Interview conducted March 1, 1997 in Pacific Palisades.

What have been the rewards of practicing architecture for you?

I've had a very good life in architecture. For years I had a small practice, with the opportunity to learn through doing and building and construction. This was during a very fortunate time for young architects, after World War II. I've also had the opportunity, beyond that, to work with urban issues from about the early 1960s until about 1980, when I had a larger partnership and an extended practice. At the same time I've been involved in education which is very nice. The combination of all of this was quite a wonderful experience for me. And I've been reasonably busy through my entire practice at a nice scale and in a pleasant way, so I've enjoyed the practice very, very much.

Other than the teaching and practice of architecture, have any other professions interested you?

Not really. I've been primarily an architect, architect, architect; planner; designer; and educator; and that pretty much covers a broad range of fields to involve one's self in, from the design phase to administrative aspects. My time in architectural education was particularly marvelous too. I've had the opportunity to start two programs from the very beginning, and I don't think anyone else has ever had that opportunity: to hire all your faculty yourself, to set up the pedagogy, to make all the major decisions and to explore the whole process without having to be so much in the body politic of dealing with people who've done it before. So I've had kind of an ideal situation, both in practice and in education, and even in the urban design and planning area. We were about the only small firm dealing with planning and urban design in LA, which gave us some very special opportunities in the late 60s, early 70s.

What do you think is the greatest challenge for educators today?

My own feeling is that we're going through a processes of change and a catch-up game to incorporate working with computers, extended communication, and the world-wide aspect of architecture. Right now I think the profession is ahead of the educators in that particular area. Firms have really moved out into the world, while education is still sort of sitting in the craft of architecture. That is fine, but it isn't really broad enough. I really don't think that many of the schools are doing a broad enough job to really allow the students to enter into the profession well. They enter either as model makers, or those who have computer skills can get some work, but most of the people are kind of floating around. When I look at SCI-Arc, and when I look around at other schools, I don't think there's as good of a base to architecture and most students don't really don't have a strong knowledge of how things are put together. It seems to be much more formal-making than form making, getting away with doing that without the broader aspects. I think the education has to be expanded from what it was, but it also has to have a stronger base and roots. I think it's just a different time and educators have to recognize that.

Do you think that more first-hand involvement in the construction phase and putting together systems would be helpful for students?

Well, I guess that I'm so prejudiced that way. My whole architecture is about that, and so it's hard for me to understand people doing architecture if they don't know how to put it together. The structure is sort of applied, afterwards, in a variety of ways -- that's sort of the way I see some people practice architecture, and since that gets so much press maybe that seems fine with the students. But at the same time I also see students working with computers who are very strong the other way because now it's easy to repeat these systems on the computer, where you can really learn how to put together buildings more quickly and more easily. You also have the students who are working with it really like you would with clay. Then it's more like form-manipulation, which is another whole way which I don't relate to as well. That isn't the way I think about architecture. But I think there are many leading architects who do think of it that way; they really form-manipulate first, then they come back and try to put it together. My direction was always the opposite of that, I wanted to solve the problems in a very simple way, and be able to construct them in a reasonably intelligent way. So when I worked with students I could still feel that lack. When you asked them to merely draw the building in a way that's understandable, or take you through the process of how it would really be made, they seem to not understand what you're talking about, and that seems strange to me.

What could students learn from reviewing the body of architectural projects that you have completed? I think a lot of what you just said applies to that.

Well, that's true, but I'm not sure they ever learn from that. Our house here, for instance, is a case study used by many schools, usually for starting students, to try to understand how a project goes together as a piece of structure, space, site, total architecture, all of what I would call the basics of architecture. That's what can be learned from my work -- yet I don't feel that many students understand it. There's seems to be something difficult for most students in understanding basic structure or construction techniques. They have a much easier time understanding volumetric attitudes or the way you deal with elevation, all the things that I don't concern myself about. I've spent twenty-five years doing this and for some students it works fine, but the majority don't comprehend it. Or if you begin to talk about energy issues - most students don't seem to know where the sun is in the sky or how it enters a building, or how it affects a building, nor do they care. They'd much rather do something abstract that doesn't take much thought. There's always maybe 25% of the class that does comprehend these things, but I would say that the majority of them don't. So it always surprises me when people say my work has affected generations of students - I'm not so sure it has, while I could certainly say that other architects have influenced students, because I see a direct influence. They copy other work in a very direct way, but in my case it somehow doesn't communicate in the same manner that other people's work does.

