Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Letters to An Aspiring Architect
I was
where you were once, on the cusp of something really exciting, really big,
really intimidating. I had my own
preconceptions and misconceptions, hopes, dreams and fears, and maybe I still
do. There are a hundred things I’d tell my younger self, but I’ll begin with
just three:
Put that joy to work.
Get your hands dirty.
Look, look, look.
You are
heading this way not because you see architecture as a path to riches. You’re
smarter than that. But you think you can make a living doing something you
love; creating space, shaping community, building beautiful places.
To
begin with, design excites you and the prospect of dreaming it, planning it and
seeing it built brings you a deep kind of joy. Hold onto that – keep that alive
as you study the art form, as you learn the business, as you collaborate with
others who may (or may not) have that spark in them.
Nurture
your joy by living a life, not just doing a job. Get involved in the community.
Get to know and care about those clients and learn about their life. Study the
ways of the city you live in. Truly become a citizen. And then the good design
you produce will bring joy to you, just as it does to those who commissioned
it. Design for fun. Draw for pleasure. Don’t let deadlines and building codes
deaden your curiosity and smother your enthusiasm.
Secondly,
always have a bit of dirt under your finger nails.
Despite
the comforting illusion that buildings are isolated forms on a screen in front
of you, the reality is very much about weather, concrete strength, square
corners and good drainage. There is nothing that can replace or replicate time
spent on a construction site. And once on that site, there is nothing more
instructive than climbing a ladder, nailing down shingles, cutting rafter
angles, towelling concrete ...doing the coffee run for a bunch of fellow
builders.
It will
pay off in the way you detail your buildings, in your understanding of the
sequence of construction. Perhaps even
more importantly you’ll have empathy for the people who construct your designs
and an understanding of what is most important to them (and it likely won’t be
your design theory but rather the accuracy of your dimensions). And when you eventually arrive on site as the
designer, smack in the middle of the noise and mayhem of construction, you’ll
be at home and have some real
credibility. Maybe even respect. And
you’ll have a chance to wear that ancient mantle of Master Builder and deserve
it.
Don’t
just see, but truly observe, as Sherlock Holmes would say.
Pick apart the proportions of that temple. Think about why that great room feels
so right to you. Is it the light? The
height of the ceiling? The sound of your feet as you walk through it?
Don’t
worry that your first job might have you reading Building Codes and detailing
stairways in hospitals. The Parthenon can teach you, an ancient cottage can
speak to something deeper than those things, the width of a perfect street will
stay with you ...and you’ll use all this knowledge someday. You will.
To be a
good architect you need to be a great observer, a competent builder, a person
who thrills to good design. But the
tyranny of the urgent will try to subvert all this and soon you’ll only see
balance sheets, deadlines and the wolf at the door. That’s reality.
But the
reality is also that you have chosen the path of design, of creation. Use that
creative spark to keep the main things the main things. Stick with your gut
instincts, push for that excellent design, stay true to the things that
attracted you to this life in the first place.
Friday, April 25, 2014
FIRMNESS, COMMODITY & DELIGHT
A story of Venice and the New Georgian Era
First published in Perspectives Magazine Spring 2014 edition and in the new Perspectives Anthology book
The sirens had sounded early in the morning
signalling the impending aqua alta,
and he’d put his wellies on just in case. He’d been on Accedemia Bridge when
the Vaporetto loudspeakers gave the general evacuation order in four languages.
A group of giddy art students from Prague left the dry arch of the bridge onboard
a garbage scow, plastic bags taped over their shoes. They’d implored him to
join them. He declined, waved, and smiled.
The water was now almost
a metre high on the palazzo walls, and rising as twilight fell. Fish from the
Adriatic were already exploring new avenues through the cafes of Piazza San
Marco, coursing through emptied jewelry cases, hovering above upturned chairs
in the squares of Venice.
The sky was growing
angry again and it would soon start raining. It was only going to get worse:
the confluence of extreme high tide and record rainfall. Was this how it ended?
Not with a bang but a splutter? George flipped the page in his journal and
started another sketch.
Like many men his age, George, had been born the
same year as the British prince and then named after him. He’d hated his name
as a child; it mocked him from check-out line tabloids and celebrity hoopla.
