Who are you and what do you do?
Diana Wellenbrink – architect. Back in my home country I was arch.Diana Popova -- when you're an architect in Bulgaria, you put your title in front of your name just like doctors do.
What made you decide to go into your field?
When I was twelve, I visited the home- museum of Victor Vazarely in Pecs, Hungary. I was so impressed by the two-dimensional transformation, textural effects, the play of perspective, and light that upon returning back home I started painting (of course trying to imitate the scene). Sometimes I wish to be as excited about other things now as I was then. The built up knowledge end experience seems to steel that “virgin” appreciation and joy of discovery. Though I still could wow loudly -- a couple of years ago I visited Louis Khan’s Salk Institute Campus and no matter that I’ve studied about it before, I've read that the physical experience cannot be compared to anything.
What did your family think of your chosen field?
My mother, a teacher in Chemistry and a widow raising two children, asked shortly “How much do you need?”; I told her and that was the end of the conversation. She gave me the money I needed to study drawing for 3 years and mathematics for 2 years in order to be accepted in the University. Mother, thank you! I hope one day I would be able to support my son in pursuing his dream.
Who is the teacher who had the most influence on you and why?
My teacher in drawing, who was an architect that I kept in contact with until I left for America. He was literally beating us for “basic stupidity” but at the same time he was sitting and holding our hands to teach us how to “loosen”, “how the object should start to appear", and "never forget the big, focusing on the small”. Unfortunately his professional life proved that talent without a business approach won’t make an architectural career.
What was the biggest hurdle you faced along your educational path? (academic, financial, motivational, family or peer pressure, outside distraction, etc.)
That in architecture, you should have a strong personality, but that at the same time, you need to learn to give up – how much, when, where. One of my professors at school marking my work said: “I wish to put a ”D-“on your work, because I don’t think a client would like it, it is so 'dark', but it shows who you are and what your mood is, so “A-”.
So you to find who you are once and second how to “twist” that with a certain project, or geographic circumstance, or budget issues, or client’s personality, or team preferences is not easy I think it is never ending process.
What inspires you?
Works of art and architecture. I wish to say nature, but I am an urban type of person and I like to see the “marks of civilization”. If I am in the mountains and I see a shelter, I feel relaxed. That is why, I guess, I am an architect – to build shelters.
What schooling is required for success in your career?
Work is the best schooling. I didn’t believe it when one of my teachers asked us to redraw a project that had been designed by a well established architect. Now I know he was right.
What kind of people are the most successful in your field? Are there any specific attributes?
I’ve already mentioned that unfortunately only talent in the field of architecture is not enough. You need to have a special approach that is a talent of its own. At certain moments, you need to be a psychologist, a public speaker, a businessman, a brick layer, a wrestler, and many more…
What is the best advice you were ever given?
A quote of one of my professors, leading a class in modeling, also famous sculptor “Don’t say a word unless you could summarize it as a sketch.”
The advice of my thesis advisor upon saying good bye to each other: “From this point on, do not let anybody not address you as arch. Popova”. Interpreted, that should mean that what you gain as a professional if official, so nobody should be allowed not to respect that and there are only certain institutions that could object or suspend this.
A quote by memory of a line from Kipling’s poem: “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, // But make allowance of their doubting too.”
Is your field growing? (ie. is there room for new entries and is there career growth?)
I wish to say it stays as broad as it has always been.
What advice would you give someone considering a career like yours?
Go, go, go! There are few minutes in your career, but they are worth for all efforts and sleepless nights. One of mine was when we lit up a newly renovated place and the old lady who gave this place to her granddaughter and was reluctant of our “invasion” started crying and said “it is as if I'm seeing my place for the first time, it is so wonderful”
An Eight Year Old Perspective
by Richard Leong, VIA Architecture
With the mist clearing, the scene unfolds with vivid colours of emerald greens, ultramarine blues in battle with dreary greys, and hue upon hue of cooler greys. Once in a while a warmer grey appears but this is a rare occurrence. The paranoid skies erupt with the crying of clouds and a sudden splashing of raining rain beats down, but as I have said earlier the skies are untrusting and do not maintain any sort of consistency. Within minutes, the streaming sunlight and the nakedness of the sun is exposed in all of its glory. Mountains emerge with their dotted viridian trees and in the foreground bright orange red cranes are thrust into one's field of vision. These cranes are loud at times and they pluck their large loads with reckless abandon from the awaiting barges and docked ships. Sure, these cranes are huge, they're gigantic chairs, but compared to the background, an endless palette of coastal mountains, these manmade structures are miniscule. Although as tiny as they are, I still stare at them in awe.
