#throwback
#architecture
2016

This article, a draft written on June 14th 2016, just popped from “Notes”. I never got to share it. I wrote it on the train back from the 2016 La Biennale di Venezia of Architecture. On my way to Roma heading to Toulouse before going home to Madagascar. As I am reflecting on my career path and how 2023 is definetly going to mark a milestone, it’s with great humility that I share these toughts that are still very true to my heart. And also I can’t help but being thankful for all the love and friendships I got to meet on the way to become a “still-work-in-progress” better architect and a human being.

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Dear friends,

I needed an immersion in the Venice Architecture Biennale to rediscover the very essence of the why what so how of our Passion.

I spent hours and hours fascinated in front of these works and these demonstrations which mean a whole world. Our world. The jargon, the images, the textures, the material and all the possible and imaginable compositions to redefine the space again and again to infinity.

I had forgotten how the Sketch or rather the tens and the hundreds of sketches were the beginning. Models followed. The endless models and models. What about those designs that look hesitant at first sight but tell it all at a glance?

This glance that we have taken so many years to master and these materials that we try somehow to control. These assemblies which punctuate our hours and our lives from there to lose sometimes (or all the time) the notion of time and of others (and of ours).

I admire the healthy competition between the Guard and the Relève who do not hesitate to attack head-on while joining hands when the Combat requires it. The Zumthors and Shigeru Ban dedicate a privileged, quasi-sacred site to themselves, leaving the space of choice to the Aravena and Kéré.

Somewhere, I wished to find this beautiful atmosphere in our pencil strokes and our rants. Emulation that opens us up and gives us wings, I would like more. Low blows that scratch the Beauty of our Profession, I would like (significantly) less.

Architecture? It means everything to me. And for you? What do you expect from it? It who expects Everything from Us.

The Biennale ends in November. I invite you to visit it for those who have the opportunity and why not recreate this atmosphere at home in a common effort? We also expect many of you at the afternoons of (fiery) discussions to outline good ideas together.

on this…I’m going to put away my Autocad and take out my 6B…scratch scratch