House as a mirror of self?

Exploring the ideology behind Gehry and

Jung s houses
AMIRREZA GOSTARYFARD 28/01/2011
C77073972
AC3.1
TUTOR: LESLEY MILLAR

The homes of Carl Jung and Frank Gehry as an

expression of the collective unconsciousness and
showing the different layers of the psyche under the
persona.

Abstract
Read the body at least two times and write an
abstract of 200-300 words describing your aim to do
this research, your findings concisely, and your
conclusion from this research.

Carl Jung (1875-1961), reputable psychiatrist and

prominent assistant of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939),
and Frank Gehry (1929- ), prize-winning Canadian-
American architect, worked in the fields which they
were really good at; through their careers they both
tried to reveal what was hidden inside the psyche

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and the so called “collective unconscious“. Through
their lives and careers they tried to articulate this,
even more individually, in the building of their
homes. Gehry and Jung are both thought to be very
influential players of the postmodernism movement.
Tracking the footprints of modernism and
postmodernism in human civilization is essential to
understand these two spectacular characters and
the effect they had in the cultural trend of modern
world.
The use of the word “Modern” here refers to
anything in the modernist era, as opposed to the
present era. Modernism describes the cultural
changes and movements that occurred in most parts
of culture and society in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries and was born as a reaction to the industrial
revolution. It is acknowledged that the new era was
totally different from any era that had come ahead
of it, making new methods and new ways of thinking
essential. This movement grew across contemporary
fields such as architecture, art, literature, politics,
and music as well as new fields of study including
psychoanalysis. In that era, old assumptions and
methods were scrutinized, and traditional
authorities were challenged. Wherever possible, the
constant search for novel and better ways of doing

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things and, therefore, the appetite for progress;
eliminated the schools of thought holding them up.
The zeitgeist of the movement can be summed up by
eminent modernist poet Ezra Pound’s famous
aphorism ”Make it new”. (ref?)
At the dusk of the modernist era in 1859, Charles
Darwin (1809-1882) published " The Origin of
Species", a book mainly intended to be read by non-
specialists. In this work, he introduced the theory of
evolution of populations in the course of generations
by natural selection. His theory was the first widely
accepted scientific substantiation to contradict the
Biblical accounts of creation. This, destabilized the
authority of religion in the eyes of the public, and
the belief that humans are unique, and “above”
other animals began to erode.
The idea of man as an animal was further promoted
by Sigmund Freud. During his studies of human
psyche, he observed that many mental problems
seemed to have no sign of physical cause. As a result
of his research, he attempted to link emotional
causes to mental problems, i.e. when he invented
psychoanalysis, he then went on to create theories
of personality that introduced his revolutionary idea
that behavior is derived from a battle between

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unconscious primal desires and self-imposed
restrictions learnt from society.
Modernism in architecture started by the principle
of “form follows function”, a phrase which was
coined by American architect Louis Sullivan (1856-
1924), one of the pioneers of modern architecture.
Characteristics of Modern architecture were derived
from simple, rectilinear forms and logical layouts and
by removal of ornaments that were considered to be
superfluous. There was a predominant use of
prefabricated parts and manmade materials like
concrete, glass and metal. The supporting structures
were put in display instead of making them hidden
like classic styles. This arrangement was mostly
manifested in the design of skyscrapers and large
residential buildings.
Walter Gropius (1883–1969), Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe (1886–1969) and Le Corbusier (1887–1965)
were the three most influential architects of the
modern era. All three had worked in an early form of
modernist architecture called the "international
style". Mies van der Rohe adopted the dictum “less
is more”, Le Corbusier proclaimed that houses
should be considered as “machines for living”. They
attempted to promote any piece of architecture that
would have fit for the modern age: This removed the

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need for ornaments and focused on the functionality
of houses rather than counting in historicism. This
style of architecture was thought to be more
“honest” than the classical styles, because its aim
was to replace the nature with something that was
performing a man-made function. Best and Kellner
(1997) describe it in this form:

"Against art nouveau, the international style

asserted a superior “honesty” in the imitation of the
geometric forms of the machine age and sought to
replace nature with man-made environments, or at
least to integrate nature into a massive new
technoscape of proportions."

Gropius asserts his idea of the importance of

"honesty" as such;

"We want to create a clear, organic architecture,

whose inner logic will be radiant and naked,
unencumbered by lying facades and trickeries, we
want an architecture adapted to our world of
machines, radios and fast motor cars, an
architecture whose function is clearly recognized in
the relation of its forms (Benton and Benton, 1975)."