But it grew on him and he grew into it: a solid, old-fashioned name. There were
three Georges in his final year at architecture school. The other two were more
serious than he was, and maybe more talented, but they became a brotherhood of
sorts and eventually formed a partnership: George3 Architecture.
George3 made a name for itself landing a plum
commission as the designers of Ikea’s new line of flat-pack houses. They were
the go-to firm for plug-and-play country houses and George would sometimes even
co-pilot the helicopters that delivered the injection-moulded creations to
sites in the hills north of the city. It all had an envigorating Brave New
World feel to it and the partners of George3 were riding the wave of
success. They drank Manitoba Merlot and joked about the coming of the New
Georgian Era.
George called in some
favours and finally found a position with a skyscraper demolition firm in
Toronto. He read and interpreted the old plans and charted strategies for
pulling down crumbling 50-storey liabilities, relics of the heyday of the
high-rise. Faded paper drawings cluttered his desk. He loved the line work, the
cross-hatching, the deft hand of the twentieth century architects. It was all
hieroglyphics to the technicians, adept as they were at animated hologram
presentations and 3D printing suites, but to George the drawings were a link to
a golden age.
He papered the galley
of his wedge-plan condo with old vellums of foundation details and side
elevations. He became a minor authority on traditional drafting techniques of
the late twentieth century, amassing a collection that read like the DNA of
Canadian Architecture. His drawn records were often all that remained of
buildings that were largely forgotten. An exhibition at the AGO followed. And
then, as he entered his fiftieth year, he was asked to curate the Canadian
Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Borrowing from Vitruvius, he’d named the show “Firmness,
Commodity and Delight: The Legacy of Architectural Drawing in Canada.” Archives
had opened for him, rare drawings arrived by courier, foam-core models in
crates. Old architects who had practised back in the 2020s and even earlier
sent him hard-copy gems from their files. Using these curious old tools –
models and drawings – George and his team put the raw seeds of his country’s
built legacy on display for the world.
The newly crowned
King, just turned fifty himself, was slated to open the British Pavilion and
tour Canada’s show. George would meet George.
The king was
architecture savvy as his grandfather Charles had been. He’d studied under Zaha
Hadid’s daughter at Cambridge, campaigned for brownfield development, given
lectures at the RIBA.
After the coronation, Neo-Georgian
Architecture became the style-du-jour. Columns and pediments adorned re-charge
stations along the Western Ontario Beltway. There was the usual righteous
backlash by architects, but at least architecture was in the press.
King George was slated
to visit the Canadian pavilion and review the legacy exhibition. As curator,
George hoped he’d have a chance for a bit of royal small talk, maybe compare
notes on their common first name. Could you ask a king for an autograph?
But that was before
the most relentless scirocco in
history started to pound the Venetian lagoon from the southeast. The Moses
flood defense system, which had worked for the first half of the century, was
overwhelmed. No one had predicted this.
The Biennale district
was flooded and evacuated before the exhibition could be dismantled. There
would be no opening ceremonies, no king, no autographs.
George stood on Accademia Bridge, looking east along
the Grand Canal. An exodus of boats and barges streamed below him, a parade no
one had ever wanted, heading for higher ground on mainland. The water rose so
fast he could follow its progress up the facades of the ancient palazzi,
drowning pilasters and pediments. George ignored orders from a passing fireboat
to leave the bridge. He waved them on and they yelled something frantic in
Italian, leaving him alone in the centre of the arch which now sprang from a
turbulent urban sea.
The invading waters
now lapped the tops of the ground floor windows, still rising. The twinkling
lights of the Jewel of Adriatic went dark as the power grid finally gave out,
sparking and fizzling into oblivion. George gripped his pencil tightly in a
shaky hand. In the dim twilight he kept drawing, as if he could somehow hold
back the water by recording things as they had always been: architecture as
frozen music: firm, commodious, delightful – and immovable. But the Venice he’d
known, the architecture the world had treasured, died quickly into darkness,
wrapped in a mist of hissing rain and wind.
