The Monument

After drilling some holes in the concrete for the anchor bolts the team began erecting the sides. Again, much like when the slab was being construed, I was preparing to take another team out of state on a trip, so I missed much of the process here. Ultimately a skytrack was rented that wasn’t tall enough for the full building, so the construction team had some critical thinking to do. When I went out there were guys unharnessed, scaling the top of the poles connecting them. With hot metal I feel I would have died trying to do this part…but that’s why I hired a crew I suppose. 

This was the first moment the vision of the house became a reality. Standing under the towering 26’ beams scraping the sky was surreal. 7 cumulative years of training to design and make architecture, buying property, and designing 20+ home iterations finally manifested into two tall I-beams jettisoning out of the rock. 

Deep down I wanted to leave the beams standing, unaltered and exposed, but that was not a viable option. One aspect that I’m drawn to in Architecture is it’s ability to teach. There’s a special relationship between the building and the architect unshared by anyone else…sort of like a parent and a child. The roles are flipped here as architecture (the child) does the teaching. There’s a point at which raw beauty clothed in years of thought, resources, and preparation must be refined. To cover up something raw isn’t good or bad, it’s necessary. Raw beauty exposed for long periods of time dulls the eyes of the viewer. Beautiful things don’t beg for our attention* and by covering it up later in the project I can enjoy the building all the more, knowing that there are ghosts between the walls.