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In addition, there was a mentality stating that if a
building was designed purely with function in mind,
then the building would be beautiful. This ideology
was later on carried into the design of social housing
projects, due to the fact that at that time there was
a shortage of public housing and it was preferred to
build simple buildings rather than wasting money
adorning the available ones with ornaments. And
that these moral buildings were thought to be
beautiful.
The modern high rise building was perceived as a
cost-effective solution to the housing shortage after
the Second World War. These projects were usually
tight on budget and the authorities would have
demanded more than the value of the invested
money. Therefore, they decided to buy small pieces
of land and build upwards. Many of these projects
were built with poor quality, therefore the areas
which were quieter, like the staircases and the lifts,
became the venue for muggings, graffiti and public
urination, raising the maintenance cost way over the
budget. These massive concrete monuments were
considered to be ugly by the majority of public, who
had no interest in the principles behind the design,
due to the fact that there was nothing in the design
to point to the context.

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Pruitt-Igoe in the U.S. city of St. Louis was one of the
most famous social housing projects. This project
was designed with lifts that only stopped on every
third floor, and even though it was cost efficient and
logical, it was dehumanizing for its tenants. These
large buildings created a stigma against those who
lived in them. As Ramroth (2007) says:

"One by one, Pruitt-Igoe’s tenants fell victim to its

immense size, lack of amenities, and high rise
institutional appearance that branded everyone who
lived in it as under privileged, and therefore different
to everybody else."

These buildings became symbols of poverty and

crime; were considered as social failures and were
rejected by public. Some of these buildings were
even built in the 1980s, but most of them were
demolished prior to the end of their useful life.
Seagram building located at Park Avenue in Midtown
Manhattan, New York City, was another example of
the ideology of modernism being employed at the
expense of the ultimate users of the building. It was
designed by Mies van der Rohe, where in this design
he wanted to ensure the uniformity of the façade.
He detailed the window blinds to function only in

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three positions: fully open, half open or fully closed,
so the façade would not appear to be disorganized.
This was an extreme application of the ideology of
the modernism, removing the liberty of the tenants
to keep the façade more organized.
The modern architects were accused of power
centralization, elitism and inclination to the middle
class by ignoring the differences in society.
Regardless of where in the world situated, the
modern buildings looked the same; they were
thought to be boring, having lack of reference, and
distracting everyone's attention from context or
meaning, rather than a small group of architects. As
Edgar (2007) says:

"The crisis of modernism comes as its aspirations to

universalism (and thus its tendency to dictate from a
privileged position, what culture and architecture
should be) are revealed as concealing a closure
against the many alternation voices that had in fact
been excluded from modernist developments."

The failure of modern architecture in the eyes of

public demonstrated vividly that a building that
would communicate with its users and its local
community is most likely to be successful not only to

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function, but also to be an augmentation to the lives
of its users, the landscape and the community.
In modernist architecture there had been no
communication in the straight lines and bland color
of modernist design other than their underlying
modernist principles. Nevertheless, principles are
not what people are interested in when they are to
the detriment of their environments. Humans evolve
in nature, in a place with everlasting beauty and
variety, with a rich source of wondrous forms that
sparks the imagination. Modern architecture does
not follow the laws of nature; it is so plain and rigid
that its forms are not open to individual
interpretation. There is also not any opportunity for
expressing personal preferences. Why would one
choose tower block A over tower block B to live in?
The reason why modern architecture was not an
enhancement to the lives of users is that it treated
people minimally as cogs inside a so called
‘machine”, rather than treating them as breathing
living souls who required aesthetic beauty and
wanted to have an opportunity to express their
individual nature using their imagination, and
eventually to live a happy life.
The postmodernism movement in the late 20th and
early 21st centuries, distances itself from modernism

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by emphasizing on the role of language, power
relations, and motivations. It was also a cultural
movement which affected various aspects of the
evolving society from art, literature, science, and
philosophy, to ethics, religious faith and social
organization. In different time frames, outstanding
movements occurred both in modernism and
postmodernism.
Architects of the postmodern era attempted to solve
the failures resulted from implementation of
modernist ideology in architecture, by designing
buildings that would be stronger in communication
and richer in context. The stifling ideology of modern
architecture was rejected and ornaments were
brought back. Robert Venturi (1925- ) parodied Mies
van der Rohe’s dictum ’less is more’ with his own
dictum “less is a bore”. (ref?) It was from this era
that buildings could have curved walls, strange
angles and reflective surfaces. Materials such as
bronze, terracotta and stone might be used.
Architects of postmodern era often used historical
style in their buildings; and some buildings used a
few styles of historical periods. As Paden (2007) says:

"Postmodern architects are highly suspicious of

rationalism in both ethics and architecture, they

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reject the modernist’s view that beauty is dependent
on function, they celebrate the use of architectural
ornaments, and they intentionally (self-consciously
means uncomfortably) use ornaments to link their
buildings to various and multiple architectural
traditions."

