To race alone really means to begin from a different
plateau in life, rather than just trying to beat the next person or get
ahead of everyone else. At the very most, we only beat someone else's
potential, not our own.
LdB: It's less competitive with others,
more of an inner spiritual journey
NK: Yes. In the journey of competition
and racing, we never get a chance to reach our own potential. We're
only defeating someone else's. That was a very important message
I got. A year later, I had closed the office, bought the motorcycle,
and I rode in the desert for five years, following this whole dream and
idea. That was the beginning.
LdB: You visited villages in your native
Iran
NK: Not only visiting but carrying out some
of these dreams and ideas of how to build with the Earth. Over
900 million people in this world today are either homeless or they live
in shantytowns and shelters that are totally unacceptable. They will
never have any hope for having shelter unless they work with what is under
their feet. The Earth is the only answer. I was trying to follow
that idea—that there must be a way that we can build with earth that will
have the answers. I found a wealth of work that has been done for
thousands
of years.
LdB: Right there under your feet...
NK: Right under the feet...and that humanity
has forgotten and lost and destroyed all of that and we're very busy destroying
all of that beautiful earth architecture because of the products that have
to be sold -- because the earth isn't easily sold. It's right there --
you can just use it.
LdB: It seems that this not only answers the
need for sheltering people, but as others and yourself have pointed out,
it addresses some of the more intractable environmental problems such as
energy, deforestation, ....
NK: When you begin working with earth,
you see that you don't need to work out solutions and marketing and so
on. It's all there. All you have to do is to put your hands in it,
your hearts in it and then just build. We don't need to some up with
clever solutions. It all will transform and be manifest in everything
we do. And yes, it's an answer to environmental crises too, to deforestation,
energy, to even building on the moon and Mars and planets beyond -- it's
all there, the universal elements of earth, water, air, fire. We
just need to work with it.
LdB: In what sense is working with earth
sacred work?
NK: Once you leave aside the idea of
an architect, builder, or designer as clever innovator and truly see what
it is this Earth offers, you will find the greatest master and architect:
when I see an apricot pit put into the ground with some water, it changes
that earth into trees, branches, blossoms, and fruit. That is earth
architecture! For me, it's to achieve the genius, the spirit
of what is in that small pit—which is also within ourselves!
I don't need to go and try to force my own
ideas of what is form and function and how people should build or
not build, but just observe how, for instance a little creature in
the sea creates the most beautiful seashells out of the elements in water;
how a great seed changes the earth into the most gorgeous fruit.
All of these are the greatest inspiration for me. They are the teachers,
the masters. How do they transform that? None of these say
that they are nature's god, they don't make big claims like we do. And
yet they do create a godly type of work. Without so many universities.
Within ourselves that same capacity. They're all connected and "racing
alone." If you have that resolved in your own life—finding your own
angle of repose—then the gravity of earth and yourself will form a structure
that is your heart and your architecture and your life...
LdB: It becomes perfectly sufficient
and you don't need outside recognition...that's beautiful. So that
architecture is the creative forces of the universe using the four elements
to create, well, ...everything. It 's also something you've attempted
to bring into the creation of your earth houses.
NK: Exactly. It's that journey.
Rumi has a beautiful line: "be soft, be humble like earth so that
flowers of many colors can grow from you."
LdB: To think in terms of becoming soft
like earth is a very bodily, somatic connection with the surroundings.
To what extent do the houses we live in effect us? In the Western
world, our houses are very linear, with angles, etc. Your structures
seem very "somatic."
NK: It all deals with the human body
and soul. When we send children out into the world telling them that
a house should only look like a pitched roof and chimney with square windows,
when we tell them that what is under their feet is called dirt, I think
we create a great handicap for them. We deprive them of the whole
creative process that says they can have houses like rainbows. Rainbows
are nothing but arches. You can build anything in this world with
the arch without cutting the trees. If they understand that
they don't need to call this Earth "dirt," that this Earth is holy and
beautiful, they know that they shouldn't be polluting it. Because
once its called dirt, you can trash it and landfill it.
What I have been trying to show here in the
desert in the past few years is that there are beautiful things to create
from this "dirt" and the elements. Millions have been created around the
world in different forms and shapes anyway. All we are doing is drawing
on this knowledge. The vocabulary of this architecture is really
the four elements. And, of course, the form is arches, vaults, etc.