Monday, January 27, 2014
London,Oxford,Sam & Me
Travelling with an architects' eye (and a baby)
We knew not what to expect, my wife and I, when we set off for six long weeks of trekking around England. We'd been there before, but then it was just the two of us, a bit of loose change and an architecture guide book. This time, it would be an autumn trip with three children in tow, all under 9, (which meant six extra backpacks, a baby seat, a stroller, and enough gummy bears to drive toothpaste shares through the roof.) And as with the English weather, we had no way of predicting if things would be fair or foul, stormy or calm.
Yet we were fairly certain of
one thing at least: Samuel would make life difficult for us. Sam is 2.
Nothing wrong with 2, of course;
some of our nicest friends had once been 2. But Sam, being 2 and proud of it,
was out to undo what he could of our adventure. He had just learned to run
(sideways), was long overdue for some sort of life-threatening sickness
(probably Ebola), and was developing an alarming fondness for anything edible
(and sugar-coated) or toylike (and plastic-coated).
Well-meaning but heartless
friends had smiled weakly and suggested meekly that perhaps we should consider
leaving Sam at home. Rumour had it that we were taking nannies in sufficient
numbers to post a round-the-clock watch on him and his habits of mass destruction.
Yet in the end, we went it alone, ready to take whatever he could throw at us.
What he did throw at us (apart
from masticated gummy bears and half-empty bottles of HP sauce) was the chance
to take stock and ask some slow-motion questions of ourselves. Did we really
need to travel at that old hectic pace, cameras blazing? Did two cities in one
day mean as much as one city in two weeks? Were frantic flybys as rewarding as
measured contemplation?
Sam was a bear without his
afternoon nap, and it soon became painfully apparent that we'd either have to
sit inside every afternoon, losing the best part of a day’s exploration, or
he'd have to sleep while we explored. The choice was between Simmering
Frustration (and British soap operas) or Travels With The Amazing Sleeping
Baby. We opted for the latter.
We went on tour, baby Sam and I,
during the afternoons. While Katy took Harry and Molly on adventures in search
of dragons and elves, I pushed him in a peaceful sleep-walk through the
landscapes of my own Grand Tour.
I'd been to Bath before and
marched through its crescents and squares like any duty-bound student of
architecture, but this time it was different. My pace was slow and the rhythm
of my walking was measured, thoughtful. Sam slept in tranquil oblivion beneath
his horsey-blanket, Curious George next to his blushed cheek. At such a pace,
the nuance of the honey-coloured stone wasn't lost on me, and hardly a doorway
in John Wood's Royal Crescent escaped detailed analysis.
I studied the serene Georgian
proportion in complete silence under the October sky, walked the leaf-strewn
side streets, chatted in hushed tones with doormen, followed the movements of
the clouds as they hurried towards winter.
It soon became a habit, these
afternoon strolls; quiet, thoughtful, introspective. Strolls that would once
have been frustrated aggravation became walks of discovery. I began to see just
how much I'd been missing. The tour books had lied: a city a day? Walking tours
that cover the centre of Oxford in just two hours? Sam and I spent as much time
just crunching through the russet leaves of a deserted Botanical Garden, the shadows of Magdalen
College growing long beside us. Nothing could give one the sense of quiet
contemplation that can be achieved at the controls of a stroller filled with a
sleeping two year old.
With time to observe, my pencil
and sketchbook came back into play. On the banks of the Cherwell, punters
passed silently as under the blankets, Sam sailed on plush waves to the land of
nod, sung to sleep by the ancient stones around him that "whispered"
as Matthew Arnold put it, "the last enchantments of the Middle Ages."
Weeks of such afternoons passed,
the stroller wheels showing their age, axles squeaking. We passed through
villages and small towns, ruined abbeys and walled gardens and arrived finally
in the hectic bulls-eye of action: London.
We studied the vanguard of
modern London’s construction boom, circled the Great Court of the British Museum for an hour, studying details,
soaking in the freedom of a slowed pace. We walked the paths of Regent's Park
on a lazy Sunday afternoon, avoiding impromptu football games by a safe margin,
lightly crossing the cobbles, greatly enjoying tranquility in the centre of the
metropolis.
It would never have been like
this without Sam and his annoying need
for an afternoon nap. I would never have slowed to this pace without the pace
of a slumbering child to slow me. I wouldn't have noticed the frozen angels in
the cathedral close in Salisbury without him, or had time to solve the maze at
Hampton Court (twice). Instead, I would have rushed headlong, striking names
from the list I had mentally prepared back in architecture school. Shooting
photos, marching through history, missing the minute details, the quiet lanes,
the glories of an architecture that took time to absorb.
