And of course, any things off the record that
you would like to be offered and you can just
say that you don't use that or whatever. Okay
. Okay. Um, well, I'd like to
start with your personal history at the school when you
came here for the first time. And what brought
you here? Well, I had known early on
that I wanted to study architecture in high school.
So I planned that direction. There was a time
when I also thought that maybe I'd like to join
the Coast Guard and get into search and rescue.
So I only applied to two universities. One was
the Coast Guard Academy and the other was Virginia Tech
. My father went here. My uncle went here
and I had visited several times as a child.
So Virginia Tech was a known entity. And I
think within the family it was assumed that that's where
I would go to school. However, the interest
in the Coast Guard Academy went so far, except
that I wasn't accepted based on my math scores.
So, um, then fate made that decision and
I came to Virginia Tech first looking at architectural engineering
, but later is you may or may not here
on in the memory bank. The Architectural Engineering was
dissolved in 1969 and it was assumed that students ah
Would be better engineers if they just focused on engineers
and engineering and better architects if they focus just on
architecture. So that what year did you come?
And I came in 1969. So I'm in effect
, the closest one can get as an academic to
being a kind of company man. I've been here
in virtually every role as a undergraduate student, as
a graduate student, as a teaching assistant. And
then I left for nine years practice additional teaching,
And then came back in 1984 as an associate professor
. And then of course working my way up through
the ranks. So I have a number of decades
of experience in this place. Okay. And I've
heard I didn't know this Tom Reagan, I think
told me that he wrote a very famous or infamous
book as a, as a graduate student. That's
right, robert schubert and I, who's now robert
schubert is now the associate dean for academic for research
and robert. And I wrote a book on alternative
energy systems for buildings. This was back before this
was right around the advent preceded Edward Masri's book on
passive solar energy, which was an instant classic.
Still is today. A very good book. It
preceded that and came out at the same time as
the whole earth catalog was getting ramped up and Portola
Institute in California and the book did get quite a
bit of coverage and it introduced solar energy, wind
energy, natural ventilation and the topics have been at
this university ever since. It was, it became
popular in the 90s to reintroduce that material and other
universities, but it actually never left here. I'm
actually gonna jump ahead. This is the question I
was going to ask you later, but uh huh
. Just I think that's a nice segue. Um
in the talk you say that, I think a
very nice thing talking about the college as a family
with the students, the faculty and the alumni.
And it's just thinking about you writing that book as
a perfect example of what the students can bring of
A faculty member didn't write that book. Excited young
student who saw this. You know, Well,
you you have to look at the pedagogy here has
one to support the students. It's not the pentagon
is really not about the faculty, it's not about
resources, it's about supporting the students and we can
talk more about that. But the notion that you
prepare a fertile ground for innovative thought, new directions
and it's nurtured by the faculty, the faculty really
become the, the guide posts to help uh,
establish what is timely and what is timeless. And
so the basis for us to develop new directions.
I was encouraged and actually financially supported by the,
the college at the time. That's great. That's
a nice discussion of the pedagogical model, which I
think we should definitely talk more about. I think
that that's for me, that's just such a unique
thing. They even allowed robert and I to teach
a course in our fifth year, we actually had
a three credit course that we're teaching on vernacular architecture
and then we taught, I taught studio in graduate
school, and robert also taught environmental systems at that
time. Was the grad school just smaller because it
seems like a haunted mentioned that too, that he
came here for a master's degree and was teaching.
It seems like that there was more of that going
on. I think there was more of it at
the time. Yes, because that really doesn't happen
anymore. Right? Not generally we we'll invite students
that are educated in particular disciplines or areas to give
talks, but not to take lime responsibility. Another
change. Right? With the, well, we
have bureaucratic professional faculty. I dont know that its
bureaucracy as much as you have really, you know
, well educated professional faculty to teach the courses.
There are the universities which rely on PhD students or
graduate master students to teach courses and we prefer that
to be done by professional staff. There was a
need for that, I think. So, so
, back to your time in school, I'd like
to know who your methods were, the impact that
they had on your career direction, I think Uh
huh, you know, with that your decision to
come back to teach, I would imagine that something
to do with with the people you were met.
Well, certainly, um all students have key faculty
that they might remember back as being mentors and for
myself, the first faculty that I encountered was Herbert
Cromwell, and we can talk some more about his
role in development of the pedagogy here, but it
was really quite eye opening and Mhm. You could
almost put in the category of shocking and in a
very positive way. Um then uh Tom Reagan,
it's has been interviewed here. He certainly was a
very strong mentor and continues to this day as I
got it council to me and then Olivia Ferrari.
He entered my educational career a little bit later than
some, although I knew him. His influence on
me came later in the graduate program more and then
as the Center for european Studies and Architecture developed,
we're working together as well. So I think those
three Gene***, who also has interviewed here,
I had Gene for At least one year in the
5th year and I learned a great deal from him
, also went to Europe in 1972 with him.
So I would say those for, he had mentioned
Donald Sunshine to me once because he Donald Sunshine,
I taught with for about 10 years and he was
the Department Chair of Architecture hired me in 1984 and
he and I talked together and and very good working
relationship because his name hasn't come up and I'm just
curious, you know, I know you had mentioned
him to say he had a great influence on a
lot of students and on the program here came to
us out of Harry Wes's office in Chicago and he
taught at Hampton Institute before coming here. Um had
a great deal of knowledge and experience to bring to
bear. Having had his own office in Chicago for
many years. So that's that's a good topic to
stand. So you went in practice? I did
, I worked at practice with first Diarra and Newton
Center massachusetts and then with Cambridge seven associates and Cambridge
massachusetts, which is an excellent firm, very hard
to leave actually to come back here. But I
was invited back to be a visiting faculty for a
quarter and that was winter of 84. Yeah,
we decided my wife and I that it's possible that
we could leave boston and come back here re establish
ourselves. Yeah. So Don Sunshine. Following that
quarter asked me if I would stay and I said
no thanks. But we went back to boston and
re entered that world as a comparative base. And
finally I called him back and I said, well
maybe I'll reconsider. So Charles steiger was detained them
and uh, he put together the offer, we
look back. So is it, were you drawn
back to the idea of education? I mean,
was it, was it kind of, but I
almost never stopped teaching. I started teaching as I
indicated a lecture course in my fifth year, Which
would have been 1974. And I taught every year
, including when I was, I went to the
University of Florida and taught for four years and then
to boston and I taught for two years at the
boston architectural center at night while working in the office
. It was only a couple of years that I
wasn't teaching. So teaching has been a direction for
me for my entire career. Did it seem inevitable
that it seemed inevitable? I would go back to
teaching, not necessarily back to Virginia tech, but
again, fate has long tentacles. Yeah. I
didn't think I was good back here either. And
I didn't know you were associated with boston Architectural College
. I really, I think that that's a really
cool place. It's like hell. They, they
do it, it's well run. It's uh,
a unique opportunity. And I think that's why to
a certain extent architecture schools don't have to technically be
competitive with each other. There's multiple ways to enter
this profession and the more diverse there are the richer
the profession is for it. And tweak this light
the second. Yeah, I met somebody who,
who study there and I just, I was very
impressed with his level of professional knowledge. I love
the idea that, you know, when you graduate
, you ready to sit for your area from.
