On Ellen's on the Young director
of the architecture program and

it is my pleasure to welcome him to
the architecture programs lecture series.

It's hard to believe that this is
already the second week of classes.

It's even harder to believe
that this is the hundred year

of architectural education at
Georgia Tech the first classes

in architectural instruction attack
started in the fall of nineteen.

Eight a century ago.

Each of the dots on this poster
reflects roughly the size

of that each year's in Romans and
you can see how we grew

how we've weighing during World War
two and then grew and grew again

I don't think the vault bots are actually
the current docs are quite proportional.

To celebrate.

We're going to have a very grand
birthday party on Saturday April

twenty fifth police save
the date you're all invited and

you won't want to miss what is literally
going to be a once in a lifetime event.

Building up to a full twenty fifth.

We've asked some of our most distinguished
alumni to tell us about their work and

to reflect help us reflect on what this
school was like when they were students.

I've asked each of the centennial
lecturers to tell us about their thesis or

final project and how it did or
didn't shape their careers and

thrill that John Portman joined by Mickey
Steinberg is going to kick off the lecture

series tonight lectures by Max Scott and
Meryl Humam Tony Ames Bill Stanley and

a venue love Stanley Michael Hayden come
Ventura left and Michael rod will follow.

The dates are on the website and
will mailing out postcards this week and

will continue the focus on alumni in
the spring with a mix of older and

younger voices as well as current.

For stations on more diverse
architectural practices.

I hope you're all going to find
the story the inspiration and

the pride that I will that I know
I am already just in planning

some of these these events following
tonight's lecture as a reception across

the courtyard in the atrium opening
part one nineteen zero eight to

nine hundred forty of the exhibition of
a century of architectural education and

you're all invited certainly to God as
well and we'll have a series of openings

at the throughout the year as we march
our way through the archives in a really

wonderful exhibition at Betty Dowling and
Lisa Thomas and I have put together.

In addition to this assortment of
riches the industrial design program

has a small but great lecture series
on nature and design this term.

And there are three nonsense Tenniel
of bents I want to quickly draw your

attention to on September ninth the A.I.A.
is sponsoring an event with

representatives from all three Georgia
architecture programs in title.

What will the class of twenty ten look
like Tom eventual Let will be moderating

the event at SCAD on Peachtree Street
starting its at six on October one

award winning architect Jonathan Segal
from San Diego will give a lecture in this

room at six as part of his visit as the
John Portman visiting critic this fall.

Then on Saturday Nov eighth.

Lars Spike broke will host the second
annual venture let symposium on

textile techs tonics tectonics
sessile Ballman MARK BURRY and

Andrew Benjamin are amongst the speakers.

So stay tuned.

There's a lot going on now
please before we begin.

I'd like to orchestrate a mass
turning off of the cell phones

in this room and I'm including myself.

It's really embarrassing.

When it happens room

office last year to sign up
to receive a on a continuous

credit outside the table
outside the auditorium.

Now as you know the task of
leading us through the next

one hundred years falls on
the shoulders of our new dean.

Alan Balfour.

And Alan will introduce John Portman and
Mickey Steinberg tonight.

But as this is his first
appearance in our lecture series

after Dean I allow me to
briefly set the stage.

Alan is a highly accomplished author
of over nine books that in various ways

explore how architects are shaping
contemporary imaginations cultures and

world cities specifically in
books on Shanghai and your

and others in two thousand he received
the topaz medallion from the A.C.F.

and the highest recognition
in North America for

architectural educators preparing for
his deal with us.

He practiced as dean at R.P.I. as he
ate in London and at Rice University.

In the ninety eighties before office.

He held the same job.

I now occupy as director of
the architecture program here at Cap.

There's a great pleasure to welcome back.

Alan Bell for.

Of a view.

I don't make a hundred
years on the boat train.

Because a great job to
be really normal to be

the hopes of it has come true for
the book.

My task is to step in stage but

most of us will see in the end it's not
just on Portman this is going to be

the stuff in between colleagues who've
worked together on most of our career and

and I will remember how best to sort of
give you a sense of who they were and

they have worked in the last two weeks to
write in the sense that only biography

which they've asked me to read which I'll
give as much to the wonderful biographies

then then then then Mickey Steinberg

will essentially give his overview of the
of the extraordinary with the practice and

then they will they will essentially
share thoughts on the world and

in conversation make it because he is
going to play the role of Mr Rhodes of

the trolley road the sort of
Charlie Rose kind of kind but more than

that when they're finished sort of fencing
you all of a cancer question this most

significant practitioner really within
the national international practice.

So I begin with the marketable biography

of Mickey Stanley Steinberg
level of gusto and

to take an one hundred fifteen graduate
in fifty four with a bout of science.

So I don't need a second elbow
going back to door to Turkey.

Gradually going to fifty eight and
then want to keep and

I keep with a master's
degree in the night.

But every step that is architectural
interest with the seventeen.

And it was a mighty look when he came and
the importance of color travel and

others in a sense he's played this role.

So the outside work at all.

It's career after graduation
going to work with.

I mean the truly notable amount

that allows me to much forgotten
the eight hundred one polock.

They did structural design with
advanced systems then show systems

pre-stressed concrete structures really
pioneers in the field at the time.

