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As an architecture student who writes stories and as a creative writer who studies architecture, I was having difficulties explaining that novels accurately describe environmental experiences. My arguments always led to justifying novels as another inspirational formal tool for architects. Through the Architectural History and Theory program under the supervision of Prof. Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez, I learned to build my argument and find philosophical, literary, and architectural resources to develop it. Prof. P茅rez-G贸mez firmly believes in the importance of literature and poetry for having a just and meaningful architecture. Through the books he wrote and the historical architecture treatises that he studied over the years at the McGill Rare Books Library, Prof. Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez provided materials to support literature for architecture as a source of ethical imagination. He taught me that the priority is to think poetically, regardless of whether I am writing or building.

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In my decades in post-secondary education, I have not met a more inspirational professor than Alberto. Thinking back to when I attended his undergraduate courses at McGill University, or later taking part as a Masters student in these amazing seminars we held in the Rare Books Library room and the MacDonald Harrington building 鈥� wonderful days of presentations and discussions 鈥� I remember my time with Alberto and fellow students as rare moments that foregrounded collectively thinking around different readings as the most foundational task at hand. We plowed through sixteenth-century treatises or modern texts of philosophy with a sort of pure curiosity that was wonderfully at odds with the typical instrumentalization of what we do and what we learn. And as I keep running in the many 鈥淕omytes鈥� that are now in different practices and schools all over the world, I recognize this communicative passion that continues to animate all of us in our work to this day as but one part of the long-lasting impression that Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez is having on the architectural landscape.

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Coming from Palestine with a background in Architectural Engineering, I joined the Architectural History and Theory option at McGill University in 2012. I came into the school searching for a deeper meaning behind architecture and design. The readings we did in our history and theory seminars were eye-opening, but, moreover, it was the discussions that we had with Prof. P茅rez-G贸mez鈥� and the passion he had for what he taught that forever changed my perspective on architecture. My studies ended with a project that revolved around collecting words (which I then pickled in jars) and designing a space through narrative. I can only say that my experience in the History and Theory option has been one filled with fantastical encounters and serious research. I am honoured to have been part of this legacy, and I am thankful to Prof. P茅rez-G贸mez鈥� and the rest of my professors for the opportunity to be part of this story.

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I studied at McGill鈥檚 Architectural History and Theory option under Professor Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez from 1998-2005. My first encounter with Alberto鈥檚 scholarship began while reading his coauthored book, Questions of Perception: Phenomenology of Architecture, while I still lived in Shanghai. While studying in Cincinnati, I read the Chora series and sent him an inquiry regarding the Ph.D. program. He kindly wrote back with two enticements: the McGill libraries held wonderful architectural collections, and Montreal was a characteristic city for architectural studies. Studying with Alberto was an intense, challenging and enlightening process that always pushed me towards the unknown architectural truth. I have kept my original copies of his syllabi and share them as 鈥渢he McGill reading list鈥� with my students in Florida. In his courses, we extensively read the primary sources between history and philosophy of Vitruvius, Greek origins, medieval monasticism and art of memory, Renaissance humanism and hermeticism, Baroque fantasy, G.B. Vico鈥檚 philosophy of history, phenomenology (especially Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty), hermeneutics (especially Ricoeur and Gadamer), critical meditations (especially Nietzsche, W. Benjamin and H. Arendt), surrealist dreams, modern and postmodern spaces of differences, desires and encounters, etc. His teaching and writings engage in the 鈥渋ntervals in the philosophy of architecture鈥� to reconcile poetics and ethics in humanity. His hermeneutic study of architectural coincidences between history and phenomenology challenges Cartesian dualism on the philosophical issues of language, perception, experience, representation, imagination and poetic emotion. It maintains a great hope for meaningful architecture against the nihilism of instrumentalized modernity. His safeguard of architectural spiritus inspired my dissertation on a forgotten Jesuit garden at the Chinese Qing-dynasty imperial court. I had a wish that my dissertation defence took place in a Chinese garden. The dream came true in the summer of 2019 when Alberto and his former colleagues and students read Chinese gardens in situ for the published Chinese translation of his Built Upon Love, which timely reminded us that 鈥渁s humans, our greatest gift is love, and we are invariably called to respond to it. Despite our suspicions, architecture has been and must continue to be built upon love.鈥�

