Okay, so um my understanding is that Ferrari
came first. Correct. He was at Auburn with you guys.
And then he came here and brought four of you.
Is that correct? Yeah, actually he brought
three of us and the fourth one came from that
same class in Auburn that he taught. He was my
faculty member in Auburn. Um he came there because
of a swiss man, Walter Schaer who ran industrial
design at Auburn, that had gotten a job out
of Max Bill's office in Zurich. And so Ferrari
wanted to come to America and oh hey, talk
to Share and Share, invited him over and he
was hired at Auburn to be a faculty member and
when he came to, he was in my fourth
year faculty, he couldn't speak english I'm gonna hold you
right there. I actually wanted to bring
this camera down. Yeah. You don't mind Ferrari
stories, do you? Absolutely not, in fact the genesis actually started off as
a film about Ferrari Oh good. And because that's
why the middle portion of the film so heavily devoted
to that period of time. So I say,
okay, good. Because you know, Ferrari left
that the year before I came and so there were
still all that myth going on. Yeah. Well he certainly
set the stage still influencing you and your education.
I've had a lot of nice conversations with Lucy
and sort of made the curiosity grow. That's much
better. Is Lucy going beyond the film I
hope? Yeah. Good. She comes in October. Great.
Okay, so, so when Ferrari
came, he taught us fourth year design studio and
his english was not too good. So he would
say for example, right here you need to make
[draws window] and he'd say window, yes window.
So it was fun. But anyway, he
was a very inspirational teacher there and many of us
learned a great deal about the opportunities to be a
student which in the traditional school was not not possible.
And he was actually interested in whatever the student was
interested in which was new. And of course he knew
all about architecture and was able to communicate his enthusiasm
about architecture to us. I finished The second year
that Ferrari was at Auburn and he had already met
Charles Burchard that was 1968 and decided to, I'm
sorry that's 1964 and decided to come up to Virginia
Tech after meeting Burchard at I think at a CSA conference.
So he brought me here in 1968.
I had been two years in the army and I
was at Fort Belvoir Virginia and northern Virginia and my
parents lived in Alabama. So I would drive by
here on route 81 going down to see them and
I would stop and see Ferrari never visited the school
just to see him because he was a painter also
and I was interested in what he was painting and I'd
go out to his house and we'd have chats about
things. So after I finished the army I started
working with architects for a second year working up there
Ferrari called me up one day and
said Tom would you did you ever think about teaching
an architecture school? And I said, Professor Ferrari,
not only have I not thought about teaching architecture
school, I never want to set foot in another
architecture school again in my life. And he said,
oh, laughed and said, why don't you come
down and see what we're doing here? And out of
devotion to him, I said okay. So I
came down and he was in the old high school
building with Herbert Cromwell and the faculty member, one
of the four faculty members over there, Asher German
had left to go back to school. And so
he had an opening. And when I saw what
they were doing, their completely cut off from the
main college, they could do whatever they liked.
It was four faculty in that school. No secretaries,
one typewriter, one telephone, no bureaucracy whatsoever
and I knew Ferrari was a genius teacher.
And Herbert Cromwell was there as well who had already
come over. They knew each other
in Zurich and had been teaching there for a year
or so. And so when I saw what was
happening, I said, well why don't I come
down here for one quarter and we'll see how it
goes. And he said okay. So I went
back to Washington. Charles Burchard called me up said come
on over, I'm at the octagon and some AR business
and he hired me. So I started teaching in
1968 without any previous teaching experience except in the army.
I taught heavy construction equipment in the army. So
starting to teach with Ferrari and Cromwell was amazing.
The 4th person was a Cuban named Miguel Gaston.
And Miguel had been a friend of Burchard in at
Harvard. And when Castro took Cuba over, Miguel
fled and Burchard gave him a job because of who
he was. And Miguel had nothing to do with
any of us. He was a practicing architect in
Salem, he came in and taught his class and
left every time. So my teaching experience began in
the old high school building With teaching 50 freshmen in
the morning and 35 sophomores in the afternoon, just as
Ferrari and Cromwell did. I learned how to teach
from Ferrari and from Cromwell. We would go to the
point of interest, we would go for coffee breaks
over to the Greeks and I would go with them,
the three of us, They spoke German to
each other, which I understood zero. Uh So
every now and then Herbert Cromwell would stop and say
Mr. Regan we're talking about so and so. What
do you think of us or so. But slowly
that broke down and I was able to learn from
each of them how they taught. Those two faculty members
were as opposite as possible and strategies of teaching.
And so I learned from each of them, a
possible way to teach. And they had very devoted
students and they were very devoted to their students.
But anyway, that's my experience in beginning here in
teaching in the old high school building. What I'm
curious about. So and okay, so let's see
if we can frame this. So what I'm,
what I'm interested in is so you had no desire
to do this to come back to architecture. So
I think that's fascinating. So tell me I had
no no desire to teach. I was in practice.
I didn't want anything to do with school anymore.
