The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, cuts an unexpected profile, with its top floor cantilevering so dramatically toward the water. Is it an alien in traditionalist territory?

Sometimes creativity is left out of the New England narrative, but [the founders] were incredibly creative, radical thinkers. They fostered an American tradition of invention, self-invention, and a conceptually rich approach to culture.

You grew up in Sydney, Australia, so maybe Boston, with its harbor, feels familiar.

Just a few degrees colder. And maybe because of climate or geography, Sydney’s harbor remains more a part of its identity than Boston’s. When you’re in Back Bay or the South End, you don’t have any consciousness that the ocean is a couple of miles away. So when I started to see designs for the museum and think about the potential for this waterfront area, it made total sense to me.

The ICA is one of the first new buildings to be completed as part of the waterfront redevelopment.

Somewhat paradoxically, the ICA—which came into existence as the cultural parcel required by the city of the developers—is up and running, and the commercial development is ten years behind. The area is similar to Sydney’s Darling Harbour—an old shipping district close to downtown, filled with warehouses and all of that, that needed a complete makeover. There the government drove the process, redeveloping the whole area in a matter of five years. The good thing was that it happened quickly. On the other hand, it didn’t develop any organic connection to the rest of the city. I’m hoping one of the side effects of the slower pace of the Boston waterfront redevelopment will be that it happens in a more organic way. We’re seeing lots of great restaurants and retail coming into the Fort Point Channel area. It’s the kind of natural urban development that is hard to create overnight.

Bostonians seem on the whole to be excited about the ICA and other new projects.

The city has been defined by the contextualist approach to development—if you have great historic architecture, the only thing that is appropriate to put next to it is the same thing. But I think people have come around to the idea that when you have great design from one period, if you put some really excellent contemporary design next to it then that enhances both of them. You end up with something more beautiful. There’s no reason why the historic and the contemporary can’t be married in an interesting and satisfying way.

Is there still a tension between past and present in the city’s urban space?

Moving here four years ago, I wanted to buy an apartment. I imagined there would be the traditional brownstones, the loftstyle options, and the modern apartment buildings. But I could not find any new apartment buildings.

Where did you end up?

In the South End on Blackstone Square, which I love. In the center is the Bulfinch-designed park from the early 19th century. Around it you see the grandest houses and terraces of 19th-century Boston, a church, a simple Beaux Arts building that has been turned into a school. There’s Stella restaurant, the Salvation Army, a basketball court. There’s a wonderful mix that spills out into that park. It’s a wonderful way to experience the diversity and the texture of the city.

What kind of apartment did you end up in?

A brownstone. Although now I’m seeing modern buildings, like the Macallen Building condo project, that show adventurous residential design is becoming available.

Where would you recommend for dinner?

I love Orinoco, a fantastic Venezuelan restaurant in the South End. That whole neighborhood is restaurant central, though a lot of places—like Stella and Toro—are upscale. Orinoco is a neighborhood restaurant. It’s small. It’s cozy. The food is great. It’s on the ground floor of a brownstone on the corner, and you can look out through the big plate-glass windows onto this intimate streetscape.

Do you tour much around greater Boston?

One lovely fall day when my dad was visiting we took a trip to Walden Pond. I read Thoreau’s book when I moved here and learned about the transcendentalist movement. So it was wonderful to see the site, the ruin of where he lived, and to imagine that spirit of independence and self-reliance. From there we drove to the Gropius House nearby. It’s a remarkable example of small residential modernist design. But it also struck me that some of that same spirit of Walden Pond was evident in this modernist house—the self-reliant vision, a way of living in nature, of creating a mode of living that was driven by a new way of imagining the world and the self operating in that world, an optimism about the future. It had that strain of New England independence and creativity. So then I thought, 19th century, 20th century, 21st century—ICA. It is also a building driven by a freshness of approach, designed by architects interested in not following the crowd, in trying to invent some-thing that relates to its time and place in a new way.

There are other well-known museums here—the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, which is undergoing an addition by Foster and Partners, and, of course, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

The Gardner is a unique place because it’s a museum that feels completely personal, a collection—of armor, furniture, decorative arts (some very fine, others quite ordinary), and great old master paintings mixed in with lesser, undistinguished works—validated only by one woman’s personal taste. Yet it’s not just a curiosity because it does have some amazing works of art, and is one of the most incredible interior spaces in Boston. I’ve never heard of someone going to the Gardner and not being touched at some level.

And then there’s the harbor itself.

I took a trip over to Deer Island, home of those egg-shaped white structures you see when you fly into Logan Airport. It’s wonderfully muscular industrial architecture that is both very prominent and also quite mysterious. New York has the Statue of Liberty, we have a water treatment facility.

What’s your favorite space in the ICA?

The media room, from one of the upper rows looking down on the water. There’s no horizon, foreground, distance. It’s just a simple view of the water. So in that sense it’s always the same. But every time you come in, it looks different. The light, the current, the wind is going in a different direction; the reflections are different. It’s quite mesmerizing. I think in a way that’s what this building does at its most successful moments: open you to the possibility of seeing things in a new way. And the view is not without its decentering effects. You can walk into this space and feel like you’re going to fall forward. By taking away the horizon, your depth perception is turned around. The pleasure is a complex experience.

What’s your favorite thing about the ICA?

Where in Boston can you go and have an experience of 21st-century culture that is not about retail? There are so many incredible historical and natural sites in and around the city. But I can’t think of another place you can go to experience now.