A Tale of Two Architects - Part 3: The Final Installment

Listen to Your Client.

Their client is the popular leader of a city, so he’s always listened very attentively to its citizens. For one thing, he depends on them to support his leadership.  For another, listening to the citizen stakeholders really is something he wants to do. He’s with them, heart and soul, and he’s wise.

But with his architects he’s demanding, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Over time, their relationship has evolved, to be authentic, to be candid and direct. They do respect each other. I+K have themselves learned to invite their client’s thoughts and aspirations. They aim to somehow translate those into design, though how is still elusive, a mystery they haven’t penetrated. They help him speak his truth, from his gut and his mind.  

An idea emerges: it occurs to these architects that they might get something helpful by describing and drawing some precedents, some projects from the past, for their client to react to. After all, he’s traveled, seen quite a few places and is no beginner in architecture.  They share their sketchbooks.

They show him a sketch of that old temple in Paestum. He says “This one’s too squat. It “perspires.”  Not the right gesture.

With some gentle encouragement, their client reveals his wish: “I want something that “aspires,” stands up straighter, taller, more like me.”  That’s an easy gesture to imagine and a pretty good design insight to harvest.  He’s got more - just ask.

The Chorus Continues

Our architects are listening intently. They realize wisdom is in the air itself. 

The Chorus reminds them that “Architecture goes beyond techne, technology.  It combines the “breath, principle of life, and soul, with logos. You can find more truth from “psychology,” an ancient Greek term, a way of investigating that penetrates deeply into what makes us all tick and how we see the world.”  They speak, still in unison, about “cognition” that comes from “gno,” even older than Greek, the origin of “know.”  It’s what happens in your “phren,” the Greek term for your brain, the location of thought and contemplation. 

The Chorus announces that taken together, each and every one of these will become rich ways for you to reveal how people really experience their lives, one part of their lives being architecture.  They warn: “If design lacks deep insight into people, the architecture that emerge will likely be ineffective, actually irrelevant, a wasted opportunity.”

Listen to the Site!

Frederick Law Olmstead rises.  Julia Morgan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Rudolf Schindler join him. 

They sing, mostly on pitch, in four-part harmony: “What is the ‘tone,’ of the site, its song, its temperament, far beyond the mere outline of its geometry? What poetry can you draw from it?” They tell our architectural duo: “Pause and immerse yourself; spend more time up there, just sitting, feeling what’s around you. Later, after you’ve paused, examine what you’ve learned.  When you do, we assure you that the answers, built on your observations and the deep questions they prompt so easily, will begin to arise quite easily. If you open your soul to the place, the place will transport you.”

Our duo is getting more and more excited. Then, they hear: “Listen to the fundamentals of nature that always apply as time goes by: gravity, water, sun, the seasons, topography, the soil itself. Rub the dirt in your hands. Hold up the stones and see them in the bright sunlight. Unless these are embraced and cherished, nothing good can be accomplished, and nothing can last, including your project. Nature is insistent and we know very well, from our centuries in the world, that nature always wins. Always go with it, not against it.”

Listen Less to the Rules?

They continue: “You’ve studied the past, including all the rules from architectural tradition. But they’re not enough. They’re only a scaffold for finding answers, not the answers themselves.

At the same time, those rules and conventions deserve your thoughtful respect.  They didn’t arise out of thin air, but look beneath them. You’ll see their merits and limitations and and how to use them well.”

Another of the Venerables, the one named da Vinci, now rises and shares how he uses the Golden Ratio, including how to cheat it whenever and however it suited him.  He says “My best work came, not from the rules, but from identifying and concentrating on the core problem first and then relying on invention to tease out the solution. So seek the truth above all, wherever that takes you.” He encourages them: “Find the emotion in what you create. Don’t let the fruits of your great effort be cold, devoid of emotion, what the Greeks call ‘dry.’ Help Architecture, like all the arts and all the sciences, go beyond what came before.”

Rising to add a warning of their own, Vitruvius, Palladio, and Gropius sing out, this time in quite perfect harmony: “Beware of architectural cults!”Except for Frank Lloyd Wright, all the Venerables applaud. 

Now, all of the Venerables rise as one: “In your time, right now, today, as in each of our times, you are the vanguard, the explorers, discoverers of ideas that have the vitality to succeed and endure. As each architectural challenge is different, each solution is different as well. Every architect brings what they know and love, to find both the core question and the core solution. That’s what you can and must do together.”

Scene 5: Catharsis

Alas, the dream is ending. The Venerables know they’ve said enough, but not too much, as the mists begin to envelope them. I+K stand and bow low to the Venerables. They are so moved and so grateful. They have seen the light that was shared. In a most peculiar, and somehow, in a very powerful way, the Venerables and our heroes know they have touched eternal truths.

I+K awaken, refreshed in body, mind, and spirit, their optimism and confidence renewed. Their path forward, if not all the answers, becomes clear at last.

Things have definitely changed, and for the better. They’ve been inspired by the Venerables and now they’re also deeply inspired by their client and their fellow citizens. They’ve found new confidence that the design they create will be uplifting, inspiring devotion, occupying a new place for those alive today and their descendants.

The two architects share their dreams. They’re astonished to discover that they had exactly same dream, awakening with the same memories, the same feelings, the same new excitement.  They run back to the office as quickly as quickly as their legs can carry them, careful not to trip on their togas.  While they’re starting fresh, they aren’t starting over. They will, literally, build on everything they have learned over their entire lifetimes, including this transformative dream. 

New ideas pour out.  All the thoughts and feelings that arose in the dream propel the design. They imagine, they sketch, and they can’t stop talking. It is taking shape. The design coalesces, seemingly without effort. It is one overarching idea, one full-blown image with the whole far, far greater than the sum of its parts. Every new line they draw ignites more thoughts. They are thrilled and happy, working together in the I+K conference room. Sketches are flying in all directions.

The Venerables were wise indeed. They all knew the great architecture, the masterful building our heroes would soon invent. Tempting as it was to rescue them from uncertainty by revealing that design, something they could easily have done, instead they held back. They knew far better than others possibly could, that the challenge, the struggle, and the glory belonged to our heroes, the Venerables’ predecessors, to Iktinus and Kallicrates alone, arkitekton of the Parthenon.

Milton