photo via Davide Lussetti

Richard Meier’s architecture takes my breath away.  I could spend hours on his website just looking at pictures of all of the stuff that he’s done.  Having said that, there is one building that I would take above all others: the Jubilee Church.  I wish I could commission Mr. Meier to secretly design the exact building but as a house for me and my family…. and my friends… and you could come visit.  Maybe I’ll do another post on it again tomorrow.  It’s located just outside of Rome, and maybe someday my wife and I will go visit the Jubilee Church and Le Corbusier’s Notre Dame Du Haut in Ronchamp, France.  Both of our construction crushes would be fulfilled.

The term “Gothic” has come to be synonymous with “scary” and very associated with the color black.  But today’s throwback goes to Gothic architecture.  Because of the stigma I took a long time to warm up to it, but the term “Gothic” to me now means “not scary” and I associate it with the variouse soft colors of amazing stained glass windows.  My fave of all Gothicdom is the Cathedral of St. Chapelle.  It’s not nearly as large as other Gothic cathedrals, but it’s basically all windows, which was what the masons and the Catholic church were going for.  The structural support all but disappears, there’s tons of light and color, and there’s a feeling that the whole thing should collapse any minute; the buildings actually represented some of the magic that is religion.  Being inside these cathedrals was to be a heavenly experience.

Let’s not forget other beautiful aspects of the Gothic era: