Architectural Journeys
By Gordon S. Grice, OAA, FRAIC
Painting: Down Wentworth to Charlton Ave.
By Clarence Porter.
Whether they are physical journeys, involving travel from place to place, or the metaphorical journeys we all experience as our lives and careers unfold, no two journeys are the same. Each is unique and one-directional.
A journey may have an itinerary and a destination or it may have neither of these. In every case, it’s the journey itself that matters. Our lives are consumed by journeys, geographical, emotional and intellectual, great and small: driving to work, going on a walking tour, researching an interesting topic, sustaining a career. Every journey has the capacity to enrich our lives and conceivably the lives of others. Life itself is a journey.
We asked our contributors to tell us about a personal journey—specifically, an architectural journey—that has been important to their lives. A defining characteristic of architecture is that it is (with some exceptions) immovable, static, rooted. People move; architecture doesn’t. An architectural journey then can only be a human journey with architecture as the goal (travelling to), the vehicle (travelling through or among), or the motivator (travelling because of). If you view the world through the eyes of an architect, every journey is an architectural journey.
The submitted work deals mostly with metaphorical journeys—spiritual and philosophical—in some cases abetted by physical journeys, but always with architecture at the core. Ryan Martin, at the beginning of his career, lays out an encouraging route map for his future professional journey. Christopher Moise compares a recent European tour to the path his own career has followed. Rocco Maragna finds surprising parallels between architecture and migration, and between his own lifelong migratory journey and that of the Roman poet Ovid. Bill Birdsell’s journey leads to the realization that architecture is about people. The editor recounts his own career journey, following several paths, geographically, professionally and spiritually. We are also pleased to feature the paintings of Clarence Porter, whose haunting images invite us to get moving and see what lies around the next corner. Life’s journey is full of surprises.
Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, . . . —RL Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque, 1881
My Architectural Journey
A 25-year-old intern architect on the career he hopes to build: a thousand projects, a few good stories, and buildings designed for people instead of profit.
An Architect’s Pilgrimage
A trip from Barcelona to Paris becomes a map of a career: from designing buildings to designing the life between them.
From Passage To Place: The Gallery Of Human Migration
Migration moves through beckoning, beginning, becoming, belonging, and so does architecture: a framework for how movement makes place.
One Valley: Two Geometries
Two millennia apart, the poet Ovid and the author were born ten kilometres apart in the same Italian valley. On exile, migration, and the geometries of belonging.
An Architect’s Journey
From a drafting table in the 1980s to the presidency of the OAA: Bill Birdsell traces fifty years of practice, from the Hellenic Home for the Aged to a self-built glass house in Guelph.
A Career is a Journey, not a Destination
From dish-tower cities at the kitchen table to a tropical 'retirement' in the British Virgin Islands to architectural illustration: the editor’s own winding career journey.
Paths: The work of Clarence Porter
Paintings from Clarence Porter’s Paths exhibition: images of roads, alleys, and horizons that you don’t just look at but travel into.