And there is always a pleasure to be.

Anyone.

And I hope not but yes anyone who has
walked the streets of great cities.

Like Rome.

Or Paris.

Or.
London has experienced the extraordinary

harmony that exists between buildings and
the streets they form

even the character of the street and
the details of both great and

ordinary buildings are always
unique to that city.

In great cities the role of great
architecture is indispensable

think of Paris without the Eiffel Tower.

Or Notre Dame Cathedral.

Can you imagine Rome without some
Peters or the ancient Roman Forum

or London without some Paul's Cathedral or
the Houses of Parliament.

These three great cities started
life as Frohman settlements and

cities in the new world need
also need great architecture

consider Washington D.C.
without the Capitol or

the Lincoln Memorial or
the Washington novelists or

New York without the Empire State Building
or the Statue of Liberty.

Now there is Paris today.

The French wisely decided to keep
new buildings outside of the city.

Rome appears not to have
changed because there are a few

new buildings in the heart
of that great center.

But then we come to London.

And then we come to New York.

Or Shanghai.

Or there could be anywhere
else in the world.

When change.

The question I'm reading before
you is the following at what point

were lost cities lose their identity and

become part of a sameness that is
everywhere the older buildings and

the great exemplars of architecture
will be all that helps distinguish

one place from another and
as we lose these.

This will become increasingly difficult
to do to distinguish one city from

another until we will not be able
to tell where we are in the world.

This is the problem I'm setting out for
you tonight and it is a story

that begins in New York in one
thousand nine hundred sixty four.

And it begins with an act
of wanton destruction.

Fifty years ago a rare and beautiful
building was deliberately murdered

I use the word murder.

Because I believe that great architecture
is alive and it's also part of a Great to

living entity we call the city in
this case the city of New York.

Looking back I sometimes find it hard
to believe that the great Pennsylvania

railroad terminal is no longer there
that this making the facade of creation

was actually demolished and
it is only in the context of time

pass that I am able to fully
appreciate the negative

impact of this destructive
fire on the architectural.

Culture of of New York even
though the new Penn Station.

With it sports complex.

And offices is now fifty years old I can
still see the site between Seventh and

Eighth Avenue with the roll and
open room as the diminishment

of the architectural aura and
mythology of New York.

However with the benefit of hindsight
I have also become aware that this

deplorable act had a major influence
on my own life as an architect.

But broader context in which this story
takes place begins in August one thousand

nine hundred sixty four I was twenty
five years old and with my wife.

And two small children in tow arrived
to the United States from Scandinavia.

My entry into this country was made
possible by a student visa and

scholarship to study a few university.

For me this was a dream come true and
although I had never before set

foot in the United States I
felt as if I was coming home.

These were golden years of deals
architecture school which is just moved

into a new building designed by
brilliant young the whole Rudolf.

The art and architecture building it had
been featured on the cover of just about

every important architectural journal
in the world such was its impact

that a young English architect John fellow
wanted in print in the architectural

review whether the mantle of
the recently deceased Frank Lloyd Wright

had fallen on the shoulders of or Rudolf.

Like so many other newcomers.

To the shores I was most eager to
visit the mythic city of New York.

Compared to South Africa.

With his angry social and political
divisions the United States was a rare

place its founding documents embody the
noblest aspirations of the modern world

as they still do and
New York the city of skyscrapers.

Was the living embodiment of these
ideals and its skyline represented

the purest found a first station
of the twentieth century.

And it's interesting to note
that if you look at the covers

of books written in the one
nine hundred twenty S.

by great European architects who
visited the United States they

invariably have the skyline
of New York on the cover.

My first program age to Manhattan took
place on a sunny Saturday morning

in the fall of one nine hundred sixty four
I boarded a train in New Haven Connecticut

bound for New York My destination
was the great Pennsylvania

railroad station by McKim Mead and
White I had studied this

building as the student in
South Africa it's formed forms and

spaces entranced me I spent so many hours
poring over the plates of the great

folio volumes of the firm's worth that
I was able to sketch the station's

plans elevations and sections from memory.

Stepping off the train in New York I
started to climb the long stare from

the platform to the concourse
level looking up

I realized the soaring glass force was so
much higher and so

much grander than I could possibly have
anticipated they defied gravity and

appeared to float on.

My heart skipped a beat
this was a no brainer and

more gracious than anything I had
imagined studying drawings and photos.

I looked around and
wondered why the glass floors which was so

prominent in photographs of the building
had been covered over they allowed like

to penetrate down to the platform level.

And contributed to the pervasive
sin of structural weightlessness.

Or the concourse faults covered
an area larger than a football field

there was no ornament it was an or
steers symphony of steel and

glass the railroad stations in London and

Paris was simply large horse one
walk through from train to taxi

Penn Station was a place in this
own right this fast interior

with his bustling crowds was
restrained the sense of effortless in.

Which in the words of
the great historian and

architect this Kimball seemed
to exalt the visitor and

it felt American and somehow just right.

But as I gazed around a sense
that something was awry.

By was the fault of roof
covered in dust and why was so

many of the panes of glass cracked or
broken I followed the general flow

of passengers through an archway of one
Rasputin into the general waiting room

enormous in scale it is a one
hundred fifty foot high.

This moving it's a ration of
a car a carload of ancient Rome

nonetheless seem to float.

