Judy Hayward
Seeing Architecture with a Sharper Eye
The first thing I noticed as my vision began to return after cataract surgery two weeks ago was the sharp definition of building shapes. I wasn’t looking at great architecture – it was the ice cream shop.
As I delighted in mint chocolate fudge from my friend’s car, I realized that this modest rectangle with a gable roof was emerging into view. I saw the sharp outlines through the eye shield, and I was so excited. It was the sharpness that I had been missing for the past year or so; everything had become a little cloudy and dull.
The evolving cataract made writing a little difficult; reading required tilting my head in just the right way, but examining buildings was hard. Things were fuzzy; I had to get in the right light or add light to see details.
Intellectually, I understood that this would all be corrected, but emotionally, I missed really seeing the details of buildings at a distance or in dark spaces. I reflected on how I had taken good vision and the pleasure we are afforded daily in seeing the details of high-style architecture and utilitarian buildings for granted.
Each day, the sharpness gets a little better, and like greeting old friends after absences; familiarity of and enjoyment in the ordinary buildings and landscapes are returning.
I must avoid the dusty and dank interior spaces of some favorite haunts for a while longer, but I will get back to the barns, attics and basements soon.
Honesty compels me to add that I now see peeling paint better, too. There is always work to be done… In the meantime, I am grateful for the wonders of modern ophthalmology.
Here are three images that I am enjoying the most.
Judy L. Hayward spends her days pursuing a passion for historic architecture and the ways in which it can be reused to sustain and grow healthy communities. She develops courses in partnership with builders, architects, traditional craftspeople and others to teach both historic preservation and traditional building skills. She has one foot in the nonprofit world as executive director of Historic Windsor and the Preservation Education Institute and the other foot in the world of media and information services as education director for the Traditional Building Conference Series and Online Education Program.
