Architecture of Being A Collection of Intimate Reflections by Alan Faena

ARCHITECTURE OF BEING BY ALAN FAENA 

Every era has legendary figures who ignite the cognoscenti’s imagination by dreaming far beyond anyone before them, and in the world of urban revitalization that visionary is Alan Faena. From the ingenious reconstruction of abandoned docklands in Buenos Aires, Argentina to the heights of luxury in Miami Beach, Alan Faena has built thriving cultural communities and districts from the ground up. With his new book, The Architecture of Being, Faena shares with the world the guiding principles that have shaped his own journey and the urban marvels he’s created.

During the pandemic, when the world ground to a halt, Faena turned inward in silence and stillness to reflect on his path towards self-awareness, fulfillment, and the mastery of his own existence. The result is an inspired blueprint to self-transformation and self-actualization written with poetic acuity and the sagacity of a monastic teacher. The enlightening tome is organized into eight thematic pillars: Creation, Vision, Weakness, Silence, Path, Present, Love and Architecture. The chapters, illustrated with divinely cosmic charcoal drawings from the hand of Argentine artist Gonzalo Fuenmayor, explore the wellspring from which all creativity emanates and the evolutionary progression of turning ideas into material reality on our way to transcendence.

“To build my dreams, I first had to build myself,”

To our benefit, he’s paid attention along the way, noting what takes us closer to or further away from the most vital version 
of ourselves. “The challenge in our transformation processes,” he writes, “is to recognize who we were yesterday and who we’ll be tomorrow.” However, we can only glimpse our existence and its path if we are anchored in the present moment—the place in which we can exercise awareness and intention to consciously mold our life, its meaning, and the fullness of our existence. “We are our own greatest work,” shares Faena. “All of my creations are simply ways of sharing those experiences with the world.”