A Refuge for the Mind

"Brother Matthew locked the gate behind me, and I was enclosed in the four walls of my new freedom."

Thomas Merton 

Picture your perfect thinking spot - a place for contemplation, creativity or simply listening to the murmurs of your mind. What does it look like? 

I’d never asked myself that question. Until I found the answer on the banks of the Hudson River. 

I can’t pinpoint what sparked my desire to visit. But on a scorching hot afternoon of late August, I took my son on a pilgrimage across New York’s subway system from Downtown Brooklyn all the way up to Washington Heights. 

After a steep climb, we made it to the Met Cloisters. Despite opening its doors in May 1938, the building was entirely designed like a 12th-century European monastery. It now hosts a collection of Medieval art.  

But I wasn’t here for the tapestries, the Byzantine ivory or the dramatic paintings. I came here for the gardens. 

The moment I stepped into the Cuxa garden, I felt like I had just come out of an intense Yoga session, calm and present in my now tensionless body. It felt natural to lower the sound of my voice. Everyone around me seemed to have stopped their conversation short. People walked around slowly undecided about where to focus their gaze like children discovering a new playground for the first time. I could have stayed there all day. And I would have if it wasn't for my son’s attempts to pick all the meticulously planted species of medieval flowers. 

What made this place so instantly tantalizing? 

Three features stood out, and they all turned out to be rooted in a paradox. 

The first thing that struck me was the location. A garden nestled in the heart of a building is typical of monastic architecture. Cloister gardens enabled monks to enjoy nature without having to leave the monastery. But it is not something we are familiar with. Gardens are usually in the back of a house. The paradox of a space surrounded by walls but with the sky as a roof made me feel like I’d stepped out of the world altogether. I was only a few stops from Time Square but the rumbles of the subway trains and non-stop honking were replaced by the church-like silence that few places manage to command.    

Cuxa Cloister

The layout was equally unusual. You don’t just step out of the monastery and into the garden. Cloister gardens are surrounded by a covered passageway that provided monks with shelter from sun and rain. This creates a transitional space where you are neither completely outside nor completely inside. I felt drawn to sit on the edge of the passageway under the arches. From there, I soaked in the wilderness of the outside garden and the craftsmanship of the pink marble columns all at once. Perhaps this is what makes sitting by a riverbank, standing by the window of an airport terminal or lounging on a rooftop terrace feel so soothing. Edges between spaces different in form and function seem to act as triggers for meditation.

Met Cloisters: Floor plan of main building

Lastly, the medieval species of flowers, apple trees and thick grass in the center of the cloister felt at once unruly and carefully tended, at arm's reach and yet inaccessible. Unlike a public park where we treat nature as furniture - you can picnic on the grass or use a tree for shade - in a cloister it is subtly fenced off from foot traffic. The walkway that cuts across the garden lets you peer over the flowers but a concrete garden edging keeps people from the temptation of crossing over. A bit like those steel cables in museums reminding you that you’ve stepped a bit too close to the painting. This separation grants nature an almost sacred status, inviting the eye to contemplate it.  

Integrating cloister gardens into homes and residential buildings seems impractical. But I can’t help thinking about what we’re missing by not drawing inspiration from such an ingenuous form of architecture. Just like we have libraries for learning, squares for meetings and parks for pretty much everything from exercising to dog-walking, we should have cloister gardens for the times we need to retreat within ourselves.