To the Student in Architecture (Part One)

Over the years I have had contact with aspiring young architects from grammar school to university.  Student groups of all ages have come through my office, I have given talks at career days, and I have counseled young people thinking about a career in architecture at every invitation.  For a few years I taught architectural design at the college level and even taught architectural drafting at a trade school. Whenever these young students ask me what I think of their contemplated career choice in architecture, my answer is always the same: run in the opposite direction as fast as you can!   Most people have deep misconceptions about what an architect does - how he or she spends a typical day and, especially, what they earn. Architecture is viewed favorably among professions, with few negative connotations. That’s because it is perceived as something far more glamorous and financially rewarding than the reality.

Of course, my usual follow-up when discouraging a career in architecture is, unless you truly have a passion for it. That would be true with most jobs. However, it seems to me to be especially true of architecture because the path to obtaining a license is very long and the remuneration rather dicey.  Is there enough reward for the investment? Some careers might be a logical choice because the money and benefits are so great you can put up with a lot of BS and some degree of delayed gratification (early retirement, for example).  That’s probably not going to happen with most architecture-related jobs.  Unless you are a star architect working internationally (think Gehry, Liebskind, or Hadid) the hours will be long, the pay meager, and the opportunities for creativity few. Think, young student in architecture, if six years of college, an extended internship, and low pass rates in the professional exam are worth the time and expense.  Career paths in law and medicine are much faster and more lucrative. Or get an MBA and open doors in business and finance. Perhaps go into construction or development where the decision-making power in architecture truly resides.  Anything but architecture itself!

And yet, do I regret my own choice of career? No. Because I didn’t have a choice. I had to be an architect. The kind of passion I had for architecture drove me to get the education and experience I needed to become an architect. It sustained me in seeking out clients to support that ambition.  So, if you truly have a passion for it, nothing will stop you from becoming an architect. These next couple of  blog entries are addressed to that young student in architecture.

An Architect's Screensaver

Every day I find myself smiling when I look at the screensaver on my iPhone. It’s an image of Santiago Calatrava’s Milwaukee Art Museum. The main space, which serves as a lobby and an event center, is a cathedral to art. It is pure space, uninterrupted by superfluous furnishings or ornamentation. The photograph (taken by the late Rob Munger) captures the building with people to give it scale. Light shimmers on the highly polished floor surface. The structure soars to great height and seems to hover above lake Michigan, seen through the arc of windows. Of all the iconic museums designed by famous architects in recent years (Gehry’s in Bilbao, Liebskind’s in Denver, Renzo Piano’s in Chicago, etc.) the Milwaukee museum is, in my opinion, the best. I could (and sometime probably will) spend some words on analyzing why this is so. For now, please allow me to share my current screensaver. 

The lobby of Santiago Calatrava's Milwaukee Art Museum.

Is Dr. Ben Carson an Architect?

This blog is about exploring architecture in all its facets. It says so right on the masthead. Architecture is my area of expertise and I am pretty scrupulous about limiting my observations to just that subject. Sometimes other realms overlap this singular intent, as when I felt compelled to write about Donald Trump being “classy.” (The architecture he espouses is distinctly not classy.)  Now it happens again: politics intrudes into the world of architecture with Republican candidate Dr. Ben Carson's assertion that the ancient Egyptian pyramids were built to store grain. In 1998 at Andrews University he said “when you look at the way the pyramids were made…. My own personal theory is that Joseph built the pyramids in order to store grain.” On November 4, 2015 Dr. Carson confirmed his original statement when questioned by reporters. The subject has become entwined with 2015 presidential politics.

Is Ben Carson an architect? Or an archaeologist? No on both counts. So on what authority does Dr. Carson make this ridiculous claim?  He knows the pyramids aren’t hollow, doesn’t he? A grade-school-level of knowledge tells us the pyramids are mostly solid rock with a few small chambers and tunnels. Egyptian writings tell us their purpose: for royal entombment.  The pyramids also happen to predate the biblical Joseph. Furthermore, the Bible itself provides no corroboration for this empty idea. Dr. Ben Carson has no training in architecture; he had best stay away from the subject altogether and stick to something he knows, like politics. Oh, wait. He has no experience in politics either…

Pyramid at Giza.  Mostly solid.

