for the poor. From its egalitarian square plan, expressing Willson’s belief in ‘dealing on the square with all people’, to the interior columns denot- ing the sect’s founding beliefs, the Temple symbolically reinforced the ideals present in this small farming community. But after Willson’s death in 1866, the Temple held less significance for his followers, and within a relatively short period of time it fell into disuse and disrepair. Despite Willson’s best efforts to divorce his physical presence from the centre of their secular and religious life, his death left the sect with no direc- tion, and the Children of Peace joined the local Presbyterian congrega- tion in 1889. As the group’s leader,Willson created an active community that partici- pated enthusiastically in the politics of the day while encouraging a co- operative economy of sharing, a far cry from the burgeoning market economy prevalent in Upper Canada at the time. Without capitalist methods the sect prospered, becoming one of the wealthiest in the region. But its absorption into mainstream capitalism and community life following Willson’s death ended the relevant tectonic meaning the group’s civic structures had produced. And as is de rigueur for a dynamic society where the permanence of architectural constructs outlast their initial intent, the Temple is left as an artifact of a bygone era. In 1918, the Temple became one the earliest examples of non-military building conservation in Canada, when the York Pioneer and Historical Society bought it and turned it into a museum. The acquisition was timely, coming just after the destruction of the sect’s later meeting hall, which appeared as an ever more ornate and complex structure crafted over an eight year period following the construction of the Temple. K enneth Frampton states (in ‘The Owl of Minerva’, Studies in Tec- tonic Culture, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995, p 386) ‘late capitalism displays an indifference toward tectonic culture at many different levels, from its disdain for the physical and historical continuity of civic form to its latent disregard for the wholesale entropy of the built environ- ment as it presently exists.’ The Children of Peace obviously did not share this indifference toward their civic form, and a document of their existence is present is the Temple’s architectural form — a tectonic cultural document revered by some and merely visited by others. It is this very endeavour, to instill human relevance via built form, which our architectural community strives toward. For the present-day architect, hindered in a concern toward a tectonic culture by the techno-econ- omy they operate within,Willson offers a glimpse of another mode of architectural practice, where the act of building represents more than the completion of a shelter and ersatz formal expression. The arti- fact’s main concern here is the manifestation of the human spirit in the specific manner in which the building was developed and realized. The Davidites, under the guidance of David Willson, seamlessly integrated craft, form and spirituality to constitute and articulate an experience of the community as a whole. It is this absolutely apparent exaltation of all
of the processes of building and human spirit, that prevents The Temple of Peace from becoming an architectural novelty, relegated to the his- torical closet. It will continue to be revered by architects and historians alike, not just as an artifact, but as an end in itself.
John Peterson, born and rised in BC, received his MArch at Dalhousie (néeTUNS). He lives in Toronto and works for KPMB Architects.
ON SITE review 6: BEAUTY
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