![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemouching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Le-Mouching-fly-fishing-Norman-Foster-216x300.jpg?fit=1170%2C200&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
OK, let’s get back to Norman Foster.<\/p>\n
In general when one thinks of an architectural office one imagines 4 or 5 guys in bow ties and cigars. At Norman’s there are more than 1400 young architects bursting with talent, churning out incredible works of poetry, beauty and innovation.<\/p>\n
Suppose you’re going fishing in China, for example, take a look at the buildings that Norman and his crazy team created for the new airport in Beijing. It takes your breath away. And the new dome of the Reichstag in Berlin, astounding beauty and intelligence, and on and on\u2026![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemouching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Le-Mouching-Fly-fishing-reichtag.jpg?w=200&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n
Well, this morning at breakfast, we still had our heads filled with the prowess of Mr. Foster and I, poor idiot, had the presumptuousness to toss out to my adorable wife (who is passionate about architecture): “You have to admit that Norman Foster is truly more brilliant than Frank Gehry!”<\/p>\n
(If you don’t know Frank Gehry, he’s the architect who designed the magnificent building in Bilbao that is the Guggenheim Museum. And it’s certainly not pie in the sky!))![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemouching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Le-Mouching-Fly-fishingBilbao-museum.jpg?resize=750%2C603&ssl=1\")
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“What? ” my wife exploded almost standing on her chair. “You don’t know peanuts! Frank Gehry has designed innumerable marvels and you dare\u2026”<\/p>\n
OK. We finished breakfast and there I am in my studio doing my dumb stuff, when I hear the little bell that announces an email![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemouching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/LeMouching-Fly-fishing-Fish-Gehry-225x300.jpg?fit=1170%2C200&ssl=1\")
. The mail is from my lovely wife, repudiating my words with photos of Frank Gehry’s work. I sit there, broadsided\u2026 especially on reading the comments by the celebrated architect:<\/p>\n
“It was by accident that I got into the fish image. My colleagues were starting to replay Greek temples. Y’know the post-modern thing, I don’t know, when was that… the 80’s? That was hot, everybody was re-doing the past. I said, y’know, Greek temples are anthropomorphic.Three hundred million years before man was fish. If you wanna, if you gotta go back, if you’re insecure about going forward, dammit, go back three hundred million years. Why stop at the Greeks? So I started\u00a0drawing fish in my sketchbook, and then I started to realize that there was something in it.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Well Frank Gehry, screwball that you are\u2026 I’d like nothing better for my retirement, than to have you build me a fish !![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lemouching.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/Le-Mouching-Fly-fishingbarcelona-boardwalk-with-frank-gehry-awning-in-background.jpg?resize=750%2C563&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
OK, let’s get back to Norman Foster. In general when one thinks of an architectural office one imagines 4 or 5 guys in bow ties and cigars. At Norman’s there are more than 1400 young architects bursting with talent, churning out incredible works of poetry, beauty and innovation. Suppose you’re going fishing in China, for example, take a look at the buildings that Norman and his crazy team created for the new airport in Beijing. It takes your breath away. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15845,15854,15849,15853],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-el-mouching","category-nature","category-travel"],"yoast_head":"\n