Okay, well, I'm afraid that yeah, that
should stop, particularly, we'll just take a break
hurt. Okay. Um, so on that talk
with the practice and then coming back and teaching.
Um this is the question I've asked everybody and the
answers have been really interesting. Yeah. How do
you see the role of practice in a school role
of practice versus this sort of theoretical, you know
? Uh huh. Educational. Well, I think
you have both. I don't think that you need
to prefer one over the other, but you have
to have the presence of both. I think when
we look at faculty who will be teaching in the
more advanced years of the programs, both at the
graduate level and undergraduate level in architecture, we're looking
for those that may have had a good solid yeah
. Practice in noteworthy firms. It's not just the
fact that one did practice, but did they,
how did they practice? What's the nature of that
practice? Because sometimes when you bring faculty and you're
bringing them in for their careers and they will be
referencing that history or some time to come. You
want that history to be solid. Now in terms
of the scholarship based theoretical base, uh we look
for the same things. The faculty have a good
solid history in the art of writing or the art
of just leave that part of. And but we
also like to think we don't hire faculty just for
particular points of focus. Wow, we encourage the
kind of interdisciplinary approach. We have faculty who have
undergraduates, undergraduate degrees in interior design, graduate degree
in architecture, another graduate degree in industrial design.
We look for that kind of cross disciplinary influence and
that's essentially what people talked about. And I think
that that's really, I think that's another thing that
makes the school special is that, you know,
what the percentage of practice to theory is is whatever
. But the fact that it's, it's not one
over the other, it's really the and through the
decades that's ebbed and flowed as one would expect,
but the presence is always there. That was actually
my next question about that. It seems like during
that um the Ferrari Berkshire days, those earlier days
when they were trying to do something different. It
was maybe a higher concentration of the of that theoretical
, but yet all these people had practiced, you
know, and I think that's what I find so
interesting is when you hear about it, when you
hear, you know, faculty people talk about it
, it seems like, well these were these,
you know, artists, artists or whatever, but
actually no, they had all had really solid.
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, certainly when you talk
with older alumni, they think the school going downhill
when it became a college, the advent of a
new pedagogy. Um, and I think that's human
nature to assume as soon as things changed, then
they've already changed for the bad and that of course
is not the case changes endemic to the nature of
the school, it's healthy. No, I like
to use the James Tyrell quote of an old riverbed
and new water and that of course, a slight
paraphrase from what James Turrell actually said, But nevertheless
, with that analogy, one can see how a
pedagogy can become that riverbed and the new water is
the students flowing through, new faculty flowing through and
support structure of the pedagogy is the riverbed. And
I think that is certainly the case with this program
here in architecture now, we also see similar parallels
in the other disciplines. Uh huh Building construction as
a discipline. A degree preceded architecture here and they
too have approaches which have changed over time, But
have fundamental 10ets which reached today. Certainly the foundations
of art and now with our Bachelor's of Fine Arts
and new masters of fine arts, we can also
look back on influences and those influences in many cases
were the same as for architecture. So to stick
with your analogy, what formed the riverbed of architecture
? Well, that's very interesting. And just like
in geologic time, it didn't happen all at once
. Um if if we look back very quickly on
the history of the education that became this college,
we see a genealogy, Which actually goes right back
to 1872, Virginia Agricultural Mechanical College was formed as
the State Land Grant University. Obviously the courses in
agriculture had to do with agriculture buildings too. And
so there were courses on masonry and carpentry and how
to build even if gates and fences, this yielded
the obvious a need for drawing courses. And ultimately
by 1877 we had a drawing room and Virginia Agricultural
Mechanical College was advertising, it's drawing around the drafting
room, which was Appended to the back of Lane
Hall Barracks. Number one is what it was called
. And so drawing was introduced, hard line drawing
and then eventually freehand drawing. And in 1896,
uh, the name of the college changed and it
became Virginia polytechnic institute, VP, which many still
refer to Virginia tech as VP. It would of
course change one more time in 1975 to become Virginia
Polytechnic Institute and State University. Right. Yeah.
Is that on there? It's probably down by the
shop. The shop can create interesting noises. Yeah
. Sorry. Yeah. Okay, sure. That's
all right. Mhm. Still trying to figure out
where to come back to and then well, so
you're talking about now, that step while we stop
it for the second, then we'll see. So
, we had the drafting room 18 77 and this
later led to the courses in building construction. And
uh It was decided in 1928 to introduce architectural engineering
, has a degree. and the 1st department had
architectural Engineering was Clinton Kogel And Clinton Kogel would serve
as department head for 28 years. This is too
loud. I'm sorry. We've got to. Mhm
. Sure. Okay, let's try that again.
Let's go back to this period of time between 1872
and 1928. And we have the advent of the
drawing room 1877 in which Virginia Agricultural Mechanical College celebrated
and put in their catalog as pre mediating this.
Um and this uh of course I was an engineering
college as well, and civil engineering is closely associated
with building construction and very soon degrees in construction we're
being offered. There was a decision to introduce architectural
engineering as a discipline and offer a degree. And
the 1st Department Head of Architectural Engineering was Clinton Kogel
. He would serve for 28 years as department head
. And Clinton Kogel had a very provincial point of
view of architecture um focused mostly on residential in the
english country cottage. He also would have an office
while in Blacksburg and did a number of buildings that
are still with us today, including the graduate life
center building. Are they university faculty building Across from
that and a number of residences? The so that
goes back to your point about practice and theory,
it's very clear that this, during this period of
time, Practice dominated the nature of architecture. Um
The first architecture degrees were granted in The 30s with
having one extra year added on to a four year
architectural engineering degree. And that would give a person
a master of science in architecture and then they were
credentialed as an architect. It wasn't until the mid-50s
that we actually had the National Architectural Accreditation Board,
a credit the program. But prior to that accreditation
in the practice of architecture were less tied together and
it didn't. In terms of practicing architecture you didn't
really need no. you know, all that evolved
and changed over time. They interesting thing is when
if I could go back for just a moment when
In the early 1900s, Very early 1900s students could
actually trade off their housing and meal costs to do
construction on campus. Which is an interesting notion that
has transpired through different architectural programs, particularly as you
know, tally s and others through the decades.
