John Kashiwabara
For John, becoming an architect has been a process of linking disciplines. While attending architecture school (at the Cooper Union School for the Advancement of Science and Art), John took to heart the idea that architecture was a convergence of art and science. So, over subsequent summers, he gained experience working for a sculptor, a structural engineer, a general contractor, and an architect. This branched approach was exemplified in 1988 when he received his architecture degree (B.Arch), a Poetry Fellowship (Seminar for Younger Poets, Bucknell University), and an Academy of American Poets Poetry Prize. John apprenticed at a NYC architecture firm where he experienced the desk-bound rigors of architecture and obtained his architecture license in 1992. Soon afterward, he established his own practice and moved to the Northwest to build a house on an island and to reconnect himself with the physical process of making architecture. In Portland, John has served as an adjunct assistant professor at U of O School of Architecture and has helped to found rhiza A+D. He continues to pursue architecture as an opportunity to combine efforts and to make poetry within arm's reach.