It could be any form, even conventional building forms. As long as
you don't need to butcher the trees, destroy the Earth, or manufacture
the building materials. Just like that creature of the sea,
it's really possible to create everything out of earth. And if we
can't, it's because the limitations are ours. We are limited by our
own habits, our own inspiration, education, imagination.
LdB: One of the structures you've built
is the Rumi dome which you designed for meditation for your students.
NK: For meditation, for dance, for music,
for gathering.
LdB: I can only imagine what it must
be like to hear the, poetry of Rumi in a structure like that.
Every moment
a voice
out of this world
calls on our soul
to wake up and rise
this soul of ours
is like a flame
with more smoke than light
blackening our vision
letting no light through
lessen the smoke and
more light brightens your house
the house you dwell in now
and the abode
you'll eventually move to
now my precious soul
how long are you going to
waste yourself
in this wandering journey
can't you hear the voice
can't you use your swifter wings
to hear the call
Rumi
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NK: The importance of that structure is that
it is created from only one point in the center—the center of compass.
The center of compass is when you create a circle which is the base of
the structure. And as you move up, you just keep going around. You
can lay bricks, blocks, adobe, anything—and let the light in different
seasons and different times of the day enter through these lacy openings,
like thousands of eyes that see through these holes. The light will enter.
Rather than putting in a huge picture window, each one becomes an eye.
You see that what you've really created is not this "dome." It is something
that one unity at the center has created. And that center, that one dot,
is where the sound will concentrate, right at the center. If you stand
at that center, you will have an experience that no one else will have.
So in the light, the sound, the energy, the physical entity of that building,
there is a unity throughout that comes from that one point. And that one
point is the point also that is the creation of the whole solar system,
the galaxy.
LdB: Is this what you mean when you say
that we need to teach and learn architecture that's timeless?
NK: Timeless principles and timeless
materials. Timeless principles are like the sea shell, the apricot pit,
the point of compass. One point in the center. And timeless materials—the
elements of earth, water, air, fire. Ultimately, this architecture is not
a lot of clever innovation. It's distilling. You will find out that you
are not the one who is building the building. It's the building that is
building you.
LdB: There's a lovely Rumi poem that
comes to me hearing you talk about the sound in the Rumi dome, that begins,
"Every moment / a voice / out of this world / calls on our soul /
to wake up and rise." What's that voice calling us to?
NK: To rise, wake up and rise because
this soul of ours is just like a fire, but with lots of smoke around it.
And we don't see that. We get constantly crowded. You have
to wake up and rise. That fire, I think, is the fire of our existence.
That message comes to us in every moment from every side. When we get sick,
we get that message. The fever we get is the fire that comes right through
us. That is the message gained. When you are sick with a fever, you see
things, a lot of things are revealed to you. The meaning of life and work
and so on. This what it is really is -- our soul is like a flame
but always covered with smoke, blackening our vision. If we just
take the smoke away, we'll see that the meaning of our life both in this
world and the next. This constant wondering journey is not necessarily
the answer to the life we are seeking....
LdB: Another of your translations of Rumi goes:
"If you distance yourself / only for an hour / from your endless thoughts
/ what do thing will happen..."
NK: In human life, so much depends on
hope and fear. We get so involved with our selves because of that, it becomes
our gauge and standard. All of our securities, no matter how much
we have, you'll see the most insecure situation. If we can distance ourselves
from endless thoughts, Rumi believes that if you follow your heart, your
love, then you can really rise to the highest. But if you follow
your thoughts, they will land you in a house of madness. He has another
beautiful line that says that "whatever you are afraid of now, that's your
true worth." He also says that whenever love arrives you can go beyond
any known limits, but if you follow your mind, you will end up in madness.
Letting the ego go and being humble like earth, soft, so that many flowers
grow from you.
Rumi is dealing with these elements of earth,
water, air, fire, and the transformation of one into the other. I
think of your magazine—EarthLight—Rumi is constantly dealing with this
earth and the light and fire. He says, "in this earth, in this immaculate
field, we shall not plant any seed, except for compassion, except for love."