It's because of Ferrari that I came here to
talk about that, that so it was more about
that you were in practice and you were happy doing
that more so than uh what I'm after. Is
was there something so fundamentally different about the way for
Ferrari and Cromwell were setting up this school
that it it changed the way that you saw architecture
education in a way that made it irresistible. Yes
several things. For one thing, there was absolutely
no rules and no bureaucracy. Let me start you
over because I cut myself out of this. So
if you could just sort of come into that a
statement. So you're not responding to what I okay
that's fine in, I found when I began
teaching here for that one quarter that I was going
to stay that the pleasure of teaching as observed from
both Ferrari and Cromwell was overwhelming. The organization
was such that the first two years was completely separate
than the 3rd, 4th and 5th year in graduate
school. Those were already over here in Cobo Hall
, Cobo Hall just was dedicated the year that I
came and Burchard was over here with all of the
rest. We never saw them, never talked to
them, we're not concerned. The first two years
was organized as the foundation division, as the fundamental
introduction to you could say or experience with the whole
range of design from, as Gropius would say,
from the spoon to the city, we dealt with
everything, the student was free there to explore design
the way he or she, he or she sought
designed to be and for our in Cromwell both taught
me how you could unleash the power of an individual
even at 18 years old to understand what they could
do. So that in that first quarter I realized
that in working with my own students and watching those
two, that the power of unleashing the creative abilities
And enthusiasm of 18 and 19 year old students was
overwhelming. And so at the end of the first
quarter for already said, you want to stay or
go and I said, I think I'll stay the
rest of the year. I stayed 14 years here
and I stayed in architectural education for the rest of
my professional life, the excitement of every day having
students work on a project. The issues I brought
from the office, there were issues that I've been
interested in, that professional architects are struggling with all
the time. I simply converted them to a project
that a student could work on and the way they
worked on it was tremendous feedback to me to learning
from their ideas about how architecture could be. And
in talking to Ferrari about whether I should go back
into practice or why he didn't stay in practice.
He was in practice for a while. I said
, why are you doing this? He said,
I realized that I can change architecture more by changing
architects than I can by producing architecture. That's why
I never became registered architect because I did not want
to be separated and none of us did into trying
to practice and trying to teach and trying to practice
and trying to teach. We were dedicated to the
idea that architecture needed changing. It was in bad
shape at the time and it could be changed by
influencing students. So those first years when I worked
in the foundation division with Ferrari were just and crumble
or just unbelieving. Both of them were very generous
in explaining why they were doing what they were doing
, where the ideas came from, what the pedagogical
background was. We had very strict pedagogical grandfather's.
It was jean pierre the swiss psychologist and through him
, jerome bruner and we would, that's what the
books that Ferrari gave me to read. He gave
me read teacher, I said, I don't know
how to teach in the first case said read these
two books. So I read these two books by
jerome bruner who was a disciple of piazza. And
so that was the sort of structure of how we
taught. And Ferrari structured the first two years in
very simple terms. He said, first semester,
make everything first quarter, make everything full scale,
actual scale. So if they're going to make a
cube, they make the cube. Don't make a
small version of something big. That's too complicated for
incoming freshmen. So that's what we did. We
would have maybe second quarter, let's work on structure
this, how things are held up to do that
. So we would all do that within that framework
. I was free to do whatever I liked.
Uh didn't matter. And if I did something,
had an interesting project for our incredible, would talk
to me about us tremendously flattering to me at that
time that they were interested and each of us would
go in the other's classes and see look what he
made, where did that come from. How do
you do that? Talk to the students? It
was tremendous learning experience, dwelling on it because it
lasted me throughout my teaching career. I still teach
right now. I'm retired Dean, I teach first
year studio and how I'm teaching. It Is how
I learned in 1968, The strategy, everything else
is different. The strategy is the same as a
matter of fact, in the culmination of my career
, I gave the first project this semester as the
first project that was one of Ferrari's When I first
started teaching in 1968, but it ain't right.
Um it was exciting. Let me ask you this
. I want to ask you about practice and try
to remember that. Uh but on that same line
of thought. So it seems to me looking back
at it that because I think we're still enjoying the
fruits of what you all put together. I think
it's changing, but I think the foundation is so
strong that it's carried this far. Uh huh.
How different was what you guys were attempting to do
and were successful in doing how different was that Than
architecture education up to that point, almost 180° opposite
in every significant facet. That's why I never wanted
to go back into architecture school. My education at
Auburn, with the exception of Ferrari was a good
education with bob, blah, blah. But the
process was, you did what the faculty member told
you to do. The faculty member would have to
give you that context to how it's different. The
faculty member would sit with you every day. Look
what you have drawn put a piece of tracing paper
over it and suggest how it could be better.
I used to wait till I could hear him coming
and I'd go get a coffee until he came to
the next one. I hated for him to draw
on top of my building and say do it like
this and my irish rebellion stuff. But up here
we never told a student how to do a project
. As a matter of fact, when they gave
the project, I learned this from foreign common also
gave the project that said, do you have an
idea? I said, I'll give you an idea
but you can't use it and I'm going to give
you the easiest idea so you really want me to
tell you. But anyway, so one thing never
told the student how to do it. Second was
all architecture schools have the jury system. Students who
put up the project, the faculty would sit and
review. There were no jury's two years, no
jury's not a single jury, Nobody ever had a
jury. The third thing was the projects were given
and every student had to work on the project and
set up here. Students get combined if they wanted
to, to, students wanted to work together.
Fine. Not any problem. The students in traditional
schools never kept any documentation of the process for our
criminal introduced the role where the students continually worked on
things. I asked him why not a book.
He said because a book, you turn the page
and it's a blank page. The student is confronted
with a black page. Never let him be confronted
with a blank page when you start the roll is
continuous, you never stop. Also you can take
the roll and roll it back and say, look
back here. Here's where the idea was good.