But it was a very short period of time at
Virginia Tech when students could actually participate in the construction
GT Ward, I think protect you. You won't
see that. Again, It touched in the 50s
as GT Ward remembers. And then again when We
did the research and demonstration facility that opened in 93
. Students helped build that under course structure. But
we're jumping ahead If we look back at clinton cockles
time, there was an interesting point when he was
hiring faculty And in 1937 he hired Herschel Ellerth herschel
alert, a pivotal faculty member here. He actually
came from Richard nighters office and Notre, who was
the DNA. Is educated under Adolf loose and he
was Notre was also closely tied to working with frank
Lloyd wright and overseeing his work in California and L
art was bringing that kind of genealogy into the classroom
and the architectural studios, which at that time were
in Patent Hall on the third floor where even today
, civil Environmental Engineering is still there. Architecture was
a yeah department within the School of Engineering and later
would become the School of Engineering and Architecture. And
then under len curry. Finally, architecture would exit
out. Um, and the pattern was set to
become its own college. I ask you a question
about that, however, on that. So at
what point it seems to me, especially with these
faculty that the reputation of the, of the architecture
program must have been very, very, very good
. I'm just curious. You know, the school
now enjoys a very excellent reputation. What's the history
of that? During this history? It was there
a certain point where there was a real draw or
people from other areas were drawn here because of the
, the quality of education. Not that I know
of. Okay, that may not be the politically
correct thing to say, but not that I know
of. I think it's Virginia Tech was the land
grant university. If you're going to go to college
, that was a place to go. Of course
the competition was with the University of Virginia, which
had a very celebrated architecture program and still does today
. Um, that probably guarded more attention in those
days. Rankings are a new invention. That's that's
Something of the 90s and actually there was a ranking
in the 70's um in which deans would rank sort
of the reputation of programs. and I remember in
the mid 70s that We were often tied with Rice
University at about 7th and A. C. S
. A. Was ramping up the A. C
. S. A. S. Uh now I
think 100 years old but its influence and it's uh
wow Conferencing and bringing people together in conversations across the
country was really strongest in the 60s and 70s and
still exist today. The ranking issue I think is
something we'll put in the more the timely category.
So you weren't let curry Well Lynn Curry, I
hadn't mentioned him yet. Uh so but let me
bring up one more faculty member who was hired in
1941 and that was Charles. Worley Charles Wehrli came
to us at um ISA and arose office in Chicago
. And so what you have is slowly building this
international influence at a pivotal time because this is leading
up to the Second World War and where the Second
World War plays a part in the education or the
background of this college is really in the same way
as it did with Harvard and other major universities that
influences such as walter Gropius, fled Nazi Germany.
Um And he first went to London and practiced and
then finally to Harvard as you know. And that
influence also came to Black Mountain College in Black Mountain
north Carolina just outside of Asheville. This was a
small arts school that attracted joseph Albers, um robert
rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, john cage, whole host
of famous art personalities that well later emerge connected to
our art program here. But Charles burchard also taught
there for a summer and he was influenced obviously by
Marcel breuer and walter Gropius at Harvard and worked in
their offices and was invited to Blacksburg by len curry
who took over as a department head Architecture in 1956
. And then curry came from Gropius office, the
architects collaborative. He helped form that with Gropius and
the the other personalities that became the architects collaborative.
And so he was uh huh aware of people like
Charles Burchard and he also went to school with President
Fraser who came here in 1937 from Harvard so that
the faculty ranks were being enriched In the late 30s
, early 40s and we have to give Clinton Cocoa
credit for that even though he himself wasn't practicing in
that realm, he was recognizing the value of at
that time, certainly challenging thought and bringing that to
bear here. This was capitalized on Beilin curry to
a large degree, learn immediately began to internationalize the
architecture program. He introduced planning into That's a discipline
and as a degree here in the late 50s.
Um and he also set the stage for the exiting
of the department of architecture at that time. The
first step was to become a school of architecture with
a school of engineering instead of under it, but
with it and then of course for that school to
later become this college 1964, when uh huh T
. Marshall Hawn, formally welcomed this of the new
college, it had the disciplines of building construction of
architecture of planning and art and certainly those are the
backbones and the strength of the college today. And
we have expanded that portfolio with absolutely excellent programs,
but one could argue that they could draw circles around
this for as having a still a strong influence today
. We step you back for you because I think
the sort of tying into what was going on in
the world in in that part is interesting. Do
you think that shift with co goal, recognizing that
this was important thing to do? Did that tie
into the sort of post World War two building boom
and the move towards a sort of american modern?
Well, there may have been some influence on that
. A frank Lloyd wright had been in a famous
American icon since the 1890s and he didn't seem to
be well respected or well recognized by the faculty here
. And it was the students that I believe in
your discussion with GT Ward. He was pivotal in
inviting frank Lloyd wright here. Um, and the
faculty certainly supported it, but they were not the
leaders in that. Uh, and what you call
the american modern, I think could be attributed certainly
to the strongest influence of frank Lloyd Wright. And
so that was to come later. The post war
years were intense. The population engagement here at Virginia
Tech was really high. The architectural program grew the
largest that it had ever been. And at that
time the influence of frank Lloyd Wright was being brought
in. As I said by the student body.
Now, Black Mountain College was going through its,
what I might call its halcyon days. You know
, this was Black Mountain College during the near the
end of the Second World War and into the 50s
was just the place and to have a linkage to
this college with Black Mountain College was important. And
that's really where Lynn curry helped to build. There's
a nice quote in your talk from a student at
, at the college. He said, yeah,
I don't remember, you have to see if you
remember it. But it was something about, you
know, it was an amazing time or so that
you know, these people had nothing in common except
that they were there. Right, that was a
nice, yeah, that's right. Um burst Cunningham
and john Cage would later be invited back by Professor
Ray CASS in the art department to participate in what
he set up as its Mountain Lake workshops. And
he has since written a number of different books or
edited books on the two of them. Their work
here, Art Was a founding program in the college
. But by 1975 there had grown a rift between
architecture and art and art, left the college to
join arts and sciences. It wouldn't be until around
2003 that art would return back to the college and
we certainly were welcoming them back. It was we
have a studio culture here. There are studio culture
, Arts and Sciences didn't really have that particular culture
. And so bringing them back here was important.