In sixty run he became
the six professional employee

of a firm called Edwards important.

Which was later and we named it John.

Portman and so
ships upon the retirement of Mr Edwards.

He began his career as an apprentice so

became the firm structural
engineer as well.

Clueless luser increased he built and

structure the engine
Google within the firm.

Upon A Time to Mr it was Mickey assumed
it was possible managing the firm.

As it became more active.

He ripped up the construction tickets
then became involved with the state that

asset management and eventually he was
named executive vice president of pop and

companies and can act up and manage in the
course of design construction development

proportion companies national and
international.

He involved himself in all the projects of
the problem enterprise during this time.

And once on the body part and
then with the developments.

In the group he had working
closely with Don Portman.

Having worked closely with on public lands
and years he received an offer he could

not refuse and that's an extraordinary
I actually heard him talk about this at

the time he was offered by World Disney
Corporation to assume the role of chief

operating officer for
World Disney Imagineering worldwide and in

this role he was a total master planning
queen of concepts Alcatraz engineering

construction manufacturing all the rides
shoals them Disney World's worldwide.

During his tenure he spent about a doozy
of a phone hour billion dollars and

built Los Angeles Orlando took
on powders for the perks.

There's He was taken over by.

I believe by by Sun there.

I'm sorry my mistake in ninety four.

Mickey left us in and
became terms of Sony's we tail.

Entertainment Division.

There he was one of managing various
companies at Sony and involved and

we tell him to put it in can we trust
our Zlata into movie theaters we.

Payment venues.

In addition to that it's only
an addition something we've

helped so many with effectively worldwide.

He would talk on the return
of move back to Atlanta.

And he from a number of boards and
consultants and

really centrally has become a bit of the.

We can be confident and
consultant to John Portman

probably seven years they've essentially
showed us on the world on the question.

So I'm looking stunned because.

And now to John Paul and I hope I
can do justice to this Mr Portman.

At a time when most builders and
developers were fleeing the managers

in the cities this department whose
operational stake solidly into the ground

and into the open streets of Atlanta
Georgia such a contrast when the sisters

of Mr Pope and writing such
a contrarian needs both vision and

the NASA to succeed and
Pokemon carries a full measure of the.

His I will back attention and commitment
to the open environment began earlier.

Because your partner

will grow because if you have
a view that we will see a lot of

with trepidation hook up with
a lot of architecture and

commitment to the open environment
began early the purpose of this post

as a young concessionaire around
Atlanta species the audience.

You speak speak here and

acquire a high school mechanical drawing
course spark his interest not a picture.

He persuaded his high
school principal combined.

Aka college prep with studies and
architecture to interfere team he launched

a journey an architecture that lasted
six decades interrupted only by

the US Navy and World War two yearns
to be from Tekken one hundred fifty.

Went on to work with one of
Atlanta's leading firm Stephens and

workings of the scene does Ross and
if you need to be of the zone chrome

John Portman architect with his
long term associate Don't speak.

With early commissions or
most of the houses and ninety percent of

commercial buildings in that you can see
it's one of his former professors of

each group an ad which combined the two
small firms into Edwards and put them.

In ninety six he became aware of that and
then we need a better wholesale Bendo

retail store buying experience and so in
search of an architectural commission he

developed and tested a marketing concept
by leasing a transformed parking garage

before he doesn't square feet into
a whole slew of commercial film.

After working in Jan we could be certain
the concept was immediately success and

there's a demand for more so expect this
led to the creation of Atlanta the Atlanta

mentioned those marked in fifty eight he
designed and developed a million square

feet of Marcus of the which opened in
sixty one and transformed downtown Atlanta

or began to the people a succession
of time was a time of unrest.

And it's only encouraged
people to race to the suburbs.

And about this the time of
the opening of the merchandise map.

Mr probably took a trip to Brazil.

To be part of the dedication of Brasilia.

And this began to sort of.

Simulate his ideas of what urban
formant and theatre could be.

He loved the innovative
design of Brasilia.

But disappears which is one of
the city's stole environment.

He returned with his people that turned
convinced that people were the most

important part of any city you believe
that urban America needed restructuring

proposal or growth and expansion and
with this new inside Scandinavia.

There he saw the satellite signals
of stop Stockholm in Helsinki and

returned to Atlanta with these things
in mind Scandinavia South America

to get a sense of what that land on
might be particularly in the wee

forming of the center of the city.

The heart was the center
catalyst was a great success and

if success found the need for her tell
space carefully we think in both that

degree her turn of setting and
Guest Experience is important.

Design is beginning and purposes but

the confining environment
of existing city or girls.

You enter the project around an open and
voting design competition and

cover to talk story in the sky the atrium
he sent his project around as eeprom

glass had elevators provided
the journey can space and

at the top conceived of all
the group from rooftop restaurant.

This atoll designed in sixty three was
opened in sixty seven emphasized and

underground the grounds placed
as an interior opportunity.

The tower was vastly increase in
opening building design of all types

to the use of a grand
interior public space.

It was a concept so
radical that the original investors

actually withdrew from the plant but
none of the major battalion in

the country one versed in this concept
this thing we now know and has been so

influential Quabbin finally approach to
put schools of Chicago on as a pilot house

a small chain of west coast of tells
how posters the project launched

the company's successful transition from
motel the hope of hotel operations and

the immediate popular at
the Hyatt Regency Atlanta but

international markets to a recognition
department to this to tell and to Atlanta.

