Pharmacy in Riga (Office: Substance). A recent trip to Riga, capital of Latvia, was to trace my ancestors and visit many of the sites and residences where my father had lived until he was a young adult. While the history of my family is well documented, I had not to this point visited any of the family properties in Latvia or nearby Lithuania.
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Latvian National Museum of Art (Processoffice), Part 1. Hands down, the stair that I am about to share with you is conceptually one of the most subtle tectonic statements that I have seen in recent years. Not simply because it is both simple and utterly sophisticated in its execution, but it takes its place so eloquently and effortless within the entrance foyer of an existing building, namely the Latvian National Museum of Art in Riga, Latvia (LNMM).
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A compass set. For an architecture student in the early 1980s, owning a compass was not a luxury, it was a necessity. This, along with other required mechanical tools (drafting instruments) including a triangular metric scale (which in Europe serves both architects and engineers), various triangles, ruler, T-square (parallel bars were rare and expensive and were seen as an American luxury for a European student), protractor (measured angles), templates known as French curves (to draw complex geometry), eraser shield, and the ubiquitous item that was expensive but lifesaving – Rotring’s famous rapidograph ink pens.
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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.
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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 20th 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).
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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.
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Interview about architecture. The following interview was conducted over zoom on September 6, 2023, with Berk Oral, a former second-year student, and friend. He is currently studying in Boston as part of his fourth year off-campus semester and will return to campus to complete his year-long thesis during the Academic year 2024-25. The interview is part of a requirement at the CDR Payette OpenLab Boston Studio, where students choose to interview professionals for their Professional Practice course. Other courses during the semester are the integrative studio and fabrication.
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Architecture thesis, Part 2. Throughout countless thesis critiques with architecture students, I always end up somewhere in the discussion asking the same question: What is your thesis? Their answers (yes, plural) are often evasive and timid, and suggestive of their initial unfocused interests as they struggle through numerous topics that are in their own right promising and robust.
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Hong Kong: Bauhaus style Central Market. Previous research on the Central Market in Hong Kong, resulted in a blog describing the genesis of the market through 1850. After 1858, the building—originally called Canton Bazaar, thereafter Middle Bazaar—was rebuilt, and from there on was officially named Central Market. The 1903 map (Image 2, below) suggests the market was a rather large structure.
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National Museum in Singapore, Part 2. Following my thoughts on the nature of the growth of museums, during a recent trip to Singapore, and, in particular, the National Museum of Singapore (NMS)—a place that I remembered for both its extensive galleries showcasing the history of Singapore and the temporary exhibitions on topics relevant to a more in-depth analysis of specific cultural dimensions—I was interested in the development of museum additions using this museum as an example.
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