Dr. Ben Carson.  Mostly hollow. 

For a detailed analysis of the pyramids-as-granaries idea, read Jason Colavito’s November 6th blog: The Long Strange History of the Pyramids as the Granaries of Joseph.

Lantz Architecture Blog

In this blog I have written about the architectural work of LaVerne Lantz . Now another writer, Maureen Brock, is devoting a new blog to Lantz's work. Brock is a marketing professional specializing in the design of websites and social media strategies. Her blog is a labor of love featuring original photography of Lantz projects.  It also reproduces old photographs and drawings from the Lantz archives. You can find Ms. Brock's blog at LaVerne Lantz: An American Architect. 

Wurster residence by LaVerne Lantz.

LaVerne Lantz's own residence in Delafield, Wisconsin was opened by Molly Lantz for a recent tour of Wright-influenced homes. This was in addition to a hugely successful "Wright and Like" home tour in 2014 which included six of Lantz's projects.  This activity reflects a growing interest in Lantz's work and mid-century modern architecture in general. There is even a Facebook page devoted to current and former home owners, friends, and fans of LaVerne Lantz's architectural legacy, The LaVerne Lantz Homeowners Group. I ran across the Facebook page while writing this entry and found, to my surprise, a photo of one of my own designs identified as a "little gem by former Lantz apprecntice, Denver architect Michael Knorr." (In fact, I was only eighteen years of age when it was designed and Lantz was instrumental in helping land my very first client.)

Wurster residence.

For those interested in my previous Lantz blog entries, here are the links:

Part I.
Part II.
Part III.

Images: George Hall

Donald Trump and Classy Architecture

A focus group of Donald Trump fans was recently interviewed on MSNBC. One question caught my attention:

Q. How do you envision a Donald Trump presidency?
A. It would be classy. 

Seriously?  Donald Trump is classy?  Regardless of what one may think of Trump's political ideas (or lack of them) the adjective classy doesn't belong in the same sentence as Trump. That's my opinion, but, obviously, to some people Trump does connote class. The conversation reveals a huge rift in agreement on what classy even consists of. 

This isn't a blog about politics, it's about architecture. So my comments come from a specific perspective. The first time I ever saw a Trump building, Trump Tower in New York, the adjective that came to mind wasn't classy. Gauche, perhaps. Or, less kindly (in Trump's world it seems OK to be unkind), cheap, pretentious, megalomanic, delusional....
Trump Tower is like most of Trump's real estate. The color "gold" is slathered over everything, either as brass, anodized aluminum, or gold paint. None of it is really gold. That doesn't matter; pour on enough of the gaudy, shiny stuff and people get the point: this is rich man's territory. There are also plenty of mirrored surfaces, suggesting infinite amounts of wealth. It is a triumph of glitz over style. Strip away the surface decoration and there is very little architecture left and zero originality. The lobby is just a suburban mall turned vertical.

Trump's penthouse apartment in the same building is even worse. It is a shameless display of gaudy decoration, impressive by its opulence, but not by its good design. All the trappings of a rich man are strewn about, but there is no architecture and no sense of style.  It is such a cartoonish interpretation of what a rich man's home should look like, it might as well be the apartment of Thurston Howell III or Scrooge McDuck. That this can be construed as classy is discouraging.

Maybe it's my conservative Lutheran upbringing. My childhood was imbued with the idea that a display of wealth was not polite.  Certainly no one has an exclusive claim on what is good or bad in the world of design. I'm aware that criticizing another person's idea of classy contains its own snobbish arrogance. Who am I to set the standard? Nevertheless, the qualities of good design may be debated, but it should not be a battle of opinions. It should be a debate about principles. I can't see any sturdy design principles behind Donald Trump's self-created potentate trappings. It's not classy.