It launched also what is now
the world renowned hired to Coltrane.

This.

Cunt concept concept and the promotion
of the concept of eyes of career.

He is usually say just a level head of his
time the contemporaries of person have

difficulty grasping this concepts and
the only one thousand willows later.

That quote He was conceiving were
truly monumental designs that really

reinforced and
enhanced the extent of modern life.

Using their.

And American doesn't march on the hard
news we can see it land as a base

problem began to expand into
the huge mixed use developments

in downtown Atlanta to the one
called Peachtree City Center.

With this move to other cities and

expanded to his imagination of
what these things could mean

in San Francisco the golden gate open
when you live or you chose Portman.

And its development partner David
Rockefeller and Trammel Crow to resurrect

at the current pride of warehouse
district the in back of their own.

Grueling core high rise office towers and

a dramatic paternal link by a multi-level
retail spine that engage the street

within the retail space the best can
produce landscape plazas and that's

where I've visited soon after it opened
that's this marvelous sort of space with

a sort of sloping wall on one side on the
other side you can as a strange wall of

nature with with artificial birdsong with
reflecting a and in the middle of a huge

bird case I mean that they were they were
they were on as we were in discussion

recently they were objects of theatrical
experiences and gave all the sense of.

From the beginning.

Been successes followed in Detroit when
the four of them spoken to the first

business like from from that certain
you could as an adolescent center and

as Angeles the Bonaventure town branched
out of all of the city's downtown

Bunker Hill section that became a catalyst
for a successful redevelopment.

In New York City burned down and
then he came to Atlanta now spoken to help

reverse the direction of Time Square
leading to the the matter.

Marcie the term a cornerstone for
really the renewal of Times Square.

Across his career his conclusion you
have to have been has been significant

it is a pattern we pioneered in
the role of a big developer.

Which is going international recognition
for innovations and design and really for

the economic and
development success of these projects.

At a time when many can tell.

As we abandon the urban the urban
environment the moon has remained open

oriented and use duct a mixture of designs
to entice people back to downtown.

The interim along with a push
to mix through certain projects

with the most notable of
the numerous innovations

he did not invent to get to him that
he would be discovered in the bio that

turned into the ground up actual statement
that really color so many on so many.

Certainly hotels worldwide.

His success in the U.S.
led to group opportunities.

The first project was inspired by Neiman
Marcus best and imagine even Marcus and

involve the design of of
an unintentional trademark in Brussels.

This led them to the region
determined Singapore the first

his first international in town.

Followed.

Also in Singapore by Marina
square tells major retail mall.

And the other projects thousand plexi were
immense million a square of collectors

attention to context
in the human scale and

he took his ambitious mix to start
projects to Hong Kong to Malaysia and

Indonesia and ultimately he and his son
Jack collaborated on the first large

mixtures complex in China the Shanghai
center that the Shanghai do

purchase on the five great architectural
buildings on the Chinese mainland.

There's a turn to be told that
they're sort of interesting

because I we were talking weeks and
this is a turtle.

If you arrive at Shanghai get in a cab
you actually consider the cab driver

bottom and open and we'll take you
to this at what needed to turn

down which ended in
the imagination of Theo and

then the culture of Shanghai is
truly it's truly innovative.

I asked how it happened and

that it seems that Jimmy Carter
brought down shopping to Atlanta.

As as pain in the mid eighty's
was conceiving of there.

So this kind of revision of the of
the structure of the Chinese economy and

Carter and then shopping at a supper.

Here propping a.

That the SO KEEP figures and
administration

run the supper table drawn problems out
of us of the Chinese names of tourism.

Who'd been called in and

said I want you could design the events
to tell you to look for China.

And it is I'll go back every two years and
all the things that were in his mind

was conceived of I must
confess it was in his mind

conceived of as a kind fort in the wild
west but somehow Shanghai that time.

What was was a was an awkward
experience of had been so

diminished by Markham so
he created this extraordinary enclave.

That was what was worldly in ways
the Chinese are not conceived of and

also had all the foods of the world and
a sense of glamour and splendor and

yet the spaces of it in
the in the whole capital

experience that it was really opened with
with with quotes like the major Broadway

show we can to open it
up Driving Miss Daisy.

But I've been innocent
little last fifty years and

it's lost none of that
excitement of charm and

what is amazing is that wilderness out the
cost of to conceive the sort of a world

where sport now is the reality of Shanghai
that has a centrally shaped the kind of

the tail environment of Shanghai and

elsewhere throughout China
it's really quite wonderful.

When we now he said I've just come
back two months ago from Korea and

he said Come and see this.

And you will see it and

show you the second largest town in the
world with the ground and because we are.

Beautiful.
The only problem is

that then associates are designed
almost three hundred projects.

He's a fellow but also.

Numerous business and humanitarian ones
including the issue of origin want to know

if you know I don't know what that is but
we cannot confirm is

very active because if tests are there for
molding both in human environment and this

ongoing exclusion of space and form and
I'm not so the piece that's missing here

is also in the last thirty years he has he
has essentially matched his he was OK to

imagination to an extraordinary creative
motion from the sculpture and painting.

