Quattra-Catharsis

(Continued from Firstly, the Bay Tradition 3/1/2009)

Unmasked, pathology fresh and gleaming, I could no longer deny the influences, the obsession with asymmetrical shingled masses, houses of wood, the shin-zukuri and gassho styles, the odd classical detail distorted, engorged, layers of wood, roof lines akimbo, wood.

No matter the obloquy, handicapped by outspokenness and the headwinds of time, I determined to muster on, without resent for the fickle Klieg and its current fancy, lofty post war boxes with lean pipe columns and glass walled bridges; nor, with animosity for chintzy foam appliques and purloined ornament.

Rather as I surveyed the steep, fog-bound uplands of Diamond Heights, the corkscrew rise of the Balboa Highlands, even the methane saturated bog of Playa Vista, my mind eagerly filed and sorted, crafting architectural treatise and style precis. Had I become a seer, freed from constraints of time, place, and culture?

I sought comment from the nation's chief.