“But even he would hesitate to claim authorship of the overall scheme. That credit goes to his clients, the husband-and-wife team of Frederick and Laurie Samitaur-Smith.
“In the mid-1980s the Smiths began searching for an architect who could understand their vision of a complex architecture mirroring the nonlinear mathematics of computer-chip design. They were turned down by every notable designer in town.
“Moss was a tenant in a building that Frederick was managing at the time. “One day Frederick went into this small space he’d rented to this unknown architect to get the rent check, and noticed his drawings on the wall and T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets on his desk,” Laurie says. “Let’s be frank–this was desperation time. He walked into a tenant’s office and thought, ‘Why not try it on this guy?’–because no one else was responding.”