Monday, September 29, 2008

I.M. Pei, my Batman and Steve Young in one!


The seed is growing! I'm beginning to fantasize about certain architects. Will this somehow define me in some intricate butterfly effect? I..I.. must.. resist! Stay tuned!

I can't put the old China-man to rest without nibbling him to the bone first. I.M. Pei is one of the most enjoyable people I've ever experienced. His own documentary may be biased but go bore someone else with that naysay!

Please watch "I.M. Pei" on netflix if you have it, or go to any immoral lengths, steal, murder, commandeer and pillage, to rightfully pay for this delightful film. In this post, and probably others, Grassroots Architecture will attempt to give greater justice for this wise sage. I can only say how sharp this fellow is in so many poor ways. So onto the man himself.

Note: Exclamations are used when Pei gets particularly excited and forceful! I use them often but only cuz' I'm often excited.

The following are his own words:

To have something that lasts, that means you have really come close, have gotten hold of the essence. The only thing that can last is the essence, otherwise it's transitory. It's fashion.

I am not an architect that has what people call a "body of theories." Be true to yourself, you have a signature and that signature will come out!

I like to think of Bach. Constant variations of a simple feat.

You have to learn to eliminate and come to the heart of the problem. You have to start at the complex and reduce it to the simple and at having found the simple solution, the heart of the matter, then you have to make it work!

I prefer to not use labels. To me, it's just architecture. Not modernism, post-modernism, constructionism, you can use all the isms you want I don't believe in any of them. They come and they go. The one that really survives is architecture.


There are many more and I promise to report on them to you in the future.

1 comment:

katy said...

let's go check out his stuff in nyc, there seems to be a lot he's done here. i've seen that banking tower in hong kong- very neat! maybe one day one or both of us will visit prague to see that dancing house, i really can't get over how awesome it is!!