In December 2016, I visited my favourite building, Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia. That afternoon, the low sun shone straight in through the stained-glass windows in the west wall, filling the space with warm, technicolour light. The effect held me in a trance for what felt like minutes.
Unlike traditional stained-glass windows, in which the designs are often more figurative, the image in these windows is created from an apparently random pattern of tiny glass elements. Like a giant, static kaleidoscope.
James Webb Young likened the process of having ideas to using a kaleidoscope. The bits of glass are existing pieces of information. Turning the kaleidoscope rearranges the pieces of information to create new patterns— new ideas.
For me, this model, like the windows in the Sagrada Familia, captures the essential elements of having ideas: an assembly of existing elements, arranged and rearranged to create something new, something capable of captivating us and driving change.
Through the creative process, we mix together what we already know with different elements to create new patterns. These new patterns have the capacity to shine a fresh light on existing situations and point a different way forward.