"Titan" Office Tower, Mitte, Berlin

Date of Sketch: September 23, 2017

Mahler referred to his first symphony, composed over a period of years in his twenties, as a symphonic poem. Critics praised its "lively imagination" but criticized its oblique musical references, the composer offering no greater guidance to the listener. Deciding that he needed more programmatic description, Mahler titled it in later performances "Titan, a tone poem in symphonic form," and ultimately, "Symphony in D for large orchestra." The Tower, owing to the expanse and monumentality of Mahler's composition, is its architectural equivalent in an urban setting.

Parish Library, New Orleans, Louisiana

Date of Sketch: May 2, 2009

Sometimes the urgency of a task is focused by listening to live music, in this case Mozart. In the summer of 2009 there was a competition to design 5 parish libraries for 5 city neighborhoods. One was for Norman-Mayer on a corner site on Gentilly Boulevard.  Since drive-thru service is at street level, access to the Library's main floor, at level, 2 is from the street corner. Metal screening surrounds the facades and provides sun control.

House Over A Ravine, Richmond, MA

Date of Sketch: August 4, 2017

Houses are the piano compositions of architecture.  Some, like some of the works of Chopin, become iconic. And as with Chopin's compositions they can become the main focus and output of an architect's career.  As one approaches this house, it's barely noticed as it rises gently from a forest clearing.  One can take the path to the roof or choose to enter at grade.  It's form in plan stretches over a triangular ravine, with views down, but also out, towards a pond 60' below as the land falls away at the house's far end.

Music Center, Belmont Hill School, Belmont MA

Date of Sketch: April 20, 2002

A Center for the teaching of music on a sloping site contains orchestral and choral rehearsal spaces, practice rooms and a large reception space which overlooks the school's athletic fields.

A Midsummer Night's Dreamhouse, Lenox MA

Date of Sketch: August 5, 2017

One of the purest of musical fantasies inspired a tree house drawn from the Mendelssohn's Incidental Music, Op. 61.  An enormous branch suspends carbon fiber sheaves enclosed by glazed carbon fiber netting with woven glass fiber sleeping spheres below.

"Song of Hiawatha", Sioux Falls, SD

Date of Sketch: July 28, 2017

Dvorák's introduction to the New World through Longfellow's 1855 epic poem formed the inspiration for his 9th Symphony years before he arrived in America.  Legends form in one's imagination quite apart from their realities as this sketch for an apartment building shows.  Sioux Falls has a poetic beauty imprinted on its history and seen in bits and pieces of its urban setting. There is something in the sketch as familiar as Dvorák's music, which nevertheless strives to bring something more to the New World's (Sioux Falls') landscape through its legends.

Residential Hall, OCAD University, Toronto ON

Date of Sketch: July 16, 2017

Located on Richmond Street W, a few blocks from Alsop's Sharp Centre for Design, is a proposed new mixed-use Residence Hall with student occupied open space five floors above the street. Street level and above would contain shared university functions, office and commercial spaces. The horizontal platform holds art studios, performing arts and support spaces. The form of this building had been percolating for a while before I heard Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique, but his "idée fixe" in the program notes was a reminder urging me to draw it.

Avenida Paulista Library, São Paulo, Brazil

Date of Sketch: December 5, 2009

Four city blocks from Lina Bo Bardi's São Paulo Museum is the redevelopment site for a new community library. The Library's main floor is raised two levels above grade on a platform containing commercial and parking uses. The building's active form is generated by its highly textured urban setting, much the same as Martinu's Violin Concerto #2 was inspired by the composer hearing the violinist Misha Elman play for the first time. Martinu, after hearing Elman's "marvelously expressive magical" tone, began work on his composition which Elman premiered eleven months later with the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Administrative Offices, Arecibo Observatory, Arecibo, PR

Date of Sketch: July 21, 2017

Sited at the rim of the 300 meter radio telescope which appeared in the movie 'Contact' is a new research structure for the National Science Foundation. The main administrative floor is raised four levels above grade and serves scientific staff housed in the seven-story vertical core. The core supports eight arms which contain research spaces for resident astronomers.  Bernstein's 2nd Symphony, 'The Age of Anxiety' characterizes the hectic pace of urban life but offers an antidote by substituting timeless values for contemporary ones.

Visitor Center for Las Campanas Observatory, La Serena, Chile

Date of Sketch: August 22, 2010

On a hilltop in the coastal city of La Serena will be the embarkation point for Las Campanas Observatory where the Giant Magellan Telescope, the world's largest optical instrument, is being built.  As in Higdon's composition, "blue cathedral", which she wrote in memory of her brother, the structure is sited between earth and sky and serves "as a symbolic doorway into and out of this world."  The Visitor Center previews the experience of space travel through observation as the visitor moves upward through the structure towards a distant star.