On the eve of the Venice Biennale, The New York Times? Michael Kimmelman sits down with Alejandro Aravena in an intimate profile for T Magazine?s Beauty Issue. Visiting a number of projects by the architect and his office, Elemental, Kimmelman experiences socially minded architecture in an age of informal growth, income inequality, and mounting threats linked to climate change, all while learning about Aravena?s own path and growth as a practitioner. Although told by colleagues that he might be standoffish, Kimmelman finds Aravena to be ?earnest, open, a little nerdy ?? and deadly serious.?

© Anthony Cotsifas

On the eve of the Venice Biennale, The New York Times? Michael Kimmelman sits down with Alejandro Aravena in an intimate profile for T Magazine?s Beauty Issue. Visiting a number of projects by the architect and his office, Elemental, Kimmelman experiences socially minded architecture in an age of informal growth, income inequality, and mounting threats linked to climate change, all while learning about Aravena?s own path and growth as a practitioner. Although told by colleagues that he might be standoffish, Kimmelman finds Aravena to be ?earnest, open, a little nerdy ?? and deadly serious.?Describing the work of Elemental, Aravena asserts, ?We don?t think of ourselves as artists. Architects like to build things that are unique. But if something is unique it can?t be repeated, so in terms of it serving many people in many places, the value is close to z...