Asymptote, NY-based architects, built HydraPier, an exhibition pavilion at the Harlemmermeer: A two-winged structure sits on an artificial lake created on land reclaimed from the sea.

We live in an era that puts little stock in stability. Solidity and permanence read as rigidity and torpor. The future will be only more unruly, tossed and pulled by disparate forces like a piece of bread among sea gulls. So where does this leave architects, whose work is all…

Professor Rybczynski of architecture at McGill University, investigated privacy and comfort. It was in the 17th century Netherlands where comfort is seen in the interiors of Vermeer.

It is strange to realize how many things that are taken for granted as natural and eternal were invented at a specific time and place. Not just objects like electrical appliances but attitudes and perceptions. Like privacy, for example. Or the need for physical comfort. What is comfort, anyway, and…