Published here for the first time, architect Ian Ritchie’s poems, aphorisms, and etchings attest to a profound engagement with the built environ­ment. Ritchie (b. 1947) is one of Britain’s most visionary architects, with an eclectic practice embracing urban planning, public sculpture, and industrial design. His calligraphic etchings imagine the shape or spirit of commissions in simple but powerful strokes. Variably pragmatic and philosophical, often witty, his aphorisms on work and life—from the importance of light to the nature and possibility of progress—reveal a modernist’s belief in the potential of architecture to improve society. These lines of thought, committed to paper before any designing begins, demonstrate that, for Ritchie, being an architect is many more things besides.

Ian Ritchie is an internationally acclaimed architect. His built designs include the Leipzig Glass Hall, the Spire of Dublin, the elevator shafts for the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and the RSC Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, winner of the RIBA National Award in 2007.