I’ve got 20(?) years ahead of me to achieve what I am beginning to sketch out. My concept of the art of building is based on the fundamentals, all that my insufficient (or incomplete) resources have so far allowed me to master. NUS killed off my interest in form as the main component in architecture. Now as I arrived in my fourth year I only felt great emptiness inside me and I said to myself, ‘Poor thing, you don’t know anything yet, and worse still, you don’t know what it is that you don’t know.’ That was what caused me such bitter anxiety. Who should I ask? My spirit rebelled every so often, from time to time. If consulting the past is next step, I will choose the most impassioned fighters: the builders of Romanesque period, and learn to understand from them. Late study and reflection have persuaded me that architecture is not simply about harmony of form, but… something else… but what? I wasn’t sure.

I have made so many mistakes, and now I realized with horror just how many gaps there are in my knowledge of architecture. With horror and joy, because at last I realized what is worthwhile. I’ve been observing concrete on many construction sites, its composition, and the revolutionary forms that it demands. They seemed to cry out to me: logic, truth, away with dreams of the art of the past. An architect must have a logical brain in his head, he needs to be wary of the superficial effects, he must be a scientist with a heart, an artist and a scholar. The power is there I know, but it needs to be developed in the direction that I, perhaps unconsciously (because today I seem to deny my young life) was developing it here and on my journey, in my lonely years here. I say that this small success is premature, ruin is nigh. We should not build on sand.

posted by Graciana@Home at 1:55 pm