This moving interation is enormous
in scale its vaults are one

hundred fifty foot high and
they appear to float.

Its monumental A T was offset by
the parent weightlessness of this four.

Described by Fisk and build again as
the city vestibule to a great metropolis.

It felt somehow noble comfortable and
completely appropriate for a democracy.

But on that day as I walked around
I became increasingly uncomfortable

I noticed that part of the floor at
one of the room was being cut away and

the removal of the exclusive
fort had begun.

This violent vulnerable of the wall and
looked as delicate as tissue paper.

I asked one of the we're in work was going
on and it was then that I had learned that

the building was being torn down within
a few months it would be transferred

into a vast demolition.

I spent the rest of the day inside
Penn Station I felt impelled to experience

all parts of the building even
those falling before my eyes and

already in this state of ruin.

I tried to grave everything I could see
on my memory and I was very fortunate

in finding the foreman
of the demolition crew.

Who listened to my sob story about coming
from South Africa to see the building and

he took me through every
corner of the building.

I was lucky in a way because the building
was being painstakingly built

the workers were carefully harvesting
all the steel components although

the limestone blocks and
the plaster one ceremoniously smashed.

Over the next two years I visited the site
every time a came to New York I observed

the depressed taxiway on either side of
the station being filled with their brain

while the pedestrian bridges over them
which connected the general waiting

room to the city sidewalks
were being reduced to rubble.

I had particularly loved this dynamic
way to a commune accommodate vehicle and

pedestrian traffic on different levels and

solve the problems of bringing taxi.

To passengers directly to
the trains concourse and

it all was done with so much more
prints than any airport over the main.

Eventually only a vague outline of
the barrel vault to chopping off paved

connected to the waiting
room to Eighth have a new.

Over a period of months everything was
systematically reduced to a pile of

mashed stone a group of carved
Eagles that had marked the roof

roof corners were being lined up on
a pile of rubble like the spoils

of a great battle for
a victorious Emperor.

Then as now I believe that became even
why spens of a new railroad station

was the firms find this civic
work it still remains one of

two buildings which stood out to me as
quintessentially representing New York

buildings which could not possibly have
been built anywhere else in the world.

The other building is the gentlest and
relieve the greatest skyscraper scraper

ever built the empire state building one
of whose architects after Loomis Harmon

was an alumnus of the McCain
meeting White office.

Two years after my first visit and
Sylvania station was gone.

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan referred
to this as quote the greatest act of

vandalism in the city's history
Philip Johnson articulated it even more

fully saying there never was another
building like Penn Station it compare.

Of the great cathedrals of
Europe it was inconceivable that

a twentieth century city should
have poured down such a patrimony.

Penn Station brick breathtaking the beauty
embodied the highest aspirations of

modern New your walking through is
grateful to rooms which Kimball again

described as soaring musical
spaces was unlike any

other think experience in the twentieth
century Penn Station was the city's

greatest work of architecture
it was in the Kims masterpiece.

And irony of ironies all the arrogant
predictions of the building's

obsolescence so
to justify the structure and crew parole.

Today more than ten times
as many people pass through

the stations portals each year
as in one nine hundred sixty and

finally the ultimate absurdity is
that the new Penn Station crew to be

equipped to handle the passenger
volume from the very day open.

The Chicago historian call Condit
described the new station and

the Madison Square Garden complex
built on its air right as a quote

prime candidate for the most poverty
stricken architecture in New York indeed

it is questionable whether the structures
can be regarded as architecture at all.

Since in scholarly.

Pithily no to when Penn Station was there.

One entered the city like
a god now one scuttled then

like Iraq.

The fate of Penn Station spurred
me to visit of the Mackem even

white buildings in New York.

And in the small towns of New England I
became particularly interested

in their shingle style and
Colonial Revival houses

the extraordinary low house was demolished
in one thousand nine hundred sixty two but

the houses I did see was stunning this
blaze of interior spatial continuity and

crafts from ship.

On the outside.

The nearly symmetrical massing of
the houses were offset by the asymmetrical

placement of Windows dormers and
of the teacher.

Curiosity drove me to visit
buildings by the next generation of

architects who were inspired by
make a meeting why these include

architects like child's play Henry bacon.

And bacon started out as became system.

And John Russell pope the first architect
to study at the American Academy of

in Rome which was humorous creation.

I also looked at the work of the previous
generation most particularly

the extraordinary in re Hopson Richardson
the teacher of both make him and

Stanford wife.

The buildings of these three generations.

Remains the pinnacle of America's
genius in architecture.

For the first time in our nation's history
American architecture through the work

of McKim and Richardson influenced
architecture and the English in.

Europe as a consequence visitors
came from the United States and

Europe I came to the United States from
Europe in England to study a rocket tech

as well as our building
codes street lighting

libraries schools water supply.

Which were then considered to be
the most advanced in the world more than

any other architects McKim even why
change the past of American architecture

they moved away from the nineteenth
century into the twenty year and

parent of the American Rene source
movement which in prose embraced

classical architecture and
the city planning.

Now we nine hundred sixty eight
I had just started to peter.

And I learnt about Stamford White's
library built inside

Thomas Jefferson's Rotunda at
the University of Virginia at the time

very little had been built
written about this project.

I soon decided to visit Charles fell and
couldn't wait to

visit Jefferson's faster pieces
the academical village and

his home want to child.

