Interview with the Architect

The Poem

Sandblasted Glass Artwork

120 glass panels form a rectangular skin around the upper level of exterior walls, windows and terraces. The typographer – Catherine Griffiths – proposed ʻto wrap the house in literatureʼ. Jenny Bornhodlt, the New Zealand award winning Poet Laureate, was commissined to write a poem for the house. The poem, sandblasted onto the glass, indeed literally wraps the house in literature.

The artwork is viewed from inside the house looking out, and is able to be read from any point where the glass is seen. From the outside, the work becomes abstract, textural and perhaps louder, with some parts of the poem repeated to read correctly. Light plays a lively part by casting shadows of the typography onto other surfaces both inside and out, creating a moving artwork which changes through out the day.

“Wide roof of stars”

“Where land can make the heart leap like a gate latch lifted”