RIGHT UP MY ALLEY (June 25, 2011)

I dreamt that my beloved had found a large book about Zagreb on top of a neat pile of discarded books next to a garbage container in the center of the city. She handed it to me without a word. It had many large photographs of very high quality. The blank pages in front were covered with notes of the first owner. Neatly arranged, they were in blue pen. The handwriting smacked of an architect, too. The photographs showed architectural and/or urban planning interventions in the Croatian capital after World War II. Apparently, the objective was to show how similar these interventions were. For instance, there were several examples of fixing flat roofs by adding slope to them so as to improve drainage. Flat roofs were a nightmare for people leaving under them. I remember that I was quite delighted by the find, but that I immediately found a fault with it, as well. “Of course,” I told my beloved, “they were all taught by a small group of architects, who were taught by an even smaller group a generation earlier.” She just nodded. “Under the circumstances,” I continued with growing passion, “the interventions into the building stock could not but be rather similar!” Anyhow, the dream made me kind of happy. It was right up my alley, as it were.