I've always been fascinated by architecture.

I'm not sure that fascinated is the right word, but what the hell. And I guess always isn't the right word, either. Double what the hell. I've always been fascinated by architecture.

Both the style and the substance intrigue me. The style: making shapes that excite you, move you. The great hall of St. Peter's cathedral, or St. Patricks. When I hear designers talk about things like moving from a small space into a large one, so that you get the gradually growing sense of width and mass, that grabs my attention. I wonder how you learn how to do that -- if its something that you have to be born with, but which can be enhanced by training, or whether anyone can be taught to do it (though even then, the best, I guess, can do it better, no matter what). But how do you know what's possible? And where does it start? Got to believe that it comes from a whole lot of messing around with models, literally just playing around with shapes to see what clicks. Sure, some are major flops, delightful only to purists of the art, but man, when you play in a ballpark that visible, you've got to accept that. Look at all the dazzling buildings in Houston, San Francisco, Chicago, New York.......

And the substance: making a building that works -- that lays out space in innovative ways. Curtain walls, staggered elevator shafts, multiple elevators in the same shaft. My goodness. And the materials they're made of -- how do you find out what’s even possible? I recall reading about why an I beam is that shape. How long were beams the way they were before people figured out that half the mass of the thing wasn't contributing to the support it offered? Or at least, cost more to have than it offered as support? And new solutions to old problems. I remember reading about a building which has a moving mass of concrete half way up its height that acts as a damper when the building is swayed by high winds, keeping it stable, or, at least, more stable. Wow! What kind of mind can think of stuff like that?

Maybe fascinated is a good word, after all.