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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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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Robert Slutzky. In my second year at the EPFL, the idea of learning architecture through precedents filtered from the appreciation of vernacular buildings to an immersion with visiting guest professors.
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Leonardo Ricci. This blog concludes my thoughts on mentors, the three who have made me who I am as an architect and educator. Following blogs on two of my professors, Robert Slutzky at the EPFL and Raimund Abraham during my year at The Cooper Union (Cooper), I want conclude with Leonardo Ricci who I met as a colleague at the University of Kentucky.
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Architectural sketching and how do I sketch. This second blog of the series Architectural sketching is a compendium and illustration of conceptual thoughts offered in the previous blog of a similar title. The examples for this blog are taken from my own sketchbooks that span over several decades. Each example illustrates a particular architectural preoccupation through sketching.
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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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Hotel Park Royal Collection Pickering, Singapore. Cities have always been close to my heart because of the many iconic places that endow them with a specific identity. For me, beyond a city’s historical monuments, the overall urban charm, historical grandeur, and regional cuisines, what I most cherish is a city’s distinctiveness in how it brings to life transient places such as hotel properties; properties which are often part of a heritage of historical and cultural significance.
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Still lifes by Ben Nicholson. Recently, I was delighted to rediscover the British artist Ben Nicholson (1894-1982) whose paintings I had so much admired while studying architecture. For some reason, I lost touch with his oeuvre despite my growing interest in the art of painting, especially the still life genre that I so much cherish. There are two reasons for my renewed interest in the still lives by Ben Nicholson.
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Beyond the sublime postcard-like views of Switzerland, there are few European landscapes that have moved me more than those I have encountered while traveling in Italy. One of the most scenic and memorable parts of the Italian countryside is located in the north east, a region called the Veneto, which spans the medium-sized cities of Vicenza, Verona, and Padova, ending with Venice.
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Le Baron Tavernier: a cafe. There is a myth that Switzerland is one of the most beautiful countries on earth. Indeed, its picturesque landscape, pristine cities, orderly society, and unconditional belief in a constitution that engages each citizen through direct representation—often to a fault—are all accurate descriptions of the place and culture. While the country of my youth is truly magnificent, there is a mundane reality that mitigates the perfection. Throughout the project that I will describe of Le Baron Tavernier Hotel Restaurant, there is a sense of craftsmanship that accompanies the entire design.