Dear Grandchild,
Today is my thirty-eighth birthday. Try to imagine that even at this age, I feel incredibly young and green, just learning the basics of architecture. If you can find an old archived copy of Perspecta 37, the journal I edited when I was at Yale, you will see an article by Mark Wigley entitled “How Old is Young,” and perhaps get a sense for how long it takes architects to feel a sense of confidence and mastery of our craft.
I hope that by the time you are reading these letters, I have been able to fulfil my dream of making architecture and environmental education a part of basic education. I believe that everyone should know the fundamentals of how our environment affects our lives, and the role that design and architecture have to play in that story. One reason that we architects take so long to establish ourselves is that we start so late. Most of us only begin studying the craft in university. Today I had lunch with your grandmother and your great-grandparents in Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Imagine the fact that I had cooking classes even when I was twelve years old, but only studied architectural history for the first time when I was nearly eighteen. I hope that this has changed by the time you grow up.
I spent the week in Cambodia meeting with Youk and his team about the Sleuk Rith Institute. The highlight of my trip was a short conversation I had with a young lady at the Royal University of Fine Arts called Boramy Sina. By the time you read this letter she must be more than fifty years old, and a successful Cambodian architect.
Brian and I had just given lectures to the Cambodian architecture students, and Boramy came to ask me why it is that her designs are beautiful when they are in her head, but when she tries to express them in the computer they seem awkward. I told her that the hand and the eye must be constantly trained through practice. Design is expression—a performance—and just as musical performers must practice, so we must draw and sketch constantly, whether with pens or with the computer. I told her about my years of sketching, and the incredible Rome course taught by my mentor Alec Purves at Yale.
Before I left Cambodia, I visited Chi Soo Temple in Phnom Penh, and drew the plan of the complex from observation. I gave that drawing to Boramy as a gift to inspire her to practice more. Someday I hope that I can create a program like Yale in Rome in Cambodia for Boramy and her fellow students.
With fondest wishes to you on my birthday. Your grandfather. 23 November, 2014.
