Touching Admiration. Of the several hundred buildings, museums, bridges and monuments clad with marble in Washington, D.C., there’s only one that bears the distinctive mark of public admiration — the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art.

The building has many unique and imaginative features; a seven-story atrium lit by indirect natural light, skylights above an underground tunnel between buildings, and two 100-foot walls that meet at an acute angle of less than 15 degrees. This precisely mortised edge of white marble has been permanently stained by hundreds of thousands of gentle touches. The urge to touch this incredible example of collaboration between art and engineering is compelling.

There’s another example of touching admiration inside the building. On a marble surface in the lobby, thousands of architectural afficionados have touched and stained the chiseled name of the building’s architect, I.M. Pei. However, less than a foot away, on the same wall of marble appears the name J. Carter Brown, and while he had just as much to do with the success of the building, his name appears to be untouched.

Like many visionaries, J. Carter Brown was a boss, a manager and a leader who knew what he could and could not do. His gift was the ability to identify excellence and then to share his vision with those who could translate concepts into ideas, ideas into energy, and energy into substance.

Examples of such interdependence between passion and execution are common, if not always acknowledged. Pope Julius II della Rovere wanted an inspirational mural on the ceiling of his private chapel to bring him closer to his God in service to his church. The mural was painted by Michelangelo Buonarroti and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has inspired generations. Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a country from sea to sea was made real by the talents, tenacity and patience of his secretary and a soldier, Lewis and Clark.

In the business and contemporary world, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. of IBM and William S. Paley of CBS had their wishes made manifest by corporate designers Paul Rand and Lou Dorfsman to implement branding programs that translated images into icons.

The patron saint of greatness has always been patrons — those individuals whose vision and creative sensibilities have required collaborators to enhance and implement.

At Essex Two, we know that we will never understand our clients’ businesses better than they do, but we can, with imagination, energy and passion, help to translate their vision into reality. Our website presents case studies that demonstrate how our collaboration with our clients has made a difference for them, their companies and their customers.

Worth your time: Currently, there are two Chicago exhibitions of photography with the same subject matter — water. Othello Anderson’s collection at the Chicago Water Tower Gallery of 250 prints taken over the last 20 years, shot from the same place at Fullerton and the lake are explorations of the infinite variety of possibilities available even within a closed system. Roni Horn’s exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago is from her collection of 80 photographs called Some Thames, after the river in London. Her images focus on the movement of the river and how change is both infinite and consistent.