Interior Design joined to college as well. And that
reorganization occurred in 2003. They are also a studio
based culture. And so the college today is made
up of like disciplines, at least in terms of
culture. That was a question I was going to
ask you about that interdisciplinary breath. Yeah, because
when I interviewed Ray CASS, he touched on that
. When I interviewed Tom Mills, he touched on
that. We talked at length both of those interviews
about like Ray, it was more vocal about it
, that he thought it was a real shame that
there wasn't more, you know, architecture students going
taking classes over their art students taking classes. You
know, he thought that that was something that that
he would he would hope, you know, that
sort of interdisciplinary thing would be stronger. And Tom
mills had at an interesting take on that. You
know, I mean, really we should be working
together. And I think it's, you know,
he's he's also an architect. He hasn't been unique
. Take comments, want to talk on that topic
. Well, the someone viewing this would say that
it's a point of view of an administrator but try
to set that aside for a moment and realized that
there are no administrative barriers to that kind of collaboration
. The problems are space and faculty. No one
says that architecture students can take art courses. Art
students take architecture courses, There's nothing against that at
all. The problem is space and faculty and there
were times when we didn't have that crush and we
could easily accommodate more students into classes than they can
now. So it's really more that barrier. It's
not administrative now realize too that within architecture, this
founding pedagogy that we haven't gotten into too much yet
. But I suppose we could with, I'm rambling
here. So if you wanna cut this out,
that's fine. When virtual was invited to become dean
here, he was encouraged by Lynn curry and also
by t marshall han to accept this. And Burchard
called his friend Sam hurst at Auburn, who was
a dean at Auburn and said, do you have
any young faculty that would like to come up to
teach? Sam hearst had hired Olivia Ferrari and lucy
Ferrari um and brought them over from max Bill's office
and Zurich and had them teach for a year,
which most of it was lucy interpreting the german Olivia
to the students, but in that one year had
a dramatic effect Auburn's education. But Auburn was going
through its own growing changes, growing pains and changes
. And Sam hurst was leaving as the dean.
Yeah, he had and hired walter share from max
Bill's office and calm and I have to correct that
. I don't know that walter share was in max
Bill's office, so you can cut that out.
Let's just start saying that um Sam hurst hired industrial
designer walter share, who was that arm home with
Olivia Ferrari. And so for a new Sure.
And Sam hurst, of course, uh was excited
by this european influence at Auburn. So he extended
an invitation to the Ferraris to come for a year
, That was 1963, at the conclusion of that
year. Um Sam hurst said that he was going
to be moving on and that Ferrari's position would then
be finished. It was a visiting one year professorship
, that's the time that Charles Burchard contacted Sam hearst
and was given the name of froy. Richard contacted
him and For I was invited to come in 1964
, late 64, so he was really among the
first faculty hard and immediately thereafter joe wong was hired
as well. And so for Burchard is starting to
build a base of faculty that have an international dimension
. And certainly the international style, which is a
term that Philip johnson coined uh and style is still
a troublesome term, but it brought in the influence
of the bauhaus, which okay, certainly Burchard had
been educated through Gropius and breuer on the tenants of
the bauhaus and for I could easily encourage that Ferrari
has its own genealogy educationally. Um and at that
time it's important now to mention that he encouraged Herbert
Cromwell to come here as well. They knew each
other from the data and Zurich, they are both
assistance there. Ferrari was an assistant to Bernard hers
lee and Cromwell was an assistant to Heinz Runner and
hers lee and Runner could not be more different.
Coming back to your question about a theoretical versus of
construction or practical base, that's the kind of balance
that those two studios had at the data. And
so Ferrari and Cromwell coming together sort of bringing together
right at the very beginning. This notion of practice
and construction and theory and art. And that kind
of tension was exactly what Burchard was looking for to
build a new dynamic program. The Bernard her silly
if we step back from and it had just returned
back to the data from being from texas U T
. Austin, in which there was a group coined
the texas rangers. And this included Colin Rowe,
john Hejduk and other important figures, But it also
included Bernard her silly. And so when he returned
to the eight Aha, uh he wanted to set
up a new american model of teaching with the studio
where the work was done in the studio. Um
it was reviewed by the faculty walking behind him,
talking over their shoulders, being engaged. The what
we take for granted today was really what her silly
referred to as a new american model that he wanted
to introduce to the anthem and Ferrari was his assistant
on that one of them. So uh for I
was then bringing to Virginia Tech, this uh dynamic
influence of Rome, which uh, the university there
was seen as the sort of post war reconstruction of
the bauhaus with Moholy Nagy and others that we're teaching
. There was very dynamic and important time max Bill
was teaching there at that time and Ferrari later joined
MAX Bill's office in Zurich Peru. I also had
to kind of practice side to him and background and
he helped build home. That's correct. So um
uhh chrome oh uhh came to us with this kind
of base with Heinz Rohner how to construct. But
they I think there may have been a notion at
one time about Ferraris sort of anchoring what later became
the foundation years and then the upper division would be
someone like Cromwell where you would then your education would
move through this riverbed with new layers of information,
lay it on top of each other and sometimes spiraling
back. So just as important as the flow or
the eddies and the cycle back and we still have
that in the pedagogy today, furry and Cromelin probably
saw things differently. And so they eventually, in
uh the early seventies chroma left went to Kentucky for
a year to help set up their foundation program and
then went back to the data as a professor and
again going back to teach primarily construction it. Um
and Ferrari and Burchard continued to build a faculty group
here. That faculty group was started in part by
former students that Ferrari had auburn and the first to
arrive, I believe was tom Reagan, but who
was first to a second. It's really irrelevant.
Um you have tom Reagan, jeanne, Egger,
the late Harold Hill And later in 1975, Bill
Brown. And these four did not necessarily all speak
the same language, which I think was important to
Ferrari, that they not, they do different things
. That this was not a cult. This was
a dynamic changing group of faculty that coupled with some
of the old timers of herschel a large and Charles
worley and others. We're building a new school and
that new school pedagogy was written by Both Ferrari and
Burchard in 1960. Mhm five or 67 between six
and 67 or something sometimes referred to as the blue
book. Um, and there's much of what is
written in that uh sort of pedagogical handbook that is
still true today. And that is where I think
the best analogy of the riverbed comes from. They
never anticipated that things would stay the same and they
didn't want things to stay the same, but they
could begin to articulate what I already mentioned before,
which is this relationship between what is timely and what
is timeless. And I think they began to set
some 10ants or cannons you might say among which are
that, this would not be um, the architecture
and the design programs in general and I think it
expanded to the art world as well would not be
focused on any one direction. What's important is the
diversity of directions that each student um, is learning
entity in themselves. They come in with a history
, they learn, they set up their own educational
direction within the framework and then as they graduate,
they become unique individuals to serve the profession. That's
very important because even some of the best known programs
of Harvard and Yale and Columbia and others have it
times lapsed into uh style, postmodernism deconstructive is um
, oh classicism on and on. And it was
one of the founding tenants was that these programs would
not do that. No matter what the timely is
, you should be aware, you should be informed
, but you define your own direction. I think
one of the things in the this little bit just
first interest, um, I think one of the
things that I find really interesting is that you have
these really strong personalities. Uh huh. But yet
even with that, it's not like, you know
, laconic and pen where how could you not,
you know, wanna draw like, you know what
I mean? So there wasn't what you're saying,
There wasn't this, do it this way because they
broke down this master student relationship and if you could
almost argue that they flipped it, the student is
now the master and with that the faculty become guides
and become support structure but not necessarily the ones to
be emulated. Yes. You bring up lou Kahn
at Penn, very powerful, influential architect and educator
, john hope studied under him and came to Virginia
Tech bringing that knowledge and way of working, which
is wonderful add on to the school. But we
that direction of having a single icon to lead the
program would not fit the pentagon G at all.