And it's an immensely fertile imagination
book but you have to see him talking

to fully appreciate it and
the courage of those who still discovering

innovative approaches that are going
to transform architecture and

we're very pleased to have you with
us this evening so impertinent.

Good evening.

Left the Portman asked that I helped
him get ready to night his lecture or

not talk about it
probably even sat at that

it would be a lot more prone to
do a conversation than I lecture.

So we're going to try to get to it
if I can get that quick enough but

he asked if I'd be a straight man on
our grades so on his comic relief

work that battle right.

I'm the one who wrote The serious.

But I didn't write all of that he made
a lot of that up that he does have

to be sad about that we should partial
some Strads and I'm going to do that but

I want to do it very very fast after
we complete the clouds and our.

What our plan or a comic relief and
then we want to have some questions from

humans who have something to ask
of a man that accomplished what

we really like you to do.

That you have a plus start.

It was hard to pick up
the slack at least for me.

As being sent that he'd done
over three hundred projects but

I'll give you a little more information
they're located in eleven states and

the man states twenty three
countries around the world.

We've done over fifty million square
feet of commercial property and

that's about a thousand acres of
a thought experiment hotel rooms over

two thousand words a digital units and
over ten million square feet of markets.

Now.

Trying to pick up what we should
show are going to be interesting

but I've got no money left here and
she's going to help me get through.

There's very very quickly.

So with that.

And you see I'm supposed to push that.

Ten.

Now listen went a little bit.

This is John Morton when he
was a student of Georgia Tech.

And there were no will last rooms
full of architectural students work.

Institute bought a bunch of old how others
and they were converting them to be

used and this is when they act
like they had a series of cocktail

parties where they decided what
the adult should fix its ads or that and

John Portman that everybody's watching
Romney sketches what the other

there's a picture of him doing
the mural when that came in under

the screw the mural which there
are way up and run of the old houses.

Get started.

This is really one of
the first battles that most

important they had we couldn't find in
the slabs of it but the one what's on it.

It's interesting.

This is the.

Eagles building.

And what makes it interesting
comedian hurtles a great building and

all but
the skeptic on client is Levon Eagle

they don't want to pay point so
in this department.

By either themselves or
that really they're paying for

this worst of
the Atlanta Merchandise Mart.

The first building that was
built in Peachtree center and

it was done in one nine hundred sixty one.

This is the early one
nine hundred sixty S.

we can see the Merchandise Mart and that's
what the Ben town looked like at the turn.

This is Peachtree center a picture
taken in the photograph taken

that two million years ago and
you can see what it's become

the Peachtree center was
planted Belize's and

it was begun in sixty one until
the present and it covers its parts of it.

I'm not kidding our porting city blocks.

This is the high that we
didn't see what was not in

sixty seven with too much additional
seventy one and eighty two.

There's no.

Midnight Sun restaurant with credibly
Surely some of them American sixty

eight Western Please treat crab so
which was done in seventy six.

Yet when a power Mark
was done in seven and

with an addition in one
thousand nine hundred six.

The Atlanta marriage marquee was
done in one thousand nine hundred.

This is a section through it.

And more interior.

This is in peril arm in the UK
in one thousand nine hundred.

This is the Atlanta.

Mark which was added in one
thousand nine hundred two.

So interest Plaza.

Was the record in ninety three.

And this is the Sun Trust
gone up as is which was done

in two thousand and ten lats lad.

He has the addition to
the market the latest addition

to the market is under construction and
the intention there.

This is a lever decorative arts center
which he first started in sixty one

with additions in seventy and
seventy and then.

In telecom one of which is
most apartments home and

here in Atlanta this is N.P.R.
and great put that

that was done in one thousand nine
hundred and contrary to public.

I'm sorry sixty.

This is done in one hundred sixty
rabbiting it remind though that

this building contains two atriums.

This was built and designed and
built for about Hyatt Regency I

won't go into the reasons why but
it was a very successful building.

The Ben upon Art Center at Agnes Crocker
college then one hundred sixty.

The Hyatt Regency O'Hare with a Spanish
one seven one and this was the first.

Project that was out of
the state of Georgia.

This was a picture where the Embarcadero
summit was to be built of the lane.

This is what it looked like but
what started.

This is the there are some a site plan.

This is a market there are some of it was
completed in its original seventy four

to seven and
then these are some of the street scenes

pictures taken around and
market there are certain in

the market there are some of created
a huge and crappy but the extreme traffic.

This is the borough and that the more
power to it was the Hyatt Regency

in San Francisco finished in seventy four.

This is the the meridian.

It's never made in the original years.

This is the work
National Bank building and

protects us one hundred seventy or one.

Brussels International Trade Mart.

And this was the first foreign
project that was done.

This is the master plan for
the Renaissance Center and

in the US is the winners of sun up which
phase one was completed in seventy six and

seventy seven.

They used to was completed in a worm the
Western Bonaventure Hotel an aerial view.

And this is going west been burnt aventure
was completed in seventy seven and

the interesting thing about it.

It seems like when they were in
a Los Angeles today that always showing.

This is the region.

It's so important and this was
the first Asian project that we did.

