In 1989, three books later, I wrote The Most Beautiful House in the World, about how my wife Shirley and I built our own house in rural Quebec. The book was reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, and made it to the bestseller list. Later that year I got a call from a Times editor who invited me to write something on architecture for the Arts & Leisure section of the Sunday paper. I was taken aback because although I was an architect, I had written articles and book reviews on other subjects, but I had never been asked my opinion about architecture. I realized that in America (I was still living in Canada at the time) my successful book meant I was now an expert. I wrote “Architects Must Listen to the Melody.” It began, “Goethe once described architecture as frozen music; if he was right, could cities be described as congealed concertos?”
A WRITING LIFE: PART TWO
