Fast Forward Architecture

My sister Sue has always patiently gone along with my Quixotic tours of architecture whenever we exchange visits or meet up in some new city.  Over the years she has explored with me: Bernard Maybeck works in the San Francisco bay area, Walter Burley Griffin in Iowa, Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles, and Faye Jones in Nebraska.  In return for these peripatetic adventures she sometimes comes up with an interesting find of which I was not aware.  On a recent train trip from Wisconsin to New Mexico she spotted this gem from her Pullman window.

1. Snapped from the train.

Wow! Who authored this edgy architecture?  Yes, it looks like an architectural model with fake trees and cardboard landscape.  But it really is a fast forward design that wasn't too concerned with the usual rules.  My role as "architectural tour leader" was being eroded since this looked like something I should have known about.  I made two guess:  this bore the DNA of either Bart Prince or Antoine Predock.  Not "Goffy" enough for Prince, maybe.  But a little too fragile for Predock.   A mystery.

I contacted Greg Walke to solve it.  Greg is an architect living in New Mexico.  (The snapshots are obviously near the end point of my sister's train ride, in New Mexico, ,judging from the vegetation.)  He immediately identified it as a Bart Prince project near Lamy, New Mexico.

2. Fast forward architecture.

For those of you who do not know Prince's work:  he has donned the avante garde mantle worn by Bruce Goff.  As one of Goff's most creative proteges he completed Goff's annex to the Los Angeles Museum of Art upon Goff's passing.  The annex houses the Japanese collection of Joe Price.  Joe Price is the son of Harold C. Price who built the famous Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

3. Price Tower by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Joe Price was Goff's most significant patron and later provided several important commissions for Bart Prince.  A complicated architectural lineage;  if you want to know more about this significant branch of American architecture you can explore these links:

Bruce Goff  (Nice short video.)
Price Tower
LACMA Japanese Art Pavilion
Bart Prince

(Thanks for the tip, Sue.)

Credits:


1. Sue Knorr
2. Sue Knorr
3. Emerson Biggens

Finding Peace Amidst Urban Chaos

Architecture serves many different functions by many different means. One of the functions of architecture is to provide a calm center when surrounded by noise and distractions. Examples are readily available: A home is a place for nurture and family activities. An office building protects the work environment from outside influences. A house of worship provides sanctuary for prayer and meditation. A theater totally and completely shuts out the distractions of everyday life to allow new worlds to emerge on stage.

Since most of us live in metropolitan areas, many of them with big, world-class problems, it may be useful to consider how the built environment can provide relief from urban stress.

1. Indoor/outdoor connections expand living space and
 connect with nature on an urban lot.

We can (and should) shape architecture to make life more efficient, more interesting, and more enjoyable. This also means architecture can provide a peaceful retreat amdist chaos. The consequences of world-wide urbanization are  noise, congestion, pollution, wasted time. Intense development spawns traffic jams, urban heat sinks, and personal irritations. These circumstances affect everyone living in cities. How we choose to live with this disarray directly affects our mood and wellbeing. Let’s look at different types of architecture and how we can shape them to improve our relationship to the urban environment.

Residential

It is tempting to design our homes as sealed environments that completely shut out the city and its problems. In fact, many of us do live in air-conditioned boxes with drawn drapes and no hint of nature. This is a failure of design. It means that windows are inadequately protected from direct sunlight, that shady outdoor spaces have not been provided, and that the physical structure treats the natural environment as an enemy. In reality, most places have delightful weather most of the time.   Given the proper architectural setting, we can enjoy both indoors and outdoors. The architecture of our homes should have spaces that embrace the natural environment while still sheltering us from the bad influences inherent in an urban setting.

Commercial

For a variety of reasons, it is difficult to design commercial buildings without relying on mechanical air conditioning. However, one consequence of this condition is that even our “down time” (coffee breaks, lunch time, commuting, etc.) is divorced from a natural life. To compensate, office buildings ought to be woven into the urban fabric in a way that is integrated with nature wherever possible.  Most office buildings huddle

2. Roof terraces provide outdoor spaces for employees in
this office building in Denver, Colorado.

next to freeway exits, isolated by access roads and parking lots. We need to design communities where living, working, shopping, and relaxation are a unified experience.  Our commercial buildings also need places that invite us outside (terraces, balconies, courtyards) and interior rooms that utilize natural light.

