Archinect - The Long Way Around

2. RIP Ricardo Legorreta

2011-12-31T04:12:35-05:00

Ricardo Legorreta, the man, the legend, the architecture god, the reason I began studying architecture, has passed away at the ripe old age of 80. I'm sad, but it gives me a moment to reflect on the first time I laid eyes on his work in his 1997-2003 New Buildings and Projects book. His 1998 house in Tokyo, Japan, his 2001 house in Shafaim, Israel, and his 2002 house in Maui, Hawaii were the most amazingly brilliant designed spaces I have ever seen to this day and from the first moment I laid eyes on them is the moment that I wanted to design space and architecture for the rest of my life. Of course life doesn't always turn out as planned, but who knows how different my life would have turned out if I never picked up his book on that Sunday so many years ago. My deepest condolences to Victor Legorreta, god knows how lucky he is to have a father that he can actually look up to and succeed. As I planned all those years ago when I would have finished my studies it would have been my ...

1.

2011-12-31T04:09:45-05:00

I guess that now rather than never is a good time to start. Be it my first entry has to do with the death of the architect that inspired me to want to design for the rest of my life. Ricardo Legorreta is the reason I began to study architecture. I don't remember how old I was when I first read Legorreta + Legorreta; New Buildings & Projects: 1997-2003, but I was in junior high school and it was a sunny sunday afternoon and the book changed my life forever. I knew from the moment i laid eyes on that book that I wanted to design for the rest of my life. God, to have the talent and the life that he had, I would kill for a sliver of his talent. The spaces he designed had something long gone from most architects, soul. Unlike so many of the steel, glass and white wall designs that seem so clever and popular nowadays, his buildings could convey a feeling to those that laid eyes on the spaces he designed. The man was pedigree and class as he learned from the best to become the best. What...