In today’s civilized society, we, as a collective body of diverse interests, had figured out that the four seasons which the global climate had provided for our comfort (or discomfort) were too plain and boring. Therefore, we figured out ways to define our own spectacle of time as entertainment; there was season that we prefer to go shoot those cute little squeals in our front yard; there were seasons for sport enthusiasts to challenge each other; there was time when children must obey rules and sit quietly in confine environment; there were even seasons when the color of fabric deemed inappropriate to cover our naked bodies.
For personal interest sake I learn to adapt my own seasonal patterns very much like animals that evolve overtime to survive in the ever-changing, now globally warmed, environment; thus, without any doubt, summer is always the ultimate car season.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like car during the rest of the year, (oh no, far from that) but the leisure of having cool breeze tunneling into the driver’s cockpit under blazing hot sun somehow make me increasingly more passionate about what I love.
I have more time on hands, too (hint I have time to write this blog); and these precious moments of freedom translated into hours of Top Gear watching and petrol-head chitchats.
I was so intoxicated on this passion of mine I even made videos last summer (which you can find from my previous post).
Sometime, it troubles me how much I love the automobile industry that I would question myself if architecture is in fact the holy grail as my career path, especially when the construction industry is nothing by a spectacle of unemployment. Since my both of my all-time hero were both non-architects (Anthony Bourdain, being a cool middle-age chef and travel show host for “No Reservation”; while the other as an automobile expert and a TV commentator overwhelmed with ridiculous thoughts – Jeremy Clarkson), my architecture friends might find this particularly disturbing (since the architectural cult usually consisted of pure building believer and build shrine at home worshiping his/her favorite architect).
Until one day, in this summer, I chatted with a friend of mine who happened to be a petrol-head AND an engineer. In a general setting, we, as in my major of study, all know the relationship between engineers and architects are like oil and water; both hate each other but yet need the coexist with the opposing party.
However, in the case of my friend Roger Carter, he appreciates quality design as much as value engineering. Here, we are talking about a guy who know how much horsepower he can extract out of an engineer by reporting its port for 0.01 millimeter and the pitch change through an exhaust system while adding quarter of an inch to the pipe, yet he understand the different between a line drawn by a man with a pencil and one generate by silicon chips.
It is under these extraordinary circumstances when masterpiece is born, shocking the world (exceeded beyond design, architecture, and engineering) by surprise – Antonio Calatrava is certainly the perfect example for such occasion, caught within the delta area of spectacular aesthetic, monumental architectural gesture and mind-blowing engineering.
Now, wait a minute, with that being said, did I just reassured the security of my interest? If a grease monkey understood, and appreciated, the different between minimalistic-cold-architectural concrete and rotting-Victorian-Colonial state of mind, I could comfortably admit my disappointment toward the American automobile industry in the 90’s then admired the Mercedes 300SL as the most astonishing car men had ever created on the drafting board.
But until I can master the craft of impossible imagination, I will take advantage with this petrol-head season of mine; as I driving my coupe with the windows down and a pair of sepia sunglass on, I shall listen to Joyce Cooling, pretending I am living under the California driving culture, where the four seasons are monochromatic, people are as gorgeous as Italian sports cars, and the architectures are doubtlessly brilliant.
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