Neil M. Denari reviews a range of paintings, drawings, and architectural drawings in terms of horizon line, ground plane, perspective, flattened projection, cabinet projection, gradient skies or backgrounds, saturated and desaturated colors, abstract forms becoming representational, and the contrast between tension and repose.

He discusses works by Kazimir Malevich, Giorgio de Chirico, El Lissitzky, Bernard Tschumi, Daniel Libeskind, Zaha Hadid, Piet Mondrian, Le Corbusier, John Hejduk, Craig Hodgetts, Wim Crouwel, Aldo Rossi, Salvador Dalí, Ed Ruscha, Ettore Sottsas, and MOS Architects.

Denari ends with his own representations for the West Coast Gateway (1988), the Tokyo International Forum (1989), and Prototype landscape (1990).

In the second part of his talk, Denari describes in detail the Keelung Harbor Service Building project. He contrasts work produced for the first round of the competition with those for the second. He stresses how issues of representation informed the design. He describes the obsession, aggression and editing embodied in the work, implying that they are components of a successful thesis project.