Brookfield Place, Santiago Calatrava, architect  2012
1445 m2 – 15550 sq.ft

source text by Mark Kingwell, used with permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Have you ever wondered whether a city can make you happy? Not the buildings or the shops, not even the people, but something that makes this city what it is, a unique place, with a mysterious essence that is like personality or character in a human being. What can?t be faked or imitated, what doesn?t need to pretend to be something else. The way she walks; the sound of his voice; the toss of her head; the gesture of his hand. Cities are individual the way people are, fusions of the material and the spiritual. They are not mere bundles of transactions, or clusters of unrelated people. They live! And when we walk in this city, crossing from private spaces to public ones, and back again, traversing thresholds and entering shared spaces of urban life, we create living patterns of our desire. Mazes of possibility! We get lost in ourselves, on the streets and in the squares and among our fellow citizens; and, just by getting lost, we find ourselves?and our happiness. This is not a destination but, instead, an invitation. Come, walk with me, and be my love!

Toronto Pearson International Airport, Terminal 1, International Arrivals
907 m2 – 9766 sq.ft

source text, Dinosaur Skeleton, by Wislawa Szymborska

Dinosaur Skeleton from Poems New and Collected by Wislawa Szymborska. English translation copyright © 1998 by Harcourt, Inc. Used by permission of Houghton Miffin Harcourt Publishing company. All rights reserved.

Beloved Brethren,
we have before us an example of incorrect proportions.
Behold! the dinosaur’s skeleton looms above–

Dear Friends,
on the left we see the tail trailing into one infinity,
on the right, the neck juts into another–

Esteemed Comrades,
in between, four legs that finally mired in the slime
beneath this hillock of a trunk–

Gentle Citizens,
nature does not err, but it loves its little joke:
please note the laughably small head–

Ladies, Gentlemen,
a head this size does not have room for foresight,
and that is why its owner is extinct–

Honored Dignitaries,
a mind too small, an appetite too large,
more senseless sleep than prudent apprehension–

Distinguished Guests,
we’re in far better shape in this regard,
life is beautiful and the world is ours–

Venerated Delegation,
the starry sky above the thinking reed
and moral law within it–

Most Reverend Deputation,
such success does not come twice
and perhaps beneath this single sun alone–

Inestimable Council,
how deft the hands,
how eloquent the lips,
what a head on these shoulders–

Supremest of Courts,
so much responsibility in place of a vanished tail—

Toronto Pearson International Airport, Terminal 1, U.S. Departures, post-security

TWO TRULY STRAIGHT AND PARALLEL LINES WILL NEVER INTERSECT NOT EVEN IN ETERNITY
213.5 m – 700 ft long

b/w poster
30 x 40 inches

b/w poster
30 x 40 inches

b/w poster
101.6 x 76.2 cm