One theme of my Sabbatical time so far has been reading. Lots of books and lots of space to read. It has been glorious. So great. In fact, I'm certain that by the end of this thing I'll have read more in these six months than I have in the last six years.What have I been reading?!? You name it, I've read it. Whatever I want. Really, the cheap rack at Barnes and Noble has been my friend. But one genre that I've found to be totally interesting has been biography. Right now I'm halfway through A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Recently, I finished Born Standing Up, an autobiography from Steve Martin about his early years. And earlier it was Lone Survivor as well as Robin Gerber's excellent leadership biography of long-time Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham.
Those have all be terrific, but my favorite biography so far has been a book called Breaking Ground: Adventures in Life and Architecture by Daniel Libeskind. Libeskind's name might be familiar. He's the internationally-renowned architect whose design was selected to be the keystone of the Ground Zero memorial and re-design (his site is here).
So the book is part biography (just how does son of Holocoust survivers from Poland go on to become arguably the most influential architect in the world?!?). It's also part current events (little did I know about the consistant clashing of oversized egoes that goes on in the world of architecture). But the parts of the book that wowed me were the ones where Libeskind waxes philosophically about the profession of architecture. Here's one great example:
"If architecture fails, if it is pedestrian and lacks imagination or power, it tells only one story, that of its own making: how it was built, detailed, financed. But a great building--like great literature or or poetry or music--can tell the story of the human soul."
Rich stuff. He had me the whole way through. There's no doubt about it; reading Libeskind made me want to be an architect. Maybe in my next life.
And so it turns out that Libeskind is in process on some buildings in the states. He's doing stuff at the CityCenter on the strip in Vegas. And then Amy and I went over to see his Aura tower in Sacramento last week (picture here). Lastly, we visited his extension of the Denver Art Museum when we were in Colorado last month. Enjoy some pictures:
4 comments:
beautiful. I got to hear him speak at the AIA Convention in 2004(or 3), mostly about the Ground Zero design. I'll have to read this book. see you soon. nice photography too.
It's never too late. You'll need to get some more black clothes though. And fussy little glasses.
It's like a patriot missile.
If you could team lead in Fresno and be the Wild West area director surely you could be divisional director and have a little architecture business on the side.
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