HYLAND
The British architect Norman Foster is a poet
of geometry. His famed "gherkin" building at 30 St. Mary
Axe, London which takes its cue from Expressionist
architect Bruno Taut's 1914 glass pavilion in Cologne,
and his magnificently faceted Hearst Tower in New
York are examples of Foster's way with angles, right or
otherwise. Certain of his interiors—Leedon Park House
in Singapore comes to mind—make me think of the
Japanese, geniuses of the unadorned angle, and remind
me again of Taut, to whom elder architect Hermann
Muthesius, author of the classic treatise The English
House, suggested a stay in England in 1910 to imbibe
the garden city philosophy. The famous housing estates
Taut built in Berlin were compared by their architect to
