The importance of sketching for architects, Part 1. This blog is part one of three on sketching architecture. This one introduces aspects about my own sketching techniques and their origins, and how sketches and architectural drawings were seen as works of art.
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Lower deck lavatory: A340-600. I have been fortunate to travel in many parts of the world since the age of nine. Although trains remains my favorite mode of ground transportation—especially in Europe where I grew up and during a day’s ride you can see the panoramic landscape transform in front of your eyes—taking an airplane is a must when speedy travel overseas is essential, of course, if you have time, a slower voyage across the Atlantic with the Queen Mary 2 is memorable.
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The Whitney Museum: stair by Marcel Breuer. There are too many magnificent stairs in New York City to fathom visiting them all during one stay or even in a lifetime.
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Hong Kong: a metropolis of contradictions. There is so much I love about the city of Hong Kong that it is almost impossible to articulate in a single thought. What draws me year after year to return to the Fragrant Harbor; a name inspired by the city’s early activities as a major Asian trading post for fragrant incense?
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Art seminar week. During my tenure at the ETH-Zürich, Switzerland, I discovered how consensus among faculty benefits students.
The following proposal involves consensus and a coming together of faculty to share their individual expertise beyond their classroom, and might be of pedagogical interest for a design school—for example, at my current institution—and is inspired by one offered in Zürich. Let me start by contextualizing that one, and then follow up with a proposal for first-year design studios that currently offer a design foundation to students in architecture, industrial design, interior design, and landscape architecture.
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Visiting professorships. Now, just shy of 40 years of teaching architecture—close to 4,000 students across three continents between undergraduate and graduate design studios, history and theory lectures, and topical seminars—I recognize that I am indebted to my students for the role they have played in my professional growth.
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Vilhelms Kuze cafe in Riga. In most European cities, café culture is an institution. For me, coffee houses are more than simply a place to indulge in delectable drinks and extravagant pastries—they are also destinations enriched by an architecture that gives each place its own identity. Be it in Padua (Café Pedrocchi), Paris (Café de Flore), Porto (Café Majestic), Prague (Café Imperial), Venice (Café Florian), Vienna (Café Central) or Zürich (Café Odeon), among many other favorites, I have always considered cafes a must when traveling.
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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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New York vintage traffic signals. While researching my blog Vintage New York Postcards, my attention was drawn to a specific postcard in my collection. The image featured a 1922 traffic light tower (signal tower) located at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
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