Spotlight On: Rafael Viñoly

I won something ~ a book.  I never win anything!  Once, I won a Ralph Lauren blanket, then left it on the train.  I didn't have it in my possession for 3 hours!  That kind of  s**t  always happens to me!  So imagine my surprise and delight.

I received this beautiful signed book by famed architect Rafael Viñoly.  RV is a world-renowned architect and classical pianist originally from Uruguay.
What makes architecture so fulfilling for RV is the ability to satisfy his clients' needs while creating iconic works that take on a most unique form of artistic commitment.

While Rafael claims not to have a visual style, I think of more of his work than not as curvaceous, but also linier with a lot of symmetry and flooded with light; conforming harmoniously with the environment in which it sits~the buildings are a matter of proportion and relationships of form and space.

I knew RV built  The Kimmel Center , which is quite a showpiece here in Philadelphia.  It is like a building within a building and a rooftop deck, all under a dome. 

I wondered what else in the area, if anything, RV designed.  I was surprised to find out he designed one of the most spectacular estates (that happens to be for sale) this side of the Keystone State: Arbor Hill.

Arbor Hill is really a masterpiece, as are many of Mr. Viñoly's commissions.  Rafael's residential projects are warm and fairly clean in design, but you feel connected to the space, not unlike his large commercial buildings.  An artist (architect), like a musician, understands not only the image or song, but the note, and it's intrinsic relationship to the whole.

ph: Kimmel Center, G. Widman, Christies