You can imagine the planting of the seed is a very physical image and then
the compassionate love, the intangible becoming tangible, is the seed that
you grow into flowers. This is exactly the same thing as seeding
the structures at work. The apricot pit transforming the earth, the
structure of the sea shell. They are all manifestations of the same image.
LdB: The unity between how we constantly
transform ourselves and our thoughts, experiences, the images we choose
to work with that manifest themselves in the world and then the relation
to how we design our very surroundings all comes through very strongly.
NK: Yes! Some of the structures we are
designing have rooms that we call "bedwombs" instead of bedrooms. They
are right off the buildings. Inside of the buildings, imagine that
you have dug a out a shell right in the wall and that shell is deep enough
and round enough, just like a pouch that becomes a bedwomb. We've
designed them for children and other people coming and going. They don't
want to get out! I see them as "bedwombs," living wombs," dining
wombs" because they are more in line with our own bodies. They are
organic forms. You don't see any straight lines in your body, all these
angles and forms, and so on. Somewhere along the way the history
of humans became very square, angular!
LdB: The image of the womb reflects this
constant process of birth we are going through.
NK: I am designing a school up north near Nevada
City where instead of in the area of the campus where they have dorms and
cabins, instead of having bedrooms they'll have "bedwombs." We have had
people come here who sleep there and they recount their dreams to us the
next day. You can imagine. These sort of structures that are
made from earth, and are in tune with your own body and gravity, it effects
the mind! When you have a flat roof, or even a pitched roof, the
gravity is constantly trying to pull it down and destroy it. It's
denying, defying gravity. When you start building with the arch or
a form that is like an arch., every moment, every piece of that roof or
ceiling is pulled by gravity, yet becomes stronger, the molecules get tighter
and tighter together because they are in tune with the gravity. This is
the way it effects, our thoughts, dreams, work.
LdB: You work with children at Cal-Earth
NK: Yes! Abused children from the
hospital. They'll work clay, even sandbags. They'll kick it, throw it,
make balls of clay. Children come from emergency shelters and just begin
building with earth. Children love to work with mud! More than anything
else. You can see with the children that building and constructing is not
really a big task. It is a great, joyous process of creating that brings
in great laughter. You see them laugh and have great fun in doing this
work. Building is not just for the macho, equipment, and big tractors,
trailers, and cranes. Every child to me is born a doctor and builder.
It's in all of us. If you ask anyone for their opinion, they'll always
tell you how to build something. If you say something is wrong with
your body, they'll say, "eat this, take that, take this." It's all within
us. We are created to heal and shelter ourselves. We are the
doctors and builders.
There are two things about my work: First,
my work is not just my work. It's hundreds, thousands of people's
work, students, apprentices, people who have come and contributed.
This architecture I'm doing is not one person's architecture. Otherwise
its progress would stop. Their are thousands of souls who have had
a hand in it.
Second, we just do the work and send it out
to the universe. Some are taking it and trying to do the work in
Honduras. It's constantly connected with the actual reality, not
just staying on the poetry level. The way your magazine is presenting
and working with things is very valuable. Our work is the same thing:
"seek not water, seek thirst." The quest is the most important. Not
just personal dreams. Something that deals with all of humanity.
Rumi has a beautiful line that goes: "like parched lips searching for water,
never let go of your quest. the quest itself is the key to all of your
desires. The quest itself is your victorious army." There's
not really any target. Racing alone is a quest by itself.
I'm sure you are on the same journey.
If you can't go to sleep
dear soul
for tonight
what do you think will happen
if you pass your night
and merge it with dawn
for the sake of heart
what do you think will happen
if the entire world
is covered with the blossoms
you have labored to plant
what do you think will happen
if the elixir of life
that has been hidden in the dark
fills the deserts and towns
what do you think will happen
if because of
your generosity and love
a few humans find their lives
what do you think will happen
if you pour an entire jar
filled with joyous wine
on the head of those already drunk
what do you think will happen
go my friend
bestow your love
even on your enemies
if you touch their hearts
what do you think will happen
Rumi
Poems from Rumi: Fountain of Fire, A Celebration of Life and Love,
courtesy of CalEarth Press, 1994, translated from the Persian by Nader
Khalili. |
John Sullivan is EarthLight's EarthSaint editor.
K. Lauren de Boer is the editor of EarthLight.
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