This is that when we university if there's
a physical education system finished

in this woman then it in eighty three.

This is a renovation.

The most important Deborah
propeller Center and

this was one of the lot concourses
this was done in eighty.

These are some of
the details in our standing.

This is what Town Square
looked like that for a.

We were contacted by the mayor.

And this is a picture taken right
before we started construction of

the Marriott Marquis.

This is what it looks like today.

The service and a section in some
shots of the Marriott Marquis.

This is a picture in
telecom too which is what

most Department jam
Portman's home in the sea.

This was banished in one
thousand nine hundred six.

This is their number one
aversive the students and

head to show us but
passed look at the plan elevation.

And they always yelled at us that
we put a Georgia Tech team match.

But we explained term about was
the Trust Company on this isn't doing it.

Shot the bellman.

We used as a backdrop of
bloom in that R.V. existed.

This is not a park here in Atlanta and it
was built in one nine hundred eighty six.

This was an area on Singapore that Marina

sun was built on and then Wednesday
just land all this as a plan that.

The site.

This is a picture of the progress
of the completed project.

The photograph of.

We're in the square.

This is never J W mérat and San Francisco.

This is done in eighty seven.

There's an interior shot of the day.

Debbie Mary at this is river world
here in Atlanta pinched in a man.

Now and one back to what Dean was talking
about this class and this is what

sent a poor look in Shanghai looked like
before the Portman center was built.

You can see in the middle
of the spire which is the.

Some of that was built by the Russians for

the Chinese where this is what
they are and looked like.

This was what the area look like.

Right after the show and

her son was brought up by the Whitman
hotel as the problem going.

This has been used in many this
is what it looks like today.

This is the difference in May.

This is where the brass of
the Portman hotel and the sun.

This is capital square in
Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.

This is the center street apartments
here on the Tech campus and

they were part of the Olympic Village
done in one of the six.

This is the Indian School of Business and
hard to abide in

today it's considered one of the pop
this universities and all in the world.

This isn't the academic but I've been
a judge of Georgia when that college and

rots from the finish in two thousand and
two this Shannon hotel and

conference center engine and
Sharon are two or three.

This is Tamara square in Shanghai and.

This is the pictures of Tamara Square.

Western Charlotte and
China North Carolina.

They've been issued in zero three.

These are interior shots.

This is the western wall style
in the whole Ross apartment

finished in two thousand and
three and this is an interior shot.

This is one of commuters
which is in Mumbai India and

it's a service apartment complex
owned by the Taj Hotel chain.

Hyatt Regency in hand.

Joe Turner I don't see it right.

Hold up in the interest in that
if anybody know Chinese history.

Marco Polo said the most beautiful
place in the world was the West Lake.

That's it.

OK this is another shot of the hotel.

This is the windows in chambre Hotel and

Convention Center in Chembur Illinois
two thousand and six.

The Beijing Beijing China.

This is the parkour.

Again another shot of the Beijing.

This is near help them and
send the other way.

Sending a California
it's under construction

on the writers or rendering on
the letters the border and been completed

the judging a fortune finance and
hung show or so on a construction.

The that three part current and
how to bed in the in

the chain how using a home to
check out international cinema

some of those in the the window Plaza and.

This is the latest and
largest project and most Portman's I'm

working on it's the Sunbow landmark
sitting in its one hundred story tower.

This is most Department at the Grand
groundbreaking a month and a half ago.

Now I want to show you
some of his project is on.

We're going to slow down
activity there in the heights.

When I think it's one mockable
the men that is than ours.

The one monitor one shaved head and.

Or some of those are art.

And sculpture.

This or

That pieces but

this is a piece of the hotel in.

Charlotte Charlotte Weston
is working on this

which is in the Sun Trust.

Shamberg that's the piece of wreckage
form of the hotel and Schomberg.

I want you want.

I want to get her out of the fashion.

But again I couldn't do justice

to the problem we had the body
of work was remarkable moment

that I'd like point when we have here just

missed the stamps are we going to
get on the plane these people.

Now go first of all you've got to remember
you've been entertaining to all men and

so we both came to school here they

really knew in which they now
refer to as the building.

We're going to build know and

that disturbs me I would say you know
I'm the oldest man in the building.

It's matter of fact I haven't Lincoln.

OK And.

I told me if you go through life and
you get older and older.

Every time you walk into a room.

You look around finally and
you realize there.

That's not necessarily unflattering
I want you to know that

Mr Portman had nothing to do with
the questions and then I'm Jones and

I put them together that couple I
let him look at them just while

ago in that couple even like so I thought
I told him I'm going to use dancer.

So I will start with one and
I think you will is right John.

You were a student at Georgia
school with technology.

Architecture from forty five to fifty.

Well to tell us something about what
it was like to be back in ancient times

it was really a very small school and
all the labs were

on the third floor of
the physics building and

the students were primarily returning
G.I.'s from World War two and.

It was a wonderful time because
there was an air of enthusiasm

there of the new and Bush Gailey and have

left and was heading screw and

were building a cutting
edge faculty staff and

so they brought some young professors
down from Harvard who were

that was when Gropius and
Broyard were heading up Harvard and so

we went through forty five
fifty sort of about house and

Dr nation and

think about there was no modern
buildings being built in Atlanta or

in the area at the time and
just to get something modern

built was considered a great
achievement whether it was good or bad

and the thing about it
that I remember most is

that there was a sense of adventure and
there was a sense of confidence

and a sense of and
as that permeated the screw.