Here's what happened to you can teach them. Process
. Another thing that most schools did not deal with
and that is the process by which uh, an
idea came and evolved into a final project here.
A process was a fundamental thing to deal with.
Um, no drawing. We had no teaching how
to draw. Every school had prospective classes, no
classes, students need to learn how to draw.
They'll learn how to draw. We would show them
if they ask, but there was no drawing class
. We had them all eliminated. They working on
each project, a student had to start a project
, but if you were interested in a project,
you were already working on, you could continually continue
to work on it. Unheard of. In most
schools, the deadline is up, you finish up
, that's over and start something new. Some students
took the first or second project, worked on the
whole term. We didn't care as long as they
were engaged in making progress. So it's a little
bit like I had some connection with when USa today
started as a newspaper and the man who started that
said everything that regular newspapers do will do the opposite
. It was a little bit like that. Everything
that regular architecture education is, we'll do the opposite
. The faculty never agreed in architectural education schools about
any guiding principle of concept. We all agreed with
PJ Model of how one learns. So that too
was different. So the strategy for both for our
and crumble, even though their strategy with the individual
studios was very different, I can tell you that
if you like. But the strategy of how we
would teach what the setup was, so to speak
was homogeneous. I guess that's why he brought me
in because I understood what he was doing at Auburn
as a student. And so he took a chance
on bringing me, I was not the a plus
student. I was missed our students. I don't
know why he invited me first, but he did
and that worked out. Um then he started bringing
other people from our class at Auburn to others.
Harold Hill and Jean Egger wanted to come into the
graduate school so he brought him so he could get
another degree. But Harold and I just came to
teach both of us and Harold had worked Harold held
worked closely with Ferrari as well and we were in
the same classroom, Ferrari came, we were in
his first class in America, so to speak,
so and Gene was off in europe. But anyway
, that's the way the exciting thing about being in
that school and why I came, even though I
was hostile to architecture schools, because all the nonsense
was eliminated? We had our own brand of nonsense
, but it was new nonsense. It wasn't the
same as nonsense we had encountered. So I felt
that the restrictions on the student that I did not
appreciate when I was a student were lifted and that
the students and faculty could explore the wonderful world of
design at all scales uh with the freedom to actually
do something. There's something that's come up is my
question about practice that is very intriguing to me because
it seems like it's a potential contradiction in the system
for already practiced before he came here. You practice
before he came here jean practice before he came here
. And but there's Harold Hill did also. So
and so did Bill Brown. Just to make the
whole, Yeah. So it seems to me like
that's important that you understand practice, you don't necessarily
have to be registered architecture, but they understand practice
in order to make this system work. Do you
think that that that is fundamental and that potentially because
I know I know a lot of people end up
like, one thing I've got two Children and one
thing that I have said to my wife is,
you know, I would love for them to both
go to architecture school. Whether or not they end
up in architecture is irrelevant. It's such, it's
the best education you can get. So I think
there's there's a lot of that that people don't go
into practice. But then do you then have trouble
continuing the educational model? So if you could just
speak to that idea, that is the question about
whether a faculty member who does not have experience in
practice would have the same impact as those that did
not quite. I think you can frame it.
My interest is that relationship of practice to be able
to teach this way. I think the important thing
for us in the beginning days was that there was
no requirement, There was no for all, We
never said, we don't get anyone in here is
not practiced. Never an issue. The question was
, how do you know what it's all about?
That's the question. How do you know whether what
we're doing in school is worthwhile because you can have
a design school that has nothing to do with the
actual world. It is possible and many are that
way their cocoon so that everybody in their faculty and
students agree that this is a special world and we're
going to have fun and we're going to do interesting
things has zero to do with the outside. So
I think the fact that, and I've not thought
about this before. Everybody in the early days had
had some experience in practice before they were teaching.
It was not so much as I know how practice
works and you have to do this because it was
that practice gave you the experience of what it's all
about what goes on, where ideas come from in
practice, how practice delivers a building, what the
restrictions are on you, whether you like it or
not through codes and processes and budgets and things.
So I think that and we often talked about those
kinds of things about the difference in practice in europe
and practice in America, for example, Cromelin Ferrari
and I, and I guess jean and others talked
about that often how this works how that works.
But I think that's the issue in terms of practice
. Sometimes students are always wary in my opinion,
particularly upper year master students of faculty members who have
not been in practice. I think the reason they're
concerned about that is for the wrong reasons. I
think they are afraid that if the person did not
do that did not done practice extensively, doesn't not
register, doesn't have buildings under his or her name
, that somehow they're missing something in terms of teaching
architecture. I disagree with that. What's all together
, we got the issues that we were dealing with
in school from the issues in practice. I literally
thought that I would practice, came up the position
in practice. I would go in teaching for a
few years, then I'd reenter practice at a different
level based on the experience that I've gained. That
was my initial idea not to stay in school teaching
school, but to go back into practice. I
think everybody thinks about that. I think that's a
big piece of what I've been hearing over and over
from people I've spoken to about this. Is that
what architecture education is probably always this way. But
I think with the model that you guys took on
may be accentuated is the idea that you're always learning
and you can learn from the students. And I
think that's that's, that was another premise as a
matter of fact that going back to your question about
the sort of fundamental ideas, One of the fundamental
ideas was way back in the 60s lifelong learning.
