What Is A Torus?

Energy field known as the torus

As a young woman I witnessed round mud huts arranged in a circle in villages of Africa and later Angkor Wat’s ladder-like temples blew me away. Fast forward to 2008 and 2017 when I was dazzled by the swoops and curves of Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain.

This year’s reading of Lois Stark’s The Telling Image: Shapes of Changing Times put all of these awe-inspiring architectural wonders into perspective. The thesis of her book is that in each era of history human beings create architectural forms that model their understanding of social reality. The circle is the most basic form, imitating the shape of the sun and moon and denoting a social organization of shared leadership and cohesion important to a hunter gatherer lifestyle. The ladder (pyramids and square stepped temples) emerged with settled hierarchical societies that lasted from the birth of agriculture, through the industrial revolution, and into the twentieth century.

Temples at Angkor Wat

Seeing Earth from space gave human beings a way to see the absence of boundaries and the fragile beauty of ecosystems, forcing us to step outside our narrow view of reality and take an eagle-eye view of ourselves as not living in isolation but in relation to a broad shared context. And at the microcosmic level, seeing the DNA molecule set the centuries old ladder spinning, giving us a look inside the bodies we had assumed were bounded by skin of differing shades. 

The Helix - ladder takes a spin in DNA molecule

Thus in our time we have seen new architectural forms arise that depict different ways of thinking, living, and organizing our social life. As I read about and saw photos of incredible new forms of architecture around the world, I found my social paradigm shifting, morphing into images of networks and energy systems. 

Galaxy design for Auroville, a planned town in India

Galaxies, networked nodes, and electrical energy fields are some of the inspirations for contemporary architecture.

Hudson Yards in New York city

Today's architects use computer programs to help design buildings that are now possible because of new materials such as those used in aeronautics and space vehicles. Impacted by the earth-rise and knowledge of climate change, contemporary architects incorporate living systems into their designs. 

Grass-roof helix, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The energy field surrounding each human body is the shape of the torus and we can expect to see more structures that imitate energy fields such as this. I find myself contemplating what these structures say about our body politic. How do these new images inform the creation of peace on Earth?

Florida Polytechnic Institute 

Even before reading The Telling Image, my social paradigm had begun to shift. For the past year, faced with the metastasis of my breast cancer from twenty-two years ago to my bones, my morning and evening meditations and healing visualizations have begun with an image of being part of a galaxy of Love, Hope, Expertise, and Archaic Body Wisdom. So, even without Stark's book I had begun adopting a new way of seeing the world. I bet you have as well.