In one thousand nine hundred five
Jefferson's wrote the university library

together with Thomas Mills as later
edition was destroyed by fire

at the time very little was made of
this event which was for to be of local

interest only today of course it would
be regarded as a national catastrophe.

Soon after the kidneys and
wife were retained to rebuild this library

to my own Stanford White's
work was masterful but

entering at the level of the portico
flaw is Library gained additional high

cohesion with its three level high.

Rotunda Jefferson's library was raised up

one floor above the entrance level and
could only be accessed by a doubles

by a double stair which undermined
the connection between the law.

The rotunda and the library.

However returning to the campus seven
years later I was stunned to find

that white library had been demolished.

It was replaced by an as it's recreate.

Of Jefferson library interior.

There are so few drawings in
Jefferson's hand of what he intended

from the library in theory it could be
life that the Imperius really live really

is largely an invention of
the so-called restoration architect.

The last of almost a master work
by Stanford White robbed us

of a sparkling interchange between two of
our greatest architect Jefferson and why.

Our third president imagine
the rotunda functioning as the head

literally the brain of the campus
with its vast storehouse of knowledge

housed in books this brain
presided over the anthropomorphic

form of the village academical
village with it with its outstretched

arms open in a gesture of welcome.

At some point in the late one nine hundred
sixty S. the university decided to remove

all parts of its library from the rotunda.

And to this day the rotunda remain
empty it's a room without a function

the form is retained but the meaning
has been lost the symbolism was changed

from a brain it now implies and

head or literally a brain the campus.

Not a great.

Symbol of for a university.

The last.

Of White's library was troubling it slowly
dawned on me that the demolitions of

Penn Station and
White's library were not isolated.

They were victims in an undeclared war
against older or older architectural and

cultural heritage.

Instant this is not only in New York but
every other city hound and

campus throughout the nation
the intention of this war on our

past was to revoke a belief change
the character of our cities

they systematically replacing old
buildings and neighborhoods with

new modern this stick structures.

Writing about plans to destroy Penn
Station in one thousand nine hundred sixty

three The New York Times opined
that we will probably be judged

not by the monuments we build but
those we have destroyed.

It is interesting in an essay
dealing with the destruction of.

Particularly historic buildings.

During the war involved in the and

hurts hurts.

The contending parties in
this war specifically for

powered historic buildings and
bridges peculiarly the great bridge

in the city of Moscow which
symbolized the harmony

on the two sides of the bridge
between the Moslems and

the Russian Orthodox groups.

And Chris Hedges.

A correspond war correspondent in
a book called War Is a Force That Gives

a meaning wrote the following about
the destruction of important.

Building the destruction of
culture plays a crucial role

in the solidification of a wartime
narrative when the visible and

pen Jubal symbols of one's
heart destroyed or deny

the past can be recreated to fit the myth.

It is the left only to those on the
margins to keep the flame of introspection

alive or
Though the destruction of culture.

Is so often so
great an act that full recovery is

impossible.

If demolition of a building in New York or
in other places was not an option

architectural changes could be made
to undermine the building's integrity

this is why we see the mutilation of older
buildings by shearing off the corner

service or by introducing inappropriate
Monthan lists windows and

architecturally unrelated additions and
alterations.

Having witnessed the destruction of
Penn Station I was left confronting

a question which nearly fifty years
later continues to trouble me.

Where did the impetus to destroy this
vital building come from what forces

were driving this and
senseless acts of demolition.

Buildings describe who we are and
what we believe in.

Jefferson admonished architecture is the
preeminent embodiment of a nation's most.

The old Penn Station connected our
American republic to the ancient

Roman Republic to the Renascence and
to two thousand.

And years of western civilization
to ancient Greece and

even to the world of the Hebrew Bible.

What we may ask if there's
the new Penn Station

complex or the expansion of
Rockefeller Center down six hundred

Tell us about ourselves
today about our ideals and

the values.

The orgy of destruction I first
experienced in the one nine hundred sixty

S. and seventy's is still
ongoing It includes ordinary but

being classical office residential and

commercial buildings as well as
masterpieces like Penn Station or

the New Haven savings bank by
Henry Henry bacon the architect of

the Lincoln Memorial let me be clear
the demolition of ordinary buildings and

less often of great
architecture is not new.

Julius the second sanctioned the pulling
down of the Olson Peter's Basilica in Rome

which was filled by
the Emperor Constantine.

And the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral.

Approved the decision to
replace the medieval cathedral.

Rather than renovate its fabric and
reinforce the structure.

But.

These two churchmen were confident that
their architects than October a month and

supposed to ren were capable of
creating new cathedrals therefore were

the successor to the Ensign
ancient structures they replaced.

Marcel broiler.

Pupil of Gropius teacher of the bow house.

Was given the commission to raise
Grand Central Station and replace.

With an office tower.

This demonstrates what a highly regarded
modern architecture proposed in this

situation the absurd
consequence of this was that

the Pan Am building now
the Met Life building

designed by a team led by
Walter Gropius which divides Warren and

with more brilliant compensation
of Grand Central Station and

the New York Central Office.

And it disrupts the view up and down.

Today we are apparently
incapable of replacing even very

ordinary buildings which were the and
gracious structures.

Degraded cities and campuses have
replaced complexity and refinement.