We thought that tell the students you're not going to
stop learning when you graduate and it doesn't matter which
projects you do. As a matter of fact,
maybe this would be interesting to you. The next
phase when Ferrari took over the management of the whole
college, I'll tell you a story about how that
happens in a matter of fact sort of the humerus
. But we designed, he designed, helped with
him a curriculum that was hourglass shaped. Do you
know this? The strategy of the curriculum was doubled
one and plan and one in section the section strategy
of the curriculum was an hourglass for five years that
the first two years with the expansion of all scales
in design. The 3rd year was a restriction in
architecture as practice. Now, The 4th and 5th
Year again went back out into all scales of design
. So the idea was that the student in one
sense in the first two years would find his or
her place, you could try urban design, you
could try industrial design, graphic design, try architectural
design, try planning, try all of those through
the studies we did in the first two years and
we did have projects in all of those. Then
in the third year you were restricted. This is
what architects do, this is a real project,
this is you have to have structure calculations, you
have to know the all of those things and very
intense. As a matter of fact, the herald
took that held held, took that then expanded back
out into you find your spot, there was a
lot of those days about finding your spot and in
five years you could find your spot, not in
one or two years and you had all of that
experience in plan, the curriculum was a spiral and
the idea was as opposed to again the reverse of
curricula in most schools where the first year of the
1st and 2nd, 1st year prepares you for the
2nd, 2nd prepares you for the third etcetera etcetera
. And you do new things in every year,
we felt that your issues spiraled up in increasing levels
of sophistication. That was the concept that you could
do an urban design project here. But when you
did it up here, the sophistication level was increased
. That was the only difference you're dealing with the
same issues down here is up here, but in
a different level of sophistication and that strategy worked.
So you could, it was not that, oh
, I did an apartment house. I'm not gonna
do an apartment house again. None of that mattered
because you might do an apartment house over and over
again. But it was completely different because the expectations
of the sophistication of that department house, apartment house
, whatever you decide is quite different. The expectations
in the first two years was were explorations. The
expectations in the third year was competency. The expectations
in the 4th and 5th year were contributions. We
felt that by the time a student became 4th and
5th year, he or she could make contributions to
the field. They could develop ideas that could actually
be used in practice, not necessarily by them,
but show the way of how things could be done
. I know of no other curricula I give,
I teach a course on how to teach design studio
at texas A. M. And therefore influential curricula
that I talk about there one here at uh,
at Virginia Tech in those days. Another where I
went to school for graduate study at the Architectural Association
School, Another at the University of Miami where I
was dean for a while, another at north Carolina
state was dead for a while, those are the
four curricula all different that are all good, but
none of them have the plan section, understanding that
this curriculum had, whether it still exists here or
not, I have no idea. It's fascinating because
it's a classical education model, right? Where you
started the same thing in three? That's right.
That's right. But not in architecture is not classical
in architecture, right? Yes, Very interesting.
Um, and it worked. It worked well.
That's kind of where I want to go next is
uh, oh, excuse me. We would explain
this to students continually. So in the first two
years were set up in those days, You had
50 students Monday, Friday 8-12, you had 35
students. Uh, 125 monday Wednesday, friday Tuesday
and thursday Tuesday was a lecture day. So all
the first year students would come together and each of
the faculty mostly for would give talks to them.
And part of the talk was, here's how the
curriculum is structured and wait, I have to tell
you amusing story about Charles Burchard. When I took
over the first two years, we would have Charles
Burchard come the last lecture of the first term.
He's the dean of the college. The students didn't
know he was necessarily, so he would give a
talk about the educational model of the college, which
he could do beautifully of course because he and Ferrari
invented all this together. So he would tell the
first quarter of freshmen what their expectations were from his
perspective all the way through. He did this every
year, every fall. I called him up one
time and I said, Dean Burchard a couple of
weeks. It's time for you to give your usual
lecture to the first year students. Oh yes,
I'll be glad to have it on my calendar.
This is the same one that you usually give every
year. He said, yeah, I'll be glad
to. What do I, what do I usually
say? Yes. He was wonderful week. I'm
sorry, reminisce, but expensive. He was so
wonderful that we had the students make t shirts with
his picture on. And so he came to give
this toward his last time. He came to give
a talk And he walked down in this auditorium over
here was very steep and we could walk down and
he turned around and there were 250 T shirts with
his picture on there and he was just amazed for
this C. V. On the back. So
anyway, that's nice. Uh huh. So one
of the things that actually brought me back here is
uh, speaking to people in practice about Virginia tech
. one of the things I heard a number of
times was, yes, we've had good luck with
students from Virginia tech because they know how to think
, yes. And that to me is such a
, and I, to be completely honest, I
feel like we're losing that a little bit now and
I don't think it's the school. I think it's
a society is people come in different and not quite
as ready to change. I remember thinking but uh
huh you know, maybe you don't come out knowing
, you know, It's fitting perfectly right into a
practice from day one. But you know how to
, you have the fundamentals to make a real contribution
. And if you can talk about that, about
how well in the first two years is a good
point. In the first two years we told the
students are objective. After two years as you're free
of the faculty, you're no longer dependent that yourself
actualizing yourself, operating the faculty becomes a resource person
rather than a leader to tell you what to do
. And we did that by having several strategies to
put them in a situation where they had to think
their way out of it. And some of the
problems given didn't make any sense. I mean,
they had no idea Ferrari was best at these.
