As you move through the city, the facade or outer wall is the first part of a building that you see. In traditional architecture, the facade had to be handled in one of a limited number of ways. Facades were made of stone or brick, sometimes with wood or stucco added. These days, there are …
Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) has almost never been literally emulated, and he left far fewer built works. His attitude and his buildings seem to be the exact opposite of a universal architecture: namely, expressions of particular circumstances, responses to local conditions, arising from a highly personal approach to material and form in architecture. Many are additions …
To me, architecture has always been a discipline, a métier. But it is also a way of being, of living, a key to seeing the world and perhaps to understanding it. Architecture is a discipline because it has a history, because there are traditions and accumulated knowledge to be absorbed. I do not believe that …
Is there still such a thing as the interior? Is it more than decoration? More than fitting out a building with all sorts of accessories according to the latest fashion? Interior designers are responsible for the curtains and the wallpaper; they choose the white marble or the coconut carpet. Maybe they go a little further, …
In the James Ivory film A Room with a View, we see a room with a view, with a window facing out into the distance, or perhaps into the future. A beautiful space, with special qualities, and at the same time a completely anonymous space, which has never prompted the question of who designed or …
