Quadracci Pavilion

While the Lovely Bride^TM and I were on walkabout this winter we visited some friends of mine in Milwaukee, WI and they took us on a tour of the Milwaukee Art Museum. While I am not exactly an “artsy” guy, I do like to look and share interpretations with people that know more than I do about it.

In the gift shop I picked up a book, “101 Things I Learned in Architecture School“. This little gem is chock full of very valuable advice for looking at problems and solutions – and not just in architecture. Many of the one-page (or one-sentence!) tips are quite philosophical and apply across a wide rnge of disciplines. I pull this volume out whenever I find that I am “stuck” and need some advice about looking at my situation from another direction.

One of my favorites is a quote from Louis Kahn,

“Architecture is the thoughtful making of space.”

I find it particularly useful when I can no longer see the forest for the trees. I simply replace “architecture” with the word or phrase that describes my problem and then brainstorm the word that would be used to replace “space“.

What sort of situations do you see where this technique could be useful? Let’s discuss some examples in the forum.