Juri Troy Architects. Installation view at Palazzo Mora, 2016.

When I came to Vienna in 1998 I continued to study Architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts. At the beginning we were asked to keep an architectural diary about our first week. Downstairs in the old bookshop I purchased a little grey sketchbook that matched perfectly my needs. It fit into my jackets pocket and accompanied me wherever I went. After only seven days it was filled up with so many different things. By flipping through the pages I realized that this was the right way to collect all of my thoughts.
I went back to the tiny shop in the ground floor of the Academy and bought exactly the same book again. Once again it filled up with all my ideas, projects, thoughts – with everything that came to my mind during this time.
After four years I finished my studies but kept buying the grey sketchbooks in the same shop up to one day when they told me that these would not be produced anymore. I ran, scared that I would lose my beloved friend and not be able to continue the series I started. But then with some research – which was not that easy at the beginning of the century when still just a few companies were online – I found the small factory that used to produce the little sketchbooks. After a longer conversation with the owner she agreed with producing a new series of exactly the same books especially for me. The only difference was the missing little golden crown on the bottom of the spine. But therefor I was able to choose the paper I could sketch best on.
So I came up with the idea to order the precise number of books to get 100 in total. These books should be defined as a maximum capacity that I would take in hand to fill up during the rest of my lifetime. Since then one after the other joined me on my daily life, my travels and vacations, through good times and bad as well, collecting not only a lot of sketches, but notes, pictures, stamps, tickets, and even sometimes little plants.
More than a collection, it is something like the footprint of a stream of time.
One day I decided to build a shelf for them as well – a house for my thoughts.
Now after nearly eighteen years – thirteen of them running my own office – I hold on Nr. 40, which means that 2/5 of the books are already filled up. 60 still remaining in front of me. This intermediate result I dedicate to the exhibition here in Venice. Showing some of my sketches and projects that could through the years be realized together with the various members of my team and clients who were providing me with the required confidence you absolutely need as an Architect – which I am thankful for.