749 I Like What I Really Like

A college friend, whom I've been in touch for 20 years, kindly introduced me to an architect and we had a wonderful talk over a nice glass of wine. He told about the story he had been in a project of Zaha Hadid architecture which unfortunately turned to be unbuilt in the end. He wished to join the project and that made him go back to his home leaving Italy where he had been enjoying his work as an architect for 10 years. I have been always wanting to be involved in architecture and design and so I was eager to learn his experience and expertise. He explained me on some of the features of Zaha Hadid works. It is more like mathematics than structural mechanism, such as parabola-shaped building. It is of course not easy to actually build mathematics, so the core member of the architecture naturally gets specialized. "Still", he said, "talking about such special architect", and we found both of us were very fond of Frank Gehry, and he talked about his latest marvelous work of the Foundation Louis Vuitton, according to his explanation Frank Gehry's work is not only unique in its shape but also wonderful in standardization and streamlining of its building components. "Frank Gehry creates his work from 3D model, not plan, which is an totally opposite way of normal designing". 

"Who is your favorite architect of all time?" was the next question between us. I said, simply, Le Corbusier, and my memory of seeing Villa Savoye had been one of my moments in life. He agreed. I asked him what was special about the house from the professional perspective. He told there were many, but above all, the use of warm light inside and outside of the architecture. I remember it and I remember the truly happiest feeling for the two hours spent in the house filled with warm autumn sunlight. It really felt like a special light.

Talking about light, I said "I've seen a very special color of evening sky in Helsinki," and it was my turn to speak up my experience because he had never been to northern Europe. It was a clear evening in early October, about 5pm, and the sky was super beautiful azure-blue that I had ever seen.

Then we kept on talking, talking and talking. We also talked about the splendid airport architectures, which was my favorite topic, like amazing Norman Foster's works all over the world. Then we found both of us not only liked airports but also airplanes and air travel. We talked and laughed how we always felt like an excited kid when we sat down the window seat in the airplane and it was about to leave the ground. 

We talked about Kyoto and how we were fond of the old beautiful city and its depth of culture. We even agreed that there were so many cities to visit, to see and to admire, but Kyoto was kind of in a class of its own and we couldn't help but visiting the city, or even at the same spot, over and over and over again.

I have always been wishing to be a part of world's greatest architecture and design project, for once in a lifetime. I will keep dreaming of it and I was extremely satisfied, however self-contented it might be, with the fact that I could happily share my own view and sense of appreciation of these wonderful masterpieces with a professional architect, simply based on my feelings that I liked them so much.