That why would you want to do that? Even
if you could, but it forced them to think
about fundamental issues. Also, the results of the
projects were discussed extensively based on how the faculty saw
those things. Not necessarily this is you did what
we hoped you do, blah blah blah. But
we were often surprised by what they produced and would
not hide that, that surprised, but then would
analyze it in front of them. So they would
see an adult thinking, quote unquote and then these
lectures, for example, we had uh one that
at the end of the next one to the end
, that they would ask anything they wanted to,
why are we doing this? Why are we doing
that? Why don't we have to do this?
Why don't we do everything? So they came up
with questions that were challenging for us and sometimes things
to change if it wasn't the right way to do
. I think the fundamental respect of each individual student
, as in those early years in the first two
years, as a person who could think about things
and as a person who once he or she reached
a certain level, you just got out of their
way and instead of trying to continue to show them
how to do it. Part of that was sometimes
they were required even first two years to develop their
own project, Sometimes they developed a solution and we
took the solutions and gave it to another project class
across the hall to do something else with it,
then they'd come back and show them what you did
, didn't make, whatever. So just I guess
the involvement, one of the things that was very
clear in those days Blacksburg is an isolated community,
there's nothing going on this then, there was nothing
going on here, the students whole life in the
Foundation division was that place and those activities in those
first years and the fact that they received respect,
we call them by their last name, not their
first it was mr jones or Miss Mcgillicuddy, whatever
, which nobody ever called him by their last name
except calling roll For the K through 12. So
that was another reversal, I think that was the
student feeling they had a responsibility to do things other
than just fill in the blanks and respond to whatever
they were told and some kind of silly test also
the way they chose the studios first day, you
know how we did it now of course it's all
this and you're assigned to the students walked into the
Foundation division would stand out, say you over there
, you over there, you over there, you
over there. So they went in these four different
rooms from then on, it was first come,
first served. If you want to be in Ferrari
studio, you got here early and put your name
on the desk and once the names are all filled
up, you have to be in somebody else's studio
. We made as a rule, eliminate as much
as possible any piece of paper between you and the
student, no list of who was in the class
, no, no handout of what the project was
, no syllabus quote unquote, it was all directly
verbal and involved with the student and the student responsibility
was tremendous and someone can take, so that was
too much. So anyway, if that helps.
Yeah, and I think that actually speaks to maybe
how things are changing. I think unnecessary bureaucracy of
of uh, you know, large school, there's
no such thing, no such thing as necessary bureaucracy
. I've been a dean in four different universities.
There is no such thing, departure tell me when
I became the assistant, he said our job is
to protect the faculty and students from the university.
That's what we do. And he did it.
Yeah. I was in this room out here years
later when Ferrari was teaching back to teaching and I
think I was been assistance, I don't remember.
But anyway, we had a new provost and the
new provo sent out a memo to each this about
bureaucracy, sent out a memo to each faculty member
and the university saying that you would have a printed
syllabus on the first day that you would give to
each student and this syllabus would include all of these
things. I remember like yesterday I read that,
but I read it, I looked at him and
I said, I'm sure I'm sure glad we don't
have to do this stuff. And we both threw
in the trash because Burchard protected us from the,
so you may be right well, but in my
opinion, uh, there's always the potential for bureaucracy
. Uh and again, the reason the first two
years worked over in the old high school building particularly
was there was no bureaucracy. Now later Ferrari took
over. So he had some bureaucracy. I took
over, I had some bureaucracy until I learned from
bob DNA, how silly it was. Give me
a good lesson, I'll tell you about that.
But anyway, uh those days, Burchard was the
protector of bureaucracy. Now, he was hired by
t marshall Hahn who told him to make the best
architecture school in the country and I'll back you up
. So he had some flexibility that Dean's don't have
now, or maybe presidents don't have now. I
don't know what charlie charlie stickers, relations with regions
and all that. But anyway, Burchard had free
hand to do what he thought best and he did
what he thought best. And so bureaucracy didn't exist
. Also a critical thing about the organization of the
college at that time was we had no departments.
We're the only college in the university that had no
departments. We had two divisions, basically division of
architectural division of planning and each of the divisions had
an assistant dean in charge of them. And then
there was Burchard and so within that division, there
were no departments. So the tendency for bureaucracy was
much less without departmental structures. As a matter of
fact, when Burchard retired, we intercepted a memorandum
from the central administration is is for you, not
for this stuff, but that said now we can
get architecture back in control from the big house over
there as we used to come in. But it's
interesting something that's come up a number of times is
that you couldn't you couldn't have Ferrari without version.
I agree for I knew that too. You talk
about that a little bit well. They were they
both understood similar kinds of things. They were both
interested in similar kinds of Oh sure Burchard and Ferrari
were a special relationship that only they knew quite frankly
because they were both original thinkers and thought in completely
different ways, came from completely different environments. But
we're both interested in making an educational system within architecture
that was significant. They both wanted to do something
special about architectural education. Burchard because of his experience
with walter Gropius and as a matter of fact,
he was Gropius. His student, as you may
know, he worked with Gropius the year that grow
priests retired. Burchard said I retired too because I
knew it was over. I had no desire to
stay at Harvard when Burt, when Gropius was not
running things, so he went back to practice.