It's sometimes hard to see those bridges, when one generation's architecture is so different from another's. Yet you know that those are the people that taught that generation.

Well, I see bridges that other people don't see. I see a bridge between my work and, say, Morphosis's work. But I've never seen it written that way historically - I'm left out of that process. But their work is much more related to mine because it is built on the same set of principles, only it's taken to another whole level. I began, of course, with the modern architects of California, of southern California, and internationally. I tried to build on that base something that would be reasonable in my mind, that would be decent architecture, until the time of the first group of the LA 12 came together in 1976, which was sort of the high point in my career. And then people like Morphosis, as their work evolved, became much more a part of this tradition. I think Thom Mayne and Michael (Rotondi) don't think so differently in that way, of structuring a building. They build it up in a similar manner, but it's not necessarily an external form and then infill. It's based on the pieces, the parts, that make the architecture. So I do see a connection there. And there are other people of course, who have copied them, but they copy mostly the details, the small pieces, the parts that are understandable, not necessarily the big picture. But I think that's typical in architecture, some people pick up the broad idea and others pick up only the small details. And they don't always get it together right; they don't understand the basic vocabulary.

Are there important projects in your body of work that you have designed that have not been built?

I guess there's a whole group from when I was concerned with energy issues, from 1975 on. I didn't want to give up many of the ideas that I'd had in my earlier work, so I had to justify the amount of glass that I was using in the California climate. During the period where the State and the Federal government would give tax rebates, most clients were interested in using energy systems and I was able to incorporate a lot of ideas then. I would have enjoyed seeing those projects built, but for me it was enough to enjoy them as project types. What I didn't get a chance to do was test any of the ideas. There were very few of those that I had a chance to monitor at all, and that would have been interesting, but by the time those, say, five to ten years passed, the rebate system was out, energy was no longer a major issue, and clients were no longer interested in even allowing me to do that. We would just double glaze or use simpler systems.

Having said that, how do you think energy conservation effects design today?

I think there's much more interest and many more projects that are incorporating these issues, but particularly in Europe where every project has to take this into consideration. Particularly the work of (Sir Norman) Foster, (Richard) Rogers, (Renzo) Piano, among others, and Richard Meier's work as well has added that whole element too, primarily, I think, because it's being called for. The amount of money that's put into resolving these issues in Europe is tremendous compared to over here. There's always that next layer of control that's used over there. We see very little in the United States; the United States is still into game-playing. But there have not been many buildings of major scale built here recently. I don't think that would have changed anyway, because if the government didn't require it, nobody would do anything. But in Europe we experienced a great amount of it this summer, in fact almost overkill.

What changes have you seen in the profession of architecture in the past twenty years?

Everything has changed in the last twenty years. Post Modernism was the number one factor, design-wise. That itself made a big difference in the way both that work was being given to architects and the way it was being built and so forth. The profession itself is going through major changes, as you know. First of course in the eighties we had a very tremendous period of building, and it was very lucrative for most architects. By the nineties we went into a recession and we were into another whole set of issues. High rise buildings were not being built here in the nineties, and that pushed the profession out into the world, more than I have ever seen. The larger-scale architects really had to move into the Asian sector, and Europe. I think this made a big, big difference. And of course, then, the ability to communicate in simpler ways, with both computers and other devices, made it much easier to decentralize offices. Now, most every job is given to minorities, or to combinations of firms in partnering processes, or in joint venturing processes. It's much different than in the years when I was going the strongest, from say 1968 to 1981. They hoped you had minorities working in your office, or that you were at least certainly open to minorities working for you, but it was not a situation where the jobs were given to minorities directly. So that was a big difference. And also the amount of requests for proposals, the amount of competition in going after work became much greater than ever before. So all of that has changed. The delivery system, obviously, has changed completely in the last 4 or 5 years. Offices are almost 100% computerized. Today, the kind of office I have is, like, historical (smiles), where you have boards with parallel rules on them. So it's a whole different way of producing. I think the profession is different than it was, certainly, when I entered it. And certainly it is different than it was six to ten years ago. And it will change further. I think the computer will make even a further difference in the way we do work, in the way that things are done in the field, in the ability to communicate back and forth. It seems that the way we supervise work will be quite different, and how we construction-manage will be different. And even that's different - most offices today sell management even more than they sell design. Many firms are just design firms, they don't do production and produce their own work, they don't do the construction management phase, they do all kinds of strange things. So that's changed a lot. And it will continue to change more, I think.