“Even sleepers are workers and
collaborators in what goes on in the universe”, said Heraclitus in 500 BC. Heraclitus knew his
babies, I'd say.
Katy and I had given our family
a six-week trek through the heart of an autumnal England. Sam, his little
blonde head oblivious to it all, had given the subtle shading of the ancient
stones back to me.
***
Originally published in the Globe & Mail and in PERSPECTIVES mag.
David
Gillett
Monday, November 11, 2013
Walking The Wild Lands
Published in the GLOBE AND MAIL TRAVEL SECTION NOVEMBER 2.2013
Ominous
storm clouds framing her jolly face, Mary Whistance offered us some pre-walk
advice in her cheery Welsh lilt: “Tomorrow is the best day of the whole trail.
Hergest Ridge is a right lovely walk. Steep though. And if a storm comes on,
you’re in for it. A walker died up there last month, so he did. Poor lad, a boy
and a half he was! Three days before they found him.” Her smile fizzled when
she stole a furtive glance at the brooding sky.
It was the third day of our 136-kilometre walk north along the Offa's Dyke Path, which loosely follows the Welsh/English border. While we ate our Welsh fry-up breakfast ("Job done tidy! You slaughtered those sausages , you did!") Mary's warning added fuel to the theory forming in my mind: Nothing on this long-distance path is as it first appears. This is a land of mist and magic.
The Offa’s Dyke Path is named
after King Offa of Mercia who, in the 8th century, built the dyke as a sort of
poor man’s Hadrian Wall to keep the marauding Welsh mountain men at bay.
Zig-zagging from Chepstow in the south on the Bristol Channel, north to
Prestatyn on the Irish Sea, it is sometimes a great bank up to almost eight metres
high with a deep ditch to the westerly Welsh side. It is a fascinating raison
d’être for a National Trail: a route that follows a engineered landscape rather
than a geographic feature such as mountains or a coast line.
That does not mean the path,
Llwydr Clawdd Offa in Welsh is an easy stroll through a bucolic British
postcard. To be sure, it has its moments of breathtaking views across lush
green valleys dotted with remote villages, hills rolling off into the distance.
But once up close and personal, the green hills are two-hour uphill slogs
littered with climbs over countless styles,//what do you mean by this?/// the
path itself strewn with ankle-twisting rocks or mud the consistency of
sticky-toffee pudding. It is wild country, this border land known as the Welsh
marches, home to centuries of raids, skirmishes and midnight sheep-stealing.
Fortunately, the wild is tempered by the homey pubs and friendly B&Bs
spaced at walkable intervals.
My wife and I had chosen to do
the southern portion of the path – considered by many to be the best half –
from Chepstow to Knighton, a doable six-day walk. (Those wishing to do the
whole 285 kilometres should allow at least 12 days with rest time added.)
Since it was mid-September, we’d
prepared well for rain but soon learned that British weather reports are
notoriously pessimistic and usually wrong. Every night we’d hear rumblings at
the pub and earnest predictions on the BBC: tomorrow will be wet, windy and
turning cold.
But our heavy rain pants and
ponchos stayed in our packs and we went digging for sunblock instead.
As Mary had warned, it was just
as well. Several sections of the path are well above 500 metres, and what can
be an annoying breezy rain in town can be deadly on the heights of the lonely
Black Mountain Moors.
We learned quickly that the path
is a smorgasbord of variety. One moment, it traverses a cool, wooded ridge high
above the Wye Valley. The next it drops down and passes the magnificent ruins
of Tintern Abbey, founded by hardy Cistercian monks in 1131. A few miles later,
it crosses a cast-iron bridge, built at the smokey heights of the Industrial
Revolution, when the Welsh Hills were ravaged for coal and slate. Then it’s
through a lonely windswept moor with distant views west to Brecon Beacons and
east to the Malvern Hills, mountain sheep our only company.
Some days we’d never meet another
soul for hours, leading to suspicions that the Offa’s Dyke is Britain’s
best-kept long-distance hiking secret. But just as the changeable weather was
never predictable, suddenly a bustling town would unfold in front of us.