So when they got together, they would formulate ideas
about architectural education in meetings together and then they would
produce it. Burchard would write articles about it,
Ferrari would make diagrams about it and one of the
key articles is a article that Burchard published in the
, in the Ai Journal at the time called a
curriculum geared to Our times and that was really the
first explanation for the world on what was going on
in this little out of the way place down here
in the school that no one had ever heard of
and Burchard wrote the article and Ferrari made the diagrams
and it was an explanation also for us about what
the concept was. Burchard felt very strongly like Ferrari
that the individual person's responsibility was the key to success
. He eliminated the many requirements and the curriculum is
always an argument in every curricula, design curriculum design
about whether it should be restrictive or open, have
a lot of requirements or a few Burchard was for
open curriculum and of course, so was Ferrari because
the responsibility fell on the student to make something of
it. Burchard was asked, what about the student
that falls through the cracks? What if a student
can't do it and you don't have these requirements to
make sure that they learned this and this and this
? He said, I remember the day he said
, I would hope those students who fall through the
cracks, follow through with some elegance and grace.
It was gonna be fine, was his opinion about
things. So we knew that Ferrari was protected by
Burchard also and therefore we knew we were protected by
virtue, we could do whatever we needed to over
in the high school building is convenient for virtues were
way over there and the upper year people didn't come
. Initially, there was great, uh, uh
, I say it Disagreement and the kind words between
the 3rd, 4th and 5th year and the 1st
and 2nd year. They were spoke very hostilely of
our efforts over there once the students got here to
the third year. And Burchard allowed that to happen
until Ferrari was strong enough in the foundation division that
he could make him the first assistant dean. Would
you like to know how that happened? We had
an accreditation visit and the accrediting team came over to
see what we're doing over there and they saw everything
they liked everything of course, found out that Burchard
had written the accreditation requirements while he was president of
A C. S. A. So surprise surprise
we fell right into them right? And one of
the head of the team was a former partner from
tack. So you know anyway it worked. But
they recommended to Burchard that he has some more administration
within the college because at the time it was just
Burchard and an assistant to the Dean Jack out here
. And so Bircher decided to have a two division
assistant dean for the architecture division, Assistant Dean for
the planning division. Ferrari was on the summer,
we were in Salzburg together I was teaching with him
that particular summer. Didn't do it often did it
that summer and he got a call or a letter
, a telegram from Burchard saying that he was going
to have an assistant dean and he would like Ferrari
to be the assistant dean. And I remember up
in the house over there, he said, should
I do this? I don't want to be a
dancer. I'm a teacher. All right. All
this stuff. I said, look, who's he
gonna give it to if you don't do it.
He said, oh, it's gonna be so and
so now missing exactly now. What's he gonna do
once he gets in charge? He said he's going
to ruin us. So what you can do so
far, I said, I'd better take it as
a defensive mode. And that's what happened. And
as a humorous one, you don't need to use
this in the tape. But I'll tell you because
it's in my memory a year later, I'm walking
across the hall with Dean, birch it over here
and we're talking about the accreditation. But for some
reason. And he said, you know, they
told me that I was working too hard and I
needed some administrative help. And so I pointed Ferraris
assistant Dean and you can see right into where his
office used to be. We probably was sitting with
his feet up on the desk of his head and
he said, you see what happen. He said
he's made more work for me than anybody ever could
have. Uh, imagine. But anyway, Ferrari
was Assistant Dean for a year and he no decided
he didn't want to do that anymore. So he
asked me if I would do it. I said
, I don't know anything about being assistant team.
So he said, well Burchard said you'll be acting
assistant dean. All you have to do is act
like one is that I can do that. And
I got one. So that's how I became an
administration. Worked for five years with Charles Burchard and
to diverge for a moment and talk about Charles Burchard
. He's one of the few people I've ever known
that I never heard him say a single negative word
about another human being. Zero. Someone would do
something to him against him or whatever. Well,
he's just a little confused. He'll get over it
or well, I didn't think it was that serious
or whatever. Someone was not performing their job.
Maybe he's the wrong position. Maybe we ought to
find a way for him to do something else.
Very few faculty members did not make tenure because he
could see if they were not gonna make it and
he'd find him a job somewhere else. I know
of several three particularly that he did that at a
university. The pressure wasn't wasn't up so great.
So he looked out wonderfully for other human beings and
he was a real pleasure to work with as a
dino. Take a couple of birchwood stories. Is
that okay? So I'm his assistant dean for five
years. I have all these ideas about this,
that and the other, he had his desk in
here in the Dean's office, He would sit looking
out on the plaza out there and so you'd come
and sit down across front and talk to about things
. And so I had all kinds of really need
ideas I thought. So I tell him some of
these ideas and he'd listen and when I finished I
say, what do you think he'd say? Who's
that coming across applause out, Do you know who
that, who is that? He never he never
would say that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of
. We'll never do that. He would always say
that. But if he liked it he'd say oh
that's interesting. How do you think we ought to
implement it? But always you could tell if it's
a good idea, not a good idea. Who's
that coming across the plaza. And finally I had
a nerve at work and whether 23 years I said
Deon Burton, but it's a good idea we talked
about, it was not so good. Somebody interesting
. He said I'll call that selective hearing. But
he was a wonderful person with him to work knew
the university completely when we didn't have any money troubles
which we often did in our division, he'd say
I know where their pots of money around. You
really need, what do you need it for.
Okay, so we go to. Um but it
was a wonderful experience working with him. He was
always positive, always thinking at the big scale.