Do you think there's a danger in that? In the separation of design and production?

Well, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much because I had the other way! I guess if you were starting as a young person in the field and this was the way it is, you'd probably find what would be the best way for you to operate within that process. Of course, the litigious nature of the field has made that happen too. Many firms don't do production because they don't want to carry that insurance. So some firms do, and other firms just want to be high-design firms. It doesn't seem to affect the work that much. I see as much good work produced by separation that way as by holding on to every part as I had always worked. And I took it to the extreme, because I built the projects as well. I was not only designing, but we were contracting, we were building, we were doing everything. But then I look and I see how much quicker people can get jobs up today (snaps), by using the other process where they do the design, someone else picks it up, makes it work, gets into the field, the construction manager, they move it more quickly. At least it seems that way, and the work gets done reasonably well: detailed well, completed well. I guess if it's managed right and it's put together properly, you'll probably have a very good situation. If it happens to be a bad marriage, it's going to be a bad marriage.

Are there changes you would like to see in the profession?

Oh, I guess these are the same changes I've always wanted to see. The part that bothers me the most is that the profession is not paid correctly for what they do, and it effects all the young people coming in. People go through a long and difficult education in architecture, and when they come out they're not paid at all commensurate with what they've gone through compared to other professions. I fault the major firms for creating this kind of a process. In other professions they pretty much hold the line in what they charge and what the fees are. You don't get a great variation from law firm to law firm, from medical firm to medical firm. People expect to pay a certain amount for various services and you don't sit there arguing over whether your operation is going to cost you $2000, or whether you're going to get it for $500. from someone who's just starting out. In architecture, everybody cuts everybody else, particularly when times are hard, and they don't hold the line. This is probably the thing that always bothers me the most, and I know it'll probably never be resolved. I said the same thing when I entered the profession maybe 45 years ago as a young architect. I never cut my fee, and always held professional fees. But you know, today it's worse than it's ever been. I think people shop much more. Major firms do front-end competitions for nothing, trying to get the work. Well, that's taking advantage of the architect, and the architects allowing themselves to be taken advantage of. As long as that goes on, young people will never enter the profession the way they should. Nor will most architects ever make the kind of money they should related to other professions. We like our work too much, and that's one of the big problems.

You mentioned in the previous interview that Romanesque and Gothic architecture were the historical periods that really spoke to you. When you travel, do you visit those sites?

Not really, anymore. We did all that in our early travels, of course. I guess when we travel today, I really look at what's new. And then enjoy ourselves. The periods in history which most affect me are the periods that are about construction the most. That's what I always enjoy seeing. The periods that were decorative - well, I don't like decoration. So those periods, the Renaissance, the Baroque, I don't like those periods. For me, they're decadent, where the others are much more about building a building.

What are the key influences in your work today?

Well, I'm not doing much work today. But they're no different than they ever were, that part doesn't change. I'm probably one of the few architects whose point of view is the same now, practically, as when I entered the field. I'm not influenced by style changes, I'm an anti-stylist in that sense. But whether you're influenced or not, your clients are. So there will be things that enter your work because, for instance, the client saw some rusted metal that they liked, so they want you to incorporate rusted metal in their work. That doesn't bother me too much. I never was too much a stickler for materials anyway. If the client wanted a building built out of aluminum panels, that's fine with me; if they wanted it out of plaster, that's okay; if they wanted it out of wood that's all right too. It wasn't so much about the material, it was really about the way you use whatever materials were part of your process. It was more our thinking to limit the palette and keep it consistent than to expand it, which is more popular today. In the last 18 years of Post-Modernism, about all that I thought was interesting were a few things like lighting color, and materials. The rest of it didn't have any effect on my work at all. I have a job that's going up at the moment, a concrete and steel job that has no similarity to this piece that we're sitting in right now in terms of what it looks like visually. But it was a result of a particular client and the site and so forth - I had to do a lot of retaining, so concrete became the base material, and then he wanted the rest of it to be open for view, which meant the rest of it was rigid frame steel construction. We didn't want any shear walls. And that's the way you build that, so that's the way I do it. I didn't just say, well, now we've got to build it out of god-knows-what because my head's over here. At periods in my career I did have a priori ideas about things I wanted to explore. I would attempt to incorporate and explore those issues if they were appropriate, but I wouldn't force my ideas. But I go at it very simply. I'm not a big concept architect. I'm about solving the site, solving the problems from the client, trying to be as responsible as I can be related to each issue. And that will always be the same - I'm not influenced differently from that.

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