Lessons From Architecture

Ever seen one of those T-squares?

They're a cool invention for precision, but a pain to carry, what with 36 inches of it.

I called it my "palakol", my axe.

Quack architect had to carry that every day for five years --  together with triangles, scales, pens, pencils, tracing paper, books, notebooks.

I trudged the library with that, too, for we didn't have lockers.

Strange that I think about that now.

We sure didn't have lockers.

My school was run by German and Belgian priests, and we didn't have lockers??!!

Oh, and yes, there were no working elevators either.

Too bad if you had to come from the ground floor, and up to the seventh floor, where our classrooms were.

My father bought me a nice, yellow lamp that can be angled.

He also had a carpenter fashion a drawing table just for me.

Again, this quack architect cringed as every nail was driven to that table, which was actually the halved ping-pong table of my brothers when they were kids.

Now, my fate was sealed.

A table, and a lamp.

I had to get to work.

Dad kept a close eye on me at school, and would pick me up after school, parking his van right outside my building.

My teachers and classmates behaved, for obvious reasons.

So, what did I learn from all these?

Patience.

Precision.

And "perspective".

Architecture taught us to see, and draw, things from a worm's eye view, normal street view, and bird's eye view.

We were taught to see from three dimensions. 

That really helped in my thinking and writing.

And yes, I excelled in English, Religion, and Theory of Architecture, and was intrigued by Sir Bannister Fletcher's "A History of Architecture".

The rest of my classmates excelled in everything but those.

Their interests were in Architecture and construction itself.

Which made me feel even more of a quack.