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I will forever remember my time with Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez in the Architectural History and Theory option at McGill University in the early 1990s. Within the pages of Vitruvius鈥檚 Ten Books and architectural treatises of the Renaissance and Baroque periods (among others), the parentheses of graduate studies in a person鈥檚 lifetime were, under Alberto鈥檚 watchful guidance, all the more memorable that their lines of reflection often carried us to forgotten books of a distant past. Yet Alberto had a remarkable way of bridging remote texts, drawings, and events in architectural history with our present moment and revealing their importance and impact, making them vivid and invigorating our engagement with contemporary theory and practice. Alberto has a gift for articulating ideas while mapping them on the backdrop of each author鈥檚 world of beliefs, senses of humour, assumptions, and broader contexts. He also knew which concepts to isolate and give our attention 鈥� from representation to phenomenological experience, time, and memory -- to build a more conscious approach to contemporary architecture. My cohort in the early nineties was small, and therefore focused and intimate as a result. Today, this chapter of my education resonates as a stolen moment before the busyness of life took over soon afterward. I truly enjoyed returning to the program as a guest for the yearly seminar on Guarino Guarino (my thesis topic) and glimpsing into Alberto鈥檚 inspiring world and this iconic scene: students hovered together around wonderful books in the Rare Books Room on the fourth floor of McLennan Library, deep in thought and discourse. It has been a privilege to remain in touch with Alberto through the years. I wish you, Alberto, much joy and fulfillment and continued creative production during your retirement.

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Thank you, Alberto. For your rigour and commitment to following your questions and observations rather than convention; for your generosity of spirit and care for your students; and for passing on to so many of us your conviction that by learning to read, listen, and speak with each other we can leave the world better than we found it.

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I feel privileged to have been part of the Architectural History and Theory option of the Master of Architecture Post-professional program at McGill University and having the opportunity to study with and next to outstanding scholars and academics. With tremendous gratitude, I thank Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez for generously sharing his knowledge and time, and, above all, for creating a safe place for the exchange of diverse ideas and arguments.

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It was first Alberto鈥檚 writings that triggered my journey from Istanbul to Montreal in 2005. Then, it was in his lectures, always enacted and crafted with rigor and care that these words came to life a second time. When I decided to work on an obscure book for my doctorate, the first thing I remember is Alberto鈥檚 encouragement to pursue my passion and openness to support the study of this overlooked subject. The diversity of topics, geographies, concepts, and periods covered in works completed under his supervision are testimonies to his selfless mentorship and boundless efforts for inclusivity in global architectural history and theory. He shared his poetic speech and writing, ethical stance and rigorous scholarship generously while allowing his students to grow and find their voices. And for that I feel most grateful and privileged.

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In a time of rising crises in social, political and environmental contexts; on the cusp of momentous technological breakthroughs that will radically change the realm of human affairs; at a time when capital and political power collude with ever greater efficacy to 鈥榮mooth鈥� space, it is truly lamentable to lose the distinctive critical forum that is McGill鈥檚 graduate option in Architectural History and Theory.

No one can fill the shoes of Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez, of course--not the erudition certainly, but also not the passionate conviction and indefatigable hope. Hope, on the one hand, that 鈥渢he effort to think one's own history can liberate thought from what it silently thinks, and so enable it to think differently.鈥� Distinct from the hermeneutics of suspicion, however, this hope extends to the possibility of creating otherwise. Eruptions--wonder-full, resistant, or just plain unruly--against myopia, closure, consolidation...

It is a testament to the Master of Architecture Post-professional program in its History and Theory option that its three decades of students from all over the world are as distinct in our work and thinking as the diverse places in which we find ourselves today. But Alberto鈥檚 鈥榓ctivist鈥� hermeneutics inspires us all in the same way, as we strive to be not only good scholars, creators, professionals, and teachers--but also good protagonists.

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I will always remember the day I first read Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez鈥檚 work. It was a serendipitous encounter, and as I delved into Alberto's writing, I discovered a mentor who approached architecture in a way I had never imagined possible. For here was a scholar who, through deep and thoughtful engagement with a broad corpus of historical treatises and contemporary texts, teased out their most profound connections and, in so doing, unveiled a rich and ongoing humanist conversation about architectural thinking, theory and practice as critical sources for grounding understanding, meaning-making and ethical action in the present.