Figure 1: Notre Dame du Haut, 10th July 2003

In the postmodern era, architects use this rich

repertoire to communicate irony, wit and metaphor.
One good example of a building that incorporates
metaphor is the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut by Le
Corbusier (Figure 1). As Best and Kellner (1997) say,
the chapel “is rich in metaphor and illusion,
suggesting at once a floating duck, hands in prayer, a
steamship, or a hat”. In postmodern era, the
architects are sufficient alone to stimulate the
imagination of the public and to invite
interpretations, but that is not enough for the
postmodern architect. Some postmodern architects

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intentionally seek to incorporate multiple layers of
meaning into their work so that it would
communicate more with different segments of the
community. Charles Jencks’s definition of
postmodern architecture incorporates this concept:

"To this day I would define postmodernism as I did in

1978 as double coding the combination of modern
techniques with something else (usually traditional
building) in order for architecture to communicate
with the public and a concerned minority, usually
other architects … double coding to simplify mean
both elite/popular and new/old." (Jencks, 1991)

The most conspicuous postmodern architect to

incorporate double coding and metaphor into his
work is Frank Gehry. One of the most influential
relationships in Gehry’s life was his relationship with
his Jungian psychoanalyst Milton Wexler; his relation
with Wexler lasted throughout his career, for over
35 years until Wexler’s death in 2007. To understand
the influence of Wexler on Gehry, it is vital to
understand the theories of Jung, and as such Freud,
who was Jung’s mentor for over 6 years.
The theories of Freud (who was very influential
during the modern era) suffered from a similar lack

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of depth and meaning as modern architecture.
Freud’s model of mind consisted of a basic structure
including the id, super-ego and the ego. The id is an
unconscious part of the mind, which contains the
basic natural drives and impulses e.g. hunger, desire
for warmth and sexual impulses. It seeks pleasure
and instant satisfaction of impulse, but avoids pain.
The super-ego is a mainly unconscious part of the
mind which comprises our moral sense of right and
wrong; our conscience. It rewards “good” behavior
with feelings of self-esteem and pride, and punishes
“bad” behavior with feelings of guilt, shame and
anxiety. Neither the id nor the super-ego recognizes
any situation in which the appearance would be
inappropriate. Ego is the coherent, thinking part of
the mind, whose task is to ensure the survival of the
individual in the external world. The ego intercedes
between the id and the super-ego, seeking to satisfy
both, and control their expression in appropriate
ways to ensure well-being of the individual in the
external world.
Freud was the psychoanalyst. He invented
psychoanalysis to find causes of mental illnesses that
he observed to have no obvious physical cause. He
tried to find the cause of emotional disturbances,
and then attempt to help patients develop a healthy

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way to deal with their feelings. Freud later on
created a model of childhood mental development,
which included three stages that he termed as the
oral stage, the anal stage and the genital stage. He
stated that young boys desire a sexual relationship
with their mothers, a desire which they would later
repress, and that girls are jealous of men because
they do not have a penis, while blaming their mother
for. These ideas were mainly based on recollection
of his own childhood and his focus on the libido as
the primary source of psychological energy. These
ideas were rejected by later psychologists and
psychoanalysts and fell out of favor.
Jung was a student of Freud for six years. Jung
agreed with the model of unconsciousness that
Freud had introduced, however he felt that it was
incomplete and that there were deeper layers. Jung
divided the psyche into three parts: the ego, the
personal unconsciousness and the collective
unconsciousness. Its difference with the Freud’s
model was that Freud's unconsciousness terminated
at the level of personal unconsciousness.
The ego calls itself “I”. It defines itself solely on
external things e.g. I am a dentist, I am 40 years old,
etc. The persona is the first layer of ego, because it is
the personality that we present to the world, the

