|
V5: What have been the rewards of practicing architecture?
JT: Architecture has been rewarding to me all my life because I have been able to see things happen that I have designed. I do not know, though, if I would ever recommend it for other people or my children. As a matter of fact, none of my children went into architecture.
V5: Have you ever been interested in a different profession or line of work?
JT: Yes. Am I supposed to tell you these things? (laughs) You do not know, Jennifer, but when I was a sophomore in high school, I somehow became fascinated with classical music. I have always loved classical music and in turn tried to relate it to architecture.
However, during that time I became an opera buff and would have given anything to have become an opera singer. But I never pursued it for a couple of reasons, lack of money and parents who thought it was not a career worth pursuing.
Deep down I always wanted to become an opera singer, but as the years went by, it kind of fell by the wayside. I still go the opera and listen to opera and classical music, and when no one is listening, I am singing with them. Even my wife does not listen.
V5: How does classical music and architecture relate to you?
JT: Well, for me architecture is very lyrical, and it has to do with great composers. Whether it is Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. There is order to it. At night I can lie down and listen to music, and as I am listening, I can relive things that I am thinking about architecturally. I believe Frank Lloyd Wright or someone called architecture, frozen music. I remember that from when I was a student. It meant a lot to me because I would see parts of the architecture and listen to a classical piece of music where I would see that repetition, rhythm or harmony. The harmony of parts, the harmony of detailing and the harmony of the whole building.
V5: What should students learn from the body of architectural projects that you have completed?
JT: I would think they would learn how to build buildings. It is not like a big creative idea, a form, or whatever, because I mostly work architecture in processional ways. It is more about process that anything else. But the architecture a student might notice walking through and looking at a building would think and really know how it was built. Step by step, it is a process. You choose a structural system that is based upon the planning, functions and spaces, and that in turn establishes an order for all these little details that I talk about. So the lyrical quality has to do with how you tie all these disparate things together.
V5: What particular project did you learn the most from?
JT: Oh my, that is a really unfair question. All of them. I cannot say I learned more from one than the other. Different buildings have different functions, different programs and different people that are involved in the project. I have always learned the most from little projects that have no meaning to anyone else. I guess if you want me to pinpoint a building, it would be the Art Center. Because it was long and took the most out of me, I would say it was the most learning process that I ever went through. It was done over and over again a number of times. People do not know that I designed the Art Center ( Pasadena College of Design ), about seven different times with all different schemes. It had to do with different sites and with different resolutions on how we could handle the canyon. Some were in concrete, one was a kind of steeped terrace idea, and then I did one that was a triangulated system, if you can imagine that. Art Center then said we do not have that kind of money, so what is the most economical thing you can do that will get us a building? All this was over a four to five year period. Art Center was just thinking about these things, trying to raise money, and find people that would support the idea.
V5: What was it like working in Craig Ellwood's studio?
JT: You have to understand that in Ellwood's office, he had the big name, even though he was principally a designer, not an architect. Once we got into bigger buildings, he would relinquish most of the design responsibility to me. Craig was not around a lot of the time, he lectured and traveled to Europe, so it was very nice. As a matter of fact, if what you want is an ideal life, it would be mine. Architecture is a tremendous love that I have. I was able to hide behind Craig Ellwood. He was a famous person and well known all over the world. We would have projects and he would leave, and I could then sit in the back room behind a veil and do anything I wanted.
V5: What impact did Mies van de Rohe have on your life?
JT: I had a "Miesian" background where I grew up in Utah, working for one of Mies's associates. My whole training was Miesian, even though at times I do not always cling to that. I grew up with him being a kind of hero of mine when I was at the University of Utah, going through architecture school. I worked for a fellow that trained me in Miesian architecture and was told by my professors that I should stop working for this fellow because he would destroy me. Then on the other hand, I had this fellow telling me I should be at ITT or the University would destroy me.
I worked for this guy from the beginning of school, it was like an artist's studio, and it was very, very disciplined. You could not listen to the radio, no one got up and moved around, and all he had was classical music in the background, which of course I loved. But if you made mistakes, it was trouble. I got reamed out so many times when I was a first and second year student about how important architecture was. He just drilled it into me.
V5: None of what you just described to me sounds like an artist's studio. In what way was it like an artist's studio?
JT: Oh, I meant I was working for this master. I was just an apprentice and was in an artist's studio learning all these things. When I was a student, I would get "Art and Architecture". Craig Ellwood, Pierre Koning, and all these guys were there, and I just waited every month for Art and Architecture. If you will excuse the expression, it was like Playboy, and the case study houses were like centerfolds. I just loved it.
V5: How did you come to work for Ellwood?
When I was down in California visiting, I went to Ellwood's office and he saw some of my work. He asked me if I wanted to come to California and work for him. I said, "No, because I hated Los Angeles." He said, "I have a project I'm doing, it is the first one for Scientific Data Systems, it is the manufacturing facility." He then said, "If you work for me for one year, I will pay your way down and if you don't like it, I'll pay your way back." So I agreed, since my wife's family lived in California. And as you can see, I never went back. The reason being was I was working for Craig, and once I got into it, I sensed that a lot of the responsibility of this thing was going to be pinned on me, if Ellwood's office was going to succeed. He was very insecure about multi-story buildings or anything larger than a very simple two-story building or house. We were picking up buildings all over the United States in a very quick time, that is why I never went back. We were doing buildings in New York, Maryland and Chicago, so, it was hard for me to leave. Plus, the buildings got larger. We were doing some office buildings for Xerox. So the nice thing was Craig could get the work and I could go in the back and design, which was very enjoyable. Craig was very supportive. It was not that he contributed much, but he would say to me, "I love it. Keep going, this is what we are going to do." We would build models (I did a lot of rendering on my own, anyway), so we would do renderings and sections through the buildings and do these massive details. I knew steel forwards and backwards, I mean, it is probably embarrassing, but I knew a lot more about steel than Ellwood.
Next Page
|
|