Never cared much about the local squabbles or situations and
he had the vision to build the school and he
had the vision because he understood what Gropius was about
, both in the bauhaus and at Harvard and he
took those good ideas and use them when we started
the alexandria campus. That came from his idea of
what he called Beachhead Beachhead campuses. Burchard has the
idea that universities were too restrictive for innovative things to
happen in education. So he said what we should
have is beachhead campuses that are out in the city
that are small but our operative so they can learn
from the city and operate within the context of the
city. And so after he retired, I was
able to talk the then provost john Wilson is a
wonderful provost into giving us the money to start the
alexandria center as a beachhead campus and it was off
birchers model of beachhead campuses which he had written about
extremely visionary, hard to pin down on specifics and
it wasn't to re avoid him, he just didn't
care about him, It just weren't earning Israel as
a matter of fact the Burchard story, knowing Remember
this one I guess, but Burchard was dean here
for I think 15 years of some long period like
that had started the college, we had a graduation
ceremony here after the one in the university that was
centered in what used to be the library Rose right
here and we would have the graduates come out and
have food and if when it's time to get their
diploma, they would walk in and meet Burchard personally
with their parents and shake their hand, give them
diploma. So it wasn't a line or calling names
and all of that. They could have their parents
who talked with him. So, so he's announced
his retirement. And so I think to myself,
Charles birch words made this place, Everybody loves him
, respects him. It's just not right that his
last act. Yes. I greeting people individually and
walking out and getting in this old white mustang and
driving home that be it. I thought to myself
now, what would be the proper goodbye for Charles
Burchard? I called a man that had hot air
balloons and ask him if he could put a hot
air balloon out here in this plaza. He came
out and say, sure, how much would it
cost? He told me how much else it was
enrollment to pay for it. The concept was while
he was in there fooling with the students graduation,
hot air balloon would fill up out here when everything
was over. He'd walk out in the hall,
we'd give him an applause. He'd walk out,
get in the hot air balloon rise above and wave
and we would see him ascending and heaven would be
the last thing we ever saw Charles aperture. Right
? And so one of the staff members who knew
him well, nobody would tell it was a secret
. And she said he's not gonna get in the
bullet. What if you have this big balloon and
he won't get in it. What are you gonna
do then? You better tell him. And so
I said, you're right because if he what an
anti climax, right? If he will refuse to
get in the building. And I told him,
I said this is all safe about what he said
, not my style, he wouldn't let us do
it. So that was the intended good Baffert Charles
Bircher, but we couldn't quite put it on.
But anyway, it was wonderful working with him because
his primary issue was to build this college, that's
what it was all about. And he devoted all
this time and energies to it and he focused it
in every way he could and hired the best people
. His strategy was how the best people possible and
two have them do that. I'm rambling on things
that you may not be interested. It's all great
stuff. It's wonderful. I mean it's you know
, I don't really know these stories are what's gonna
make this film, Who does. But anyway,
it's fun to tell them because some of them,
I think I may be the last one who knew
that one was about this room and then you want
to use this one. But I have to tell
you because it tickles me. So and one of
the accreditation visits we made full size cutouts of Charles
Burchard. Do you know the stone and on masonite
So it's a tease to him in a way.
So the crediting team came in there. He was
and so well this room used to have heavy drapes
on it and so finished house assistant I brought in
here, put it in here. Well since he
started in here, this is where he had meetings
. He put it behind the drapes facing out.
He gets a new secretary, new secretary comes in
the first day the dot tries to please him as
much as he can etcetera, stays after everybody.
Uh He leaves. No so she looks in here
and make sure there's nobody here and everybody's cleared out
. She goes out and she locks the door Bircher
didn't have a key because he never opened the door
so he didn't keep keys. Is that kind of
person? So she goes out and gets in a
car in the parking lot and looks up and sees
Dean barker standing in this room. I've locked the
Dean in the room first day and I've locked him
in the room. He can't get out. That's
the way the locks work. You can get out
. So she ran up here look to the room's
empty, it was about how it occurred. She
didn't know his photograph ran back out so he's still
in there. Remember God and finally found them found
the picture but she was sure she had locked the
day and into the office for the first time.
She threw it away. Uh huh But at any
rate, he was a wonderful person with him to
work. What else? I think we're great.