3. A skylight and ample windows establish a
connection with the natural environment in
this conference room.

Retail

Retail architecture is dominated by big box stores and chain outlets. These corporate entities have formulas for facilities design that are determined in distant headquarters with little recognition of local conditions. That’s why everything tends to look the same wherever you go. This is a difficult circumstance to overcome. But small efforts can go a long way in improving our shopping experience.

Integrating residential, commercial, and retail design into user-friendly communities is a strategy for finding peace amidst urban chaos.  Retail environments should be conceived as neighborhoods rather than shopping centers.  Time and energy is saved for more productive and more enjoyable pursuits when neighborhoods integrate residential, commercial and retail functions.  This notion is a function of both urban planning and architectural design. It is not a new idea, but it is only a good idea if implemented everywhere throughout the urban fabric. There’s not much point in providing nice places to escape urban chaos if you have to drive twenty miles to get there.

4. European sidewalk cafe.

The solution lies in providing nodes of activity that interweave work, entertainment, recreation, and living.  Every new project is an opportunity to employ this strategy as a means to a brighter future.

5. Integrating residential, commercial and retail is a strategy
for finding peace amidst urban chaos. (Paris cafe.)

Credits:
1. Photography Rob Munger. Architecture by Michael Knorr & Associates.
2.-3. Architecture by Michael Knorr & Associates.
4. Photography Shawn Lipowski.
5. Photography Arnaud25.

Mr. Governor, Tear Down These Walls

There is lots of conversation recently about the dire condition of the Colorado state capitol dome.  It is crumbling away as you read this.  Something must be done -- soon. However, more than just the dome is in bad shape.   This would be a good time to question the viability of the entire building.  

The Colorado state capitol building in Denver.

The golden dome is a familiar fixture in downtown Denver. It has been around longer than our oldest legislators.  With its prominent location and its august function, we tend to think of the building as something truly significant.  Take a closer look.  The state capitol building has never been good architecture.  Not only is it structurally vulnerable, it is esthetically and functionally inept.  Thus, it fails on all three legs upon which architecture should rest: commodity, firmness, and delight (in the words of Vitruvius).

A brassy interior.

Underneath: crumbing structure.

E.E. Myers designed the building in 1886.  The Illinois-based architect devised an ungainly Victorian pastiche of meaningless Greco-Roman details.  Mr. Myers specialized in the design of government buildings, none of them remarkable.  Other architects designed state capitols in the classical style with much greater effect.  Wisconsin’s, for example, has exterior gravitas and interior grandeur that far exceeds our state’s meager effort.  Some capitols have followed a more adventuresome path, as with Nebraska’s art deco departure from conventionality.   However, Colorado’s grey granite edifice has neither style nor panache.   Its labyrinthine interior looks like an explosion in a Corinthian column factory.  The drear halls are dead, except for unexpected reflections due to an excessive use of polished brass.  Offices are inadequate, with some legislators doubling up. Secretaries and clerks labor in miserly square footage. Over the years, the various rooms have become makeshift and make-do.  Whatever is meant by state of the art, this building’s heating, air conditioning, and lighting are the opposite of. 

Upper dome structure.

What could we accomplish by starting fresh?  The possibilities are thrilling to contemplate.   Perhaps we could have a design that retains parts of the lower structure (to commemorate the past) but replaces the existing dome and roof with a glass dome that allows visitors to peer into the chambers of government.  Architect Norman Foster did exactly that with his design for the new Reichstag in Berlin.  This triumph of architecture symbolizes the transparency of democracy.   Another approach might draw inspiration from Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1957 proposal for a new Arizona state capitol.  His design was a hexagonal tracery of trellises and atriums intended as an oasis in the desert.  Colorado deserves a building as symbolic of our unique environment as Wright’s would have been for Arizona’s.  

Why do we assume something is good just because it is old?  Of course, we should recycle everything of intrinsic or historic value.  Reuse some of the stone.  Save the beautiful artwork.   Reinstall the existing paneling in a creative new way.   However, let’s admit this fussy old relic is simply not up to the task of serving a state whose population has increased 900 percent since it was built.  Let’s build something new and fresh and important.  One additional benefit of creating a new capitol:  we can get all the parking underground, where it belongs.  Currently, legislators’ vehicles encircle the capitol like wagons under siege.  This situation is one of the most unsightly pedestrian approaches to any capitol in the country. 

