Dear Vittorio: Dear Vittorio - stories for my old friend

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Dear Vittorio - stories for my old friend

Dear Vittorio,

I decided to make a blog for you, where you can listen to stories and essays I write, record and post here. As you recall, I was doing this for a long time for my grandparents, and I will continue it for you. I am making you the hapless victim of my need to organize thoughts, so I can discipline my perception of the world to be wide awake and open to everything. So you see, this is also a selfish pursuit.

I'll post a new piece once a week, on Saturday my time, so you'll see them on your Sunday mornings.

Caroline can click on the place in the blog where each story has a link titled PLAY AUDIO, then she will need to click STOP when it ends, or it will play over again. I haven't figured out how to fix that. Hopefully, you will be listening with headphones, so you can simply remove them if Caroline is not available to stop the playback on the computer.

I wish you well, my good friend, and I hope to see you again soon.
Story Ideas:
Introduction - Life in uncertain times;
Drawing Circles - gardening, baking, brewing, relationships in a "gift economy";
The Heritage Fruit Tree Project, winter blossoms, "apple nectar";
Homebrewers Impasse - Nephew James and a spectacular brewing accident.
NOAH - A young man with a sense of his generation's future.
Tenth Mountain Huts, Adventure with Daughters & Friends

Old Farts Club, winter backcountry adventure with old pals.
Roaring Fork HAMS Homebrewers Club;
Raisin' Ladies - Haley, March and the Umbrella Table.

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My Friend Vittorio

I met my wife Jan in college, at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn NY, right about the same time I met my primary Professor of Architecture, Vittorio Giorgini. Both of these people are primary infuences in my life. Jan is the love of my life and the mother of our two daughters.
Vittorio has been and continues to be a major influence in my pursuit not just of Architecture, but of Life and Nature as well.
Before Vittorio came to New York to teach Architecture, he pioneered an organic form of Architecture that is only now beginning to influence the future. He showed us some of his work on "thin-shelled structures", but he set this aside, in favor of helping us to build solid foundations in the art of design. By this I mean he helped us to hone our abilities to understand people and their needs, to see conflicting desires and needs in any design problem as counterpoints whose natures could be understood, and whose seemingly opposite needs could be balanced for a more successful design. He helped us to see beyond the conventional solutions to problems, to unique perspectives that could create new ways of solving problems. I have benefitted tremendously in my practice from Vittorio's influences, and to this day, I still do.
Vittorio has long since retired from Pratt Institute, to his home town of Florence, Italy. Our good friend and my fellow student, Sam Gordon, keeps close tabs on Vittorio, whom he treasures as an "adopted father", as well as a professor. Vittorio has written extensively since his retirement, and honed his work on thin-shelled structures, publishing several books on the subject.
Vittorio has all but lost his eyesight with age, but he continues to write and to appreciate the people around him. I hope to travel to see him again this year, but until I do, I have decided to write a story or essay each week, and read it for Vittorio, so he can listen with his computer at home in Florence. These stories will describe my life in the Rocky Mountains, the influence of his teaching on my practice, the transition we seem to be negotiating in our new pursuit of an old, yet new way of living sustainably, and stories of Adventure.

If you are "listening in", enjoy, and thank you for appreciating all you can learn from my old friend, Vittorio Giorgini (wikipedia)