Joint winner of the RIAI / Architecture Ireland Student Writing Prize 2023.

The collective unconscious is a concept coined by psychiatrist Carl Jung. It is the aspect of the unconscious mind that manifests inherited, universal themes that run through all human life. Jung claimed that this concept differs from personal consciousness because it plays in the background of our lives. It is not learned but made up of primordial archetypes, which are collectively inherited patterns of behaviour. According to him, the primordial image, or archetype, is a figure that constantly recurs in the course of history of man and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed. He went on to explain that in each of these images there is a little piece of human psychology, a remnant of the joys and sorrows that have been repeated countless times in our lives. I believe that a primordial space is an architectural form of an archetype, or more specifically, a visceral physical space where an individual’s unconscious identity is first manifested. This space is where an individual’s archetypal figure is actualised when it enters the conscious mind and is expressed by the way we interact with and within it. One can look to their childhood for a primordial space. With this insight, I may relive memories from my childhood bedroom through old photographs, my mother’s retelling, and sketches. I may interpret a particular personal archetype and determine if it unconsciously recurs in my own work.

My childhood home was a small timber chattel construction, typical for the Caribbean climate. Ten family members resided there, including myself, mum, dad, and my brother. We occupied one bedroom, while my aunts and their children occupied the remaining two. The floor plan was quaint with signs of dysfunction. I recall two stoves, later becoming three, two refrigerators, a glass dining table with one chair, and a three-piece rosewood sofa set in mint condition; nobody was allowed to sit there. The bizarre general arrangement raised no red flags in my mind. I was told by my parents to never leave the house without their watchful eyes and anywhere other than our bedroom did not call me. My mother retold an instance when I sat on my aunt’s sofa, and she angrily shooed me away unbeknownst that my mother overheard in our bedroom. Mum called me in immediately with compassion. There was family drama amidst, yet the room’s shield bloomed blissful naivety. It was about 9m² in size with a double bed for my parents and I, and a single bed for my older brother. There stood a wardrobe, chest of drawers, television, and computer. The walls were painted, the floor gradually succumbed to rot, and the galvanized roof was exposed. The room was always clean, and everything had its place. Living was organic. Photos showed mum styling my hair in bed. Another showed pride as I clutched my extended cousin’s arm in front of the door which displayed my ever-rotating display of drawings.

According to French philosopher Gaston Bachelard, in his book The Poetics of Space, beyond our memories, the house in which we are born is unconsciously inscribed in us. His thesis was that without the house man would be a dispersed being. It maintains us throughout the storms of life. Inhabited space transcends mere geometric space. Mum reminisced – the room was filled with love and happiness. I see my primordial space as a nest, one of Bachelard’s explained shelter images. He suggests that a nest is a hospitable threshold that does not intimidate us by its majesty. The room reminded me of a warm embrace. The enclosed space on the floor saw me do homework, play, draw, read, and eat. The bed, where I nestled between my parents, was also where I got my hair braided and watched television. I was not allowed to play outside often, but it allowed for great imagination. The room also saw many shenanigans, which my parents amusingly embraced, one of which being my constantly losing crayons through the floor cracks. I could see them laying among the weeds below but could never reach. When rain fell, I remember the calming sound on the metal roof and at the end of the day, we would all come together, comfortably calling it a night. I would have recurring dreams about that empty bedroom before the house was finally demolished. Now, I see it as the point at which I was metaphorically cast out into the world and forced to fly. I spent about a year afterwards sleeping on a single bed near my parents’ because I was too scared to be alone. My feelings regarding the nest were supported by Bachelard’s writing: ‘for not only do we come back to it, but we dream of coming back to it, the way a bird comes back to its nest … This sign of return marks an infinite number of daydreams …’.

I relate with ‘the child’ archetypal figure, otherwise known as ‘the innocent’. It is associated with a light-hearted, naive, and playful energy, and it influences how life is currently perceived in my adulthood. Unconsciously, my art and architectural work often displays childlike themes with aspects of imagination, naivety, surrealism, and comfort.

To conclude, the collective unconscious is the aspect of the unconscious mind which is not developed or learned but rather inherited, and plays in the background of our lives. It is made up of archetypes or inherited patterns of behaviour. A primordial space is therefore an architectural form of an archetype where an individual’s unconscious identity is first manifested and provides the basis for the actualisation of an archetypal figure by way of interaction in said space. Through the retelling of memories within my childhood primordial space I was able to discover my ‘child’ archetype, reflect on those qualities and found that, indeed, this archetype unconsciously recurs in my life in the form of creative endeavours.