The following is from the first book by the New York–based architect Elizabeth Roberts. To capture her collaborative approach, Roberts sought out novelist Christine Coulson to contribute to this new monograph. Interspersed throughout the book are ten short stories that Coulson imagined from images of Roberts’ work. Three of those vignettes are shared here.
Chris Mottalini.
We called it fencing. We had sex after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we told our parents the fencing team had practice. Fencing was a perfectly invisible sport both in reality and as a façade. No one knew where fencers practiced. No one went to fencing competitions whenever and wherever they may have been. With the mild exoticism of the acceptably unfamiliar, fencing’s whiff of sophistication enamored our parents.
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So, we fenced, unquestioned and obliquely admired. Two bodies bumping clumsily in a third-floor bedroom. No strategy or knowledge of the rules, just some blind jabbing until the épée founds its sheath. Our commitment to the sport was general and inquisitive, propelled by an unbridled awkwardness, like two untrained figures pursuing interpretive dance. There were lunges and burst of speed, changes of direction and unexpected shifts in balance. Modifications in stance. Improvised maneuvers. Flinching.
Then fencing season was over. The third-floor bedroom sat empty, light streaking through the window blinds to stripe the rippled bed sheets, the only witness to our unclothed scrimmaging. There were no trophies that season. No heartbreak or drama. Only our tender triumph over the perplexing stabs of our own teenage desires.
Dustin Aksland.
“Eeee!” exclaims ebullient Eleanor examining each exquisite entrance embellishment. Ernie enters excessively excited. Every edge echoes eyefuls. Eleanor entranced, ecstatic, eagerly encourages Ernie. Ernie enfolds Eleanor. Epic embracing ensues.
“Engagement?” exhilarated Ernie enquires.
“Eeee!” Eleanor effervescently exerts, ever enthusiastic.
Eventually, enjoyment ends. Emotions ebb. Excuses emerge. Erratic Eleanor evades Ernie’s enamored edicts. “Eeeeeasy…” Eleanor emphasizes, “Encountering exceptional environments evinces embarrassing, exaggerated exchanges.”
“Ending everything?” Ernie embarks, excoriated.
“Exactly.” Eleanor exits.
Ejected Ernie explodes, exiled, exhausted. Except…evidently…elegant edifices exude empathy easing extreme elimination.
Equally engrossing endearment emphatically exists elsewhere, essentially eclipsing exasperating Eleanor entirely.
“Eeeee!” exalts Ernie euphorically. Enter Elaine.
Floto + Warner.
It was before dawn when the man awoke to a feverish rumbling, deep and earthen. He rustled his pillow and flipped like a trout toward the edge of the bed, while he cursed the interruption to his sleep.
The intense rattling continued, and he blamed a truck, then an airplane, then a helicopter. When he ran out of transportation, he realized that the house was indeed quivering on its own, like a volcano contemplating a significant blast. Then silence. Which was somehow more disturbing. Whatever had happened had finished.
Only when morning arrived did he understand. The stone had pushed itself up through the floor like a gentle beast offering the ridge of its back for utilitarian use. Its surface had been mottled by an inconceivable ancient pressure, at once bullying and resistant. The force had striped the stone with a boomerang the color of milk chocolate. A flexed arm advertising its strength.
There could be no response to the situation other than acceptance. The man patted the stone’s bulk and flatly bid it good morning, as if a calm greeting might soothe the shocking creature. He found he had no memory of the room before this colossal addition volunteered its presence, and so the man built his life around it. Not quite a dream, but a kindly night monster made real in his kitchen.
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From Elizabeth Roberts Architects: Collected Stories. Used with permission of the publisher, Phaidon. Copyright © 2024 by Christine Coulson.
Christine Coulson worked at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for 25 years and left as Senior Writer in 2019. She is the author of two acclaimed novels, Metropolitan Stories (2019) and One Woman Show (2023).
Elizabeth Roberts, AIA, began her solo practice shortly after completing her graduate studies in historic preservation at Columbia University and undergraduate studies in architecture at UC Berkeley. A native of Northern California, the award-winning Roberts is now an ardent New Yorker.
