Siza the Day

Back in the ol' undergrad architecture studio my second favorite model (next to an art-gallery-as-wedding-cake fiasco that boasted real icing and plastic columns) was a simple white chipboard affair with two planes ascending in opposite directions on a Flatiron-ish site.

My critic: "This is nice. Really reminds me of Alvaro Siza."

Me: "Who?"

Critic [to her colleague, bemused]: "Come here and look at this. Doesn't it look like Alvaro Siza? He came up with it all on his own."

I wanted to reply: "Um, duh, pretty ain't that difficult. It's your dependence on bogus theory and trendy language that really cramps my style."

Instead I just nodded, grateful they weren't ripping me yet another new one (see above re: wedding cake).

But today I walked by a bookstore window display pimping the venerable Portuguese Senor Siza Vieira and have to admit that his work is, in the words of Miley Cyrus, pretty cool:


Wikipedia calls it "poetic modernism" but I prefer "Corbusier Goes to Mykonos." He's still alive and I'd hire him to design my Pensacola Beach compound toots sweet.