It was the same old conundrum: how to build what he saw in his mind’s eye, how to raise a thing of beauty from the earth so that people would look at it and marvel for a century to come, without first raising the money to see it to fruition. Money. It was always a question of money. He’d borrowed from Sullivan to buy the lot for the Oak Park place all those years ago, and while he couldn’t very well sell it out from under Catherine, he’d already hit on the expedient of remodeling the place so she could rent out half of it and at least have a reliable income. He would provide for her and the children too, that was his responsibility and he would meet it—no one could say he was neglectful there, though they might whip him over Mamah all they wanted, pinching their noses and crossing the street to avoid him as if he were a leper. And he’d just have to find a means of raising money, not only for the remodeling, but for the new house that was already taking shape in his dreams and his waking hours too, a place away from all this confusion, a place where he could live and work in peace till it all blew over.

What if buildings were unreasonable? What if they could express emotion? Along with human feeling, would they take on our features? Would they grow hair, breathe, excrete? It is common sense that in architecture, form follows function. But what if that scheme were reversed?

T.C. Boyle nonchalantly raps spoons against his blue jeans as he crosses his living room. His Frank Lloyd Wright designed home, built for George C. Stewart in 1909, is exquisite. An artificially low ceiling, which threatens to clip Boyle’s nimbus of hair, abruptly opens up into a majestic rectangular receiving room, framed by an elegant staircase leading to his office upstairs. At the foot of the stairs is a bookcase filled with every published volume of Boyle’s bestselling books and short stories. He sinks the spoons into the cups of tea he’s brewed for his guests and, with the hyper-vigilant cool only the accomplished exude, settles into his authentic prairie-style chair.

In a profession where a graduate level degree qualifies you to cut paper and a fifty hour week is considered part-time, architect Eric Owen Moss is fairly easy-going without being easy. Ask a seemingly simple question of Moss, and you shall elicit an answer that draws on philosophy, symphonic composition, and a good-natured frontier sensibility. While Moss has won major competitions in China, Mexico, and Russia, and is currently designing the Patent Office Building of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., he is still something of a hometown secret. He lacks the studied grandeur of some of his more well-known contemporaries, but to good effect. Without that PR sheen, it’s possible to have an actual conversation with him, if actual conversations are defined as extended discussions about the construct of history.

Jeremy,

In trying to accommodate this issue’s “architectural” theme, as you know I have hatched the hair-brained scheme to live at the famous Chateau Marmont hotel for a few days. The initial purpose of this endeavor was to soak up the hotel’s vintage history, its French-inspired style, and to chew on the current brand of wildlife they house with pride. But, as the fan turns, the shit makes its way to it eventually. How naïve of me to imagine a dimension in which they would comp a room for a journalist (especially an unknown one) but they were willing to provide a private tour of the entire hotel by two of its managers. Quickly, and by no fault of their PR woman who has been more than gracious with me, the Hotel has been quick to brand my behind with a white-hot list of guidelines that I am legally obliged to follow.