I think it had a lot to
do with the formation

of attitude during those times very good.

Thank you.

We know that your visit to Brazilian
fifty followed by your visits

to the satellite citizens in
Helsinki had a great impact

on the development of your philosophy
concerning the design of urban centers.

Could you give us some idea of
the conclusions you reached

in that how they reflected in the work
that would only take you three and a half.

When I had the mark under construction
at the corner of history and

Harris was a million square feet
a very inexpensive building.

It was basically a big warehouse
cracked concrete we had no money.

I think it cost eight dollars and a half
a square foot for the whole building and

we've the world's largest
electrical building at the time but

putting pumps all up.

That's what I saw or so that

kind of control its own environment and

when that was being we went on to
construction in fifty nine and

opened in sixty one and
there was a fellow and

a good friend of mine who was
in real estate at the time

and we heard about

the dedication of Brasilia
it was unable to.

Sixty one.

But we decided to go down and and
see what this was all about after all

Brazil was the largest city built
from scratch in history at that time

and it was some of the most famous

land planners designers the landscape
people the lamp plant it was cost

was the architect Robert of
world marks was the landscape

and so
I went to visit with great enthusiasm

couldn't wait to get there and
take it all in and.

Once I got there I was impressed
by some of the individual

buildings but as a human environment.

It was very very disappointing.

It was not a walkable city.

It was too sterile it looked too
much like a government project.

It just didn't sit well with me

and back in those days it
was during a proxy for

the jet took forever to get from Rio and

we had a from Rio over to
us here to take a little

sort of a crop duster to get
over there and to get back but

from Rio back to the States.

You had several stops and one in Berlin at
the mouth of the Amazon and Trinidad and

and a Port au Prince and took forever
to get back the mail out of time.

The thing.
By what I've seen and

I came to the conclusion that
what American cities needed

at that time was not a new city but

a restructuring of the cities and that

we should concentrate on
people list of things and

we get carried away with the thing but

the soul of the thing is human and
unless the human being and

contacts with the thing thing
serves a human being then

it misses and it's so architecture is in

service of the human being
not the other way around so

that began to change my
approach from the Bauhaus and

from I went through a period

which was great because it made
me focus of design detail and

craftsmanship and
how you put things together and

I think that was a critical part of that.

But coming in and realizing and even today

I think in spite of technology
advances made no matter what it

is some little guy who hasn't
changed in several thousand

years is still going to walk through
the door and he's still going to have

to face that he's what
kind of environment.

Are you creating what kind
of human environment.

Are you creating are you focusing on him.

Are you focusing on the thing.

And so with that line of thought
that began to to change and

began to create a philosophical bent

to go its time for you.

You made architects aware of the huge
impact the great spaces have an architect

in the early one nine hundred sixty S.

Could you give us just discuss
quickly with us how and

why the atrium in the India work and
how it is influenced your career.

I had no idea I had no idea
about going in nature and

went out on a trail and on my

I tend to try to understand what existed.

What was before.

What is now and where I want to take
it and what kind of contribution.

Can I make in the process and so
I started with thinking in terms of

existing city hotels and

the fact that cities were
becoming more congested and

with the advent of the car at World War
two People went from no cars to

one car to cars three cars and
all I kind of all through the fifty's and

sixty's and so congestion and

seemed to have the level of anxiety raise

and so the hassle and
people going through airports.

People kept by traffic and
all that kind of stuff so

I started thinking from
the human thing and.

Right in the middle of the city
which the Regency wasn't time and

this was in the early sixty's was
a relief from the anxiety of relief

from that kind of an environment and so

I decided to blow it up and

take the close box and blow it up and

do it in such a way created
a sense of space and

a sense of relief space and

people have a relationship to space and
the most obvious one

that you are all familiar with is
if you get in a closed elevator.

Everybody will stand in
that closed door closes and

no one says anything and
they look at the ceiling around it.

Don't you know you make eye contact and
the door opens and they scoot out and

I've found that at
the Regency not only open

the hotel or out of wall class and

made an experience that people
talk on glass elevators.

That's because their spirit
has expanded the box

pushes the spirit in but

it's all these it's all
related to the human being and

I'm a humanist and

I think that everything whether
it's automobiles is architecture or

what it is even cellphones that the human
being is the first consideration.

Urban Design critics have argued that
your designs and sky bridges also contain

all the imaging inside your buildings and
therefore suck it out from the streets.

What do you believe that
they fail to appreciate.

I think they're living in the past they
don't understand you know forgive them but

they don't understand.

The City.

Is composed of public and
private space that when the city began

it was a street it was a sidewalk
it was a first intersection.

It was a low rise building one story so
forth so on and

as a city expanded it went out and
it had more intersections and

eventually it began to go up and when the
elevator came along it really went up and

the density increased tremendously.

But meanwhile back at the ranch
the streets stayed the same the sidewalks

stayed the same for a different city
a different society a different time

and so I felt these little
blocks which traditionally were

blocked off would light some lights and
block and each block was separate

and I remember I recall my first
Venice first trip to Venice.

