A Home's Hearth
The focal point of a room matters. As Albert Borgmann and others have pointed out, it is the focal point of a room—be it a dinner table, a hearth, or a television—that naturally orients the people in it, giving them directive as they enter: sit here, face that direction, tend to this or that, etc. In a dining room, the table will be the focal point that gathers and orients; the same can be said for a game room featuring a pool table. While common practice has maintained that a proper dining room is focused around a table, common practice regarding the family room or living room—perhaps the most important room in a home—has degenerated most grievously.
Most modern living rooms feature a television as the room’s focal point. Such a living room will have a centrally located television with the furniture arranged around it such that, upon entering, the room’s arrangement implicitly instructs individuals to orient themselves toward the TV. Before televisions, the focal point of family rooms tended to be a fireplace or a wood stove. When the hearth was the heart of a home, it focused the family living there in its own way, giving its own directive. It was first and foremost a place to gather in order to be warm during the winter months, but it also served as an important social setting: by the hearth books and letters were read aloud, stories were shared across generations, games and instruments were played, and important matters concerning the family were discussed. Tea and other beverages were prepared next to it, and the family’s legacy, accomplishments, and keepsakes were displayed on the mantle above.
While the television draws the focus of those watching it away from the others next to them, the hearth is a focal point that shelters an opening before it. Unlike the TV, the hearth does not talk over us or demand our direct attention; rather, the hearth draws us into the warmth of its vicinity and turns our attention toward each other and various activities afforded to us by what is within reach: instruments, books, letters, games, tea, etc. The hearth provides a place for engagement. The hearth beckons us to be together in the heart of the home and it focuses family life around the various engagements its warm space fosters. It maintains a central, open space to engage with each other and all of the various engagements befitting a living room: music, company, books, games, etc. Just as the hearth is a focal point that focuses our presence and attention, Borgmann calls the various engagements it provides space for “focal practices”; these practices focus not just our attention, but our lives.
Television, on the other hand, is necessarily disengaging. At its best it can be interesting or exciting, but watching television is fundamentally passive: it is not actively engaging in the way conversation, instruments, games, or books are. Given that socializing and engagement are crucial for family life and living in general, television, with its anti-social and disengaging nature, is about the last thing we ought to organize our family rooms and living rooms around.
This isn’t to say that a home’s heart absolutely must be a hearth specifically, but whatever the heart of the home is, it should be a space that facilitates engagement with activities as well as each other.