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.
Continue reading Simone Martini: three principles of settlement
Le Corbusier and the horizon. Regardless of the pedagogy surrounding how history and theory is taught in architecture schools, Le Corbusier’s (1886-1965) oeuvre can rarely be avoided because it is central to the experience of modernity; especially when talking about the innovative and revolutionary architectural ideas conceived by him during the early part of the 20th century.
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Unbuilt projects and competitions. Years ago, when I had the occasion to teach in Venice, Italy, I became aware of the famous 18th century vedute (view paintings) and capricci (imaginary view paintings); specifically those of Italian painters Guardi and Canaletto.
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At the age of five I moved to Vienna, Austria—the heart of the Austro-Hungarian political, economic, and cultural Empire—and ever since then, I have been fascinated by urban environments. Simply stated, the bigger the better, although that doesn’t capture the complexities that I have come to enjoy when living in or visiting metropolises around the world.
Hubert Robert: Painting as a source of knowledge. I will admit that my passion for painting is equal to my passion for architecture, although I have practiced and taught architecture for many years and, for fear of embarrassment, never taken my personal attempts in the art of painting seriously. During my own architectural studies, a faculty member who was also a graphic artist, introduced me to the foundation of the science of color. She enticed me to learn how the subjectivity of color could trigger sensations; this would become the source of a lifelong astonishment and appreciation of color and painting.
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Urban Posters in Paris, France. In most cities around the world, and in particular in Europe, public posters, placards or affiches -as they are called in France- became commonplace after the invention of Guttenberg’s printing press around 1450.
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Vintage New York Postcards, Part 1. The first time I saw vintage postcards of the famous skyscrapers of New York was in Rem Koolhaas’ book Delirious New York, A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan. Written in 1978, the content was breathtaking in its idiosyncratic way of writing on the emerging metropolis. Beyond the beautiful Sandborn map featured on the inside of the cover, I was enamored with Koolhaas’ inclusion of many iconographic images of old postcards documenting historical NYC buildings. Later, after living in the Big Apple while a student of architecture, I started collecting those picture postcards, which ultimately developed into a serious hobby, which has a name: Deltiology.
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