At the weekend I read a review for a new book about Mies Van Der Rohe, it was in a Sunday paper supplement magazine. Isn't it incredible he's still making it into mainstream consciousness when his last building was completed in 1958?

It seems the 'Truth' does survive and persist. I won't go into what I think the 'Truth' is - we all know it when we see it. We might not like it, depending on how seduced we are by our particular delusion, but we definitely see it. As Leonard Cohen says 'Everybody Knows'.

I remember the feeling I had when I first saw the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Mies for the 1929 International Exposition. I was 20 and in total identification with Le Corbusier. The day before I'd been to Villa Roche and a few of Corb's other buildings in Paris - you have to appreciate that all this was brand new to me and I didn't fully understand the unique and universal significance of Le Corbusier. In my innocence I thought it was normal to find things in the world which resonated so deeply. After all, my beloved gas cylinders were parked right outside my bedroom window for most of my childhood. 

Anyway back to Mies. In comparison to Villa Roche, the Barcelona Pavilion felt mean and empty. This worried me for many years. How could I not enjoy a building by someone who was so clearly in 'Truth'? All the drawings, photographs and writings I looked at confirmed I was missing something. The answer was revealed when I visited the National Gallery in Berlin. And this is where it gets a bit esoteric and therefore problematic. The difference is - the Barcelona Pavilion was rebuilt in 1983. 

Having built many projects over the last twenty years I believe something mysterious happens on site when ideas and drawings become tangible objects. The Barcelona Pavilion is a copy and is therefore devoid of that mysterious quality, that feeling of visceral authenticity I felt in the National Gallery and also later in the Seagram Tower in New York, also by Mies.

The strongest I've ever felt it was in Arne Jacobson's National Bank in Copenhagen. I wasn't a massive fan of his architecture from the books, I thought it was all about his amazing furniture. God was I wrong. When I walked into that bank foyer I had an inexplicable and immense opening of the heart and mind. Perhaps it was because I wasn't expecting anything and so my conditioned mind was preoccupied elsewhere. The proportion of the volumes, the exquisite soft light....I must stop attempting a definition, better to describe it in the negative - it had whatever it is that is missing from the Barcelona Pavilion.

I had an amazing teacher at university called Drew Plunkett. Again, at the time I didn't realise how rare such people were. I saw him years later and we had an argument. We were stood in Macintosh's masterpiece The Glasgow School of Art. He had just completed an article for a Japanese Architecture magazine. His essay gave the formula for how to create amazing space. Drew said he knew by rational deduction how to recreate the Macintosh studio we were stood in by including various elements and proportions.

It sounds so simple. And I think Drew just wondered why the hell I would bother to contradict him on such a rational proposition. 

And this is the fundamental tension within architectural production. I have spent most of my career navigating a safe path for my projects through vast seas of empty rational justification from all the various parties involved in the realisation of a building. The reason this force is so powerful can be seen in the fakery of the Barcelona Pavilion. The conservationists behind it only meant well and who could argue against their pure intentions? Mies is the absolute epitome of rational order, what could go wrong?

The bigger question all this is alluding to is the systemic copying of Mies all over the world. Surely the proof that something mysterious and unrepeatable happens couldn't be more evident in the dead Miesian Order Architecture that inhabits most of our cities?   

Last week I had a lovely afternoon with Dr John Ashton CBE Director of Public Health and Dr Robert G MacDonald, RIBA, PFRSA, at 42nd Street Young Persons Centre in Manchester. They are both passionate about Architecture and therapeutic environments. 

We met with Vera the CEO, Tess and some of the young people. I found out a few things - the building was described as a sanctuary and the loud bang the large front door makes when it shuts behind you is very good, but there are too many windows! Some people 'tear up' when they come into the building and it feels like a castle.

Robert said to me James Stirling never went back to his buildings once they were finished. I know that compulsion to run very well. I find it incredibly painful too, but I force myself to resist such indulgence. Architecture is so mysterious, the built is always different to the imagined. So I do go back - to learn why its different. Perhaps one day imagination will align with reality. I have had many glimpses, some of them just lasted a few days until the next element of construction went in and others live on as small fragments of (only to me) perfection. Some only lasted seconds, seeing something that wasn't really there.

I went back to the Wildflower Centre a couple of weeks ago. It was shut and I only got to walk around the perimeter. I was shocked by its power. For the first time I could see it for what it really is, without my imaginary version filtering my perception. It's taken thirteen years! It's still not what I imagined, it has its own expression. Seeing it sitting there living its own life made me feel like I'd been a disapproving / disappointed father all these years, projecting my dream of what I thought it should be. Thankfully I am blissfully free of such demands on my real children. They are infinitely more beautiful than anything I could have thought up. 

Today its Albert's birthday, he's two and he's my second son. This is also my brand new website. And this is my first blog - ever. My sister has been encouraging me to write for years. For some reason this feels like the perfect time. 

Perhaps it's something to do with Easter? The return of the sun (pre-Christian) or the return of Jesus, depending on who or what you believe - in? Anyway its definitely a time for new beginnings.