11 Dazzling Buildings by Jean Nouvel

11 Dazzling Buildings by Jean Nouvel

While many architects develop a unique style that allows their buildings to be instantly identified, Jean Nouvel continually defies easy classification. Nouvel studied at Paris’s École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts and early in his career he helped found the Mars 1976 architectural movement and the Syndicat de l’Architecture, the country’s first labor union for architects. […]

We Are All Smiley’s People

We Are All Smiley’s People

My wife, Susan, and I lost our minds. For more than two weeks at the beginning of February, we were locked in a ritual that became the center of our day, the center of our conversation—watching first the six-hour original 1979 BBC version of John le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (not to be confused […]

Daniel Libeskind: “I never had a goal”

Daniel Libeskind: “I never had a goal”

Mr. Libeskind, Goethe compared architecture to frozen music and said that “the tone of mind produced by architecture approaches the effect of music.” Do you agree? Oh, absolutely! Architecture is not just an intellectual or abstract exercise, it is an emotional experience just as music is. It is very precise, it cannot be off by […]

The sad history of Hollywood’s Wild One: Marlon Brando

The sad history of Hollywood’s Wild One: Marlon Brando

“I admire Marlon’s talent, but I don’t envy the pain that created it.” – Anthony Quinn While fully acknowledging his prodigious talent, the prevailing sentiment of the critical community seems to be that Marlon Brando was a remote, tortured man who squandered his prodigious talent for easy money. Some pundits sound downright miffed, as if […]