You have Michael grades at Princeton. Con Pen Peter
is um in a cooper union and these are all
fine programs. And going back to what I was
talking about before we need that diversity within the profession
to have that, but we don't have to be
that model. Yeah. It's funny when I was
a cooper to the problem was that they were headache
was his last legs. There were so many strong
personalities that it was just nothing got done. It's
just constant clash. Some argue that that was the
disillusion of the Home Institute. Let's cool at all
. Was really the conflict of too many great personalities
. Yeah, I can interesting an interesting thing about
Bill Brown that came up in some of the interviews
was that I assume this from the history that he
was just another one of the Auvergne hires, but
apparently he was hired years later and that linked to
Auburn wasn't known and then he showed up and they're
like you hired another one of us. That could
be of course I wasn't here during that time.
But Bill Brown's background, it did have a lot
of similarities because he worked with Ben Thompson Associates P
. T. A. Up in Cambridge Mass and
Ben Thompson had exited from the architects collaborative. He
was a student of Gropius, uh he had been
part of the collaborative and then left to set up
his own office, which so many did of the
attack was a well spring and not in a negative
way, people could leave tak it's out of their
offices and they were encouraged. Future collaborations would occur
. Cambridge seven was formed out of attack. A
lot of offices were and the Cambridge seven relationship to
be to and attack was very strong. So Bill
Brown had an impressive practice history that he could bring
to bear Yeah. In teaching. You know what
no one has brought up and I could be wrong
about this. But isn't there a connection to our
program? Yeah. So Arca Graham and David Greene
and I'm I'm sorry you've caught me without studying the
names. But um they too were invited here to
teach as visiting professors. And um this was in
their heyday, this was when Arca Graham had just
produced this wonderful monograph of drawings, living cities and
moving cities and happenings that it was trying to stimulate
the urban environment and having architectural thought combined with everything
from a product designed machinery. And it was a
fanciful thought that was followed also by other groups like
Haus Rucker and Super Studio um and Arca Graham one
Gosh, you want to cut that off. Yeah
, perfect. In the early 70s, Michael Webb
uh and I think possibly as a lecturer, David
Greene for Market Graham were invited here. Michael Webb
was invited as a visiting professor for a year and
his influence in activating and stimulating students and faculty uh
was really important and pivotal. Our program was a
seminal group to architectural education throughout the country and if
not europe as well. Certain key members of that
. Peter Cook and theo Cosby, Theo Cosby went
to set up pentagram and Ron Herron, Ron Herron
became sort of the architectural office of Pentagram for a
while until his passing. And these are important genealogical
tracks to follow, which influenced the program here.
We had, folks like Tom Reagan left, took
a leave of absence to go to the A in
London to get his masters degree. Um, and
then come back with a slight british accent and lots
of contacts to the sort of european way of thinking
at that time. Wow. So that was really
important. Have the links. What's become very clear
to me in doing this and talking with you about
it is You can, it's like the 6° of
separation you can draw a link to is incredibly important
. If you were though to put something in the
center of that wheel or a set of spokes you're
talking about, you'd have to put walter Gropius in
that. And he did visit here at Bertrand's invitation
um, and see what was being done here.
And he wrote very positively about it in letters back
to Charles, which we do have on record.
The connection though to europe was more than just the
personalities Ferrari always intended that we should have a steady
travel program. And in 1968, I believe was
the first travel program with students to Europe. I
think the english department had one slightly longer than that
to London, but otherwise we were in architecture was
the second program at Virginia Tech to really go abroad
on a regular basis. And, and um over
time before I started looking for a base for that
program and the idea would be that we would not
be like other programs constantly having to rent spaces or
be itinerant, but we could have something of our
own, we could stabilize the variation the variables that
affect student programs. Their thought was that maybe such
a base could be in Italy, the property was
affordable, easy to get. Not too many outlandish
restrictions on americans buying property. And Ferrari basically thought
that that would not be the best because there's too
many variations, too many variables in italian landscape,
so to speak. The landscape of medical services,
transportation, of the support nature that you want to
base a program on, but to be close to
it so that one could visit. And Switzerland was
extremely still is a stable society and culture rich in
its own way. Yes, more expensive to buy
property a little bit more complicated through the legal system
, but possible now. They continually operated a travel
program From 1968 and of course, we still have
it today, But it did land a permanent base
in 1994 or 93. Some people put the data
at that point, Charles steiger was the Dean.
Burchard had retired in 1978. There was a short
time where Julio san Jose was Dean and then Charles
speaker stepped in from, I believe, 1980 until
1992, and he helped set up the, the
system by which we could acquire property and what would
become riva san vitale. You can talk to others
about the nature of acquiring that property because lucy for
I could certainly tell you horror stories along the way
was not easy. And back. Perseverance has been
one characteristic which has characterized the success of the programs
here. It's always perseverance and and the first students
to have residency in the new Center for europe,
what would become the Center for european Studies in Architecture
? Was in 93 94. Olivia Ferrari unfortunately passed
away in 1994 and lucy took over as director for
a number of years. And but they College of
Architecture and Urban Studies was actually on the book,
says owning the center there. And it became clear
that it would be a very expensive undertaking to renovate
this as appropriate. And the university then stepped in
, took over, invested in it, renovate it
to bring it as a university facility as opposed to
just a single college facility. But as noted in
his name, architecture has a home there and has
been a continuous user and will in the future,
we hope indefinitely. We hope to also open that
up too. More students in art, particularly in
the summer programs of school, public international affairs.
Now is running summer programs there. Man of course
across the university. Other programs for their, let's
see, I think you've touched her all the things
that I wanted you to, we haven't really talked
in sequence. So unfortunately, it doesn't matter.
I mean that's that's the least important thing. It's
just it doesn't exist, whatever it needs to go
. That's it. The problem. Ah I guess
one thing that struck me from your talk was that
, you know, when you're talking about the school's
history, it really seems like, and I think
this is what we've been talking, it really seems
like it's a history of people. Yeah. And
I think that's really fascinating way to think about.