Yes by God what a wonderful experience.

You know there's not a car in sight and

it was the bridges but

everybody was walking it was really
human and so our local news blocks.

And the streets as vehicular rivers and
these blocked.

Masses shouldn't be little closed cells
that are separated from each other but

somehow have an integration and

encourage people to flow
from block to block and

also to do that and create a new

pedestrian level human level
away from the buses and so on.

But you've got to have both you going to
have classes exterior plazas interior

cities which are are suffering
from congestion

really need space in
a way it can't get it and

I think the more space that
you can get whether it's

an exterior Plaza or
whether it's an interior a car and

if you can enter all these things
together where it becomes a community

then it begins to make sense years ago.

You call in the phrase coordinate unit and
also refer to it when you

discuss urban design like this would
you explain what the Course unit is and

its significance in the urban design.

I came to the conclusion that
you know I asked a question How

far would someone walk before
one thinks of wheels and

in this country it's
somewhere between seven and

ten minutes max if it's more than that but
not all.

And so if you took a seven minute radius

and you walked from the center
out seven minutes and

you'd just turn out to be
a very very large area.

My thought with according
to Courtney unit.

Should be done that way
based only human scale and

how human beings could operate
without polluting cars.

I cows put them back on their feet but

that's what the court was all about
it was about trying it was human

was coming back to now
he mentioned earlier

at the Brazil and I bypass that
shame on you for not correcting me.

I don't know you idiot.

But but

I had heard about the satellites it

is in Scandinavia and

farce in Stockholm and
tapioca and Helsinki.

And so
I made a trip to Scandinavia to study

satellite cities and

I was invalid be outside Stockholm and

those had the freeway coming in and

they had public transportation and
they had this plaza and

they had to bill it and they had
a bridge over the freeway it had guards

going out towards the housing and
I was standing in the plaza and

noticed a woman pushing a baby
carriage over the bridge coming over

to the city center to
buy her groceries and

to me that had an enormous impact that
you can take all the service things and

put them in the basement with
the board where they ought to be and.

This new people experience and that's it.

Thank you.

In addition to being an architect
developer property manager and

Mart owner operator you know
an accomplished painter and sculptor.

How do you find the tavern and

had has this effort influence your
work in architectural design.

I look on architecture holistically.

And I think architectures
at its base cultural And

I think it involves all of the arts and

someone said it's
the mother of the arts and

it wants to be all one thing and
that everything

should relate to everything else and
that nothing should be arbitrary

arbitrary is foolish and so he should

seek to understand something an up to
where whatever solution you come up with

the last word you would have any want
to apply to it would be arbitrary

and I like to think in terms of
the difference between exposing and

imposing if you have a situation
the first thing you do is you expose

expose every nuance that relates to
that unique set of circumstances

and from that that's
the kernel of truth and

it's trying to tell you what it
wants to be and if you listen

you will come up with something
that will be uniquely right for

that if you have a preconceived something

if you go down the road of
preconceptions you would be headed.

For mediocrity architecture
is not about preconceptions.

It's about understanding all there
is in it in a relationship and

then the context of everything and

it comes up like this and it evolves and

in a way that's what Wright was talking
about it got an organic architecture.

He wasn't talking about it just
a look like us stone or a tree or

perhaps it was nature's form of evolution

of how Nature takes a set of
circumstances and evolves things and

that's how you approach or how I approach.

Try to approach each set
of circumstances and

look on it as not just another another but
this is a unique thing here.

There are no two things
are exactly the same.

And if you can find the thing
that makes it unique

genuinely not force and
expanding growth from that uniqueness.

Then you're doing the best you can do and

that's not imposing imposing
is having a preconception and

one something down there because you
know I've thought about doing this and

I know then that not here is
up to you know put it down and

then that works force it to make it work.

That's wrong.

And so architecture problem solving

architectures understanding
the essence of things

I like to try to understand the essence.

Of what it is we're dealing with and
go straight to the heart

of the matter and understand everything
related to the heart of the matter.

And then from that you evolve it as
nature would and it will come out and

everything will go back and
then it has validity and integrity.

I think what I'd like to did
before we run out of cash

is start taking you know
you've heard my wee questions.

So now I would like to take some
questions from some of the students and

try to all right.

If you want to come be our
moderator of them up to this

is called This is called
Stump the experts.

This is

the real

Absolutely

not know if anyone tells you that they

at that age at eighty four.

They knew what the hell they were doing
that is a whore that we're going to

think so I it's once.

But I think it's it's an understanding
what it is you want to achieve and.

I came in my career is the idea

that I can do a lot of things
I could do a lot of things.

I'm a commercial commercial commercial and

but that I didn't want to spend
my life that way I wanted to do

things that I thought
were significant that.

I made a contribution.

Because I think contribution
is life's greatest reward.

So what you do if you
put something back or

if you create something that
the contribution is is the goal

and so that was a philosophical
thing from day one

and philosophy is my avocation I mean

I don't know how you can be an architect
without understanding philosophy

without really striving to

understand philosophy and its people and

and and there are all kinds of ideas and
insights related to philosophy and

some will hit you in my heart and
say that true I really

think that makes sense to me and

you have to take those things and
build a treasure chest of things

and from that foundation that can't

very very interesting places
as you regularly do you know

Frank Lloyd Wright and I would be one
of the guys stand in line to go and

sitting in a close by

now I was there with the stories and
Jemmett moved all this

low five room frame house and
he moved all the furniture out and

said Just share in the dining room
gets warm and the great man sat there.