And nowhere is this change
clearer than in the woman.

I arrived here in one
thousand sixty four and

this famous skyline was more or
less intact.

If you haven't yet been displaced
by the insisted character and

list boxes we see today which
are totally divorced from the great city

which after all is their home.

Writing in a very different context
Robert Alter reminds us that

quote style is not merely
a constellation of a static properties

they do it is the vehicle of
a could live vision of reality.

This is an apt description of the stakes
in the confrontation between the classical

and modernistic approach
to architecture and.

They present very different and
mutually exclusive visions of reality.

It is painful to measure
the negative impact of these class.

Visions on the city of New York
the last Manhattan skyline of the one

nine hundred twenty S. embodied the
dynamism and aspirations of the current

century there's some sublime
Cata nation of skyscrapers.

Incorporated the complex
rhythms of jazz to create

a totally new expression
of classical feel.

And the key point of this is that.

This was an unspoken.

Articulated collaboration between
different architects to create

around mental shape buildings for the
smaller as they the higher they when and

with these exuberant powers with
decorative features at the top

which really spoke for the horizon.

Station remains the most powerful
icon of what New York and

New Yorkers have lost it didn't go
down without Alpha Phi The foreman

of the demolition crew crew
commented that this is one hell

of a rock solid building and
when to explain and

went on to explain how difficult
it was for we're meant.

To demolish such a beautiful building.

I've always wanted to emulate became
even why by creating a building so

wonderful that it could be
equally painful to demolish.

The aesthetic diversity the range
the quality of McKim Mead and

whites were continues to dazzle me.

The partners were dominant in
the creation of both the shingles

on the Colonial Revival.

And left us a wondrous legacy of her
with the elegant and sometimes quirky.

Hauser's.

The Kim played a central role in
the creation of the American Academy and

was that before found front of the Rene
songs and Roman revival of the carpet.

You participated in the Chicago eight
hundred ninety three World's Fair

which provided the impetus for
the city beautiful movement and

the renewal of city planning
in the United States and

became together with Fred Frederick
Law Olmstead Jr was a key figure in

the creation of the single most successful
comprehensive plan in American history

the McMillan Commission report on
the future of Washington D.C..

Sanford White's genius as an architect
overflowed into the interiors of

these buildings it was like
an unstoppable force the brilliance of his

interiors has not really
been fully appreciated and

the quality of imagination and the
remarkable diversity displayed in these

work is in my opinion equal
to the of Robert that I'm.

But McCann Mead and White dominant
legacy remains their architecture

they have produced a seemingly
endless stream of land buildings

Think of the Morgan Library
the second Madison Square Garden

the National War College Symphony Hall
in Boston which is still.

The most successful order
of Korean building.

In the United States and
some people think in the world.

The Boston Public Library
the Newport casino

the Johnson Gates of Harvard and
the University Club.

Are in New York of which look.

Great modernist wrote in new you.

All I learned to appreciate you
tell your unease solves it is so

well done it even has a strange firmness
which isn't which is not easy but

American.

Truthfully there never was another
firm like McCain meeting why.

When thinking about there were we can
often overlook the decorative elements of

their buildings or
the stunning beauty of the moldings and

their settings for public sculpture.

A remarkable quality of the rock
a texture one I have my own more and

more is the subtle balance
between whole and heart.

From my first visit to Penn Station I
still recall the near perfection of

the design of the stairs which brought
the passengers from street level down to

the general waiting room you
felt as if you were walking on.

As if an angel was carrying you down
now this is a clip which I'm not

going to show you because I
prefer together on a mac and

this is Microsoft equipment and
the two don't like each other but

Hitchcock's movie strangers
on the train has a central.

Piece which is set in Pennsylvania
railroad station in the great

waiting room and
here you see folly Granger.

The hero coming down the steps.

Of Penn Station these amazing steps
which were on a hard inches high.

And nearly twenty inches for the trades.

Off to the untimely death of one
thousand nine hundred six and

make him three years later.

Slide.

Still flourished albeit at
a lesser level of in of.

Intensity creating
the Manhattan Unisa pool building

the wreckage in tennis club which faces.

Seagram's building boom the spender
row and the Bronx screw chamber.

Standing became even White Houses and
living in a seven hundred forty

Connecticut house impelled me
to learn about colonial and

federal as well as other one thousand
century buildings understanding

American architectural history became
a focus of my life as a marker.

There was nothing said systematic
about my exploration but

I was particularly
interested in the English.

Textual roots of colonial American
architecture which was in the depth

Haitian to a new cultural and
physical conditions in the American

colony and also started just study
the history of the United States and

our political system given
that Washington and Jefferson.

Were such great architects and
virtually created our federal style of

government architecture I wanted to
learn if there were connections between

America's architecture and
our founding documents.

And our democratic system of government
three decades later my thoughts on

the subject we distilled into books
George Washington architect and

the architecture of the mark received.

In sixty eight one hundred sixty
eight I was surprised to be appointed

to the visiting faculty at the School
of Architecture and determined to

use my classes to demonstrate to both
graduates an undergraduate student

the importance of textual design.

And.
The role of history in architecture and

city planning my work with students
especially those in year college

was joyous dealing with
the more closed minded faculty.

Was much less rewarding and I resigned in
one thousand nine hundred seventy five.

And it is still true that.