Well, I think that what we're doing this entire
film for is to give voice to memory and memories
are not always exact. So you will hear dates
and times that don't perfectly match. But I think
the viewer has to understand that that is a critical
what's important is that within these wonderful memories, there's
a kernel of of serious thought and intention that we
still live with today. You know, it's it's
invaluable to hear these stories. I think I wish
we could have started this decades before. Yeah,
well, I think like you said again and talk
, excuse me, How is it that somebody could
could could be in a fit of the fifth year
and not have heard some of these names? It's
it's we don't often tell the story and maybe we
need to do that more. Um, I would
say that there could be critics who would say that
if you tell the story too much, you just
start to live it and you don't live your own
time. You live another time. I think also
, as I indicated in that talk, that an
appreciation for genealogy and history comes at different stages of
your life and in youth there is an eagerness to
step away from that history, so as not to
be trapped by it. And I can understand that
. I appreciate that. And so we don't push
the history of the college. It's there for the
asking. And you know, it's it's possible that
even films like this might go after The 50th anniversary
, not to be seen for years and years for
decades even, but it's there for the asking.
Yeah. I think that I've gotten so much out
of this research and talking to everybody and hearing about
the stories. I knew quite a bit of it
having been here before and having had an interest in
this. But it's I had you just have no
idea and we have to understand that, you know
, people forget to remember and when we remember,
we have to document it, we have to set
it down. And that's why I've been pushing to
to do these publications on the college that record our
research, the record, our engagement, net reach
efforts record mhm. Who we are at this point
in time. Not so much for us now,
but for someone later. And I think, you
know what you said, the fear of focusing too
much on the history and not living the now.
I think, you know, that that's I think
we're talking about the now and I think we're talking
about where the school is headed in. And I
think that that's an important part of this too,
is the future. And I think, you know
, again, you're right, remember what Was going
through my head when I was here when I was
18. I didn't care about this stuff, but
you do at a certain point and you know,
maybe it's after years of practice and then you start
to take an interest in. And we we see
the life cycle of alumni. It's kind of interesting
faculty talk about this when settled into too much to
drink sometimes and generally your alumni come back after five
years and they tell you everything you did wrong,
why didn't you teach economics? Why didn't you teach
business? Why what, how come marketing isn't a
major component of your education? Of course, the
standard response is that yes, we can make an
art degree or an architecture degree or planning degree Or
construction degree, the best 10 years of your life
by adding in all these ingredients that you think are
important. Um, and then they come back in
10 years and they they often are in a highly
reflective, I can't believe how we got how lucky
we were to get that education. And of course
we don't like to use the word luck. Luck
is really just the reaction to the uninformed. This
isn't luck. I mean, it was strategic.
You got the education you did by perseverance and forethought
and intention. Not luck. Maybe if they got
lucky by finding their way here at Virginia tech,
that could be. But even that. Yeah,
look, I agree. I think is is being
present enough to recognize uh, right opportunity. Exactly
. So where do you see things going? I
mean, it's it sounds to me like, you
know, I think sometimes you do things like this
and people are like, oh, the future is
this amazing? And I think it sounds to me
like, and I don't want to work your mouth
and I'd like to hear, but you have to
say about this. But it seems to me like
the future is just a continuation. Growing and changing
, but a continuation of this amazing history and the
shoulders, you know, that we stand on.
That's right. I think it is a continuation.
And but it doesn't happen by itself. It has
to happen again by intention. So there will be
future leaders in the college who will bring in new
influences and directions, but I do hope that they
will continue to build on that riverbed. We've talked
about. Um, one thing that's important, one
of the tenants is that, um, we don't
pre me eight, the personality of the time.
And I think that the Dean's, that we've had
the department chairs, we've had have all been invaluable
, but they didn't come with some kind of celebrated
pedigree that, uh, was to draw attention to
themselves, but rather to build the attention in the
programs and in the students and that that is critical
and it can't be understated. It's not about the
leaders, it's about what the leadership brings to the
students. Yeah, I think it's interesting to see
, I think there seems to be from what I've
seen in at least the grad program, which obviously
more familiar with everybody has a total lack of structure
and they're what they're designing. And that seems to
somehow be like the state of, you know,
things right now. And I could imagine that there
was a time where it was all structured and,
and I think that that's that's kind of fascinating that
you've got to have, there may be more structure
than perceived by the student. But I think the
idea that you have to have faculty that, you
know, can deal with, you know, can
take any of these scenarios and then somehow bring out
the best of that student. And it's really,
it's really kind of miraculous. It's healthy for the
professions all won't do we have a, at this
point in time we really have a great college and
as I've tried to stress and I think others that
you've interviewed a stress, it didn't come from nowhere
. It came. It has a history, it
has a genealogy that is made up sometimes of significant
personalities, but at any given point in time,
it wasn't about their personalities, it was about what
they were bringing to the the college. We have
excellent faculty, excellent students and an excellent base by
which they they drop and I certainly hope we have
a chance to interview. But conversation I had with
robert Turner which this was in France and it was
meeting him and another architect who was teaching, thought
of them and we're talking about this project and about
the school and sort of telling this other architect about
it. And Turner said was going on about Ferrari
about, you know, what an incredible teacher it
was and how he changed his entire, like,
you know, he credited Ferrari with his success with
his career. And I said, well, that's
really interesting because the more I researched this, the
more I keep hearing about how far are really didn't
do, you know, like he wasn't, he
just let you do and he brought out and it
was like almost just like, you know, it's
like the fly's eyes, it was like, you
could see there was sort of like, yeah,
like, I don't know, it seemed to me
like he had been crediting Ferrari for sort of doing
something like really when he did, and suddenly it
was like, he just enabled him to do right
. I'm not articulating that well, but I hope
that, no, I think that oftentimes we credit
the personality, but good strong teachers bring out the
best of the student and Froy was just a master
of it. There were times when he was a
taser, he could just shock you back into position
that he needed it. There are times when you
need to be on a paved road, in times
when you need to be allowed to be on the
dirt roads, but you can't wander too far and
that's where the faculty sort of begin to, to
guide, guide you back I guess. Okay,
here's a question for you since you are the dean
of the whole college and you have to to deal
with these issues while at the same time having gone
through the program and understanding, you know, all
these things that you've been explaining so well, how
do you balance because there is bureaucracy and there are
things that you that, you know, there's accreditation
and there's there are things that have to be done
that maybe seem to contradict some of the pedagogy.
