Architects: Philip Johnson and Richard Foster: Elmer Holmes Bobst Library: New York University
“You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around, now it may show
I don't know, I don't know”.
Something
George Harrison
And
The Beatles
Every known structure was designed or built as an understanding of what may be a purpose: Whether a shrine or a box, purpose mattered:
The best of architects have walked alone without imagining: The best architects imagine:
From the Renaissance to Modernism: Filippo Brunelleschi to Oscar Niemeyer and everyone between and after: I have sought out their lives: I have photographed what they have imagined, what remains:
I interpret the experiences: Their experiences become mine: Their structures were designed to explore not echo others: I have only attempted to see them, to hear their voices:
Architect: Cesar Pelli: Bloomberg Headquarters: New York City
Three-hundred years of photographers before me: Their lenses have become mine: The lives of cities in our lenses is a life worth imagining:
My many thousand frames are meant to be shared: The exterior of my interior thoughts retrace my visual heart embedded in my history:
I stood in Mark Rothko’s studio: I remember how he valued the silence: Maybe he dreamed of the silence I inhabit:
I held hands with Oscar Niemeyer: We silently drafted ideas together: Not more than one-hundred words spoken in English, French nor Portuguese: It seemed we talked about our century together
I talked about my miles in Tokyo: Arata Isozaki grabbed my hand as we walked into his study:
I remember everything we talked about: I remember how he offered his moment:
Philip Johnson shared his acres of real estate for an entire day and years beyond: The conversations were silently raucous: Every word meant more than the light of the day: The days became volumes: My life encased with another in an unnatural storybook:
Architect: Richard Rogers Stirk Harbour+Partners: Neo Bankside
The buildings my cameras capture, have another life: The quietude of the unknown
When Filippo Brunelleschi wanted to show the accomplishment of his design, his room was empty:
When every designer of another time wanted to celebrate the moment to share: The rooms were empty: So we imagine. In the moment it is what we hear our voices say that grab us by the heart: But who is there to hear our…:
By minute and by hour my camera recognizes a pose: My mind sets it but who else hears what I do:
George Frederic Handel and Jimi Hendrix left a legacy that most have not seen: If you allow, they appear side by side: If you wander, your mind may fantasize: Their London Brook Street address by itself is quite banal: Side by side there is only something that a visual composition may imagine: It is the Messiah entangled in The Wind Cries Mary: When you can listen to the sides inside the building may you interpret the importance of an architectural capture:
It is like a winter storm colliding with a sirocco: Something beautiful happens: New dreams unfold: Does the African Bongo mate with the Arctic Polar Bear: Does the black raven balance an Orangutans its talons: What happens across millenniums: What if Nero lived: What might the Colosseum be: What if Thoreau stood naked at Walden: If Napoleon danced with Nietzsche:
All the ideas that flourish in a mere fraction as the camera awaits the command:
Authors and artists imagine success: They live in realities dreams everyday: The clock ticks, the page closes the canvas drips the paint dries: It is the way of being alone with a rollicking imagination that makes life matter: Then w imagine others: Maybe Hawthorne, Melville, Crane and Twain come to mind: Maybe there are battles and heroics never imagined before: They were alone” Alone and abounding with the moment that is a finale: But it is not: There is no sound: Only passion abounds: Hendrix and Handel return: I am alone on Brook street: The music plays as one ensemble:
I am alone: The camera shutter vibrates:
Tomorrow begins:
Architect Ricardo Bofill: Walden 7 Sant Just Desvern