Three Buildings » Gerald Parsonson's Favorite Buildings

by Jaime Gross I've admired Kiwi architect Gerald Parsonson's work for some time. There are so many strong projects on his firm's website, including the one we featured in our June issue—his own beach house, inspired by New Zealand's traditional "bach" architecture. So I was curious to hear what three buildings most inspire him and influence his own work. "I have a very broad appetite for architecture so it was quite hard to choose 'favorites,'" Parsonson wrote in response to my query. Pressed to identify a link between his eclectic choices—detailed below—he said: "I enjoy architecture that explores and expands the resonance of place, that can frame things in ways that are unexpected or beautiful. There is so much generic modernism produced these days that I find it exciting to discover architecture that transforms normal situations into something unique and special and in doing so becomes unique itself. I think these three buildings, even though they are quite different, do this for me."