Temples
ON SOME LEVEL, THERE’S nothing really revolutionary about green walls. Any city worth its salt has a smattering of old architecture in its downtown core with leafy green vines climbing up its Corinthian facade. We call these buildings part of our collective heritage, and we protect them from market forces, making sure they stay where they are, despite the real estate race going on around them. And the older the better! In the most exaggerated examples, we call them wonders of the world and make pilgrimages to these places of beauty, as in the Angkor Temples of Cambodia, pictured below. There’s something primal about vines intertwining that touches an emotional chord for most humans — probably something to do with our simian ancestry. But climbing vines are just one vertical possiiblity — there’s no reason to stop there, at the monocultural option.
