Traveling is a common activity most people share interests in. When one wants to escape their everyday lives, they choose to escape to another location. But why is that? Why is there such a fascination with leaving one’s life behind to experience another’s? Every country, state, island has its own attraction, whether that be the amazing food, ambiance, beaches, or the history of that place. The main reason for wanting to “escape” is for a chance to leave one’s everyday scenery and experience another world-like place; that has all to do with that place’s architecture.

            Architecture at any place will always be different. Not one country has the exact same design or thought process as other locations. We go to Paris to experience their grand chateaus, the architecture of the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the art within. The first thing tourists from other countries do when they arrive at their location is sight see, it is a must. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower is incomparable to anything our world has seen; same goes with other countries such as Lebanon, Dubai, Egypt and many more countries in the Middle East. Dubai created one of the tallest towers in the world and so many crazy designs that makes Dubai almost seem so futuristic. Egypt and Lebanon carry ancient ruins that the Phoenicians once built that we kept around for thousands of years. We go to Italy to see the buildings people live in, the colorful homes that site right on the cliffs of Italy’s coastal waters; something no other country can share that similarity with. Architecture is what one travels for and inspires people. These buildings, homes, ruins, monuments are the “escape from reality” people are looking for, it is as if one is living in another lifetime or another world. It is truly amazing what architecture can do to people. 

            Countries like these are the reasons why architecture has influenced me and so many architects. Architecture is so much more than designing homes and buildings for people. It is what makes or breaks a place. Without architecture, all these countries will mean nothing, there will be nothing unique about these places, therefore, no one would want to escape from reality anymore. A home cannot be a home without the proper design and a country cannot be a country without its history and what’s left of that history is its architecture, that is all what’s left of our past and in a hundred to a thousand years from now our buildings will be the only things left that will place out mark on the world.