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mask that we wear everyday. Some become
possessed by their persona; for example, a school
teacher may want to teach people everywhere, all of
the time. The ego observes physical objects, and
after observing them, it interprets them by labeling
things as “good” or “bad”. This information is then
stored in the personal unconsciousness. The
personal unconsciousness can be referred to as a
mental hard drive. If the ego learns to correctly “file”
the information it stores, it can later retrieve that
information and bring it up to the ego. For example
if someone memorizes a telephone number, it is
important to know where they can find this
information so it can be used later on. People who
are less connected to their personal unconsciousness
are forgetful.
The layers of the psyche below the ego become
progressively less clear and less accessible to the ego
as the distance from the ego increases. This can be
represented in color using white, grey and black
(Figure 2), with ego being represented by white and
the areas which would be the most difficult to access
would be presented by black. The ego would be
afraid of moving further out of the light, because it
has less power and authority in those lower layers.
There is also the chance of feeling pain while

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becoming confused by contradictory experiences
from different memories (by personal or collective
unconsciousness).
The ego has the responsibility to provide the best
response to any situation which arises in life. The
ego would prefer to understand a situation and
formulate an appropriate response with the clearest
and accessible layers of the psyche, which he knows
about and can control. Ego is based on logic, and if a
situation requires information from the past, the ego
should then move to personal unconsciousness to
find the data. If the data is not appropriate, then all
that will be available is the date from the collective
unconsciousness.
The collective unconsciousness is the area which is
shared by all the humanity. It is like having hard
drive containing all the memories of the universe
since the beginning of time. A psyche that is not
connected to the collective unconscious is like a
computer that is not connected to the internet; the
computer can only access the information that it has
available in its hard drive. When one is connected to
the collective unconscious, he can find the necessary
data that he needs, download it and save it. It also
enables him to enter his data in.

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 Figure 2: Constituents of the psyche (ref?)

The collective unconsciousness contains the

archetypes. The meaning of "arche" is soul or origin
and "type" is referred to its style or model. The
archetypes are the original patterns of personality.
Archetypes are activated and brought to the ego by
recognition of archetypal images in the outside
world.
The personality of most people tends to dominate
three or four different archetype. These are usually
brought to the ego in the first seven years of life, as
the ego is small at that time and the child is highly
connected to the collective unconsciousness. After
these seven years the ego becomes stronger and

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does not like to connect to the collective
unconsciousness. Archetypes are potential abilities
and desires that have a potential energy. For
example if someone activates an artistic archetype in
them, they would have energy for making art. The
more archetypes activated in them, the more
different energies they will experience and enjoy.
Collective unconsciousness is the source of pure
creative energy.
Jung's theories of personality were not complete
until he dreamt of a house that he did not know,
however it was “his” house. It consisted of two
floors, at the start he found himself on the first floor,
this floor had a living room (which Jung referred to
as a “salon”) furnished with Rocco-style furniture.
Fine paintings were hung on the walls. He then
explored the ground, which dated back to the
medieval times. The rooms were quite dark; there
also was a heavy door. He opened the door and
found a stairway leading to a cellar, dated back to
the roman times. On the floor, he found a slab made
from stone with a ring attached to it. He pulled the
ring and the stone slab lifted, revealing underneath a
narrow stairway of stone steps. He then went down
and there he entered a room with broken and

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scattered bones, a broken pottery and two very old
skulls. Everything was covered in dust.

"It was plain to me that the house represented a

kind of image of psyche…consciousness was
represented by the salon…The ground floor stood for
the first level of unconscious. The deeper I went the
more alien and the darker the scene became. In the
cave, I discovered remains of a primitive culture that
is the world of the primitive man within me – a
world which can scarcely be reached or illuminate by
consciousness. It was then, at that moment, that I
got the idea of the collective unconsciousness."
(Jung, 1963, cited in Hauke, 2000)

Jung wanted to express the contents of his

unconsciousness in a solid form. And that’s when he
thought of building a house (Figure 3), the first idea
that came to his mind was a primitive one-storey
home. He imagined an African style hut, but with a
fireplace in the center. However, he thought that
such a design would be too simple, so he altered the
design to a two-storey building, completed in 1923.
After four years, he added an annex to the building,
including a retiring room. Four years after that, he
built a private room for meditation that only he was

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allowed to enter. In another four years, he desired to
make a space where he could connect more to the
nature and have a clear view of the sky, so he
decided to build a courtyard with fences around it.
Jung added the final addition to his house 20 years
later, after the death of his wife. With this addition,
he wanted to represent his ego personality that had
been hidden for several years, between the spiritual
tower and the other tower. To represent this
addition, he made the center of his house taller.
Over those 32 years, his house began from a very
simple idea, but it grew to the point that it was a
representation of Jung’s ego personality.

Figure 3: A sketch of Jung's house (drawings by

Glebb Robert Lynn) (ref?)

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There was a wider post-modern movement further
to Jung’s theories of personality, as a reaction to the
problems of modernism discussed in modern
architecture. Jung's model of personality was free
from the rigidity of Freud’s libido-driven version of
personality and, instead, embraced a multi-
dimensional, interactive model of personality that
was rich in communication and metaphor. Jung’s
model was not a burden to live with, unlike the
perpetual conflicts that existed in Freud’s model.
Moreover, it showed the limitless nature of personal
enhancement and, specifically, included sensitivity of
context.
Frank Gehry lived with his grandmother in Caplan,
and it was from the early ages that he started
building creatively. They would build miniature cities
together from scraps of wood from his father’s
hardware store. Gehry later said “she was my model
of how an adult can play creatively, we made
houses, we made cities, it was wonderful” (Lazo,
2005). Once a week, she would buy a live carp to
make gefilte fish and would let it swim in the bath
tub for a few hours before she cooked it. Every week
Gehry would sit by the tub and study the shapes and
movements of the fish.

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At the beginning of Gehry and Wexler’s meetings,
Wexler immediately told Gehry that his marriage
was in limbo and he had to either commit 100% to it
or leave. Eventually, Gehry immediately moved out
of their home into a hotel and in 1966 he and his
wife got divorced. During one of the group meetings
he had with Wexler, Gehry divorced the other
members of the group who mistakenly took his
shyness for hostility. With this discovery, he felt that
he found what had been holding him back in his
career. High level of intensity and trust were
demonstrated in these events. It is quite possible
that Milton and Gehry would have worked together
to help Gehry express more archetypes, and, on top
of it, have a better connection with collective
unconsciousness.

Gehry graduated in architecture in 1954 and enjoyed

a successful career. But it was not until 1978 that he
began to attract serious attention, when he bought a
small, pink, two-storey house in the Californian
suburbs and decided to renovate it. He removed
some interior walls and stripped some others, and
also removed some part of the ceiling, revealing the
structure of the house, rafters and joints. He built a
new shell around the house, three sides of it being

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corrugated metal, chain-like fencing, plywood and
glass, and set them against each other at random,
awkward angles. He deconstructed the house and
showed the inside out. He also took elements from
the local and displayed them for everyone to see.
The neighbors hated the house, but the art students
came in their droves to see it. In 1980, the American
Institute of architects chose the building for its
honor award, viewing it as an “expansion of the
American dream into new areas”. (ref?)

People said that it was just cheapskate and he said

"yeah that’s right, I’m building what your backyard
looks like but I’m turning it into an art form"…people
next door said "hey, you can’t do that! You can’t turn
what we don’t see into a high art form. That’s
despicable. That’s awful. its junk.” but (Gehry
replies) “That’s how you live” (BBC, 1992, cited in
Hauke, 2000).

Gehry says that Wexler taught him how he could

also be a teacher, rather than just a dogmatic
architect. Gehry wanted to show people what was
hidden below the façade of the building, as a
metaphor for the collective unconsciousness. He

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says “buildings look most interesting before they are
finished” (Bodden, 2008).

It was around the same time of renovating his house,

that he had completed Santa Monica place, a 50-
million-dollar shopping mall in California. Gehry
invited the president of the company that was
commissioned for the shopping mall to dinner at his
house. Upon seeing Gehry’s house, the man was
taken aback and remarked that if Gehry liked his
house then he could not possibly like the Santa
Monica Place. Gehry confirmed that was true, but
that he had done the project because he had to
make a living. The president then told him that he
should stop designing buildings he does not like. At
that time Gehry had forty five staff working on
various projects in his office. After that dinner he cut
staff to three and only accepted projects that he
thought he could make art out of. Later on, Gehry
remarked "it was like jumping off a cliff; it was an
amazing feeling and I was so happy from then on."
(Pollack, 2005)
Wexler said of Gehry that he became bankrupt more
than once, suffered a failed marriage and stormy
client relations (Pollack, 2005). At times of difficulty,
he helped a person become free of his ego