I joined the stimulating community of the Architectural History and Theory option to dwell longer and more fully in this conversation. Advancing from master鈥檚 to Ph.D. and throughout the precious years therein, I reveled in the ideas that Alberto brought to life through a stunning intellectual trajectory into which writers and architects entered and comingled, enlightened and enchanted, as they spoke to one another across time and space. For opening the doors to this world, I will forever be grateful to you, Alberto. Thank-you for so generously sharing the profound insights and originality of your thinking through your teaching and writing, and for igniting and nurturing a deep appreciation for techne, poiesis and the wonders of human imagination and creativity amidst an expansive community of architects and scholars all around the world. Know that your vision and commitment have deeply shaped my own teaching praxis, and how clearly, I hear your voice each time I say to my students: What we do and what we say matters. These matter deeply.

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Deep in a library some twenty years ago, I came across an early volume of Chora whose brilliant forays into architectural thinking and making were my first window onto the space of profound reflection, creativity and generosity opened by Alberto within the Architectural History and Theory program at McGill. Soon enough, I found myself in Montr茅al with the most inspiring people I had ever met from across the world, forging together a community of scholars and makers in between the Rare Books Library and the woodshop, the seminar and the studio, in words, images and artifacts. We discovered the vitality of history as a living inquiry, able to ground an architecture of action, imagination and compassion. In turn, we learned how theory could open up to both understanding and feeling, myth and reason, and illuminate the sense of purpose, beauty, and justice in human experience 鈥� how the political was poetic, and the aesthetic was ethical. We found our individual paths within a journey that took us from Plato鈥檚 Timaeus to Hejduk鈥檚 masques, guided throughout by Colonna鈥檚 Polyphilo. My own led from Nicholas of Cusa鈥檚 game of spheres to Palissy鈥檚 grottoes of redeemed earth, and on through the crystalline gate of Ledoux鈥檚 Saltworks to the ideal city of Chaux. Yet it was also intertwined deeply with those of my colleagues tracing Suger鈥檚 hierurgy of stone, walking and reading St. Petersburg, narrating the justness of the Paris Observatory, dancing the Lancaster-Hanover Masque, and recovering the resistant origins of Korean Modernism. We followed after our seniors, just as others followed us, adding our voices to a symposium that lasted for over thirty years. One by one, our theses written, and our lives changed, we spread out across the world again to begin new projects, and to carry the program forward in our own ways, in new modes and forums. My experience at McGill was profoundly transformative, and I am ever grateful to my colleagues, the faculty and staff for their generosity, insight and encouragement. But above all, I am most grateful to Alberto for so freely sharing his passion, wisdom, and capacity for wonder, not only with regard to architecture, but for all of life.

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My time at McGill was some of the most luxurious of my life. Granted, I lived in a tiny apartment with a kitchen that was, literally, a closet. My refrigerator was in my living/dining/everything else room and the entrance was directly into the bedroom. No, it was not my living arrangement that was lavish, it was the intellectual world I inhabited. The rhythm of two seminars a week and the treat of an Alberto lecture allowed for a routine that I have not enjoyed since. I did not know how rare the experience of having seminars in the rare books library, surrounded by rare books, and the ability to access them physically and not digitally, truly was. My first year was spent drunk on texts I rarely understood the first time around. Seminars were often over my head, but there was always the prospect of conversations over a burger at Milton caf茅 on Friday afternoons. I spent summers at the CCA, gorging on the books that McGill somehow did not have. It was as close to Arcadia as I have ever been. Thank you, Alberto, for clearing a space and making time to ask questions. Thank you, Martin, Louise, Lily, Marco, Paul, Einar, Julie, David, and all the rest for the conversations that followed.

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We learned the importance of care, love, and patience in our 惭茅迟颈别谤. We understand the desire to build a home as a journey where we go through moments of joy and difficulty, always with the goal to achieve something good and beautiful. It is a process and an adventure that makes us grow a little bit more every time.

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I entered the Architectural History and Theory听Post-professional program at McGill University in 1995 as a young architect searching for greater meaning in our discipline and our profession. I found purpose and passion in those lectures and seminars. Alberto鈥檚 mentorship convinced me to pursue a Ph.D. and become a historian, but his biggest influence is on my teaching. I strive to achieve the level of generosity he displays towards his students. His shadow is long, and so many of us have thrived in his shade.

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Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez provided me with a true home within the program that he had long dedicated himself to. He distinguished himself by being a captivating lecturer, an erudite scholar, and a generous mentor. My dissertation owed its creation to his impassioned, encouraging, and profound guidance. Alberto鈥檚 students, now working around the world, offer the promise that his work on the poetics of architecture will continue.

