I always used to say to my students ‘Architecture is constructed politics’, but lately, after (re) reading Le Corb’s Vers Une Architecture, I have been known to spur on my students with my rallying whispher of  ‘Architecture is built poetry’.  As in Le Corbusier’s assertion that the plan is an expression of the spirit, as in architecture with the capital A, as in not mere construction (ok. I think by now you know my very own windmills, which I am  battling, no need to get riled up again – except to dream of a tee which says Technicians, maybe someone over at Archinect is listening)

Tees Designs. March 08, 2010. The 'tyranny of the straight line'.

In my quest to find a link between poetry and architecture, I came across some gems, and wanted to pass on my finds. As I mentioned, I have been reading Gaston’s Bachelard ‘Poetics of Space’, and there seems to be a certain zeitgeist focused on poetry and its relationship to created (architectural) space.

William Stout, the reknown historical bookstore in San Francisco dedicated to Architecture, recently published Poems for Architects: An Anthology, by Jill Stoner.

From William Stout Publishers:

This unusual anthology of twentieth century poetry is arranged into sections of poems that address issues of domesticity, urbanism, formal concepts and form itself. Each section is introduced with a provocative essay by Stoner, an associate Professor of Architecture at UC Berkeley (where else?), that develops the argument for the relevance of poetry to architecture today. Twenty-nine varied authors such as Mark Strand, Wallace Stevens, Eavan Boland, Adrienne Rich and Rita Dove, help to illustrate the point.

Make buildings that are poems.

Antoni Gaudi

I also came across this gem of a book: Le Corbusier: The Artist The Writer, by Lucien Herve (1970).

As the story goes, Le Corb was an artist in the morning, an architect in the afternoon and, at night, he would write poetry.

I have also been pointed towards John Hejduk,  an accomplished architect (his are the Wall House projects), artist, Dean and Faculty of the School of Architecture at Cooper Union (<3), author and poet.  His is  Such Places as Memory: Poems 1953-1996, 1998.

John Hedjuk said:

” I believe in the social contract therefore I teach. I believe that the University is one of the last places that protects and preserves freedom, therefore teaching is also a socio/political act, among other things. I believe in books and the written word, therefore I fabricate works with the hope that they will be recorded in books. I am pragmatic and believe in keeping records. I believe to record is to bear witness. The book I wrote, Victims is to bear witness and to remember. I believe in the density of the sparse. I believe in place and the spirit of place.”

Speaking of writing, I am going to my first ever writers’ workshop and will report back 🙂