24
identifications and, therefore, communicate better
with the collective unconsciousness, because if you
have nothing, then you have nothing to loose.
Wexler later said that Gehry had to come out of a
phase of feeling “bankrupt” before he felt
courageous enough to fully express himself. These
difficult times had helped Gehry to have better
connection with the collective unconsciousness, so
that he would design for his soul rather than for the
money, and he was truly able to express himself.
And from this point on, Gehry only accepted works
where he felt he could design something as an
expression of his soul. One of these projects was
Loyola law School in the heart of downtown Los
Angeles. Originally, the campus had consisted mainly
of one building and a parking garage. The students
had felt that they had been “denied a place”. Gehry
replaced the original building with several individual
structures. Each one of the buildings was built
uniquely with different materials ranging from clear
plastic sheets, to glass and concrete. Plywood and
copper sheet metal were used to create a
“neighborhood”. As Heyer (1993) says "Gehry
deigned to finish a compilation of academic facilities,
necessitated by community compromising 1000

25
students, housed in individual expressive
structures."
He created a public space for students to meet; it
included three small incomplete temples made from
short, unadorned columns, reminiscent of ancient
Greek civilization or the roman forum, the birth
place of modern law and justice. These were
functioned as centers for students to practice. A
sense of context was important for Gehry. He said of
the project:

"The whole idea here was to create that kind of

space in downtown, in a neighborhood that was
difficult to fit into. And it was my theory or point of
view, that one didn’t upstage the neighborhood, one
made accommodation. I tried to be inclusive, to
include the buildings in the neighborhood, whether
they were buildings I liked or not." (dotSUB.com,
2008)

Gehry created a sense of village with this project

that symbolized nature. He also inserted plenty of
historical references to stimulate the collective
unconsciousness of the student, and as Banham
says, he incorporated double coding into his designs:

26
"The whole concept is free of the pushy, pasted on,
pastiche classicism that makes post-modernism too
tedious. There is not a single classical detail to be
seen anywhere, but Merrifield Hall, where it is the
centre of the scheme, is plain brick box, just like the
original curia in the form where the ancient roman
did their legislating, and that is the pitch at which
the whole design operates. If you know architectural
history, it is a subtle erudite pleasure to be there. If
you don’t know your architectural history it is still a
pleasure to be there." (Whitely, 2003)

Gehry’s further work was amazingly successful and

Gehry has been labeled as the first “starchitect”.
Many of his later projects that he did were inspired
by fish forms that he had observed from his
childhood. He also remarked that other postmodern
architects were based on sampling of architectural
styles of Roman and Greek times, but Gehry said,
"why to stop there? Why should we not go back 100
million years?" (ref?) This shows that Gehry became
free of putting limitations and conditions on his ego.
In the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain (Figure
4), he used organic forms and shapes to reflect light
and music. The Walt Disney Music hall in downtown
Los Angeles (Figure 5) and the Weismann Art

27
Museum in Minneapolis (Figure 6) use the same
rhythm. Many people liked and connected with
these buildings, that was because the designs came
from the pure creative energy of collective
unconsciousness, which is inherent in everyone.
Gehry’s amazing success came about when he
stopped compromising his work, and the work came
from his soul, the collective unconsciousness.

Figure 4: Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain,

January 14th, 2005, Michael Reeve (ref?)

28
Figure 5: The Walt Disney Music hall in downtown
Los Angeles, April 7th, 2005, Carol M. Highsmith
(ref?)

29
 Figure 6: Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis,
September 18th, 2004. Mick Hicks (ref?)

Throughout their lives, both Jung and Gehry used

Jungian psychology to express themselves and
become more complete psychologically. In Jung’s
case, he built his home gradually and his psyche
developed in that sense. As the building was getting
more complete he became happier, and after the
building was complete he remarked that when he
was inside the house, he felt that it was the place
where “I am most deeply myself” (Jung, 1969).

30
Gehry was an artist. He remarked that he was
jealous of painters, and that he sees the building as a
sculpture. He also wanted to teach people about the
collective unconsciousness. This is why he removed
the façade of his house and designed the inside out.
As Wexler noted, when most of the people come to
him, they want to know how they can improve their
life, but “when an artist comes to see me, he wants
to know how he can change the world”(Pollack,
2005). He wanted to activate archetypes in other
people as well as within himself, and he tried to do
so by showing that everything has different layers
and foundations.
Jung and Gehry both used traditional wisdom in the
building of their homes, but with different aims and
different methods. This just shows that wisdom
could have pure constructive energy.

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