Two hours after a knee-popping
descent from the desolate heights of Hay Bluff in the Black Mountains, where on
a clear day one is treated to a good view of magnificent Lord Hereford’s Knob,
the path bisects the town of Hay-on-Wye. We made straight for the Granary Cafe
for two bowls of organic Gooseberry crumble and coffee.
“Something really smells in
here,” said Katy, tactfully surveying the room.
“Yea. Us.”
But sheep dung and mud is a
ho-hum reality in Hay, famous for its 30 bookshops – including the Murder and
Mayhem Bookshop, the Poetry Bookshop and the Sensible Bookshop – the popular
Hay Festival and Richard Booth, the self-styled king of Hay, who lives in the
castle surrounded by groaning shelves of ancient books and notices brashly proclaiming
political independence from Britain. We’d scheduled a rest day here and it was
worth it. For a couple of Canadian bibliophiles, Hay-on-Wye, the world’s first self-proclaimed
“book town,” was bittersweet: So many books, but no way to carry them.
It was good we didn’t try, since
the next day, our second last, was a gruelling 27 kilometres up and down over
some of the most heart-stoppingly picturesque A.E. Housman countryside
imaginable, liberally strafed with more than fifty stiles, a few questioning
bulls, a fierce (but muzzled!) Rottweiler and hundreds of sheep.
The last night, tired but
unbowed, we reached the comfy, isolated hill town of Knighton, the official end
of the south half, start point for the wilder northern section and home to the
Offa Dyke Centre with T-shirts, books and strange King Offa mannequins.
Staying with the Sharatts, who
had a cozy sitting room well-stocked with maps and trail guides, was a fitting
end to our trek. Not only did Pat tackle our long overdue laundry, but Geoff
was a fount of helpful advice and knowledgeable comment.
“Too bad you’re ending it here,”
he said in an enthusiastic lilt. “Because tomorrow’s stretch is the best part
of the walk: most variety, best scenery … and toughest. Steep too. If the weather
comes, you’re in for it.”
Now, where had we heard that
before?
IF YOU GO
Getting there: Buses run daily to Chepstow, the southern start point, from London’s
Gatwick and Heathrow airports. nationalexpress.com Train service to Chepstow is
also good, typically running through Newport. nationalrail.co.uk
When to go: The trail can be walked any time, but prime season is April to October.
(In the off season, accommodations will be harder to find.) In spring, the days
are longer and sometimes a bit wetter. The fall is a beautiful time to walk,
but days are much shorter.
Where to stay: The Bear Inn is an atmospheric 16th-century coaching
inn. Located in the middle of Hay-On-Wye, close to all the bookshops,
restaurants and pubs. Inventive local cuisine and snug, well-decorated rooms
make it a memorable stopover. Double rooms from £70 ($118) a night; thebearhay.com
Geoff and Pat Sharratt have been
hosting walkers since 1999 in their spacious Victorian house, now known as Westwood**, a B&B in Knighton. They have lots of maps and
guides and are well-versed on the trail and the weather. From £25 ($42) a
person a night; 1-54-752-0317
For more information,
visit the Offa’s Dyke Assocation atoffasdyke.demon.co.uk for planning tips, accommodation
ideas and to order guides and maps.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Britain's Best Kept Hiking Secret
Front page of the Saturday November 2 Globe and Mail Travel section...http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/travel/destinations/walk-through-the-wild-lands-of-wales/article15214589/
Read it online here and wait for me to post the whole thing,
(pictures and all) soon.
Read it online here and wait for me to post the whole thing,
(pictures and all) soon.
Monday, March 11, 2013
Katy, by Anthony Jenkins
A lovely little illustration in the Globe & Mail Travel section by Anthony Jenkins, the Globe editorial cartoonist...showing Katy Gillett atop Stanege Edge, Derbyshire, England. Yes, she is striking the pose made famous by Keira Knightley in Pride and Predjudice, at that point in the movie which is arguably the most moving 12 seconds of non-dialogue film in cinematic costume drama history.Yes, she has a very long neck. And yes, those are hiking poles in her hands.
"Why?" you ask, and not without reason (I must confess).
....and for comparison, at left is a photo of that lady on that rock....
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