Past, Present & Future: The Inaugural Column

For my inaugural column on architecture I thought it appropriate to establish some guidelines for future columns.

First and foremost, I will not write about a piece of architecture I have not visited personally. I learned long ago that looking at a photograph, or reading a critique by others was no way to experience architecture. Like any work of art it should be experienced early and often, and most certainly at night.

After my first sighting of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, or the Museo Guggenheim de Bilbao as it is called in Spain, I could not wait to see it under the lights. Similarly, my first visit to Herzog and de Meuron’s acrobatic parking garage in Miami Beach, Florida paled when next seen with its floating horizontal planes up-lit in colored light.

Going forward, I will make no apologies for my long and continuing love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright. When I first realized architecture was my calling, the only architectural books in the Gadsden, Alabama Public Library (where I grew up) were two volumes on Wright’s life and work. As such, he was my touchstone.

One Sunday my parents drove me to Florence, Alabama to see one of Mr. Wright’s Usonian Houses. From that point, the game was on.

In addition to Mr. Wright, I was influenced early in my education at Auburn University by the work of the great modernist, Eero Saarinen, and my mentor, Paul Rudolph, for whom I worked in the mid 1970s in New York. Expect those names to crop up occasionally as well.

While I have a keen interest in modernism, there is no better architectural education than a first-hand knowledge of the classics. Having visited many great ancient architectural sites—in Egypt, Greece, Italy, Japan—the experience only adds to the overall knowledge, appreciation, and, in many cases, a direct conceptual link to modernist concepts. Thus, my column, “Past, Present & Future” will focus on both historical and current architectural trends.

Recent trips to Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and Valencia, Spain provided a trove of architectural experiences. Upcoming trips to Rome, and at long last, Berlin and Istanbul will provide substantial opportunities to revel in a millennia of styles.

I look forward to sharing these forays with you. And to drawing a line—whether parallel, tangential or intersecting—to our own East End architectural experience, which is legendary, full of talent and ever evolving.

Next time, “The Horizontal Line.”