Message #20278

[Bianca]

I would like to end by saying that he did influence a whole generation of architects, including myself, and my life would have been different without him. Even though I might talk critically about his work today, he did make me look at my own culture and my own place in a way no one else did. To me, his strength is not his architecture: I think New Gourna is a heroic failure. Much of his architecture has moved, ironically, from what it was supposed to be, an architecture for the poor, to architecture that is built and used by other groups of people who are by no means badly off. He is a reminder to us that there is more to architecture than economics, that what is valuable is looking at our own places and at who we are. I think those lessons, along with involving people in the ritual of building, and embracing a way of being in community, are things we should carry with us. He is amazingly important for those reasons. But we need to look at him with our eyes open.