Love Letters to Dead Architects: Convivial and Conniving

My Sovereign Majesty, Queen Cleopatra,

Greetings from the future. I have sent this letter to the afterlife with great difficulty, as postage through the valley of suffering is ridiculous, but it is worth it for you. It might do you well to know that your beauty is still revered ages after you have shed your mortal coil. However, you and I know that you were actually not too much to look at, but de-tagging yourself in all those vasebook pictures really paid off.

However, while I would love to go on about your posterity, I must get to my goal of discussing your cleverness at the Edfu Temple of Horus. I’m speaking of course about the design you took to make sure that no-one stole your precious artifacts (how are those working out by the way? I saw the solid-gold spinning wheel, very nice). By making your private temple, open to the public, it allowed perpetual security and unlike Imhotep, who created (through the Pyramids of Giza) a fossil; easy to covet and even easier to steal, you created a perpetual maiden. Your palace sits, celestial in her orb, and untouchable by unclean hands but democratic to the faithful. How like you; mind of the killer, hide in plain sight.

May your wicked deeds by lighter than a feather when you finally reach Osiris.

Eternally yours,
Retly Corm

Dear Charles,

Don’t trust your Brother, he only made you move to California because he knows about the gold in them there hills. OUR gold. He may have claimed that he was weary of the stuffy Victorian rules for houses: the more layers the better, why not add more decoration when the shapes themselves lack substance, pastels, pastels pastels, etc... He said he yearned to be in a place devoid of these prescriptions and that your parents had conveniently found a quaint little town to escape to. He keeps telling you that the clean lines are the future, but then he muddies them with unnecessary structural backing. You know as well as I that those stone planters will hold. Now, I’m no mathematician, but the actions and the numbers: they don’t add up.
I stole the map from under his pillow, we could leave tonight. I know the way. Meet me by the Stained Glass Tree at midnight.

Yours,
R. C.

Dear Henry,

I’m writing you this to alert you to a terrible plot being forged by those closest to you, in particular your brother. He claims to have followed you here only as a means of architectural expression, but he knows about the treasure of Casa Verde and will stop at nothing to possess it. You know when he has independent means he will return to the unhealthy obsessions of fantasy. Gravity will never allow those pylons to stand, just look at those planters out-front, absurd. He refuses to think through his actions and I’m afraid you will be the one to suffer for it.
We have to move tonight. I saw him searching your room, so I took the map for safe keeping. Meet me by the tree-inspired Carpet tonight at midnight.

Yours,
R.C.

Dear Messers. Greene and Greene,

I can’t say I’m entirely surprised; people who speak to loudly of their allegiances at dinner parties are always the quickest to mistrust. Yes, you both grew quite accustomed to your laid-back lifestyle in the land of wake and honey. Not I, no, not I. Though my skin has become sun-kissed and my hair blonder, my heart is still as sharp, steely and eastern as it was when I left New York. You may wonder what I will do with the treasure of Casa Verde, never you mind, my Dewey-eyed companions. Oh, and don’t try the car, I removed the crank-shaft, by the time you get to town, I will be in Hawaii, or Alaska, or Peru.

Cheers,
Retly Corm

Dear Charles and Ray Eames,

The answer is YES! I would love to stay the weekend. I look forward to bringing PJ and riding our separate bicycles built for 2 (would this make them bicycles built for 4?, I hope so!). I have truly enjoyed our time together. It’s so nice to be part of a couple’s circle, after being alone for so long. I am also truly enamored of your home/studio (does it make it a “some” or a “hudio”?). That place is so like the two of you, a partnership of program, open and comfortable, yet ever-changing, ever-evolving, ever-in-style (or should I say ever DeStyle?).
Ray, you must show me your charming designs for a chair, I was quite taken with Corby’s model a few years ago, but as I sit in mine and pen this letter I can’t help but think “my god this is uncomfortable”. And so dreary.
Charles, PJ says he intends to DESTROY you at tennis.

With Love,
Retly Corm

Dear C n’ R,
Sorry for last night. I think it was the liquor talking. Can we still be friends?

Retly Corm.
P.S. Don’t worry about hurting PJ’s feelings, he doesn’t have any.