A colleague of mine once described the
architectural practically in most schools

and definitely not this university

as intellectual fascists
who would simply not.

Anything with which they
were not in agreement and

which threaten the basis
of their knowledge

around this time I was having
lunch at the old Dorset hotel

with author directs the rector
of architecture at the moment.

He was sage counsel to me
was to get teaching and

narcotics the legacy can
only be a few people.

And this advice pushed me into confronting
the most of them interest decision

of my life as an architect
should I be a classical or

a modern market I think being
trained in both in South Africa

this choice was lists
a plunge into the know and

then the assessment of which set
of architectural ideals would be

the most challenging and
therefore the most satisfying.

At the time I first two buildings in
the United States were nearing completion

a small addition to
a seventeenth century house

was inspired by Stanford
white shingle style.

It was my first classical building.

The other was an addition
to the nineteen and

Connecticut's state library and
Supreme Court building.

Designed in sixty nine but not complete.

Call nine hundred seventy five.

My edition was inspired by al.

I remain proud of this building but
to my eye it seemed to lack the intensity

of conversation that occurred
say between Charles.

And Ernest at the Corcoran Gallery
of Washington D.C.

I chose to become a classical architect
a decision I have never regretted

because the yardstick
used to evaluate my work

would be the greatest
architecture of lost.

To most architects and friends except
after Drexler from the Johnson and

Henry Reed This was an absurd
decision older practitioners

some of whom spent their last years
working for Modern this swarm but

my decision was professional suicide
giving the near impossibility

of realizing classical architecture in the
world of the one nine hundred seventy S.

I was guardedly optimistic and hoped I
would be able to create a small office.

And make sufficient money to
support my family of five children

at the time I knew of no other full
time classical architect practicing

anywhere in the United States
during the nine hundred seventy S.

three events occurred that were
of the importance to my practice

the first in one thousand nine
hundred seventy one was my decision to

invite Henry hope to read
the founder of classical America and

author of The Golden City
lecture to my students.

The dramatic juxtapositions of the new and
old in these books written in one thousand

fifteen month I remain more pertinent
today than when the book was written and

generously Henry in Preview
through to John Barrington baby.

Lee who was later to design the beautiful
one story addition to the museum.

They shared a vision of classical America
which found voice in their journal

classical America which
was a beacon of hope.

The second event was the landmark
a museum of modern art exhibition in

one thousand nine hundred seventy five of
the nineteenth century work of students of

the Bose art in our US this
hugely successful exhibition

stunned the architectural world with its
display of large watercolor presentations

a young fringe students who
were in their early teens.

And went on to become some of provinces
afraid to start your day this group

included child's gone yea who designed
the Paris Opera House on really Bruce.

Reviewed pics engine of year and.

Who designed the a call but those
are its impact on the public was to open

minds of the possibility
of new classical buildings.

The third of it occurred at the end
of the one nine hundred seventy S..

This was the exhibition I
curated with Arthur Drexler moma

it was the first crypt respective anywhere
of the work of the English architect

who died in one nine hundred forty four
although the show was modest in scale

seeing his twentieth century classical
buildings on display at the moment

inspired both young and
architects and the general public to

imagine they were in a salsa
class a lot which are.

Around this time the very Our idea of
modern classical architecture seemed

could be so outrageous that.

I was actually considered to read.

When I asked.

To lecture to a state chapter
of the American Institute of

Architects I was told by the organizers
that fairness demanded a modernist

you were time to reply to my
presentation you know was I alone

architect you needed a part
time job to feed my family.

Why I wondered was the rich and
powerful so worried.

The answer is because
of the power of ideas.

However all this position me in
a very helpful way as a member

of an EV on God one.

Momentous to courthouse was completed in
one thousand nine hundred seventy eight

and was widely published soon after I
was asked to design the new house for

a young family and
their extraordinary expanding art

collection interest to be
based on Mount Vernon and

argue as I might this was an on
the go Shabelle condition.

We soon learn soon learned that many
early architects including Kim Eden Y.

and John Russell hope had received
similar requests from their clients

because Washington and
these two architects chose to.

Render Mt Vernon as
symmetrical buildings and

as most of you know it is
in a symmetrical thing.

Because Washington's design is so
resolved and so

perfectly integrated into its
garden I found that my design was

a real uphill battle I swear
to it over the drawing board.

Given that the asymmetry of Mount then
was a feature Washington clearly want.

He as a holdover premies elder
brother Lawrence was design

one could either follow Stanford wine.

And the FIA date riddle house and
design an asymmetrical building

with a big bay window on one side and
exaggerate this quality or

design symmetrically like Hope and
make a meeting.

As by design of Paul I
set the windows service

they were not lined up one above the.

Rather they line up opposite
along opposite edges so

that with the shutters open it creates
a serpentine across the facade and

each hall of the front side
is in fact a symmetrical.

On the south side I have
five bays seven and

used round rather than
Washington Square columns.

Or proportion of the House can
order creates a more muscular sob.

My practice started to grow.

Slowly a retail project.

Academic buildings.

Ten Rehov all of William and
Mary and an industrial commission

that is the Athens GA band I have
rolled in Daily News building.

It also received a very unusual
request to design the launch area

of the State Department into
a new office suite of offices for

the Secretary of State George Shultz.

And this is he's waiting room.