And you know we had just like that.

And so I went there and
out of very brief visit

and but what he said stuck
with me a man go see Emerson

next really are and so

what did you do anything
differently obviously we lost or

you just need to question

just what a story.

What human experience is just what it
was and how people relate to space

and St Peter's and

you walk into St Peter's just
a very religious place and

pulled Judas knew what he was doing when
he was doing all that they were doing that

but it had a tremendous impact and

they told me in a way.

What architectural place
could do to move people

so that was one another was
walking the sidewalks of Paris

and everybody likes to walk so
especially on a child I was a right.

You know between the ARC triangle and
the Twitters

and so
it's an interesting set of circumstances.

People like Paul.

Walk there kind of old stage and people
are sitting there like birds on a limb

drinking a glass while I'm watching you go
buy a good watch and watch and watch it.

So people like being on stage and

people like being watched and
people like watching it.

So learning these things
was helpful as well as

observing that I never met a person
didn't like a log fire and

became fascinated by a lot of fires and
watching the flames.

OK almost transfixed.

And it brought me to
the point to realize that

you know because human experience that we
are creatures of nature we are nature.

We are nature and
everything that we try to do and

try to bring in nature in
a way that brings that

natural connection to
the built environment and

those kind of thing that you
you pick up in relationship

to environmental circumstances are very
important no matter what you're doing.

Just today or

you know

I'm looking for

your generation to come down
from thirty thousand feet.

Most of the architects young
are you know it's like kids.

You don't serve kids dessert first and
then you take them to vegetables and

rest stop if should get down and

understand the basics before you get into
the philosophical theory sort of stuff

and tech was that way when I came I mean
you know the first two years here was

really no down period all our theory
was that you better watch it or

you're going to be out to a less

so but then if you move further

then you get into the last free education
and that's the problem way to go

if you spend your time with the latest
start of whatever that is and

you are willing to go down and
try to understand and

come back up you know going anywhere.

I think you've got a real problem

in the final analysis we
are a pragmatic art form

the two parts to what we do is to create
the imaginary but it's also the pragmatic.

It's the one in the yang.

That we must bring together
harmonious fashion

to make something happen if we
emphasise too much one way or

too much the other way we're going
to fail my heroes sorry heroes.

I just think as we travel
through this journey.

We call life.

We are exposed to all kinds of people and

circumstances and

some are memorable and
some have a positive effect

and at the end of the day there
are multiple experiences and

multiple people that
will have an impact or

an influence on any of us and

the trick through all this is to try going

back to philosophy and Socrates first
words and philosophy is no that's self.

Remember that you are a unique individual.

There's never been another me
in the history of time and

there will never be another me and

I can say the same about everybody
in this room so we are unique.

What we need to understand
is what is the uniqueness

that we are and
to be able to build on that and

be true to that uniqueness and
being true to oneself all saying

but trying to pick out names or
so many names and

not have to move from painters to
philosophers I could go on and on.

No I am hard pressed to throw out two or
three Anything that makes for.

We're the instant coffee kind of
people we we are very impatient

when it comes to time and

I think waiting for the transit.

If you have just like waiting for the park
in your car and getting out of the car and

then going through and waiting and
I think it's all part of it.

Plus the transit has a security problem
nationwide and that doesn't help.

So it's a combination
of all that stuff but

I was so anxious to get out and to do

to do something I've

got to tell you you know I made my first
joint venture when I was twelve years old.

We had what five or six may just be it

isn't downtown Atlanta
when I was a kid and

this was before the big fancy candy
machine to eye candy counters and

the popcorn and all that stuff and I
found out from a man of mine that I could

buy these boxes of stud chewing gum for

a certain amount not to sell it to to
have titles that retail and to sell.

I got a bunch of my classmates and
I put a little kid into rehab.

So the lowest granite terminal
in our little capital

at the Roxy at the Fox Theater
gave him a box of candy.

I mean trying to send him
out of box office and

he opened up a nice comment
I bought a ticket and

I got a little change in
the hands of Sullivan ever and

my job was to ride from here to
the theater all the second hand by and

pick up the cash and
resupply them prior to the picture

they got and
I split the profits fifty fifty with

each each of the kids had a deal
going on and it really worked.

But that has.

I never.

I couldn't imagine he's not

a credible

entrepreneur because I just I don't fit.

Genes were.

I want

to I mean one thing my mother
told me I got to go to bars but

I was money in the bank part and

civil good enough for
what I feel like all of us

pay him back and
man here you have to want to go and

bargain hunt out back and
then pay him back and

you begin to make credit history and
that's how you got to get started.

So have stumbled in
the full national bank but

women learned how to borrow one hundred
dollars and I've been barred him so.

The same and I'm sorry

I go back to the C.N.N. yang.

You've got to be as much concerned
about pragmatics as you have about

creativity and imagination.

And you've got to bring
these two things together.

That's not going to change.

I could sit here twenty years and
then out and

say the same thing and
it would be would be true it is true.