Why does the school educate architects? And I
think that that statement I think becomes all the critical
and I think we forgot that. See, I
think a school creates architect to change the profession because
the profession needs an overhaul and needs a growth.
The best students in a class set the pace of
the class. The best students in a class determine
the rate of learning and the quality of learning in
a class. Architects has been defined as a fine
art well. It is, but it's so much
more than that. Architecture couldn't solve everything, but
it could question everything. Why not educate the whole
man in philosophy and art, History in music is
the fact that they all have external affinities which are
different landscape architecture and it has a natural affinity to
the natural sciences. Architecture, the behavioral and physical
sciences, urban planning to the social sciences. So
in many ways that the model of the college could
also be an octopus with its tentacles are grappling out
all over the place. And these were meant to
also be the interfaces to the rest of the university
. The ideal thing will be they will cross pollinate
in that. So industrial design and design, architecture
and building construction and interior design and the School of
Visual Arts. And will the students will all create
a new language of culture and create a new synergy
between themselves. Like the bauhaus had, it takes
a group of people who are interested to have a
place where curiosity, Oh, curiosity is alive and
well. I like to use the James Tyrell quote
of an old riverbed and new water. 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, creating that environment. We
have lots of flexibility, creativity on the part of
the students. I think sometimes that's kind of modeled
after what um, occurs in architecture, uh,
independence that think the independence to work and be guided
by a factor member. He just said, you
guys are not teaching architecture at all. Well said
, thank you. We were teaching thinking 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. The way you're thinking affects
the way you work. And you must train that
thinking so that you don't get conventional at the wrong
moment. 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 first, we make architects
, then we make architecture very, very important distinction
. Strangely enough, it's not original. Emmanuel hands
model for education is precisely that you've got to make
a different human being. If you want to make
an ontological different adopt that is what it means to
make an architect. You see the world architecturally not
sociologically, not medically not technologically, but architectural.
That education, the education of the person, education
of the soul is what is necessary to make good
architecture frank, Lloyd wright. Always thought that America
is the first society is the first free society.
That's why he always believed that t has to create
an american architecture based on the american constitution because there
was no society before the american society was a free
society and that's when they came out with the city
and the whole thing. I was one of the
ones involved, we were in our last year B
. S. Work and there's a group we got
together and said we ought to do something unique in
behalf of the college. We said, we're going
to invite the, The best architect in the world
to come right here. And we did at the
time, he was 83 years old and we're only
do five lunches out of his area year. So
we were lucky. One of them, we had
over 1000 at the event. We had all the
local colleges have brought all their art and architectural students
, Hollande's Lynchburg, everything else all the way to
Richmond. The main theme of his talk was saying
worth of the individual and the ability of the individual
part of what he did. He open up VP
to the world. We were an isolated, smaller
colours than What happened in the last 15 years.
Is that everything which we do today was really a
symmetry condition of history. Now, take example,
that fundamental educational concept was assumedly of the volumes.
They're both are or the post modern. It's again
a reflection of history. So I think the only
way we can talk about the future is that we
are dealing with things which were never built. So
we build big buildings in the past, but we
never built big spaces. The CSS powers is a
big building, it's not a big space. We
have the advent of the drawing room in 1877 in
which Virginia Agricultural Mechanical College celebrated and put in their
catalog very soon degrees in construction. We're being offered
. The first department head of architectural engineering was Clinton
Kogel. He would serve for 28 years Google,
for example, the first department head that was part
of Engineering college. And um, he had enormous
influence in the ai um policies and questions about how
to train an architect and how to make a good
architect have a life outside of the practice in developing
architecture. To the point it would be a college
. We had to bring courses into the college out
of engineering that weren't taught as it should be two
architects. I was offered this job here at okay
we call it V. P. R. At
Virginia polytechnic institute. My first boss loved our click
google coca Hall is named for quick go anyway and
we just got along nicely and he can uh he
had me teaching everything on earth. I mean I
taught art history and I talked basic design and architecture
. He was really trying to turn me into an
architect. I wouldn't turn so I talked drawing you
name it. You know we had the ideas which
perhaps we're not as well developed at the time,
but we didn't have the facilities to go along with
them. And if you take for example, you
know, what are we trying to do? We're
trying to educate all dimensions of the intellect of our
students. I really liked Leonard curry and he was