How do you deal with that? I think it's
really a matter of trying to assume the position of
protecting the faculty from some of that give them the
resources they need um to accomplish what they need for
the students. I mean there's a you start with
the pedagogy um you hire the faculty, the faculty
in form and relate to that pedagogy and then it's
delivered to the students through resources which the faculty,
our resources in themselves. Um the administration is 1
to facilitate that flow. It's one at times to
protect the faculty and students from. Mhm. They
the squawk and the clatter around, we have squelch
control some of that has to come to the leadership
of the different schools and we have excellent leaders and
they, they are there to support their faculty and
at times they have to do things such as accreditation
. Yeah, accreditation is the relationship that the program
has to the profession. one doesn't want to be
directed entirely by accreditation anymore than an architect wants to
be directed by the building codes. But these are
part of who we are existing at this point in
time and undertake those with respect. But we have
swelled to control. Sure. It's not easy at
times. I talked to President Speaker a little bit
about that too, and he said, I think
he was indicating that now seemed to be a particularly
good time in terms of all the, the head
start getting along, but that wasn't always the case
. And that's right. It's been difficult. Sometimes
a folks will think that if, if the heads
are getting along, that that's a bad thing,
that you should have conflict, you should have,
um, a certain anxiety as the energy source.
Um, there may be times where that's necessary,
but I don't believe that's the only definition change comes
to conflict. Change can also come through collaboration,
but we are humans and as humans beings, we
have egos and sometimes the egos rise and fall and
conflict and it's important in the leadership not to let
that be a distracting element to the education of the
students. Um, you know, collaborative conflict is
an interesting term, but I think that you can
have that, that's just for some reason reminded me
of something else. Tom Mills said when we were
talking about that in our disciplinary, which I think
fits with what you're saying, he was saying when
we're talking about, we're talking about design build and
how really a collaboration between building construction and architecture makes
a lot of sense. And I think the sort
of final thought on that was, well, you
know, the students drive what happens and when the
students really want that collaboration, then that's when it
will happen. And I think that's like you said
, you know, you're there too to take down
the boundaries, There aren't, but it has to
be a student initiated is probably the number one source
, the number two sources faculty in the shade two
faculty that want to do something together. There's no
silence. Yeah. And that's I mean, if
you really think about it, that's remarkable that I
think that we're still in the middle of it.
So it's hard to reflect on it. But the
most important development in the college since this early history
has been the formulation of four schools. Were the
only college in the university that has a school structure
. Why do we have that school structure? Even
the faculty sometimes ask that the students never do,
of course, but the faculty do, and they
say, we don't want to be part of a
school and well, they those are silo builders,
the people that talk like that. The nice thing
about the schools is they're all made up of multiple
programs and these programs have opportunities for extreme collaboration.
And previously they all had silos around them. They
all had individual leaders who are fighting and competing for
resources that now they are in positions of sharing and
the silos are gone. You don't need silos between
the schools, they're sort of self defining, so
they don't need to fight. And the way that
we've organized a college now is that they have their
resources to manage, they know where their resources come
from, they know how they are established and within
the school they can self manage. That's very important
. They have advisory boards which now can talk directly
to the schools. When you had an advisory board
at the Dean's level, there was just another level
of conflict. Each advisory board member which would come
from one program or another would compete to try to
get resources from the dean for that unit. And
now that's, that kind of conflict was noise.
The school structure has the greatest potential for collaborative growth
. Intellectual growth I think. Think that's early.
For sure. If you got in Ancient Rome,
um, you want to talk about Yeah. two
other things. Um I want to talk about Washington
Alex I do in 1980, Hans wrote and john
holt went up to teach courses in alexandria and they
rented a space above a drugstore at that time called
People's Drugstore. And so they could always say that
they had first academic space, It was supported by
drugs. Um And they were actually visiting back and
forth from Blacksburg to teach students up there um In
the first full time director for alexandria was Tom Reagan
who left here and then Tom did that for a
couple of years before becoming dean at the University of
Miami and his first of many dean chips. Um
And then that was followed by of course john too
, b permanent director up there And it was in
19, Early, 1900s 1900s, I'm sorry.
In the early 1990s that Prince Street was. That
school on Prince Street was purchased by the foundation to
be the center for the Washington architecture alexandria center.
And of course john has been pivotal and the establishment
of all the facilities up there where we now have
housing. We have school of public international Affairs,
has a what was called the old mental health building
, which I really like that association. You have
the architects in the in the former elementary school and
you have the planners and public policy folks in a
former mental health facility. And we have sensed a
at least old studebaker dealership and a former church that
became lodging. So it's a wonderful consortium of buildings
and facilities and activities and yeah, it's just an
electric exciting group planning. Um was being taught up
in northern Virginia back in the 70s, they were
teaching courses up there, faculty, we're going up
to I believe it was interesting as well as other
locations. So they are they had a longer standing
relationship to northern Virginia. The architecture do. That's
good. And then I can, when I'm up
there, you know, get the whole person of
hans talked about it too. So I've got that
and then I don't know did you want to talk
about the solar decathlon is sort of a more current
I think if I was. But the facility that
we built, the research and demonstration facility started off
as a kind of interesting little quick history to it
. Um, Charles speaker invited myself and robert schubert
into his office one day And said that the National
Concrete Masonry Association wants to give us$40,000 to do
a study on a particular concrete block. And this
is a concrete block that had a hole through it
laterally. And uhh, robert and I were interested
in uh huh summer money research effort like this could
be a nice way too, spend the summer and
look at this block and see what could be done
. So we said yes and very quickly put together
a a plan on how to study it and how
to increase the amount of money at that time.
The Center for Innovative Technology, see it was giving
matching grants to industry who would uh, couple with
a university anywhere in the state, uh, in
, in innovative ventures. And so they matched the
40,000. And so we took it from 40,000 to
80,000 and we executed a study on this concrete block
and we came to the conclusion that this was all
well and good except you really don't know how the
block is going to function until you build with it
. And so the National Concrete Masonry Association, N
. C. M. A. Said, all
right, we'll give you$100,000 to build a building
out there. And this was in probably 19 88
89 And$100,000 was a good deal of money.
And so as an architect, I had a young
graduate teaching assistant, William Galloway is now the director
of School of Architecture. And um, and robert
Schubert and I, we sat down and we began
to work out the design for the facility. Um
, this is where perseverance gets a capital P.
