I had carried around with me, in my mind and heart, the story of a famous architect who gets kidnapped by an eccentric billionaire and imprisoned in order to design an extraordinary palace for the strange and reclusive man. However, our editor Agustin of Tribal Publishing, decided it best to have the architect be gently coaxed into designing the palace for a benevolent wise man instead. By that time, the architect was a successful female who was unhappy with her life managing projects and staff all day from her upscale office in East Hampton, NY.
When she arrives at the tropical island of Kauai in Hawaii where her eventual patron and benefactor lives after finding a note to her slipped in an old book, she gradually becomes enamored with the place and its people. After much coaxing, she decides to stay long enough to design the palace, but no longer. Immediately, she begins to have dreams about the building with its many towers, domes and courtyards. She spends long hours on the site, which is on the side of a lush mountain facing the ocean, after-which the drawings start to flow out of her.
The spirit of place, the Genius Loci, begins its work on her, and her mind starts to generate clear visions (what Jung calls “Claritas”) about what the buildings want to be. Her benefactor had told her to simply design to her heart’s content, and this was a wonderful gift to her, but in her heart she knew that the building, which by now was a large group of buildings, had to have purpose and meaning. The place, the people, her benefactor, his animal topiaries, all the things she had experienced and seen here, were merging with her inner architect and wondrous things started to occur. Her life experiences with Romanesque and Moorish architecture, along with her skills with residential design and construction started to work its magic on her subconscious.
Unable to focus on the design with all the distractions of a tropical paradise, she decided to sequester herself in a locked room where no one could bother her for weeks at a time, and to draw, draw, draw – and so she did – she drew like the wind. She knew this was “Her Time – Her Place” to shine. All of her creative energies were at play. The result: a magical building that all of the property’s inhabitants could thrive in for generations to come.
The Architect was a labor of love for Duke and I. Over the course of about a year we had the best time (and the hardest time) creating and following the outer and inner journey and exploits of our heroine Meg Summers. She goes through a lot, but comes out on the other side – a new woman. Thank you for reading.
From the desk of,
Ken Tate