Rooftop of the renewed Reichstag in Berlin.

Of course, this radical idea inevitably faces a wall of economic reality.  Under current conditions, this proposal does not seem feasible or possible.  No doubt, most readers were raising financial objections after the first paragraph.  However, this is an idea to develop over several years, not right this moment.  Consider how a population of only 500,000 Coloradans was able to conceive and finance a structure that has served for over a century.  We would honor their can do spirit by creating a greater state capitol for the next one hundred years.  Perhaps for the next thousand.  Why should it be difficult for this generation to conceive of a truly great building that is a fiting symbol for this state?  We can buy some time with minimal stabilization of the dome and then consider a long-term solution.  

Our state capitol has outlived its usefulness.  Now we are presented with an opportunity to do better.    


Credits:


Reichstag by Bjorn Laczay.
All others by Knorr.

Architecture and Virtual Reality

1.  Department of the Navy virtual reality training.

We cannot detach architecture from its environment and study it as an isolated object. The sounds and scents of nature contribute to the feelings we have about our buildings. The mood of the Golden Pavilion in Japan is very different from the surroundings of Villa d'Este in Italy.  Neither can be removed from its setting and maintain the same meaning. 

Yet there is serious talk about the idea that architecture might someday, somehow be replaced by virtual reality.  Read various architectural journals like Architecture or sci-tech magazines like Wired, and the idea crops up perennially.

For readers not wired into the terminology, this is how Wikipedia defines virtual reality:

2. Golden Pavilion (Kinkaky-ji), Kyoto, Japan.

Virtual reality (VR) is a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate places in the real world as well as in imaginary worlds. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications.


The Colombia Encylopedia has a similar definition.  They are basicaly saying that it is possible to create the experience of riding a digitally-simulated roller coaster, for example, that is indistinguishable from riding an actual roller coaster.  The two experiences would be identical. 

3. Garden of Ryoanji.  Kyoto, Japan.

Let's be clear about this:  the environment around a work of architecture contributes to its character.    Context matters.  Time and space affect architecture and become part of it.  For these reasons, VR will never replace architecture. 

Well, I should temper that assertion:  VR will never replace architecture unless and until we reach some sort of Matix-like level of experiential unreality.  (To coin a phrase.)  We're a long way from that event.

4. Villa d'Este.  Tivoli, Italy.

There will come a time when architects will use virtual reality to make presentations of their ideas to clients. The technology is already available, but the techniques are expensive and cumbersome. Will virtual reality ever completely replace architecture? Will a virtual Notre Dame substitute for the real thing? It will only if you believe that Walt Disney’s Epcot Center is a viable substitute for a tour of Europe. The real thing contains  too many layers of subtlety, nuance and detail – not to mention spontaneity and serendipity - to faithfully be replicated.  The muscular movement of negotiating steps, the feel of ambient sunlight on a wooden porch, the temperature of filtered light through a carved screen. These ways of experiencing architecture have nothing to do with vision alone or any form of virtual reality now possible. Architecture is a total immersion experience. A computerized substitute will be a great presentation or teaching tool. However, there will be no Star Trek-like holideck for architecture in the foreseeable future.

5. Vekomaboomerang steel roller coaster.

If a building does not evoke some sort of emotional or intellectual response it probably isn’t architecture. Architecture has meaning. That is what distinguishes architecture from mere structure and simple shelter.  And it will be what distinguishes real architecture from a virtual fake. 

6.  Trekkie Borg.

So, to all you trekkies, avatars, and simulacra out there:  fasten your seatbelts; you'll be riding the real architecture roller coaster for a long time.

Credits: 

1. Interior Dept.
2. David Monniaux
3. S. Fujioka
4. Mmxbass
5. Will McC
6. Bruno Girin 

Architecture, Symbolism, and Signs

1. Las Vegas welcomes you to a land of illusions.

Architecture has meaning.  To say that is to say that architecture conveys information and is a means of communication. Communication can be overt or subtle. Literal or symbolic.  The first, overt communication, is the most recognizable.  In this category are ordinary conversation, print media, and graphic communications such as television and movies. The second category, symbolic communication, includes the arts: poetry, music, paintings, architecture. Subtle communications may include empathy, sympathy, mental telepathy, and body language. Obviously, these categories overlap and the boundaries between them are somewhat arbitrary.  Movies, for example, often contain a lot of symbolism.