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Since the first time I sat in a history lecture by Prof. Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez as an undergraduate student, I felt that I had been offered an exacting glimpse into history of architecture, beyond mere dates and facts, a profound thread that connected the here and now to critical works through time. The History and Theory option鈥檚 contribution in informing one鈥檚 mode of thinking and practice is still resonant. The range of activities its graduates have undertaken over the years has demonstrated its critical role in informing one鈥檚 future actions. Beyond its individual offerings, the program has served as a collective motivator to make the theory and practice of architecture meaningful beyond the limits of time and space.

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Speak, speak听

O, Unspeakable you听

Speak the language you know听

Speak the shade听

Speak the crepuscule听

When the stylite鈥檚 shadow reaches the horizon听

听 Bridging earth and sky听

Speak the crepuscule听

And remember noon听

听 The equinoxes鈥� mid-day听

When your shadow is lost for a time听

听 A temporal moment听

听 Where only the wind on your burned skin听 Calls your body to the clouds听

Speak, Speak听

O, Unspeakable you听

听 Speak of morning鈥檚 dew听

听 听 Evanescent听

Listen to the well鈥檚 stones听

听 Their echo tempered by the mousses听

Listen to its underground water听

听 You in the sky听

听 Find back in your memory听

听 The inescapable time when听

听 You stopped breathing听

听 Your eyes raptured by the water cathedral听

听 听 听 So light, so mute听

听听 听 So calm, so ready to go 听 And you听

Speak, O Unspeakable you听

听 Speak the silence of the prayer听

听 Glare at the sun and find in yourself the echoes of others听

听 Them, You听

听 All indulging in drunkenness听

听 Them, You听

听 Ready to forget, to leave, to go again听

Speak, Mute听

Speak the vagueness of the shade Speak the memory of water Speak, and let go听

Speak, Speak听

Just speak the shade听

听 And remember Amon听

听 His handles regulates Ceres鈥� harvest听

听 His silence, like Moses鈥� lameness 听 His look, staring at your stomach听

听 听 Amon, Asclepius鈥� guest听

听 听 Amon, the Fourth听

听 听 The shade after the tree听

听 听 The shade听

Speak, Speak听

O, Unspeakable you Speak the language you know听

Speak the Shade鈥μ�

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Being an artist and professor before coming to McGill in 2010, I can speak to the transformative impact the Architectural History and Theory option has had on my teaching and research endeavors. Most astounding is how these lessons are continuously rediscovered years later, where the past takes on new significance in relation to present experience and action. In particular, Dr. P茅rez-G贸mez鈥� teaching and writing deeply informed my research into the architectural significance of Anselm Kiefer鈥檚 art practice, showing the reciprocity between materials and ideas, where the act of making itself gives rise to reflective thoughts about our world and its history. First introduced to Dr. P茅rez-G贸mez by my professors, who were among the first generation of his students at McGill, it is a real privilege to be part of a collective of teachers and architects, friends and colleagues, who have had such influence on architecture worldwide. Like the ever-changing manifestation of architecture, it is precisely because vestiges of other times, people and their interests were woven into the poetic images we received, that lessons from Alberto鈥檚 teaching will always permit a returning to the places we live, the tasks we perform, our tools and language, as sources for the continual renewal of meaningful architecture.

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The world is a mystery through which we wander. The ways we see it, draw it, and make the map of that world are entangled in each other. When I came to McGill鈥檚 History & Theory option, I was looking for a way to invite into my work an understanding of how the knot of history and culture, contemporary events and calamities, matter to architecture. My professional background, life experience, and studies in design as it relates to social science had offered valuable forms of knowledge, but not this. I found it in the Architectural History and Theory option of the Master of Architecture Post-professional program at McGill University. For this I have to thank the tremendous breadth of knowledge, and the embrace of architectural poetics as a subject of scholarship, of Alberto P茅rez-G贸mez; the key contributions of Martin Bressani, Ricardo Castro, and Louise Pelletier; and my own classmates, who were a rich source of insight, camaraderie, and pleasure. I learned from each of these. Every year since leaving the program I have continued to discover how that my experience in it prepared me to explore architecture, its image, and their constitution in culture and technics. I have also found myself to be a member of an international community with similar concerns, and I am still in frequent correspondence with graduates of McGill鈥檚 Architectural History and Theory option. All of this feeds my work. I am a better architect now, a better writer, a better artist and, I hope, a better explorer than I was before I began my studies.