also like Van Halt and a designer who built things
Dennis Gilbert did that. I mean, I think
it's very important for the students that people make things
Lynn curry brought in uh really strong people. So
when I came here, There were three extremely strong
teachers in this small town. I mean, you
can imagine how small uh Blacksburg was in 1969 68
when he, when he left here as department head
, he went to Chicago and had tremendous influence in
the ai policies for internship for young architects. So
it was all an educational thrust not toward in condition
but toward situational awareness of what we should be addressing
. So these old gentlemen, when I came here
, uh, they had just solid respect for their
, for their thinking, marshall han for all he
done and expanding architecture, creating a college which was
had to receive approval by the state, I'm sure
getting that done, getting a alcohol bill. That
was a major, major, major, like how
useful it is even today. And at the time
we had t marshall han who was probably from my
point of view, the smartest human being I've ever
met in my life. And he opened up Virginia
tech and everything he did was a kind of experiment
that he trusted the Dean's to carry out, I
believe in pinnacles of excellence as a route to transform
a university. And I saw in the subdivision of
the School of Engineering and architecture the opportunity to paint
on clean palette with the College of Architecture key was
obtaining the leadership of an outstanding individual. Lane curry
was retiring as head of architecture and he recommended,
among others, chuck Burchard who did his undergraduate work
in architecture at MIT, Resident Market Harvard and had
innovative and exciting ideas about changes in education, architectural
education specifically. But we decided three components of our
curriculum, planning, design and management and that the
interface is intended to represent our curricula. For example
, between planning, planning and management, you have
urban and regional planning, between planning and design.
You have urban design between design and management, we
have building construction. And he had the vision because
he understood what Gropius was about both in the bauhaus
and Harvard and he took those good ideas and use
them. 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 a very uh positively about it in letters back
to Charles. They understand that architecture as an expression
of the celebration of the achievement, the cultural achievement
of any group or nation or individual is architectures business
. You have to look at The pedagogy here has
1 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. When we
talk about architecture today. What are you talking about
? First of all we have the level of movements
which I think everybody loves. We had the cr
We have the pink 10, we have the new
brutalism we have to occupy and then we have the
whole process things. So that's what then we had
all the masters see we have called bc a frank
dry, really calm. We have also some people
might include those. The point about the personality is
a typical american point and I'm not don't misunderstand me
, I'm american. But I'm saying it is a
point where the constant looking for leadership gets in the
way of understanding that principles, fundamental philosophical foundations are
what survived. And Ferrari brought those to the school
and then he brought people that understood those and they
maintain those and we're all going to die. But
those foundations are the things that continue. You know
, I got to know all of these people very
well, became my Ferrari and nurtured and how all
of my friends and I got to know them very
well. But Burchard was able to understand the pedagogical
model and certainly contribute to it. But you know
Burchard had taught with Gropius at Harvard and Han brought
him in to, he was the first Dean of
Architecture to really shake things up. And he was
extraordinarily skilled uh, in the, you know,
the diplomacy of being a deem and interacting with the
central administration and being able to project an image of
the institution across the country. I mean, we
were, you know, famous after he was only
there a couple of years when in fact, you
know what he was talking about having, he didn't
exist yet. He was building it, but it
built enough enthusiasm and excitement that enabled him then to
continue to attract other gifted faculty. And the reality
took care of itself, team virtue called. And
that happened to answer the phone and run quickly to
the school and said, look, this man wants
to talk to you. And he said he was
looking for young faculty and he heard about him because
he had a similar education background he was looking for
. And so we drove up to Blacksburg and we
liked it was like home, he felt like home
. So we went home back home anyway and in
september became again here for another year and state like
thoroughly, that's a good sign. So it was
a time when we were adding faculty which gave chuck
the opportunity to bring in keen dynamic, innovative new
faculty. So there was a time of opportunity but
with a time of challenge to Olivia was a genius
. So and whoever brought him here was a brilliant
move. It brought in the the influence of the
bauhaus which certainly Burchard had been educated through Gropius Embroider
on the tenants of the bauhaus. And for I
could easily encourage that he was a genius, but
there were lots of geniuses in the school. He
really mentored a lot of us. Some of us
don't want to admit that. But then I think
if you're really honest with yourself, he put together
a great group of people because so didn't learn to
paint the way he ended. Nobody did. But
all those people that we look at with great admiration
to us are the Cannon who are the things that
are the carriers of the trade item. They all
went through that. Of course it needs time.
