DAY 6

Day 6, Last day of Spring at Sage. 

I shadowed Mr. Bonvicini from Peirluigi Bonvicini Architects. 

By a series of coincidences Mr. Bonvicini was the last person for me to visit for this project. Intended or not, I think the scheduling was very appropriate, because Mr. Bonvicini was the first architect that I came to know after I began dreaming of becoming one. Again, it was also the Versace store in South Coast Plaza, which Mr. Bonvicini designed, that I did my first construction site visit.

 It was there, during my first visit last summer, that he taught me the basics of reading and handling blueprints.  Now almost a year later, we meet again; and now I was in for a full immersion into his lifestyle. Whereas my previous visit with him stopped at just seeing a single store’s construction progress over a few months’ period, now I was here to spend an entire day with him and to see the both good bad, fulfilling, an frustrating sides of the life of an architect. 

10:00 AM-  Ermenegildo Zegna Store

We started off with the Zegna store in South Coast Plaza.

The store had just finished the demolition project. An interesting key about the project: the Zegna store in SCP did not have another temporary store to use while the construction was in progress. They decided to keep about 30% of the store in operation while the 70% of the store goes through construction. Then when the construction on one side is complete, the rest of the store would be renovated.

As we walked out to the parking lot we were stopped by many people who had worked with Mr. Bonvicini on the Versace store regarding this and that issues (there’s a stain on the floor finish, this light is out, etc. etc…), but soon enough we left for Beverly Hills to see some of his projects at Rodeo Drive.

10:45 AM - 12:30 PM: Miscellaneous Tasks, drive up to Rodeo Dr.

During our drive up to Beverly Hills, we also had a couple of stops; first the post office to mail in some documents, and the Verizon store to fix the Bluetooth issues on his phone. Anyhow, once we left we were in the car together making a bunch of phone calls to his clients. I wish I had a picture… but Mr. Bonvicini had a 200-page stack of paper with just contacts of people for his work. My job was to flip through those pages and find the right number and dial them. 

As it turns out, many of the people he works with are Italian… so unintentionally I ended up having a Rosetta Stone Italian experience for the ~1 hour drive up to Rodeo Drive, except it’s all just construction terminology. I suppose it’ll come in handy if I ever decide to study abroad in Italy?

12:30PM - 1:30PM: Moncler

Our second stop was at the Moncler store that will be opening in just a few months. This project was more-or-less midway done. We arrived right after the marble tiles were installed.

Construction drawings, clipped onto the wall.

After taking a look around the site and identifying the issues, we went out to lunch…. But before that we were stopped by a few men who were part of the project. There seemed to be some conflict between the workers, contractors, client (gee, these relationships are “it’s complicated”).  So yeah, more Rosetta Stone moments…

1:30 PM - 2:30 PM: Lunch

We had lunch at an Italian restaurant on the block (Italian lunches seem to be a recurring theme in this project, hehe) which was, of course, delicious. I had a chance to hear a bit more about Mr. Bonvicini’s background. He had come from Italy when he was more or less fresh out of college in ’83, looking to work for an architect he admired in the US. But it just so happened that America was going through recession at the time… and turned out that there weren’t any jobs for him. That year he passed all the needed exams and obtained an architect’s license for California. Originally he had planned to stay only for a year, but he ended up staying until now! I could tell that he had to persevere through many years to get to where he is now. But again, it's all impossible without the passion and love for what he does. 

Here's an exemplary installation of sprinkler pipe

The tile pattern that gave everybody on site today a headache; see how the closest wall facing you has the marble positioned vertically? Well now notice that every other tile in the store are oriented horizontally... This is the kind (only one of many) issues an architect gets to deal with,

2:30 - 3:00 PM - Back to Moncler store

Another drawing pinned up on the wall

As soon as we returned from lunch, we were greeted by dozens of other problems on the site, from the delayed delivery of light fixtures, blueprint mix-ups, to just stressed and frustrated people. Mr. Bonvicini told me later that day: "It's not the technical stuff that causes the problems; most of the time, it's the people that cause problems."

 So the observations I made on the site are testaments to how important problem-solving and communication skill is to an architect. Both Mr. Choi and Mr. Bonvicini made an analogy to the conductor of an orchestra. A conductor knows enough about every instrument to know how to lead every section in an orchestral piece, not necessarily be a virtuoso player on every instrument. The conductor knows and understands the music and coordinates each section... and architect does the same in design and building.

Some furniture from Italy. The craftsmanship
on the crate is... beautiful.

Much of the materials Mr. Bonvicini uses comes from overseas. The two common
countries are Italy (his hometown) and China (...Let's face it, everything's from China). One issue about an international project is the conversion between metric and imperial system.  Not to mention, there is the language barrier between team members, which becomes rather irritating. When everybody's stressed out, any little frustration can lead to hurt feelings and emotions.

One memorable line I heard today: "Construction is always 

hard, but if it wasn't hard, it would be no fun."

3:00 - 4:00PM : A look around Rodeo Drive

A project Mr. Bonvicini did a few years ago

We were able to avoid a near-full-blown argument at the construction site (whew). We walked onto Rodeo Drive to check out some projects that Mr. Bonvicini had worked on.

This woman was drawing murals on the showroom wall

 I think we went into some 5-6 stores total. Each one had its own distinct style and character. At each store Mr. Bonvicini would ask the store manager about any issues that came up in the building (cracked floors, stained floors, broken glass, lights, etc..)
This sort of follow-up is necessary in this kind of business. After all, architecture is a service industry as much as it is a technical and theoretical one.

One store Mr. Bonvicini did. It is told that the
tables are there to keep people from falling back
 into the water near the storefront...

We left Rodeo Drive at around 4 and drove to Beverly Center to see a project he did for Versace Collection. He made sure to check for any issues on the site. There was a problem with how the ceiling lights were set up... They weren't shining enough light on the merchandise to attract the customers. Mr. Bonvicini himself walked up on a ladder to adjust some of the lighting.

Even though it's not part of an architect's job, something like this always seem to end up being one, especially if one's inclined to interact with the clients as much Mr. Bonvicini is. In a larger firm like Gensler, the employees have an option of choosing to interact closely with the clients or to stay strictly in the design domain. For an independent architect like Mr. Bonvicini, good relationships with the clients are critical.






But it's not the business that drives him, it's the people. Architecture is not merely a profession but a lifestyle. And in this kind of lifestyle, you learn to know and deal with many different people. Mr. Bonvicini said, "My strength is all the good people I work with." And from that I think you can tell, that it's not the business mind that fuels his body to work 5 AM into wee hours of the night. It's the passion, love, and joy for what he does.

Usually stores don't let you take pictures
inside but I guess connections worked :)

The concept of the design was a private house.
So this showcase's shape resembles a
wardrobe. The second floor is designed
very much like a private study.

 We drove back to Irvine at 5 ish. The rush hour traffic wasn't too kind to us; it took nearly two hours to get back! More Italian phone conversations in the car... plus lots of talking about our past, present, and future. I got back home around 7PM. An excellent closing to my Spring at Sage project. Thank you Mr. Bonvicini!