And including a suite of rooms for
signing treaties until this

time the State Department signed over four
hundred you and they never had a room.

So.

Secretary of Secretary Shultz
sets faced aside for this.

This commission established my firm.

On a more solid foundation recently
possible because it was paid for

by privately run raised funds and
short circuited the dull and

of the G.S.A. I was living my dream.

My house practice continued to evolve
during the ninety's other commissions

include universe few
buildings Rice University.

Offices in London and
a retail building in Los Angeles.

The last two used an unusual
prefabricated construction system and

exploited the marvelous climate of
Southern California with Al Gore Paris's.

The twenty first century has brought
new challenges including a lot

of farm this is Marcus' few It's camp to.

Academic and science buildings.

This is a nanotechnology in the bar
a tree of the universe the.

Tough economy and suffering.

That is a University of Denver but is not.

And houses of a very different

characters.

Their wonderful difference is that
now I have to compete for every job.

Gains of brilliant young architects.

And I say wonderful because
the growth of class for

a lot of texture now exceeds
the limits of my wildest dreams.

Our work opportunities continue
to multiply as the influence

of our ideas evolves and grows.

But I continue to mourn the loss
of Penn Station and looking back I

now understand that the engine driving my
decision in one nine hundred seventy five.

To become a classical architect
who was born amid the rubble of

New York's noblest building.

The destruction of Penn Station
was a mindless act.

It was this very quality of
mindlessness that propelled me

to move in the opposite direction
to strive to connect architecture

with the world of the mind
to the world of history and

to the world of the educated imagination.

Despite the passage of half a century
I recall as if it was yesterday

the beautiful sunny day in New York when
I stood amid the ruins of him station

determined to engrave its forms in
the on through the deepest recesses

of my imagination.

I did not to feel alone on that day or

I could feel the distraught and
barely discernible

shadow of a child's fall and
make him standing beside me.

And with macam as one of our guys I
hope to help restore architecture to

its rightful place as the basic building
block out of which cohesive city

which express our local culture and
climate are going to be built Thank you.

Anybody have any questions.

Well I've convinced everybody.

Well you have to be nice to your hosts.

Here.

Yes.

Me.

Do you why does my firm produce all of
it's drawing even for logs and complex.

Building.

The answer is my one foray
into collaborative work with.

An associated.

Was really a battle of
very very difficult so

since then I haven't done that
we do everything in house.

And our offices organize vertically so
that we're the team

who starts the building is
the team who finishes it

structurally structuring it
the way most offices are with

the department construction
drawing Department and.

Site of ministration department.

I think is a.

Catastrophe because it's
been shown many times that

building failures can
usually be traced back to.

Situations in which the people who.

Are.
Check the shock drawings on all the people

who designed the killer of
the building that failed.

This.

Well I was in Paul Rudolph last Closs so
I had.

Oddly enough an amazing
relationship with him poor Rudolph

was the only faculty member at Yale who
come into the studio walk to five o'clock

we usually close these office
at eleven twelve one am and

within one block to be in a building and

see who was working in the studio and
because they had children and help.

With him during the day or
we're down the night in the studio

and so
I was in theory of leave there and we.

Spent hours just talking together and
Rudolph.

In one thousand in the spring of one
thousand nine hundred sixty four

who's the only architect and
or even architectural

who's historian who would have
looked at my drawings at that for

this particular project and
seen courtyards and

said Alan have you walked through
the courtyards of college and

I said No I haven't and he sat down and

drew me a map of the university
with the little daughter for

the daughter trail telling
me how to walk home.

From the architecture school through all
the college courtyards to the matter

of student housing which he designed.

On the hill which I did and
of course the courtyards are amazing

I actually would go so
far first to say they have more pewter for

than many of the Oxford courtyards.

So I.

Continue to revere the man and I was
one of the few people that came to his

birthday celebration on the top
floor of the UN building in.

The early ninety's just about
a year before he died and

I gave him that.

One thousand nine hundred five
monograph on my work with a.

Long inscription.

Rudolph was always.

He didn't care what your
vocabulary was this was

just a question of whether it was good or
bad.

And he.

I think he designed his
architecture school to

awaken the architectural imagination.

He the building was a bare
bones spacial sphere.

But.

Unlike say the bell house building
which leaves me quite dead.

Whereas I love the buildings of
the here Rudolph architecture school

had the Selectric energy going through it
and even when these collarbone nets which

with the curtains sort of multitude
of read morning your twin popped

it didn't really matter.

It was spatially so weak sighting and

there were these plaster casts
of sculptures everywhere

you could watch see the pan earth in
a procession from the Hoffman on.

As you climbed up this open
staircase on each level there

was a different part of this and you
look to do it in a way that the ancient

Greeks would have had a mock
up at a very steep angle.

You actually saw it head on and you could
see all the distortions the sculptor had

made to.

Recognizing that his work would
only be seen in a very huge

angle.

And I love the little seminar
rooms in the corner because

Rudolf method of teaching was to.

Say to who is walking around
the studio we would say.

Alan has a problem with his
design Let's go into the room.

Pin it up and
then maybe you guys can help him and

he'd pin up the drawings and
short of shred them and

then using his advice for the advice and

comments of students he
would somehow you listen to.

He helped you find a new pathway to
what you were trying to do to achieve.

