Architecture of Cities: Mapping Beauty XXXV

Architect: Santiago Calatrava in Milwaukee

Truthful Fiction

Reading is akin to love- -it is found, discovered like a romance nakedly displayed: The anticipated anticipations of fillingthe mind like a book nuanced with variables of intangibles mingling: Words of others indelibly scribed with not a black pool of vanishing ink in sight. 

My mind harnessed by extraordinary imaginary passions- -like dog-eared pages left by another, portraying a gift from anonymous ghosts in real time: 

In a Mexico hotel a guest of another kind unintentionally or not left me or another a book to possibly share a reasonable processing of the city’s culture.

A journalist in Moscow intentionally or not made a gift of an authored book to enlighten my visit: Days and nights of a nations’ histories accompanied my months…

Rain swept Stuttgart, Germany afforded me time to read books dedicated to my hotel rooms: No traces of elves nor Hare Krishna devotees could have managed better. 

In Paris, the entire city seemingly performing theatrically across from my 7th floor bathtub: In the moment I needed to hear a wee bit of English- -I accidentally found a perfectly bound companion stashed between my bathtub and the Contrevents/hinged shutters.

Hidden in plain sight: I suspect real people breathed a certain innocence into the eyes I have married:  The architecture of generations reveals guiding narratives like the dog eared books others left behind: left behind so great and innocent minds can point to where we live and yes, how.

Herbert Bayer: Santa Barbara, California

My eyes synthesize all matters related to what has become- -became: Buildings/structures left to tell a story where a matter of the beautiful and less lived and died: Industrialization of new worlds- -four walls forgotten in time and four walls with all the memories of vanishing times to be seen in my now!

I have stood adjacent to real time: I have embraced the realities in my moments: : The beauty of where I stand, I will not forget: Everything is bounding forward with all of the cracks and missteps that have been seen- -I realize whether I am near or afar myths are among my tales of tales.

At many intervals in time, architecture may be a best narrative for where we were/are: We stand in our feet before us: Lives lived in moments not seen- -there and here with you: In a moment if only for mine eyes- -Architecture may be like reading, akin to love.

W.B. Yeats’ Slouching towards Bethlehem speaks to my forever nightmares: The Ancients and the Modernists bundled together appear to have had a short life on earth: Compare them to the underfoot and the galaxies’ armies of other lives: You will feel how short time is truly- - It stirs my camera to hurry: I hurry with a frantic calm to capture those minutes- -lives before in part, my time becomes a vanishing twin…I was here but gone.

The Whitney Museum by Renzo Piano: New York City

I have stood on thousands of corners peering into the sounds of cities I have photographed: I almost always pause to shoot but more importantly I pause to consider what part of this moment will never be beyond today or tomorrow: My camera is set on motor drive: The  shutter-release has no choice but to capture my memories:

My day of reckoning was possibly when the great Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer grabbed my hand with two of his: The people in the studio froze and watched as we drew a picture as one: And again… It was a communal process where I realized the end is near and more is to follow: The rest of the story is my own folklore I share for another day.

I am completely filled with exuberance when I see tomorrow: The days when  I have  seen and hope to see again; Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Rio a plethora of the “Americas’ entire asian influences and whatever the rest of the globe will allow:again: I am fortunate that  my cameras speak in many tongues: if you listen to what it shares:

A novel, a tome, some potent language from the Odyssey to the Wasteland books were always waiting for me: It was akin to love: Today, my eyes see architecture as kinships of the stories and myths I have embraced-- Like Orwell, my eyes are always on the road to…cities await.

Mercedes Museum, Stuttgart, Germany