I mean anything else you want to share about,
you know, you have, you have an idea
what the film is about, Anything you want to
talk about transitioning. Well there was a transition from
the foundation division being in the old high school and
Ferrari being over there to win. He moved over
here, he moved over as assistant dean as I
mentioned and Burt would put him in charge. I
think it's just a couple of years, I don't
remember exactly but he saw this as an opportunity to
change the 3rd, 4th and 5th year I spent
a year away 72 73. So I'm not sure
exactly when those times work, but when I came
back in 73 he was over here and he put
Harold Hill in charge of the third year and jean
anger in charge of the 4th and 5th year and
me in charge of the first two years so that
we could make the whole college operate like. And
the concept and the idea that was this before him
, we couldn't do that because the people running the
upper years didn't believe in any of that. So
Harold organized a third year, that was the best
I've ever seen a team concept and jane organized the
4th and 5th year in a wonderful concept as well
And we operated with three different faculty groups and three
different strategies, et cetera, were still a a
division of the department. Um but it's an interesting
story, the way Ferrari brought Harold Hill to teach
with us and the foundation division and then jean to
teach with and foundation division. So we're all teaching
over there at first and they to learned about how
things worked in their own special way. They're both
are excellent teachers, jean still is excellent teachers in
their own light, in different ways to to teach
. Of course, what happened that I thought it
was one amusing story was that the three of us
were brought here by Ferrari because we're all in the
same class at Auburn, more or less than he
knew us all and he wanted to establish the people
that he knew and could trust an operation of things
. We were all sitting over in the side around
the coffee table one day and Dean Burchard came in
with Bill Brown and he said I'd like to introduce
a new faculty member to you guys. Bill Brown
and we all burst out laughing, was Bill Brown
was our classmate, but Berkshire didn't know it,
He hired Bill because he worked for Ben Thompson and
Bill applied and never mentioned anything about being with any
of us. And so Burchard said, oh no
, I brought another one a knowing. So that's
how the four of us got here and how Ferrari
made it so that each of the 3, 3
divisions, foundation division, professional division, as we
call it in upper division were managed by those guys
. Then excellent students who had come through like bob
and Donna DNA and Ron daniel and jay Stoeckel started
to come back and be faculty members all after they
had practiced. As a matter of fact, get
back to your other question and had gone off in
practice and we brought them back in various ways and
they were all significant contributors while we're here. The
changes that happened after we moved over to Cobo Hall
were interesting because they were learning experiences and how to
adjust things. And then after Burchard retired and I
stopped being the assistant dean and started the program up
in alexandria. For me, that was a new
opportunity, as I mentioned, to build on birch
whose idea of a beachhead campus and that too,
we were able to operate and the old tradition of
, let's just do it and not worry about whether
it'll work or not. And we did and it
did. And then after Greg hunted, I started
that and john hope moved up after that and he's
run it and it's still very, very successful program
. And Burchard was right, you can do things
away from the mother ship that you can't do at
home and you can do innovative teaching strategies and structural
strategies that you couldn't do otherwise. So I probably
tired you from all this list. I mean,
anything else in particular your incident, I definitely got
great, you know, I think we're solid.
If there's nothing else you want to throw in there
. I'll tell you one last thing about Charles Burchard
when we had the student riots, I don't know
whether anybody is talking about those or not, but
this is in Kent state years when the National Guard
shot the kids stay students and all campuses everywhere.
This one too, Burchard went home and took his
phone off the hook so so he wouldn't be called
was very wise. Students occupied this building and locked
it up. Justice had locked up all kinds of
building on the one down the street. The police
came in and one of the liberal arts buildings,
the police came in and pulled out trucks up and
yank the doors off to go in and arrest all
the students. Burchard came in and knocked on the
door. He came to work the next day and
he didn't know they were protesting, but the doors
were locked and that's full of students out there.
So he knocked on the door and they opened the
door. He said, what's going on here?
So why don't you come and talk to me?
But everybody else works. So he just handled it
without any problem because the students had great respect and
they said, we tried to call you before we
occupied the building, but we couldn't get you on
the phone. That's okay. So another story about
his managerial insights and abilities. He simply was not
a confrontational person and did not do confrontations and was
so direct and honest with everyone that he developed great
respect. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to
thank you. I hope this all works fantastic.
I appreciate. There are two things that I need
to mention that we're, I believe fundamental in the
success of the early years of the college. One
of them was the summer program that Herbert, Cromelin
Olivia Ferrari established in Salzburg. The summer program was
originally established so that one of them took the first
half of the summer, then there was a trip
and the other one took the second half of the
summer so they could go back and be in europe
for the summer. But the setup was that any
student could go no matter what year, no matter
whether there were a good student or not, a
good student, anyone that wanted to go could study
there, I had the opportunity to go a couple
of times myself and learned a great deal. But
the important thing is I saw firsthand the power of
Ferrari and Cromwell in europe. The fact that any
student could go meant that sometimes the person was the
second year students, sometimes 3rd, 4th or fifth
year students, they were all mixed together. They
learned about architecture firsthand by actually seeing it actually being
there And an additional sum in addition, some significant
life experiences as well. The summer that I was
there, we took a nearly month long trip through
at that time, the communist countries went to Bulgaria
and to um Czechoslovakia and several of the Communist countries
. And so students can see firsthand what life was
like there all the time studying architecture. But the
important thing was that those students that got into the
summer program when they came back, they were able
to bring experiences to the other students. This experience
led me to establish international programs wherever I went from
then on, because I understood the strength of studying
abroad within the context of the educational system you were
in in the United States is very powerful experience.
The second thing that I learned in that experience in
the first two years and particularly as the students there
developed later on was that once you give students the
freedom to explore, you have no idea what amazing
things they're going to do. two of the students
particularly that are here now in their second year,
started becoming interested in those days in solar energy.
Uh huh. By the time they were in the
upper years, they decided that they should write a
book about solar energy. They asked Ferrari to help
pay for the publication because no publisher was interested and
they published this book and it's one of the first
books on solar design that was done in their fifth
year as students, undergraduate students in those days.
And State University has never published anything, never even
thought about it. That book was published by them
. But it became successful and the success then had
a regular publisher pick it up and distributed. And
those two students were Jack Davis and bob Schubert.
Many students who evolved through those early years of studying
architecture in an open way. In the first two
years established by Kremlin Ferrari went on to do amazing
things and be great successes because I believe of their
educational experience of putting responsibility on them to do what
they thought was important rather than on us that we
thought was important. three of the other students finding
that they were being ripped off by the local uh
bookstores started. Mish mish they started it again with
a loan from Ferrari to get them going. They
started it while they were students and it still operates
. One of them still runs. So I saw
in that experience with not only excellent faculty, but
amazing students who had become successes in their own right
because they were given the freedom to explore and because
they were given the responsibility themselves to produce things rather
than simply being told what to produce. And that
has been a model for me and my later administrative
career in several of the university, I forgot about
that. Oh, you didn't, oh