LEFT and RIGHT: Sokolov Retreat, St. Tropez, France, 1976
“It is the place to be,” he told me. In another life-
was to be constructed of ferro-concrete—the same
changing moment, I packed up and went to London.
thin-shell technology used in naval architecture—and
Boyarsky was right; the AA in 1976 was
would have a transparent bottom. One would row
incredible. The amount of energy there was unbe-
out to it from the mainland. The deck would float
lievable—there was something like three lectures a
four centimeters below the surface; visitors would
day. I tutored in the undergraduate studios with Elia
remove their shoes and roll up their pants to get to
Zenghelis; Rem Koolhaas was presenting Delirious
the entry. After descending a central staircase, one
New York as a series of lectures; Zaha Hadid would
would enter an absolutely silent world. Swinging in
carry her parallel bar around with her, demanding
a hammock, one could look out the portholes at the
to be taught how to draw.
fish. After being down there a while, one might go a
While in London, I traveled quite a bit. I went to every possible building to experience them firsthand, to sketch. I lived as a vagabond, a rumpled, dirty figure trying to find a way to do a project. Somehow, through a friend, I met a man in
jump from the tower into the sea. This was 1976, an incredible time for architecture. Everyone was making obsessive drawings. Bernard Tschumi was producing the Manhattan
Paris who was dissatisfied with his vacation house
Transcripts, Daniel Libeskind was doing his
in San Tropez. It was noisy, too crowded; he needed
Chamberworks. I made ten large pencil drawings of
a retreat from the house. I said, “Sure, I’ll make you
the San Tropez project incorporating views that not
a project.”
only reinforced the ideas of the project but also
To allow him to escape from San Tropez, I designed an underwater retreat floating in the bay. It 12
little crazy, so it is possible to climb a ladder and
CONVERSATION
resonated with the way I felt about my working as well. The character in the rowboat illustrates the