TPQ

The Proust Questionnaire (TPQ) is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust, and often used by modern interviewers. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album—a form of parlor game popular among Victorians. TPQ has its origins in a parlor game popularized (though not devised) by Marcel Proust, the French essayist and novelist, who believed that, in answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. So, in 2025, here is my take on TPQ :

  • Out in nature before dawn, good weather optional.

  • That we got our value system wrong. Well, that or windowless rooms with fluorescent lighting.

  • Selective about time.

  • To be a polyglot or a master of the zither.

  • The color that appears in the tension/vibration between complimentary colors.

  • tie: humility & courage

  • architect: Takeshi Hosaka

    designer: Bruce Mau or Andrew Blauvelt

  • arch: Arata Isozaki … and several others

    designer: Tibor Kalman

  • When you forget to notice it is designed.

  • Anything that makes the old new again.

  • Non-Fiction: Hannah Arendt
    Fiction: Madeleine L'Engle / Stanislaw Lem

  • Tie: Boo Radley/Atticus Finch.

  • Hito Steyerl

  • It used to be Meta, and then Gotham, lately I’m over-using Typotheque’s Greta.

  • Memory (ies)

  • Anywhere with four seasons and some liminal space.

  • Humility to be unassuming.

  • Groucho Marx