ABSTRACT
Nature in Yosemite seems almost to have achieved intentionality or ‘self-consciousness.’ The walls of the valley are vertical, the floor is flat, the entry is dramatically indicated. It is not just a place of exquisite beauty; it is a natural place which by virtue of its highly bounded form makes an insulting reference to the built environment avant la lettre. Coventry Cathedral, accidentally improved by the Nazi attempt to destroy it, now open to the sky, aspires to insert itself into nature and become a yosemite. There are lesser yosemites everywhere in capitalist culture-from the ‘canyons’ of Manhattan to the gift box that has had its top torn off in eager anticipation. None of these express themselves with the power and intensity of the original. Social lines are arbitrary, and the design practice that follows them promotes status and other shallow distinctions. By contrast, in Yosemite the oppositions in nature, the line that separates the rock from the sky, for example, do not serve to separate one human being from another. The edge of Mirror Lake, where the water touches wildwoods and boulders, traces itself directly on the soul as a sensual contrast of rough and smooth, of male and female principles, of every gentle touch of opposites which unite humankind and makes life sweet. Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan has remarked that a mountain reflected in a lake is the perfect image of a consciousness without ego.
