Travels

I recently returned from a wonderful family vacation trip to Paris, France with my wife and son Thomas. The architecture, the food, the people, etc., etc. It was everything I had expected and more. Midway through our trip we had taken a slight diversion and decided to spend half of the day and take a short train ride west of the city and visit Villa Savoye in Poissy. Designed by Le Corbusier in 1928, Villa Savoye still remains as one of the most iconic examples of early modern architecture.  I had studied this house at extreme lengths during my architecture school days back in the 1980's, but to finally experience it first-hand was truly amazing.  Over the years, it has clearly shown some signs of wear, but looking beyond the surface you can easily see why this is simply a masterful work of art.  There is nothing in this house that happens by accident. The interplay of forms and surfaces, the contrasting elements of light and dark, and curved and rectilinear lines all interacting with each other into a carefully orchestrated symphony.  Putting all the architectural theory and design philosophy aside, what made this such a profound experience was being able to share this experience with my 9 year old son. He had seen pictures of the house that I had shown him prior to our trip and he had heard me speak about the architecture. Over the last year he had wanted to build the Lego version of Villa Savoye since he had built so many others in their Architecture Series. After walking around the house for over an hour I watched as he sat on the stone bench across the lawn.  As he sat there for a little while obviously deep in thought, he opened up his sketchbook and began to draw. That to me was what this was all about.