“Welcome to the poetry and proof of architecture,” said AIA Executive Vice President/CEO Norman L. Koonce, FAIA, in San Diego as he opened the 135th national convention of the AIA May 8. Koonce marveled at the changes that have touched the profession since the first AIA convention in New York City in 1867 and how they are manifested at the convention through diverse means, including the presence of women and minorities and the 150,000 square feet of 717 products and services on the exposition floor. He told the session audience of more than 3,000 architects that we should celebrate the way “our practices have changed in ways our founders could never have imagined.”

Koonce introduced the AIA’s 79th president, Thompson E. Penney, FAIA, architect of the convention’s theme, “Design Matters: Poetry + Proof,” the ineffable blend of artistic magic and scientific method that makes up the soul of architecture and uplifts the human spirit. Penney said that not a day of the last two years went by without some communication and collaboration about turning his vision into “one of the world’s premier design events.” He thanked the “hundreds of people who breathed life into the convention, foremost, Paul D. Boney, FAIA, chair of this year’s convention, who in turn acknowledged Randal Peterson, AIA, and Thomas Anglewicz, AIA, the AIA San Diego cochairs of the event.

Tsien, Williams reflect on what’s important
Keynote speakers Tod Williams, FAIA, and Billie Tsien, AIA, principals of New York City’s renowned and well-respected Tod Williams & Billie Tsien, Architects, opened their discussion of the poetry part of architecture with images of prehistoric handprints, indicating that humans have used their hands for 30,000 years as the way of leaving their mark on the earth. “Architecture is our way of leaving handprints on the wall,” Williams said.

Since the September 11 attacks, Tsien said, the two have been thinking hard about what matters in architecture. As the only architect on the board to select the finalists for the rebuilding of Ground Zero, she learned that “people believe in architecture as a way of sharing dreams.” People rejected the first round of schemes, she said, because they realized that the first attempts “represented money only and were not expressive of the future.” The second round of designs all were excellent and she “felt proud to be an architect,” she said. The process represents that people can be effective in the design process, Williams added, and that buildings must be designed and constructed with integrity. Great architecture doesn’t say “I was here” but rather proclaims collectively “we were here,” he said.

Examples of excellence
Tsien and Williams presented five examples of their work that illustrate their dedication to these themes:

• A house outside of Phoenix composed of two earth-hugging bars of sandblasted local concrete block that frame a bridged-over wash. The bars offer two large planes that protect the interior of the house from the harsh sun. A cut in the bridge allows the family to enjoy the wash in its vastly changing forms. The architects chose the house as an example of response to place by using simple materials in a thoughtful way.

• The Natatorium at the Cranbrook Academy, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., continues the devotion to excellence in the craft of architecture at the academy, which benefited from the presence of Eliel Saarinen for decades in the early part of the 20th century. Tsien describes the campus as “incredibly romantic” in its connection to both the arts and nature. The natatorium, which has 25-foot-tall glass doors that open to the outside as well as tremendous skylights that open to the sky, further relates to its site through wood details that harken its pine-forest surround and allow the large pool area to function “as a quiet space,” according to Tsien.

• The Neurosciences Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., a project composed of two building masses and an interior court, the “parapeteia,” that allows people of diverse scientific backgrounds to meet by chance and, in the architects’ words, “build a sense of community.” Its folded-plate chamber music hall is known for its excellent acoustics as well as its beauty. Some 40 percent of the concrete and fossil stone building sits underground, furthering the connection between nature and architecture. The project, which won a 1997 AIA Honor Award, is a living example of the architects’ belief that the interior of the building is as important as the exterior. They designed the tapestries and furniture that enliven the common spaces where the scientists can enjoy food and casual conversation.

• New York City’s Museum of American Folk Art, a 2003 Honor Award winner, was conceived as a “house of art,” according to Williams. The compact building, 40 feet wide by 100 feet deep, is surrounded by the Museum of Modern Art and becomes “the jewel in the bellybutton of MOMA,” says Tsien. It buries two of its five floors underground and uses a grand scale for internal circulation. Bronze panels, 5/8-inch thick, are each different, and, because they reflect the sky, each panel is “different all the time,” Williams said. The architects were inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum and have achieved, through the Folk Art Museum, a “Guggenheim in a box,” Tsien joked.

• The last project offered by Tsien and Williams was the work performed by the firm for the Robin Hood Foundation, a philanthropic organization that helps underprivileged schools in New York City to rebuild their libraries. Architects donate their time to the schools, and Tsien and Williams will have completed four such projects by year’s end.

The architects concluded their talk with a homage to those who make art out of craft; who use their hands. Architects need to learn from craftspeople, they said, to stay connected to artisanship as they move through this digital age.

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