Architecture Big and Small

The Denver Post recently ran an article about the popularity of "tiny houses" while mentioning in passing the prevalence of "McMansions."  I wrote the following letter to the newspaper, published two days later.

Rebekah Paulson is building a Tiny Home for herself in
Fort Collins. The home is 20 feet long by 8 feet wide and 13'6" tall.
(Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

Re: "Colorado woman's tiny house lets her live large on less," July 7 news story.

Your article about recent widespread interest in tiny houses contrasted them to so-called McMansions. These two phenomena are often compared, but important points about both tend to be obscured. 

Tiny houses are fun experiments in using resources wisely. However, a large part of their popularity comes from the fact that our economy is too broken to support home ownership for many who crave it. Increasingly, only the well-off can consider building a full-size home. 

Regarding McMansions, this term originally meant very large tract houses that pretend to be grander than their vapid finishes should allow. They are mass-produced like hamburgers with no understanding of taste or style.  Now McMansion has morphed into any big house no matter its utility or architectural worth. A funny criticism has turned into a spiteful slur. 

Contrasting tiny homes with McMansions conflates two unrelated issues and sets up a straw man for the advocates of tiny houses to attack. There is plenty to be said about tiny houses and much to criticize in awkward tract houses, but abusing metaphors only confuses both subjects. 

Michael Knorr, Architect

The Architecture of Two Cathedrals

Minneapolis and St. Paul are fun to compare (see previous blog entry) and nowhere is the temptation to compare more compelling than in their two major cathedrals. The Basilica of St. Mary is adjacent to the central business district of Minneapolis; the Cathedral of St. Paul sits on a promontory on the west edge of St. Paul. Both buildings have been hailed as among the finest examples of ecclesiastical architecture anywhere in the United States. The St. Mary cathedral opened in 1914 and was designed by architect Emmanuel Louis Masqueray. St. Paul cathedral opened a year later and was also designed by Masqueray. That's right: two spectacular edifices by the same architect at the same time in neighboring locations. What architect today would not salivate over such opportunities? Masqueray did not squander his professional good fortune, producing two masterful examples of beaux-arts architecture. They compare favorably to just about any European example of spectacular church design.

The arrangement of St. Mary's is straightforward. A truncated transept rapidly forces attention on the altar, bathed in light from above. Heavenly aspirations pull the viewer/audience/supplicant forward to glorious resolution. Light floods the space with heavenly grace.

1. The barrel-vaulted nave of St. Mary's focuses attention on the alter.

2. Hints of light. 

3. The dome above the alter at St. Mary's. 

4. The alter at St. Mary's. 

5. Exterior, Basilica of St. Mary's in Minneapolis.

Nobody does it better than the Catholics, of course, in manipulating emotions through architecture. They learned long ago that modulating space on a grandiose scale induces awe.

Across the river at the Cathedral of St. Paul, manipulation of interior volume is more obviously thematic with a hypnotic repetition of circles, arcs, and domes. If anything, it is even more spectacular than its sister in Minneapolis. The ambulatory unfolds with a stunning series of chapels, resplendent with monumental statues and some of the richest marble floor designs found anywhere. All culminates in a magnificent dome full center in the space.  Here the main upward thrust is over the nave, not the altar (though the altar is celebrated by a baldachin that rivals the Vatican's). The effect is uplifting - the spirit soars with the crescendo of the architecture. Man seems exalted - a theater-in-the round with the audience in the middle, blessed by glorious light.

6. The great dome over the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral.

7. Rose window at St. Paul's.

8. Central dome over the nave; secondary apse over the alter at St. Paul's. 

9. The benediction of heavenly light.

10. Space unfolding. 

11. Exterior, St. Paul's Cathedral in St. Paul.

12. Floor plan, St. Paul's.

The tale of two architectures at Minneapolis and St. Paul is a story of one architect squeezing as much theatrical energy out of classical forms as is humanly possible. Both are worthy of visits the next time you venture near the Twin Cities.

Images: 
1-11. MJK
12. Minneapolis Star Tribune