Lessons from the Cathedral Builders

The Cathedral of Milan and its significance

First, what strikes you personally about the sentiments Shore’s ‘Letter’ conveys? What’s the most powerful and contagious vision you’ve ever heard? What was it? Did it have Bill Shore’s 5 elements to it?

Bill Shore

Letter From The Cathedral Of Milan

November 1998

Dear Friend,

The Cathedral of Milan is the second largest gothic cathedral in the world. After more than 500 years of construction, from 1386 to 1887, the inside is as spare and simple as the facade is crowded and ornate. As I stand inside it at sunset, the near empty space gradually grows darker and for each of us traveling alone, the aloneness draws closer, like an overcoat being buttoned one button at a time.

The cathedral is built upon the ruins of the original fourth century cathedral. Pinkish-white marble from the quarry at Candoglia was carried down a mountainside, loaded onto barges and carried to Milan by waterways. The quiet coolness of the cathedral is welcoming. A few people pray and take confession. Others light candles. A circle of Asian tourists moves like a choreographed troupe. Schoolgirls in the last pew are sketching for art class. In the nave, several pairs of lovers take refuge, surrounded by stained glass so precious it was removed during World War II bombing raids.

All day long, Milanese, on their way to or from work, pour in for prayer or reflection. Many are regulars, so accustomed to the towering spires outside and the brilliant stained glass within that they no more look up than do New Yorkers walking by the Empire State Building. When I step back inside, the Cathedral is still empty; so vast is this space that one hundred people fill it no more successfully than do five.

Of one thing I’m certain: the builders of this cathedral did not consider inspiration and faith as by-products or fringe benefits of their work. Rather, it was the core purpose, the essential ingredient of the architecture and design. Every other consideration was secondary. One can’t stand in the aisles, dwarfed by the 36 massive pillars and stare at the unfathomable vaults and buttresses and not know this to be true. Most of those who worked on this cathedral did so knowing they would not live to see the final, finished achievement. This didn’t diminish their dedication or craftsmanship. The evidence suggests it enhanced it.

Cathedral building required sharing strength on a scale never seen before or perhaps since. When construction commenced on the Milan Cathedral, craftsmen came from across Europe

The feeling of entering a cathedral and what it signifies

— stonecutters, sculptors, master masons, blacksmiths and carpenters — and cooperated to an unprecedented degree. While nobles made large financial donations, contributions came from all citizens: weavers, bakers, butchers, tanners, millers, and fishermen took turns donating their services.

Somehow it had been both communicated and understood that it wasn’t just that building a truly great cathedral would require everyone to share their strength, but rather that everyone sharing their strength would result in a truly great cathedral. For the past two years I’ve been a student of cathedrals. I visited the great Cathedral of Milan and studied the history of its construction. The National Cathedral in Washington, DC, opened its doors to me. I’ve spent many days at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. I’ve recalled my visits to the Duomo in Florence, and Chartres and Notre Dame. Each can be counted among the most remarkable man-made structures on the planet.

There is a special feeling that comes with entering any one of them. It’s a feeling inside the chest palpable enough to be physical. First, the sharp intake of breath. The cool damp scent of ancient marble can be inhaled like a mist. You take a few steps but only a few and then you stop. Your eyes adjust to the light. You look up as the builders meant you to. The ribbed vaults and flying buttresses seem to effortlessly support the weight of the roof. You take a few more steps and stop again. You’re not sure how to take in everything, not sure what to look at first or how long to study it. The carvings on the walnut choir stalls with their 71 images of the Martyrs. The parapet on the south pulpit recalling the heroic feats of Saul and David. The archbishop’s magnificent chair. The stained glass windows that tell of everything from the life of Ambrose to the story of Samson and the lions. There is almost a measure of regret that what you see is too great to truly know in the short time you’ve got. The sense of being overwhelmed is finally tempered by the quiet and stillness.

I’ve tried to understand this feeling and the ingredients that give it such unique flavor and texture. It’s more than that art and craftsmanship are aesthetically pleasing. I’ve tried to understand why the feeling embodies both pleasure and power. The words often used to describe it are so familiar as to be clichés: “inspirational,” “awe,” “spiritual”. Surely all of those are factors. But they are not what I think the feeling is really about. I think the feeling is about what went into building the cathedral, what you might know about it, what you can imagine, and what you know you can never know or imagine. Stone is stone and glass is glass. But they are not that anymore, not here. There has been a transformation. It is the transformation that you feel. It touches a life force. The way the cathedral’s stone and glass have been fitted together suggests something monumental not about the cathedral as a building, but about the act of building it. How powerful would it be to crack the atom of that transformation? What energy would be released? How would it be measured?

The transformation of stone and glass in cathedrals

We know that when we eat an apple we get energy from it. That energy is measured in calories and one of the laws of physics is that energy is never created or destroyed, it is only transferred. So the amount of calories, or energy, we get from an apple is equivalent to the amount of calories, or energy, that was contributed to growing that apple. Think of what went into building a cathedral. Muscle. Ingenuity. Vision. Will. Layer upon layer of knowledge — of design, architecture, physics — accumulated over the years and passed along across generations. Is there doubt that the builders devoted their lives to it without ever being able to see their work finished? Or that fortunes were sacrificed on its behalf. The story of any single aspect of it, whether the quarrying and transporting of marble hundreds of miles, or the painstaking work of master sculptors and their apprentices would read like an epic saga. And so it surrounds us like an enormous gift that we can never repay, a gift not of architecture but of humanity. This is what we’re feeling, what catches our breath. We become custodians of a bond between ourselves and people who shared and sacrificed for our pleasure and benefit. That is what touches and transforms us, what quickens the beat of our own hearts.

Of the many lessons to be learned from the cathedral builders there are five fundamental principles which give meaning and purpose to our lives and work and can make our communities stronger. First, they understood that devoting your life to a cause you will never see completed need not diminish one’s craftsmanship and dedication, but can actually enhance it. Second, cathedral building requires the sharing of strength, the contribution of not just artisans and experts, but of everyone in the community. Third, the great cathedrals are built, literally, upon the foundations of earlier efforts. They are stronger and better built for incorporating the work that came before. Fourth, cathedrals were sustained because they actually generated their own wealth and support. The main source of funding for their building or renovation was income from accumulated land and property. And finally, cathedrals were designed to convey stories and values and pass along best practices and thereby perpetuate a philosophy and organizational culture.

The aspiration to be part of something bigger and more lasting than ourselves is universal. In the mid-1990’s a consistent best-seller was a business book called “Built To Last.” The authors, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, studied visionary and enduring companies like Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Disney, and 3M, among others. They found that their leaders were not just good “time-tellers” but also “clock builders” who institutionalized greatness. They identified the key lessons and strategies of leaders responsible for companies “built to last.” One fundamental distinguishing characteristic is that they “preserve a cherished core ideology while simultaneously stimulating progress and change in everything that is not part of their core ideology.” Many of their findings appeal outside the corporate world and have been embraced by nonprofit organizations. Their utility and applicability in that sector is unquestioned. But fundamentally they were developed to explain the success of enterprises that create shareholder wealth. As a result, the “built to last” framework is instructive, but too limited.

When the objective shifts from creating shareholder wealth, to creating community health, the lessons of clock builders pale in comparison to the lessons of cathedral builders. Indeed there’s probably not a clock anywhere in the world built to last as long as the great gothic cathedrals. That is why at this moment in history, our country desperately needs the lessons of the cathedral builders to create a better future for the next generation.