Architecture overlaps categories as well.  A building sends overt messages by being -- sometimes very literally -- a sign.  A steeple communicates church and golden arches say hamburgers.  The 1972 book, Learning from Las Vegas, explored this idea.  The authors (Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour) contend that, in Las Vegas, entire buildings are really nothing more than signs.  Driving up Interstate 15 at sixty miles an hour, the Excalibur Hotel, among others, acts as a billboard.  It is an improbable fantasy of King Arthur's court.  Its disproportioned towers and turrets are bright with color and impossible to ignore.  The entire structure screams, STOP!  We can entertain the kids and the parents!  Go no further! One can easily imagine a family with children immediately persuaded to spend the night.  Other Las Vegas structures beckon with exotic facades promising a night in Venice or a romantic stay in Paris.  Most of these venues took shape long after Learning from Las Vegas was published.  However, it is more true today than ever:  Las Vegas hotels are not architecture;  they are signs. The most honest assessment of this is contained in the name of one of the hotels:  Mirage.  These buildings are illusory. The over-scaled pinnacles and turrets of Excalibur have no interior resolution. There is no place inside the Excalibur where you are actually in a turret.  It is an illusion.  A mirage.  A big sign.  The Venetian hotel has indoor canals (astonishingly, flowing above the casino through a second floor shopping mall).  The Paris hotel offers a one-fifth-scale Eiffel Tower.  There is a pyramid down the street at Luxor.  None of this is architecture.  It is a collection of signs.  Or, perhaps more charitably, grand theater.

2. Excalibur promises Camelot with a riot 
of turrets, pinnacles, and battlements.

2.  Gondoliers serenade tourists in a
fake canal beneath a fake sky at the Venetian.

In architecture, more impressive messages fall into symbolic and subtle categories. If a message is too obvious it is kitsch. A hot dog stand in the shape of a hot dog is kitsch. Most of Las Vegas is kitsch, along with much of roadside America. However, if a message is too subtle -- “in jokes” that only architects might understand or obscure historical references that are lost to time -- then meaning is lost as well. The most enjoyable and most enduring meaning in architecture is in the subtle nuances of space, texture, shadows, scale, rhythm, etc. These things convey information about how we might feel and provide spaces that encourage reflection. Really good architecture offers depth to the experience.  One fine example of this is Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  It conveys strength in its structure and a sense of melancholy in its colors and siting.  This information is conveyed in the architecture through subtle signs.

3.  The giant hot dog in Bailey, Colorado.

 It is obvious to most people that architecture has meaning in pedigreed structures that are sanctified by history and authority. It may be less obvious in more humble architecture, such as the buildings we live in. But residential architecture is also capable of highly personal and rewarding meaning. If this concept holds for the great architecture of the world, then why not also in our homes — the buildings where we spend most of our time? Consider Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin. Hearth and home could hardly be expressed in any more meaningful way. It is a celebration of home. The warm colors, rich textures, and central weight of the fireplace all beckon in a primeval way to experience the comforts of home.

Residential architecture can enhance experience with meaning in varying degrees of subtlety and nuance. Among the possibilities: architecture can create a sense of arrival at the front door. It can convey charm and grace in our living spaces, relaxation where we sleep and communion with nature as it extends outward to terraces and gardens. Kitchens and breakfast areas can be bright and cheery; dining rooms can be romantic or or grand, depending on personal preferences and the weight of the occasion. Perhaps above all, architecture of all types can provide a sense of shelter and protection beyond the practical needs of keeping out bad weather or bad people. Architecture can offer a deep-seated assurance that all is well in our environment.

Interior decorating can augment these environments, but it is a failure of architecture if surface treatments and furniture arrangements are the only means to convey meaning. Architecture is meaningful in a powerful three-dimensional sense. It is accomplished by manipulating interior volume, controlling color and light, and arranging structure to support the intents of the design.

