Finding Human Space in Subtle Esthetics

Living in a city as richly endowed as Vienna gives me a chance to discover some new and surprizing things.  I'm walking through my neighborhood– a rather boring place light on greenery and heavy on concrete buildings where things other than people live.  I pass an old run-down building and suddenly my body feels different; I am 'seen' by a building.  I feel rows of bricks that were actually laid by the hands of men (no doubt) and I recognize the work of my kind.  The courses are straight and responsible, but with enough variation that I can feel the presence of workers who had lives and families, who carefully placed every single brick, an extravegence our market can no longer "afford". I feel the care that's missing from the rest of the street. A slight raised course around window frames signals not the absolute mechanical adherance to the straight line of the machines what apparently built all surrounding structures, but evidences a people for whom life was worth the extra expense of emphasizing windows as if they were eyes admitting sunshine to warm bodies instead of expensive features required by building codes.  One of the luxuries sadly missing from such a beautiful city's recent activity is the careful attention to detail that was typical in the time before mechanization when humans touched everything.  Those workers had hard lives but all– client, architect, foreman, bricklayer– seem to have recognized the value of pride in work.  For a moment I'm welcomed back into human space.