We told the students are objective after two years as
you're free of the faculty, 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. People respond more to science and symbols
. I mean, the awareness of being in an
apartment house is the collective memory of what creates an
apartment and not the apartment itself. So what he
tries to do, he tries to make somehow people
happy in a subconscious way, not in the apartment
functional. In 1980, Hans wrote and john Holt
went up to teach courses in alexandria. It's a
wonderful consortium of buildings and facilities and activities and uh
, it's just an electric exciting group. But I've
got a compliment, john for everything he's done in
alexandria and that took a lot of gumption by the
border businesses too, approve everything he's done up there
. You know, we own about a half a
block of land in alexandria. It's amazing. We
produced incredibly beautiful work through since instantly the energy we
brought and the energy the students brought into a place
that was a mess. That was ours to change
a real architectural situation. It was one of the
most important times in my life. Well if it
weren't for GT Ward and tha carter and Henry striver
and lots of folks like that, we wouldn't have
the european Studies centre in Riva san vitale. The
students were very David, hardly ever in Washington.
They never were in New York yet. You know
what's very rural here. So we thought they should
have an experience like we had. And we started
a program to study abroad program at in 67 already
. We came here in 65 In 67. Already
, we took a group of 20 without advertising much
with us to Salzburg and started a program there and
it was enormous the impact they had. They still
talk about it now and then we thought they should
be able to communicate. And I had the chance
to start the course german for architects. My younger
daughter Donna went to Universe Tennessee Not spelled two years
and interior design and transferred up here as a junior
and I was able to get her into the architectural
group. He's going to europe that year and Olivia
and lucy led that group and she, that really
changed her life. Ferrari always intended that we should
have a steady travel program. Over time, Ferrari
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.
The young people at that time had never traveled.
So their idea was to take them to confront Western
art and Western values from the roots. And I
think it's obvious with the program we have in reverse
and metallic and the longstanding history, we've had a
program being extended to europe the offices in Switzerland.
We've been creating this international sapo jher for our school
students of architecture. Don't you think it's all the
strange? The architects only talk to architects, You
should forget to use the school, Okay. To
give the possible solution, not the real solution to
now everybody says the school makes drawings which cannot be
built and that comes architect Monica and build the drugs
. They don't build architecture digest, build their drugs
. If you remember back in the formulation of the
bauhaus history, the arts were there along with you
had ceramic arts, you had printmaking photography and you
have the crafts people and crafts that were to inform
the designers. All designers, artists, architects.
So we were taught with artists especially the first year
, not skills, but ways artists thought ways artists
saw things, ways media affected your ideas, the
splices trying to find itself in its time and say
what an architect designer needs to know, what do
they need to know and how are they in that
world and when do they graduate into the room?
And that time hopefully is before graduation. Although I
don't like the word I teach, I work with
students and in fact I learned so much from the
and there's so much from secretaries as well, learn
from my colleagues is not a cliche but I really
believe that uh did this, it's the facts of
life. Yeah. No matter how smart, how
resourceful you are, you always pick up. Well
, I think this building, in a sense,
we've been very fortunate that the building is an open
building and there really aren't walls. So it's possible
to Make note of something that's five ft away or
50 ft away or 75 ft away or one floor
down. And I think it's it's more of a
habit of the faculty to engage the whole of the
enterprise, not simply be bounded by a class.
I think we're always interested or curious and what the
situation is now, you don't give away the past
necessarily, but you don't give away the future.
We've been on the fire for hiring our own people
for a long time. I mean sometimes and jan
hold put it very beautifully wants to one of our
former deans and he said, look, this is
a school of architecture, not of animal husbandry.
