spacetm: Space TM's Joe looks to the heavens

"bocconi_3" copyright by GA

There is something spiritual about the above image and yet it's actually part of the new faculty building at Milan's Luigi Bocconi University, designed by Dublin based firm Grafton Architects.

The relationship between learning and religion is, of course, strong (just look at the celestial buildings of Oxford and Cambridge University which borrow their style directly from the chapels that sit alongside them). And like the work of the great Gothic architects who created the likes of Notre Dame De Paris, the eye is cast upwards into the heavens. Even the description of the building by Grafton Architects themselves sounds quasi spiritual ("The point of energy is where the sky world meets the underground world," they told us). I know I'd be having a religious experience if I were there...

Perhaps it's not surprising that the design won the first World Building of the Year at the inaugural World Architecture Festival Awards 2008, held at the Centre Convencions International in Barcelona.

The judges praise the building's “magical subterranean realm”.

I like the idea of buildings create a sense of spiritual balance, or even spiritual yearning. Does the environment of this new faculty building instill a sense of purpose into those who enter?: "I must improve myself. There are great mysteries in this world and I wish to seek them out and learn from them..."