It was extremely challenging to work this through, but
it could not have happened without the support of Charles
steiger and his associate, Dean Dixon Hannah at that
time. They're really fundamental in making this happen and
we have various sites and eventually to reduce the conversation
a little bit, We went from$100,000 to$2.5
million. If any of us could do that without
personal incomes, it would be great. But over
a four year period we capitalized that into multiple research
grants and there's plaques that recognize those that invested in
. Now, that facility is the backbone of our
capacity to build physically. Now, we have excellent
shops here in Burchard Hall, which we didn't talk
about Burchard Hall to that little story line. Um
and we had research facilities at at prices for experimental
station. But that experimental station, although it was
Virginia tech property was in effect landlocked. We can't
we couldn't improve the electrical system out there. We
couldn't put in plumbing and supply for expanded toilet facilities
or anything. We had no land to build on
. So the decision was made to quietly exit out
of the prices. Work research station to the new
Plantation Road area that the university was opening up for
research buildings. So that became the site. And
we expanded the facility and built it there. We
have built three solar homes. We built habitat for
humanity homes. We did the portable lab for uncertain
ground plug, which is still in Tanzania africa.
We built numerous student projects, faculty projects, cabins
, bridges, all kinds of things, which that
facility has allowed the college and particularly the School of
Architecture designed to compete at a national scale. We
need now to expand that. Hopefully that we uh
, we will be able to get alumni support and
other investors to try to expand that facility so that
we can move into the next realm of rapid prototyping
robotics that schools like michigan sai Arc Harvard or getting
way ahead of us. We have our struggles to
expand and change too. But that sort of anchor
began to set up a strong research trajectory. The
School of Architecture and Design, building construction has shop
facilities as well and they have access to uh huh
Plantation Road, which we hope they'll act on use
in the future. We met Professor Medi Satara has
a vibrations laboratory which has been built out there now
, which is also, that's a National Science Foundation
funded building two, which can be the home for
a good deal more research. And we partnered with
engineering on a new induction foundry, which is also
out there, which has a great deal of opportunity
for our industrial design students and faculty as well as
the School of Visual Arts back off. So research
is a major, major component going forward. That's
right. That type of research of hands on.
We have other research to which is scholarly such.
But that's right. A very important part. So
do you want to talk about the Burchard colleges?
The again, this goes back to Charles steiger's very
assertive and progressive thinking. He knew that we needed
to expand. That we were seriously overcrowded position here
in Kogel and at the architectural antiques. And he
also realized that architecture alone might not be able to
garner the funds necessary to expand. So he partnered
with the Dean of Engineering, I believe it was
Wayne Clough at the time and they put forth a
project that was an engineering and architecture building that got
approved by the powers to be in Richmond. And
then slowly over time, they separated that one program
into two so the two could address the particular needs
of the colleges. Um, Hancock Hall became the
engineering addition. And the question was, where,
then, is the architecture edition? We did get
that first right to use the auditorium in Hancock,
but other than that, we needed a studio facility
. So they looked at, prior to Hancock being
built, the kogo plaza was an underutilized slab of
concrete, wow Burt johnson, what hall wasn't there
? So there was no boundaries to the plaza.
The plaza just sort of went indefinitely. And university
was looking at, well, let's just take the
plows out and put the architecture building there. Um
, and so that was first designed by Halliburton route
to be that location. The faculty stood up and
resisted that and stop that project right there. And
it was a real positive assertive movement. The faculty
, who had all these different thoughts and different positions
came together and resisted that and Charles was good at
allowing that resistance to not kill the project completely.
They looked at back behind kogel, but it felt
that there were soil and uh subsurface conditions that would
not be suitable for a building at this time there
. And Charles decided to have a limited competition.
The architects, all architects were invited to submit proposals
for a new architecture building and basically there's submitting their
credentials And five teams were selected. Um, I'm
under pressure here of the camera to remember all five
teams, but the teams that were invited had lead
design architects with them growth. Me Siegel was one
Cambridge, seven was another S. o. m
. Was a third. Santiago calatrava was the fourth
and The 5th has slipped my mind at moment.
I believe that it was another new England based firm
and I was on a committee to help review these
and to sort of be the background assistant to bring
them to campus. And I, along with others
said that if we're going to bring such high profile
architects here, they should give a talk to the
students that's really to the students, not to the
administration about getting the job so that once they're on
campus they can compete they can do their spiel to
the university but then they come over and they can
talk to the students. Yeah each of them did
. And I believe the fifth one was bowling Slowinski
and Jackson at that time. Now they're bowling Quincy
and Powell. Excellent group out of Scranton pennsylvania.
I think it's the other way. I think they
were going to lose you Palin out there. Jackson
. Okay. Um, the peter Bohlin came just
a sweetheart of a guy, a great architect and
each firm came and gave an excellent talk as you
would expect. They all did do good work.
The students. Uh it was over the summer,
that was the only problem. So the student group
was small but it was also kind of personal and
santiago calatrava came and you have a talk which was
very interesting. S. O. M. Was
selected as the architect and they were going to use
the Washington office. Craig Hartman was leading that office
at the time and they partnered with Shriver in Holland
and Henry. Shriver was the architect for Cobo Hall
. And so you're having this linkage now with the
Shriver in Holland, once again working with S.
O. M. As a lead design architects to
do burchard Hall, they study different sites and then
proposed that the plaza be lifted off, Go Down
two floors and put the plaza back. And this
was widely accepted. There was serious concern about the
rock because the previous plaza design actually had rock penetrations
through the plaza, much like you see in a
frank Lloyd wright home or something. And so it
was known that there was going to be a serious
rock as it turned out, they had put in
the estimating clause, a certain amount of money for
rock removal, which we eventually were able to use
to for what's called bed alternates in the building because
the rock flaked very easily, it didn't have to
be blasted. And so they were able to remove
the rock easily. And we have burchard hall now
, Which seats about 250 students and new shops.
Uh we have the opportunity also came to enhance the
ceramics and the printmaking. If you allow me to
deviate for a moment here, um, if you
remember back in the formulation of the bauhaus history,
the arts were there along with, you know,
you had ceramic arts, you had printmaking, photography
, um, and you have the crafts people and
crafts that were to inform the designers, all designers
, artists, architects, um, and that certainly
was carried through even to home and in the set
up of the college with the inclusion of art and
construction and planning was also this notion that architecture would
be served by having ceramics and printmaking as a support
to the architects. Um, and we have continued
that tradition. So we have multiple shops, multiple
opportunities for hands on learning somebody. He used the
old cocoa shops and uses the virtual shops a great
deal. They are much better. Yeah, that's
right. We actually now still operate three shops.
We have the shops and Burchard, the shops at
RDF and still have shops at prices for which hope
to close down. But we have new equipment and
resources to bring for the next generation and phenomenal staff
. Okay, Absolutely. We have good people across
the board. Very fortunate for that. That doesn't
happen by luck either. That happens by careful review
. Well, that's everything on my list. Is
there anything else you want to think of that you
want to? And I don't apologize that it seems
scattered. I hope that it comes together. Scattered
is irrelevant. Very good. Thanks. There's anything 1380 --> A:middle L:90% .