Every structure has a starting point. With the Kardtects Card House Building system, it begins with balancing of the first corner. For many this is quite a magical moment, as it’s a corner from which a whole structure grows from. This emotive value is not new, however, and has a long, and historic, history, in the building term called ‘The Cornerstone’.
It derives from the logical building practice of starting the building of a structure from a specific corner, as with two walls meeting at an angle to each other would naturally support each other. Then, just as every journey starts with a single first step, a sense of importance was appreciated when the very first stone of a building was being laid. As such, this stone became known as ‘The Cornerstone’.
With important structures, such as churches and government buildings etc., it is easy to acknowledge the sense of occasion when building work actually started, as prior to that moment, the concept of the building would have just been an idea, something of the imagination. As such, the symbolic value of the first stone being placed would have been akin to almost a birth, the moment when imagination was becoming reality.
For this reason, ceremonies started to begin to mark this moment and often ‘The Cornerstone’ of a building would be specially carved and engraved. Some are even designed to be ‘time capsules’, so that even if the building is knocked down, then there could be something that remains that would be considered of worth.
A famous ceremony for laying a cornerstone is recorded when one was laid into place for the construction of the Capitol Building in Washington D.C.. When the then President of the United States of America, George Washington, performed a Masonic ceremony specifically related to such an occasion.
A Masonic ceremony is a ritual performed by an organisation called the Freemasons, of which George Washington was a member. The nature of Freemasonry is based on a representation of a Stonemasons guild, but focuses on people being better people, than actually building. They use stonemasonry as metaphors to help its members maintain principles of morality and charity, as such the symbol of the cornerstone is very important to them.
Theologically, a cornerstone, is also taken by Christians as a emblematical reference to Jesus Christ, as Christ is called ‘Chief Cornerstone of the Church’ in Ephesians 2:20, and is linked to various stone and masonry terms found in the old testament. In many European ancient churches, relics of saints were actually entombed in the cornerstone.
Kardtects has played its own homage to this historic tradition, with the special release of its own cornerstone card, but even without it, do remember that with that first corner you build your card house with, you are following centuries of tradition.