Time won't spoil the family

时间无法隔断亲情
He’s one of L.A.’s top architects, with award-winning modern buildings from California to the Persian Gulf and West Africa. Her bright and buttery-leather handbags have caught the attention of Hollywood celebrities. They are father and daughter, Steven and Onna Ehrlich, and they didn’t see each other for the first 19 years of her life. It wasn’t until the woman they both loved, her mother, died in an accident that they were able to connect in an emotional reunion.
他是洛杉矶最卓越的建筑师之一,外加州到波斯湾再到西非,他所设计的现代建筑遍及世界各地，且多次获奖。她设计的漂亮的皮质手提包吸引了好莱坞名流的注意力。他们就是斯蒂芬埃里克和安娜埃里克这对父女,在女儿安娜长到19岁之前，他们都没见过面。直到他们两人都深爱的女人一安娜的母亲，在一次事故中丧生，他们才得以在一次感人的团聚中相认。
In the early 1970s, when Steven Ehrlich was working as an architect and a teacher in Africa, he was enamored with the continent and with one person in particular Grace Okozala, a Nigerian businesswoman. Her sense of adventure enchanted him when they met in 1975 at a university gathering. In 1977，when their daughter, Onna, was just a few months old, Ehrlich left Nigeria and returned to Los Angeles. “I knew that I was leaving part of me behind，” Ehrlich says. “And yet I knew that I had to go follow my path.” He launched what is now a world-class architecture firm.
上个世纪70年代，斯蒂芬埃里克在非洲当建筑师和教师,他对非洲十分着迷,对尼日利亚女企业家格雷斯奥科扎拉(Grace Okozala)更是倾心不已。1975年他们在一次大学聚会上相识,奥科 扎拉的冒险精神令埃里克心动。1977年，他们的女儿安娜才几个月大埃里克就离开了尼日利亚回到洛杉矶。他说我知道自己舍弃了生命中的一个重要部分,然而我也知道，我必须走自己的路。”他创办了现在已是世界级的建筑公司。
Okozala raised Onna on her own and Ehrlich sent his daughter letters, called her and helped support her. But Onna missed her father all the same. “I grew up my whole life in Nigeria loving this person, looking up to this person,” Onna says. “And there was this long hunger-I would dream of the day I would meet my dad.”
奥科扎拉独自抚养安娜，埃里克会给女儿写信、打电话，也出钱抚养。但安娜依然想念父亲。她说我在尼日利亚长这么大,一直爱着这个人尊敬这个人。长久以來我都有这份渴望——梦想着有一天会见到我爸爸。”
Then one day in 1995, Okozala, who traded dried goods, went on one of her frequent business trips. “She left the house and said, Til be right back". ”Onna remembers. “She kissed my sister and me. I'll see you in a couple of days.”’ But Okozala never came home. The family later learned that she had died in a bus accident.
1995年的一天，从事干货贸易的奥科扎拉要出差,这对她来说是家常便饭。安娜回忆道:“她离家的时候说,‘我很快就回来。’她亲吻了妹妹和我,说过几天见。”但奥科扎拉再也没有回到这个家。一家人后来得知她因车祸丧生了。
Twelve years later, Onna, a breezy, positive 32-year-old, sees her father, 63, nearly every day. She runs her handbag business out of a snug design studio upstairs from his airy, 35-person Culver City, Calif, architecture firm. Father and daughter have found a rhythm. Twice a month, over a Nigerian lunch that Onna makes at home and brings to work, the two relax, laugh and talk shop.
12年后的现在,活泼乐观的安娜已经32岁，她几乎每天都能见到现已63岁的父亲。斯蒂芬的建筑公司位于加州卡尔费城，有35名员工,而安娜打理手提包生意的那间雅致的工作室就在父亲的公司楼上。父女俩相处和谐。安娜每个月会有两天在家做尼日利亚风格的午餐并带到公司与父亲分享， 两人边吃边聊无拘无束，不时爆发出笑声.
The clutches, hobos and shoulder bags Onna designs with her husband and business partner, Joel Bell, have adorned the arms of celebrities such as Cameron Diaz and Paris Hilton. She says that dozens of stores, fixjm Lord & Taylor to the Los Angeles boutique Kitson, carry the line, priced &om $ 45 to $ 850. “It is a conservative but fashionable bag" says Kitson’s Dean Khial. “It’s for the aspirational customer who wants to have a hot bag but doesn’t want to spend $1,500 or $ 1,800 for a Louis Vuitton. The price is right for the economic times we，re dealing with right now.”
安挪和丈夫兼商业伙伴乔尔贝尔设计的无带手包、马鞍包和带肩带的手提包已经成为卡梅 隆迪亚茨和帕里斯希尔顿等名流臂弯的装点。安娜说,从Lord&Taylor到洛杉矶的Kitson精 品店都有她设计的手提包系列,价格从45美元到850美元不等,Kitson的迪安凯欧说这个牌子的包包兼具保守与时尚,适合于很想拥有一款漂亮包包但又不想花1500或1800美元买路易-威登的客户。在当前的经济状况下它的价格很适中。”
Pricing is pertinent for the father’s work, too. Over his career, Ehrlich has emerged as a prime practitioner of the “design-build” method, which involves collaboration between architect and builder from the project’s start to save time and money. Ehrlich used it for one of his most recent projects, Arizona State University^ Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.
父亲埃里克的事业也与定价息息相关。在他的职业生涯中，埃里克是最早实施“设计-建筑”方法的人，这种方法要求建筑师和施工方从项目一开始就进行合作以节省时间和资金。埃里克最近负责的项目之一亚利桑那州立大学的Walter Cronkite新闻学院就采用了这种方法。
Ehrlich calls his style “multicultural modern-ism' It’s embodied in the 35,000-square-foot Persian Gulf home he designed with a roof shaped like the Islamic crescent moon and in his own Venice, Calif,, home, where mechanically retractable orange-and-yellow awnings, inspired by Moroccan souks and courtyards, shade the lap pool below.
埃里克说自己的风格是“多文化现代主义”。他在海湾地区设计的一座占地3.5万平方英尺的房子就体现了这种风格,这座房子的房顶形如伊斯兰教传统的新月。他自己位于加州威尼斯的房子也体现了其风格,可通过机械操控伸缩的橘黄色凉蓬为下方的浅水池遮阴,这个凉篷的灵感来自摩洛哥的露天剧场和庭院。
Recently, when Ehrlich was invited to work on a project in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, he asked Onna to go along. They visited the first building he ever designed, a theater in Zaria, and together jumped onto the stage. “It was a very emotional trip to be back there with her for the first time,” Ehrlich recalls. “It was a very big, full-circle experience."
最近，埃里克受邀负责尼日利亚首都阿布贾的一个项目，他邀请了安娜同行。他们参观了埃里克设计的第一幢建筑一位于扎里亚的一座剧院，还一起跳上舞台。埃里克回忆道第一次跟她—起回到那儿的旅程太让人动感情了。感觉就像绕了个大圈又兜回原处。”