Living Modernism: From Sydney to Palm Springs

My love affair with modernism began in an architectural history class. While my classmates scrambled for familiar movements like Art Deco and Renaissance, I ended up with the Bauhaus — simply because no one else wanted it. That chance assignment changed everything. I fell in love with the clarity, the intent, and the enduring relevance of modernism. What I didn’t realize at the time was how deeply connected I already was to it. As a child, I lived in several architect-designed modernist homes, unaware of their significance until years later.

My professional path took an unexpected but formative turn when I worked in Venice. After the economic downturn in the late 1980s cost me a high-profile hotel design job, I chose to pursue work in a city that had touched my soul. In Venice, I immersed myself in restoration, working on buildings with profound historical value. It shifted my perspective. I realized that while commercial interiors might last five to seven years, conserving architecture was a legacy that could endure generations.

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From Cement Dust to Sacred Spaces:

I was born into architecture. My earliest memories are drenched in the scent of lime and cement, clinging to my father’s clothes as he took me through construction sites in Buenos Aires. He was a builder in the truest sense—designing and constructing with his own hands, shaping apartments one brick at a time with a small team. That intimacy with materials and process was my first education, long before I stepped into a university.

I began my career captivated by form and spectacle. Residential luxury homes, hotels, and restaurants gave me a palette to explore grand aesthetics and visual precision. But somewhere along the line, my work—and my life—took a turn. Exposure to drawing, poetry, and spiritual practices like meditation and ayahuasca introduced a new language, one not of surfaces but of sensations. Architecture began to feel less like a profession and more like a question: how do we inhabit space meaningfully?

Buenos Aires, with its layered identity of European heritage and Latin American roots, became my reference point. The city embodies contrast and coexistence, sophistication and earthiness. That duality started to reflect in my design. I wanted to understand not only how buildings stood, but how they held life, how they could embrace silence, rhythm, ritual.

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The Unseen Power of Telling Your Story

I’ve spent years listening to people, but it wasn’t until recently that I truly understood the transformational power of storytelling. Sitting down with Mona Saade revealed not just the art of preserving memories, but the deeper, personal shifts that unfold when someone begins to speak their truth. Mona doesn’t just write books—she captures lives. Through her work at “Writing Your Life,” she partners with individuals, families, and business founders to shape narratives that are as healing as they are lasting.

Her process is more than factual recounting. It’s about uncovering values, identity, and the heartbeat behind achievements. One story that stayed with me was of a man with dementia. Mona helped him tell his story while he could still remember it, crafting a legacy for his sons and grandchildren. Another was a young mother with terminal cancer, determined to leave something for her children before she lost her ability to speak. In both cases, the result wasn’t just a book—it was a lifeline for those left behind.

Mona’s work is deeply personal and entirely collaborative. Every story is unique and demands a bespoke approach. Family business projects might span years; individual stories may unfold over many months. But in each case, what starts as a conversation grows into something far more powerful. Clients often undergo emotional transformation—feeling seen, lighter, even healed—simply because someone listened deeply.

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