5.  Bernard Maybeck's Palace of Fine Art.

Architecture can be appreciated at face value (façade literally means face) with a great deal of enjoyment. However, like any art, the more we understand how it works the deeper and more profound is our appreciation. When we realize that architecture has meaning it becomes obvious that it is created by following principles of design to transmit its meaning, just as the principals of grammar are used to convey meaning in language. The grammar of architecture is a search for meaning in the spaces we create and inhabit.

Credits:


1. Madcoverboy.
2. Excel.
3. Urban 2004.
4. John Perry.
5. Roger 469.

A Visit With Lloyd Wright

1. Lloyd Wright's home -- almost unphotographable
behind the thick vegetation.

2. Sowden residence from the same period.

Architecture feeds the brain and is sustenance for the soul. When I was just out of architectural school, I took a road trip with my friend, Greg Walke, to find some of that nourishment. We traveled west in Greg's tan MG convertible to see iconic examples of mid-century modern architecture. One afternoon we stopped to visit Lloyd Wright, the talented, but overshadowed, son of Frank Lloyd Wright. He was an old man at the time and looked just like his father. (But a full twelve inches taller!) He graciously received us in his Doheny Drive home, on the boundary between Los Angeles and Beverly Hills. Despite the August heat, Lloyd Wright lit the living room fireplace to demonstrate how his design employed natural convection to coax warm air out of the house.  He opened a glass wall onto a patio shaded by the branches of an enormous ginkgo tree. The ginkgo sheltered the entire house and the fireplace drew in this cooler air to exhaust it up the flue. No artificial air conditioning. Wright was very proud of the organic qualities of the room.  His home was like an enchanted cave, designed and built in the in the 1920s.  And we were entranced by his stories.

“Why are you boys here?” he asked. We told him we were in California to see some of the great works of twentieth century architecture. (Much of it authored by him.)

3.  Sowden house today. (Extensively remodeled.)

Of course, Wright had already pegged us as eager neophytes, seeking wisdom from one of the masters.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “You’re here to eat architecture.” We knew immediately what he meant, sharing a mutual understanding. Great architecture provides sustenance; it nourishes the spirit as food does the body.

4. Another Wright design from the same period. (Derby house, 1926.)

I learned years later that we were not the first guests charmed by Wright in this manner. It was practiced theater for him. The novelist Anais Nin wrote of meeting Lloyd Wright for the first time in his Doheny Drive home. He lit the same fireplace and talked about the natural ventilation through the house, filtered by the cool of  the prized Gingko tree. He expostulated about organic architecture in the same way. At least he was consistent. The lesson I took with me was the importance of architectural input in everyday life. It is healthy to “eat” good architecture.

5. Ramon Navarro house, from the 1920s.

Note: Since it is almost impossible to get a good picture of  the Doheny Drive house, the accompanying pictures show Hollywood-area  projects by Lloyd Wright from the same decade.  His architecture during this period was monolithic, closed, and fortress-like.  They are all located on busy streets, which partially explains this.  However, he was also supervising his father's local projects during the 1920s: among them, the Ennis house and the Barnsdall house. They all had similar characteristics.   This was a brief period in the elder Wright's career when his projects -- mostly located in the Hollywood Hills -- resemble Mayan temples.  Lloyd Wright's later work became much looser and more transparent, including his  famous "Glass Chapel" in Palos Verdes from 1951.  (See blog entry March 4, 2010.)

Credits:

1. Minnaert

2. U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Historic American Buildings Survey

3. Los Angeles

4. la photo

5. la photo

This Is Your Brain on Architecture

The German philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) famously described architecture as “frozen music.” Though evocative, this description is wrong. Architecture is anything but frozen. Architecture is a full-immersion experience. Architecture is a matrix of sensory information that stimulates the brain in ways that make the experience interesting, enjoyable, and intellectually challenging. We experience architecture over time (it takes time to walk through any building) employing our sense of hearing (fountains bubbling in a courtyard, a breeze wafting through a colonnade), our sense of smell (wood burning in a fireplace, flowers blooming in a garden), touch (the grasp of door hardware and the texture of materials), and -- most obviously -- our sense of vision. Of the five physical senses, even taste becomes a part of the experience: we may enjoy a meal in a beautiful architectural setting or surround ourselves with architecture while lingering over a cup of coffee.