And as is indicated by the man
showing up in the studio one am He was

just totally and
utterly committed to walk a picture and

all of his students left architecture
school with the conviction that

architecture was a noble profession and
that an eighth of an inch

could be the difference between good and
bad people.

You were all imbued with the notion
that this was a noble profession.

Which didn't last very long
Charles Moore took over the school and

Charles Moore was into.

How can I describe it touchy feely I
mean they had you know college and

undergrad do works who
are among the smartest.

Eighteen year olds in the world walking
from New Haven Railroad Station

to downtown New Haven and
Yale with a notebook sort of collecting

autumn leaves and pasting them and
sort of noting what they see and

what they were in the years were.

There was the school and the building
were totally opposite extremes.

Charles Moore thrived in parties which
he gave the students in his house.

And.

Lectured showing Cho hundreds
lines of fountains but

with no when Alice have said all and

he would have the first year of class
sitting in a circle of exchanging ideas or

as he as you would put it in the current
sixties terminology wrapping.

It was just so different and
the school grated on him.

And to look at whom down now the big
change in character of the of

the architecture school I can give you
by an example when arrow Saruman died.

And his estate was being
sorted out his widow.

A lien.

Gave the architecture
school all his diaries.

Everything related to his office I
mean they had all these car keys and

these offices he.

Plas.

Must have been forty folios from the.

Saarinen office.

Including some had.

The labels of the Library of.

The library of us are unknown and

these were given to the architecture
school they stayed in Charles and

was office for nine months until fire.

All through which I bought them for
twenty five dollars a year will

library say all.

The books were not seen
to have any value or so

they very helpfully
Scotty filled my library.

But the.

They with such.

Personalities you couldn't imagine
more thriving in Rudolf school and

Rudolf arriving in a school
that each of the more.

Two childs what the Bobs tunes.

In addition to the library.

Births sad or like him and.

It is really it's like
putting a leg in the same

cage as a cheater.

Rudolph's building has
a really has a very edge.

If you fall against the.

Concrete structure you can shred
you're wrong it's their interests.

And the.

The architecture was basic I
think Gropius want to be our

house building to be sort of
a statement of fundamentals but

it isn't work you never quite sure
what he's trying to say maybe

the vilest of was more a statement
of fundamentals but Rudolf took it.

To the in the green.

This was space these four
walls these four walls and.

Had a texture ceiling a different texture
on the walls polished concrete floors and

orange how the carpet everywhere.

It was I thought it was amazing I loved
every minute of the building I think

Charles was me and Stern the fang
the building I mean it's like.

A.

Can of all from the African
jungle with claws for teeth.

And totally on

threatening.

Your.

I think what we call modern market.

Is actually much more complicated than it.

Presented by critics and
by architectural historians I mean to be.

Truthful the work of say look.

And of.

And of Meese found a row have
less to do with each other

than they have to do with say
a great classicists like so

Edward Lachance who is of my own
rules on a personal basis for

Frank Lloyd Wright and
A was much admired by him because in

fact luncheons is the only architect.

Because.

Only contemporary architect Luca Brasi
ever said anything nice about it.

In print.

So I think there is also a major

difference between right and between.

Zero and and news from the row and
say what I call the school or

to grow here.

Nice right and what all trained as

classical architecture
classical architects.

In every office means found
a room inhabited from

he's moved to Berlin in one
thousand nine hundred two for

the day I don't remember to
his last office in Chicago.

The only decoration he had any
personal office was he careened Nick.

Column which he had drawn as a young man.

He was a great student
production call and.

On the.

Basic training was as a classical
architect as was Alvarado.

And you can see Altos early buildings
in Finland which are quite beautiful

is very austere some pole
brick classical churches and

other buildings.

I think this infused the architecture
All right up to the time

they die with classical
qualities which are different

from what I call the school of
growth yes and its manifestation

in the United States in the work of
say the Office of McKim meaning why.

They are producing what i course building.

You can stand on Park Avenue in New York
and look at Seagram's building and

you see a building with the group
of columns that you can feel going

through the whole building.

You look at the neighboring but
leave a house or other buildings and

they are buildings which are essentially
skins we call the curtain wall and

you have no feel for what goes on
inside the building and you generally

see the building as a package there
was a cartoon in The New Yorker of a.

GUY STANDING rapping his building in

paper on which there was
a pursuit of printed.

You sometimes feel with the air so when
buildings in New York can bear the curtain

or actually goes up and covers the roof.

I don't happen to like in the old us.

I don't see them as architecture
I see them as packages.

The great.

Modernist like Alto and me.

Didn't do skin the way they did buildings
which are infused with the food.

Unmentionable sense of structure and
a sense of unprovable morphism.

I mean the whole point of classical
architecture from the Greeks

to use to shirts is that.

Prosecute a lot of pictures and
procure morphic.

You have the corner switches ahead
every transitional between materials

is as a molding on the.

You have a corner of the pulp so
you hide the junction between the wall and

the ceiling because they span
different places you usually get

a crack then you cover this.

Or the floor or the baseboard around the
floor is like a fort a Greek column has

interests so like this.

Every every Greek temple has
different molding there is not

one mold in one in the Greek temple
which is repeated from another building

as just like columns of
person every person because.

When you look at the Parthenon.

You see the citizens of our
Athens supporting the roof of.

Athena I themas home.

Because her shield pins this.

