It's funny, just the other day, I was reminded of a
Leadership and Architecture session from my recent residency at Gonzaga University while at Mermaid Winery, a local urban
winery in Norfolk, VA. Wine samples here
are served on a vertical spiral where you start at the top with your white
wines and finish at the bottom with reds.
Staring at my wine flight I couldn't help but make the connection of the
downward spiral that the night would inevitably bring. Seeing and seeing again, I guess.
All kidding aside, it took me some time to put this session
into perspective. For example, the
Johari Window exercise was interesting, but seemed to me, somehow flawed. Maybe if we all knew each other better, and
if the list of adjectives were not provided (instead, we could think of them
ourselves), it would give a more accurate picture of the public/private and
blind self. What I did take away from
the exercise and from a subsequent conversation with fellow students at the
hotel later that night, was the idea that many of us see ourselves much
differently and often less positively than others see us. Often, our fear of criticism inhibits our
creativity.
I also found the presentation of the Casa Batlló to be quite
interesting. I feel that Antoni Gaudí's
employment of a skeletal metaphor in his architecture may have been alluding to
that of support (Familial support as well as structural support). In this sense, we are seeing and seeing again
what the architect may have intended.
Lastly, Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater suggested to me,
that architecture, art, and leadership are often subjective. How the architect described his motivation
and intent compared to how others might view it is analogous to how a leader
might lead and how his followers and others might view his or her style of leadership. Wright's intent was that the waterfall not be
observed, but be engaged with as he incorporated it into the design of the
structure. I, however, had a different
experience upon first viewing. I felt
that the design of the house forces you to leave the house in order to enjoy
its aesthetics. If the house were
located on the opposite bank, you would have been able to view it without
leaving the comfort of the house.
Forcing the occupant to leave the house allows us to reaffirm our
connection to nature and gets us out of our comfort zones. This is what is so interesting about the
human perspective. It is the sum of our
experiences that shape our view of the world around us.
