Monument of Travel

Abstract

Let's go up. Yeah, but it's raining. I know, let's just go. Well, we'll meet you up there.

"Therefore we travel not like messengers but like travelers. We do not think only about the departure and the arrival but also the interval separating them. The trip itself is a pleasure for us." Rousseau Emile, Book V

Convenience is tough on architecture. Most Americans have no time for architecture. Necessity has been diluted by today’s 24-hour, car fax, tummysizing, books-on-tape life-style. It is through a lack of convenience that one can see what is important and appreciate it.

“Primitive” forms, stone circles, mounds, and roads are generators of my projects; not in the sense of an homage or reference, but more in the sense of “that was the image I held in mind.” They try to produce some of the same feeling or presence. Few elements, simple forms, no clutter; I try to achieve clarity and control in the design of the object. Buildings to me are objects.

The ruins of Italy, Hadrian’s Villa and the Foro Romano were inspiring in their formal nature and in the presentation. To see a building as a ruin, to see the building as a section or as a plan, and to experience the generation of the architecture really started to define the basis of architecture.

In the Ticino region of Switzerland, these ideas were present in a different culture, specifically Galfetti’s Castelgrande project, as well as the existing castle. The region’s architecture made it possible to see what was important personally in architecture: the craft, the materials, and the sense of place.