1. This is your brain on architecture.

The experience of architecture is also mutable. It inevitably changes over time. The hour of the day and changing seasons alter our perception of architecture. Lighting conditions and seasonal variations affect how we respond. A building looks and feels different under a blanket of snow than under the saturated light of summer. Years add patina to materials and changing times alter the meaning of architecture. A musty, old building has qualities that are different from those of a bright, new building. Our perception of architecture is affected by subtleties. A musty building affects our sense of taste, smell, and touch. An old building affects our thoughts about its history and, perhaps, safety. It takes time to learn the secrets of great architecture and we employ all of our senses and mental acuity to do this.

2. Architecture changes with the seasons.
Kinkaku pavilion, Kyoto, Japan.

Architecture is anything but frozen because it engages every aspect of our brain in a continuous sequence of sensory information. An art that requires movement through space can hardly be called frozen. We feel good in the company of good architecture because sensory input to our brain reminds us we are truly alive. There is even evidence that good architecture may make us smarter. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have demonstrated that mice in interesting cages with opportunities for stimulating challenges do better than mice in plain cages. Mice housed in interesting environments actually experienced measurable brain growth over those in boring environments. Transferring mice from the boring cages to the stimulating environments nearly doubled the dividing cells in their hippocampus regions. (Reported in Nature Neuroscience, March 1999.) One can only imagine what stimulating architecture does to the human brain.

Sometimes input into the brain during an architectural experience can be overwhelming. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the feeling of grandeur and awe we might experience in a great cathedral or in a vast hall of commerce like Grand Central station.

3. Grandeur in architecture.
Grand Central station, New York City.

These experiences are “overwhelming” in a deeply satisfying way. It is an indication of activated brains and, like the smart mice, maybe we benefit physically as well as emotionally. There is no doubt we need this kind of stimulation. When our basic needs are satisfied (being well fed and sheltered) we start to look for more. Author Daniel H. Pink writes in A Whole New Mind (2009): “The paradox of prosperity is that while living standards have risen steadily decade after decade, personal, family, and life satisfaction haven’t budged. That’s why more people – liberated by prosperity but not fulfilled by it – are resolving the paradox by searching for meaning.” This search may be spiritual or esthetic or both. Clearly, though, architecture is not important to a starving, homeless individual. Architecture is only meaningful when other needs have been satisfied. You might call it a luxury. Or – a definition I prefer -- you might call it a necessity in a successful life. The existence of architecture is a sign that something has gone right for someone. In his 1968 book Toward a Psychology of Being, psychologist Abraham Maslov famously theorized a hierarchy of five levels of basic needs. Once these needs are satisfied, higher needs become like necessities. These higher needs include aesthetic appreciation and spiritual quests. Robert S. de Ropp in The Master Game, (1989) also popularized these ideas. Architecture is a powerful way to address the need for fulfilling experience. That is why we seek it out in our travels and in our lives.

Your mind on architecture can also enrich quiet emotional experiences. It can nurture meditation in monasteries or private sanctuaries. It can enhance recreational and entertainment venues with an injection of theatricality. It can establish warmth in a domestic environment. It is no accident that we link “hearth” and “home” as emblems of domestic tranquility. Every successful work of architecture provides a degree of emotional and mental stimulation. It can happen in endless combinations and variations. Architecture can be as richly varied as human experience itself.

4. Music contained in architecture.
Organ loft, Zweifalten Monstary Church.

Back to Goethe: Describing architecture as “frozen music” actually diminishes it and confuses its real purpose. It makes it seem to be something less than music when, in fact, the opposite is true. Architecture is more than music because it subsumes it. Architecture is a reflexive art. You are not only looking at it, you are in it. It is a mirror; you see and feel what is important personally. It is not a spectator sport; you are in the game. Music doesn’t do this. (Though stereo headphones can create the illusion that music is in your head.) Music can be a part of architecture, contained in concert halls or ambient sound in a home. Architecture often contains music, but music can never contain architecture. (Music critics sometimes describe music as "architectonic." They are playing with words and grasping for analogies, just as architects often use musical analogies to describe architecture.)

Architecture is not frozen music. Nor is it frozen snapshots in magazines. When done right (and that is a significant qualifier) architecture is an ever-changing experience that enriches life. All senses are engaged, providing stimulation, information, and delight. This is your brain on architecture.

Credits:

1. Adapted from Gray's Anatomy
2. Frank Gualtieri
3. Adam Jones
4. Effi Zweifalten