Architecture thesis, Part 3. There is a wonderful tradition at my current institution of holding weeklong thesis week’s presentations, a time when architecture students pin up their progress and get feedback from peers and faculty. During this time one or two faculty impart their wisdom regarding the day’s projects. These short addresses happens at the end of the day and are delivered in various formats depending on the faculty’s goals and interests. 

La Clarte: (Le Corbusier). As an architecture student in the early 1980s, I was imparted with a profound knowledge—and may I say appreciation—for the history and theory of the discipline, which included a nearly devout emphasis on key modernists of the 20^th century. One of them—perhaps the greatest for a student trained in Europe—was the Franco-Swiss architect Le Corbusier (aka., Charles Edouard Jeanneret; 1887-1965). 

Rainer Maria Rilke and architecture. I recently rekindled with two of my favorite books by German author Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926): Letters to a Young Poet and Auguste Rodin. While in college, I was introduced to other significant authors of German literature including Heinrich Boll, Berthold Brecht, Günter Grass, Thomas Mann, and Stefan Zweig, along with Swiss playwrights and novelists, Friedrich Dürrenmatt and Max Frish. Yet, Rilke’s writing has always left me with a sense of awe.