So, could you please dispense with the incestuous implication
? I mean, it was the most appropriate answer
to that nonsense because a school is a place of
continuum. It's a place in which the history of
the thought of the school and the work of the
school is a continuum which reflects directly the inevitable change
that comes through the change in the student body and
in the faculty. Well, I would agree with
hans on that because I know we're often in accreditation
visits and things. They raise this as an issue
. But if you have not experienced the educational model
, it is very difficult to understand and you can
talk about it, but it's not the same thing
as having gone through it. And I think having
are people who come back and have had experience elsewhere
when it's possible, really does strengthen that and kind
of and they redefine it in their own way,
but it's still the central tenets of the pedagogy are
preserved in the process. And I'm not sure that
that's true in lots of other places. You start
with the pedagogy, you hire the faculty, the
faculty in form and relate to that pedagogy. And
then it's delivered to the students through resources of which
the faculty, our resources in themselves. We have
good people across the board. Very fortunate for them
. That doesn't happen by luck either. That happens
by uh, careful review. You see today we
do certain things not because they ask you questions about
architecture, because they maintain the architectural or the architects
have it. And I think we should cut them
off and see somewhere along the line to find new
. Written a new definition. I think we are
a society of energy consumed instead of growing bigger.
Somewhere on the line, they are getting used up
. They come out victim of stress. So I
think we should change the whole thing. See,
and I think we have to go back to the
model when you work that you create energy, you
don't consume energy To create this next generation of folks
who are gonna between now 2050, The world is
going to have nine billion people, you know,
and where they're going to live and what, what
will the cities look like? Energy consumption patterns can't
be the same. All this is going to change
. And we've got to have people who have the
intellectual ability, that professional preparation and the capacity for
thinking innovatively in a critical way to help solve this
problem or otherwise, the world is in for a
disaster. How do you build communities? How do
you strengthen communities? How do you open up communities
for participation in our democratic process? Being Burchard and
charlie steiger and others who have been leaders of that
college, I think they were wise and seeing the
link between traditional architectural programs and the link with urban
affairs and now, even with public policy and most
certainly with the public policy related to international affairs as
well, that fits in very nicely. So we
were always alert to some new way of thinking,
which nine times out of 10 we probably either bastardized
or are just fundamentally didn't understand, but we did
embrace it. When you talk about pedagogy, when
you talk about taking the risks of pedagogy, but
if you want to be a teacher is to take
a risk in the wager, the wager is that
a student will actually want to learn and want to
do the thing. The risk is they won't turn
out that way if you're not willing to take those
two risks, if you cannot allow failure in education
and get the hell out of education, it's not
about the leaders, it's about what the leadership brings
to the students, how to help them realize what
they really want to do. And I think that's
that's the point, isn't it? I mean,
it really is. Their predominant interest is a success
of a student. They are here to change people's
lives, the faculty are here to change students lives
and that's the motto I think that the school of
the college is known for is engaging and students given
the freedom and independence, the thing can work and
being guided and directed and mentors and I like to
refer to it and and encouraged to be creatively thinking
about things. Art is not all about self expression
, sometimes art the most creative aspects of art are
about self alteration and that means you change your thinking
about something and that leads to the art. I
would say the students are always ready. It's it's
whether the practice is open to receive what the students
have to offer. So one of the things that
characterizes what we do is that within the disciplines are
in a profession, there is the generation of new
knowledge and that's very important Biology or whatever else.
And in a professional school, the there is the
obligation uh to be prescriptive in that there is a
problem and as a professional architect or whatever, you
have to decide, prescribe what to do about it
, you know? And but then we add something
beyond that which is a synthetic component of how to
integrate knowledge from these various disciplines. And so you
have this synthetic and prescriptive role of the person that
we're graduating, which is not always present in every
other place around the country. And there's much of
what is written in that 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. So they're going to require
us to rethink how we practice architecture and planning.
In fact, the whole practice model is going to
change, but it's not gonna replace uh the ability
to think creatively to be able to synthesize the critical
information you need at the time and the desire to
make a contribution to society. So you really,
you have to be both steadfast and your desire and
flexible in your capacity to implement it. Our graduates
never were hitting the ground running, but they were
hitting the ground believing that the educational production they bring
to a practice can contribute And then they come back
in 10 years and they they often are 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. What does tradition mean
? Transcripts? You you see we treat tradition as
a substantive, it's a verb. It means to
hand on the trolley to um, the thing that
doesn't change is being handed on from generation to generation
, from father to son, from teacher to student
. And it's that that is maintained while what surrounds
it and how it's expressed changes, it's invaluable to
hear these stories. I think I wish we could
have started this decades before.