Metropolenhaus Markgrafenstrasse: A precedent analysis. Just shy of four decades teaching architecture, I proudly continue to learn about my field through in-depth analysis of case studies. Along with precedent studies, this research method is for me a moment of intense engagement that is often triggered by an inkling of interest through a chance encounter.
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Denoyer-Geppert Polar Air Age World chart. Over the past decades I have collected maps and expanded my collection to a degree that it has literally ended up covering each wall of my home office, which I fondly call the map room (without any aspiration to Churchill’s war room!) Most maps in my collection feature cities that I have either lived in or visited and continue to admire as part of my autobiographical experience as an urban flâneur.
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Rajasthani handmade stuffed animals. Now that the holiday season is rapidly approaching—and as I skipped Halloween this year like many of my friends—I have already brought down from the attic some of my favorite holiday decorative items. Over the years, I have collected Rajasthani handmade stuffed animals and made a point to add to my collection every time I return to India.
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Is space for humans still important in architecture? I was educated by a second generation of faculty who praised the work of modernist architects such as Alvar Aalto, Le Corbusier, Louis I. Kahn, and Mies van der Rohe—and to a certain extent Frank Lloyd Wright as the American proto-modern architect par excellence.
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Structure and architecture. In any architecture school, structure classes are required by NAAB for accreditation. While talented faculty impart knowledge to students, it is my experience with several institutions that most of the structure classes focus on understanding key materials properties and ways to calculate structure. Class sessions are about imparting knowledge to make designs stable and safe, but rarely consider how architects think spatially about structure.
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Hubert Robert copying paintings at the Louvre. I remember the day when I was a student of architecture, and was asked to deliberately copy a drawing (e.g. plan and section). At first, the faculty’s request took me off guard as I thought the act of creating came solely from an inner calling—my genius, my intuition, and my talent!
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Staircase at the National Telephone Company of Spain in Madrid. I have written many blogs on staircases and have always found delight in showcasing their identity. This blog is not dissimilar and will highlight a staircase that I stumbled on years ago while visiting an exhibition on the work of British architect Richard Rogers.
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Kuramata’s Kiyotomo Sushi Bar. During my last visit to Hong Kong, I learned that the Kiyotomo Sushi Bar, designed in 1988 by legendary Japanese interior designer and furniture maker Shiro Kuramata (1934-1991), had been purchased by the M+ Museum of Contemporary Visual Culture (M+).
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Netton Bosson, Gruyères, Switzerland . If there was ever a work of art that I could say had accompanied me during my youth, it is the frescoes that adorn the dining room walls of the Institut La Gruyère, Switzerland; a boarding school located next to the medieval town of the same name. During breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Netton Bosson’s art, with its moral wit and decorative playfulness, gazed protectively over the main room.
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Public fountain in Kaunas Lithuania. The identity of cities is profoundly shaped by the interplay of enclosures, both public and private. These various degrees of interaction contribute significantly to a city’s unique character and the way its inhabitants and visitors experience it.
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