Ole Scheeren on the Music That Inspires Him

Music was one of my first obsessions. As a preteen I sold my childhood toys to buy myself a stereo system for decades of intense listening. One of my very first records has remained the most consistent and prominent—and in some ways the most versatile—on my playlist: Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich. It is minimalist (although I am not into minimal architecture), analog, rhythmic, hypnotic.

It focused me throughout my early architectural career, when I was drawing and drafting; when I was driving through landscapes; when I was strolling through the city with my first Walkman; when I had to just imagine things.

This music also appeals to me in a formal sense, a single piece yet an entire album—continually transforming, mutating, and evolving. Reich’s music drafts an uninterrupted tableau of sound that opens an incredible spectrum of engagement and thought beyond itself, a widened sense of possibility. Now, looped on my iPhone, it still accompanies me around the globe—and inspires me in all the ways it did before.

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