Harvard professor and world-class architect Toshiko Mori will be in Sarasota for a special lecture Friday at the Center for Architecture Sarasota. Tickets cost $25 for CFAS members and $30 for non-members; students attend free. In advance of the event, SRQ Daily spoke with Mori about what people can expect.

You have designed some coastal homes in this region. How much time have you personally spent in the Sarasota area?  I did three buildings there, and at the time was coming every other week. I also have a very good friend in Sarasota, so I visit. It’s a beautiful area, especially if you ever spent a winter in New York.

What can you tell us about the lecture you will give and the exhibit on your work at the Center for Architecture Sarasota?  It will be a dialogue. It’s about my projects, which had to do with a tribute to five American masters, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Rudolph, Marcel Breuer and Philip Johnson. Some of my projects, I built next to those masters. Sometimes the buildings are in a dialogue with each other. 

What lessons should be gleaned from the masters?  What to do in terms of buildings, in their time and my time, was to ask how to deal with challenges. What do you do with climate change, or with a new code or crisis? There is some change in how I use certain conditions, all details that had to do with exterior details between the indoors and outdoors. It can be a bit esoteric, but for architects, we are always obsessed with detailing and the essences of ideas.