+PortOVan.jpg)
+vancouver-port-cranes-b.jpg)
Before I forget, there are also the railroad tracks that run between the back alley of the laundromat and the site of the cranes. The sound of these tracks with the stainless grinding of steel against steel would lull me to sleep night after night. Of course the blaring horn was loud and the signal crossing would ring into the night but when you got used to it, it was like a warm glass of milk before bedtime. I did mention the laundromat across the street didn't I? I don't remember the name of the girl whose parents were the owners. It was years ago, but oh how we played...running up and down the alleys and near the tracks and pedalling furiously on our three wheeled chariots across the streets.
The longshoremen knew our names and would always say hi at quitting time. They would give us spare change to buy ice cream or something every now and then. I guess it was every second Friday or something like that. Off to the corner store we would go. The ice creams were always good and usually I would get the ice cream sandwich. I would get two and give one to my younger sister. The laundromat girl would get a bag of assorted jellies or candies. I can't believe that I don't remember her name. As I said, the ice creams were good but you had to really concentrate to taste them because your nose would wander off and sniff the wafting breeze that was lightly scented with salmon, probably sockeye.
At night it wasn't just the trains and trackyards that interrupted the peace, sometimes for months at a time, there would be the heavy sound of fans or other machinations from the fish processing plant, the cannery. This would happen without fail year after year during the salmon season. Well, I could go on but the mind is starting to wander, hey look...a new condo development taking over the site of that historic little motel...
This is the city that I remember, the village of my childhood...and how times have changed.
Image links: Image 1, Image 2
Background info for this post:
“The current trend of density and downtown living has left me thinking of a more simple time, less complicated, perhaps naïve and due to traces of synaptic loss, slightly idealized. What is written is a stream of consciousness memory/reaction that I have culled from the back alleys of my memory…”
The imagery is a metaphor for the fact that in Vancouver, and maybe in Seattle as well, that the natural surroundings overpower the architecture. How do we reconcile this? Can we make architecture stand out? When thinking of community, place and neighbourhood, what is it that brings forth the fondest of memories? What can we do as architects, planners, and designers to make something that the public can make their own?
With the mist clearing, the scene unfolds with vivid colours of emerald greens, ultramarine blues in battle with dreary greys, and hue upon hue of cooler greys. Once in a while a warmer grey appears but this is a rare occurrence. The paranoid skies erupt with the crying of clouds and a sudden splashing of raining rain beats down, but as I have said earlier the skies are untrusting and do not maintain any sort of consistency. Within minutes, the streaming sunlight and the nakedness of the sun is exposed in all of its glory. Mountains emerge with their dotted viridian trees and in the foreground bright orange red cranes are thrust into one's field of vision. These cranes are loud at times and they pluck their large loads with reckless abandon from the awaiting barges and docked ships. Sure, these cranes are huge, they're gigantic chairs, but compared to the background, an endless palette of coastal mountains, these manmade structures are miniscule. Although as tiny as they are, I still stare at them in awe.
+PortOVan.jpg)
+vancouver-port-cranes-b.jpg)
Before I forget, there are also the railroad tracks that run between the back alley of the laundromat and the site of the cranes. The sound of these tracks with the stainless grinding of steel against steel would lull me to sleep night after night. Of course the blaring horn was loud and the signal crossing would ring into the night but when you got used to it, it was like a warm glass of milk before bedtime. I did mention the laundromat across the street didn't I? I don't remember the name of the girl whose parents were the owners. It was years ago, but oh how we played...running up and down the alleys and near the tracks and pedalling furiously on our three wheeled chariots across the streets.
The longshoremen knew our names and would always say hi at quitting time. They would give us spare change to buy ice cream or something every now and then. I guess it was every second Friday or something like that. Off to the corner store we would go. The ice creams were always good and usually I would get the ice cream sandwich. I would get two and give one to my younger sister. The laundromat girl would get a bag of assorted jellies or candies. I can't believe that I don't remember her name. As I said, the ice creams were good but you had to really concentrate to taste them because your nose would wander off and sniff the wafting breeze that was lightly scented with salmon, probably sockeye.
At night it wasn't just the trains and trackyards that interrupted the peace, sometimes for months at a time, there would be the heavy sound of fans or other machinations from the fish processing plant, the cannery. This would happen without fail year after year during the salmon season. Well, I could go on but the mind is starting to wander, hey look...a new condo development taking over the site of that historic little motel...
This is the city that I remember, the village of my childhood...and how times have changed.
Image links: Image 1, Image 2
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