The Eccentric Habits of the World’s Most Famous Architects

Reading a recent note about coffee, I got to wondering—what do the people who don't drink coffee do?

As it turns out, Frank Lloyd Wright practiced polyphasic sleep—short rest periods every three or four hours instead of one long night's sleep.

Luis Barragán would order lunches that were entirely pink—half a melon with sherry, for instance. It makes sense! As one of the most vivid Mexican architects, Barragán filled his work with tropical color. And if you design pink walls, you may as well eat in matching tones.

I. M. Pei loved lying in bed in the dark—that's where his most productive, dreamlike ideas came to him. As he got older, he switched entirely to a "paper-free" approach to design. Imagine—a designer who doesn't draw!

Denise Scott Brown had a habit of people-watching in her finished projects. She would stand and smile at the students at the University of Pennsylvania, watching them perch "like bees in a hive" on the steps of her building. The students, meanwhile, just saw "some old lady in a skirt" and wondered why she was smiling so broadly.

"Architectural art cannot be created in an office setting," said Aalto, who would drink "like a fish" right there in the office to cultivate a bohemian atmosphere.

Eileen Gray encoded the names of her lovers in the titles of her projects. The villa E.1027 stands for "E" (Eileen), "10" (J), "2" (B), "7" (G)—the initials of herself and Jean Badovici.

Romantic and architectural all at once!