Same is true of the Lincoln Memorial
it's a citizen of every state.

And it's anthropomorphic and
it's architecture room and

developed to define cities
the streets of cities and

the here rock new
buildings in cities temple.

Government buildings houses
that separate separate.

And that was the basis of
all Western architecture.

To think that you can create
a new architecture about how.

We can be as rich and
create great cities like Venice and

Rome power us.

Is a policy you can do it I mean
truly walking around the campus here

there are lots of new buildings
some of them nice of the novice.

You come across this building
it's like finding a great

book in a lie on the shelf
of books in the library.

It's a masterwork.

And.

Maybe connects Atlanta to would pass and

not only to Atlanta's past but
the United States the past and to.

The history of Western architecture
classical architecture can do this

modern more you can.

Critique one said that you
can find four corners on

a city block anywhere in
the United States designed by modern

architects where one corner has
anything to do with another.

And the problem is all cities are just
fragments coming in the assembly

of fragments of the new building which
have no relationship to the street to

the adjacent building and
all they do is tell you Well

you know John Smith or
Jane Smith side view about architecture.

And story very depressing story.

Well they own rules they are convention
it's a really important distinction

there are no rules I mean the first
man to break the rules and

a lobbyist Quatro of Libris
is Palladio himself and

you only have to see this
when you walk around and

look at the buildings with these drawings.

They are conventions and

like the conventions of the English
language they are meant to be straight.

To be broken or
to be rendered more eloquently and

that is the whole history of Western
architecture I mean this is.

The same column the Greeks
through their different

know Greek would walk into
this building and say.

Yes.

Just like just like old F. that.

They would.

I mean what I try to do in the State
Department I tried to create rooms in

which Jefferson would feel at home and
say yes

I understand this that is so different.

How you know.

We be fairly I think you would
be fascinated by our work

today because that is so
different but uses.

The same language it's like
the difference between Henry James and.

James Joyce.

Or child that they can.

All stand I mean they all right or
Shakespeare they all right in English.

They all follow some of the conventions
but the results are so different.

I don't know that all of your

question.

Will be I think you
are partially correct I think.

Architecture from the ancient Greeks

has always been interested
in taking all the genes.

The Romans built differently from
the Greeks faster and cheaper.

That's what architecture
is all been about.

I mean people who say it's not
innovative are just ignorant.

The adoption of the steel frame
was not a function of work

coming out of Europe in the one
nine hundred twenty S. It was.

People like Daniel Burnham and
McKim Eden Y. and George P. Post and

others in New York and
Chicago who design classical buildings

which would cover which
were in fact steel framed

buildings the force of the mechanical
movement of air through buildings

the adoption of the air conditioning.

The adoption of.

Hygiene hospital architecture I mean
all this was part and parcel of

being a classical architecture
architect street lighting.

Light fixtures were designed
by by Alcatel it's.

All the great bridges of New York.

Had architects as well as
engineers designing them.

And I think the gulf
between engineering and

architecture between architecture
engineering and Susan planning is so

vast today that the professions can barely
talk to each other but that's wrong.

I think they should all collaborate
fully with one another.

As regards economy.

I think that.

I think that beautiful buildings
always cost more money.

Seagram's building.

Costs more.

And better even nice is
much cheaper skies free.

Tall buildings in and
around Chicago Croix and other places.

Probably cost a little bit more.

But I don't think money is a problem in
the United States is made into this huge

issue because of rarely.

This we have been taught that
there is always a cheaper way.

I mean perhaps you can go to China and
learn about shoddy your ways of building

than we undock are you just have to
spend time in New York and you will see.

Techniques of economy that
the by the imagination and

so much is made of what
happened at nine eleven.

Well the New York City Police Department
of Fire departments

still communicate with each other.

The.

Problem of fire proofing steel is done
the same shoddy way today as it was

prior when the World Trade Center
was little.

The World Trade Center is a marvelous
example of the economy of chieftainess

they saved a bundle of money by building
the fire steers out of dry wall.

Not out of concrete I mean
had those planes flown into

the Empire State Building
they would have bounced off.

They would have been damage but nothing
in the building would naturally fall down

the fact that the World Trade Center
is just a tribute to your.

Shoddy construction to New York City's
shoddy construction or

shots shoddy if.

They don't police it's a good bill
building very well and the the.

The unit the this is the government entity
that built the World Trade simply didn't

have to worry about building codes they
just built to the way they want to.

So I think economy is important
we don't like to waste money but.

I think beautiful buildings even
though they may cost a little more

well with the money my last
thing I'm going to say is that

there is a history of public
housing in the United States and

in Europe which is disgraceful these
buildings have been the mall in England

in France and in the United States
the buildings of the one twenty S.

and one nine hundred thirty S.
because they were totally been humanizing.

Prior to that from world
the United States in Korea into

World War One and Nine hundred twenty
five or nine hundred twenty six

there is a history of housing projects for

working class and poor that.

Most of the building still exists
a most of them have been sold by Hard

to the residence of condominiums and
you can go.

What is Iran likely name Raney an avenue
in Bridgeport Connecticut which is for

brick wall productions center and
you will find a Help

project called Sunnyside which is
like a little English village.

With.

So in Pine Street and
these brick Georgie and houses and

the lesson of there is that poor people
like to live in the same kind of houses

as rich people and
they don't mind having less space.

But thank you.