I posted this photograph recently and described the stonework as a “murmuration of re-used Roman brick tiles.” That still feels right to me. There is something avian in the way the fragments of stone and brick are laid.

Taking a photograph is an act of choosing, and a decision that leads to cropping the world into something that has meaning - and through the photograph that meaning can be shared.

In this photograph is the coming together of pattern and opening. The stones and tiles seem to carry a distant echo of nature - nested, branching, almost fractal forms. No matter the age, culture or background, we seem unable to resist repeating the patterns that surround us. There is an inherent biophilia that works its way out through our hands - especially in our buildings. Pattern is nature’s imprint on memory.

Then there are the openings. The doorway has a threshold quality - a hobbit-like sense of another realm tucked into the thickness of the wall. Above it, the arch is made from voussoirs: wedge-shaped bricks that splay outwards from the curve. They have the visual energy of a deck of cards being flicked from one hand to another - each piece separate, but held in a single gesture.

This photograph pulls together several disparate forces: Roman material, medieval making, natural pattern, human touch and the psychological pull of a doorway. It reminds me that buildings are not inert. They are full of invitation - if we give ourselves permission to crop the noise away and rest our attention where the world can't help but shimmer.

Re-used Roman brick

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That aura, those echoes - the muted light is transporting. What a space to feel rooted in history. I'd love to make that journey myself; you've stirred the opera lover and architectural dreamer in me.

@sonatasips via X
The vaulted nave of York Minster glowing with filtered light
York Minster - light through the nave01 / 04

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