I wrote this while listening to Beata Viscera, by Perotin, sung by the Hilliard Ensemble. Click to Listen!
Do we really have to pass things on to the next generation? With what grace does the new come, and the old stay, or indeed go?
After thirteen years away, I have come back today to Yale, the place where my proper pursuit of architecture began. I owe my time here to Alec Purves, who was associate dean of the school when I applied. While I was unreachable, drawing Buddhist temples in the Korean countryside, Alec was calling my mother in Oregon, explaining how Yale would be a transformational experience, and better than Harvard or Princeton, where I had always thought I would go. Something in my mother was moved by Alec’s gentle persistence, and a sense of integrity and conviction in his voice. I myself was convinced, and I soon found myself in New Haven.
Alec was true to his word: Yale was indeed transformational. He guided my design in second year as I imagined an Anglican monastery made of a labyrinthine double spiral. It centred on a chapel made entirely of layers upon layer of laminated glass, wrapped with tall, narrow stone spaces inscribed with scripture by the resident monks. From day to day, I felt an unfolding within my heart. Architecture could hold meaning, and the material or detail of its execution could have as much significance as the general shape and function of its form and spaces. Alec taught me the sensitivity and persistence needed to search for meaning in every move I made as a designer.
This ethos has never left me. Today we sat at Mory’s* for three hours, combing through every detail of the projects my studio has designed and built over the past eight years. The same gentle but relentless questioning, the same thoughtful analysis continued even beyond lunch as we walked the campus touring the many new buildings that have been added since my last time visiting. We must have appeared an odd pair: a white-haired man in his 80’s and a middle-aged Korean stooping down to knock at a bit of aluminium trim here, a bit of stone detailing there, and checking the quality of brick ageing elsewhere. We celebrated some of the winning details, and lamented some of the architecture that was already ageing poorly after a short time.
Grandchild, I hope you will always leave enough time for important appointments. Even with nearly four hours together, the time felt too short, and I had to rush off to meet Trattie Davies, one of my classmates from Yale. For more than forty years, Alec has been teaching the Introduction to Architecture class, and Trattie is teaching with him now that he is getting older. Trattie and I spoke of how much impact Alec has had on decades of students, and how difficult it is to imagine handing over the reins of such a role.
As we shared stories and thoughts, Trattie and I were joined by Tian Hsu, my brilliant young intern from our GenZ programme last year. Tian is a force of nature and so full of energy and passion for design. We took a long walk through the campus and I continued with my knocking on corners, frames, panels, and we again must have looked an odd pair: a middle aged man and a first year student banging away on buildings in the darkening November night. We visited Beineke Rare Books library, enthralled by the brass and stone details, and were blown away by the beauty of Kroon Hall, the school of environment and forestry designed by Hopkins Architects with Atelier Ten, where your grandmother works.
I reflect now on the journey of the day, from James Gamble Rogers and the 19th century collegiate gothic architecture, to Gordon Bunshaft and Paul Rudolph making their modernist mark on Yale, and then Michael and Patty Hopkins, Norman Foster, and Robert A.M. Stern’s studio as well.
As I I banged away on the buildings, it warmed my heart to see Tian also investigating bolts and detail connections in the beautiful timber structure of Kroon Hall. Next year she may have Alec or Trattie teaching her first class of formal introduction to architecture. How incredible that these generations of designers could all come together in a single day - all of us brought together by a love for design and an insatiable curiosity about our buildings, our cities, and how things are made.
I told Alec today of Renzo Piano’s quote: “Buildings are like children. You want then to have a good life.”
I wonder if buildings could speak, whether they would share the same intense feelings that I had today with an eighteen and an eighty-year old.
Would the old buildings look on to the new ones and hope for them a happy and distinguished life? Would there be a day when even James Gamble Roger’s Harkness Tower might have to move aside for another generation of buildings? It fills me with deep melancholy to imagine it. And yet time moves inexorably on.
I feel so lucky to have these people and these buildings in my life. A day like today in New Haven is unmeasurably precious. These days define our lives.
Someday you will also be that young one who stands side by side with your father, with me, and all of the generations that came before. And some day you will be the elder one, watching the youth spring up around you. I hope that all of us can stand tall and celebrate our positive intention for the world.
With love,
Your grandfather. 16 November 2022, New Haven and New York.
