On the surface at least, it is hard to imagine a more incongruous combination of architect and client: the London-based John Pawson, known for his starkly Minimal and elegant temples to material culture, and a community of Cistercian monks whose lives revolve around prayer, study, and physical labor.
Before moving to this surprisingly exposed location in the Old Town area of Pasadena, California, the 10-person advanced-design team, an in-house R&D engine, had been buried deep in Honda’s corporate campus some 25 miles down the freeway, in Torrance.
It’s every architect’s fantasy—getting carte blanche from a client. “It was excellent, and the first time for me,” Gus Wustemann says with evident glee, recalling how a couple contacted him after seeing his work in magazines, and offered complete creative license.
Even though Jin’s Global Standard occupies a busy corner inside a shopping center near Tokyo, this eyeglass boutique looks nothing like your typical suburban mall shop.
In 1982, the Pennsylvania Electric Company abandoned use of the historic Chester Waterside Station on the Delaware River, a 1916 coal-fired electrical power plant.
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Fla., has long held one of the world's great collections of baroque masters, including Peter Paul Rubens, Velazquez, van Dyck, and others.
This building, originally an unassuming, three-story warehouse, was part of a thriving tobacco industry that socially and economically defined the South Boston, Virginia, community in the early 20th century.