Writing about Writing is like Learning About Architecture

Photo by Luke Lung on Unsplash

An aspect of Bill Kleinsasser’s teachings I found most instructive was his frequent reference to the work of authors and the parallels of their writing process to architectural design. The work of the best writers grants us the ability to question outworn or too-small assumptions and grow our minds. Outstanding architecture likewise provides people with places that measure up to the best they can imagine and hope for, places that are as good as they can and should be. By citing writers he admired, Bill broadened his students’ appreciation for the power of great ideas from the perspective of what is larger and lasting about the human condition. As I said previously, he impressed upon us the value of seeing the world through the eyes of others, those whose ideas we may not have immediately considered relevant to our work.

Bill included the following quotes from renowned authors and poets in several editions of his self-published textbook SYNTHESIS. Bill specifically used these quotes to illustrate several of his own notions about what is required to make good architecture. They provide us with insights about how the writers thought about and approached their work, variously addressing organizational structure, response to place, achieving clarity, establishing vitality, and process in writing. Their pertinence to architectural design is clear.      

Writers on Writing

“It seems plain that the art that speaks most clearly, explicitly, directly, and passionately from its place of origin will remain the longest understood. It is through place that we put out roots, wherever birth, chance, fate, or our traveling selves set us down; but where these roots reach toward . . . is the deep and running vein, eternal and consistent and everywhere purely itself, that feeds and is fed by the human understanding.” (Eudora Welty)
 
“Whatever is significant and whatever is tragic in a place live as long as the place does, though they are unseen, and the new life will be built upon those things.” (Eudora Welty)
 
“I think the end is implicit in the beginning. If that isn’t there in the beginning, you don’t know what you’re working toward. You should have a sense of a story’s shape and form and its destination, all of which is like a flower inside a seed.” (Eudora Welty)
 
“To write simply is as difficult as to be good.” (W. Somerset Maugham)
 
“Young writers often suppose that style is a garnish for the meat of prose, a sauce by which a dull dish is made palatable. Style is no such separate entity; it is nondetachable, unfilterable. The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is himself he is approaching, no other; and he should begin by turning resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style—all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity.” (E.B.White)
 
“A good style in literature, if closely examined, will be seen to consist in a constant succession of tiny surprises.” (Ford Maddox Ford)
 
“It was when the trees were leafless first in November and their blackness becomes apparent, and one first knew the eccentric to be the base of design.” (Wallace Stevens)
 
“First: I think poetry should surprise by fine excess, and not by singularity; it should strike the reader as wording of his own highest thoughts and appear almost a remembrance. Second: Its touches of beauty should never be halfway, thereby making the reader breathless, instead of content. The rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should, like the sun, come natural to him, and set soberly, although in magnificence, leaving him the luxury of twilight. But it is easier to think what poetry should be than to write it . . . And this leads me to another axiom: That if poetry comes not as naturally as leaves to a tree, it had better not come at all.” (John Keats)
 
“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything good.” (William Faulkner)
 
“Very young writers often do not revise at all. Like a hen looking at a chalk line, they are hypnotized by what they have written. “How can it be altered?” they think. “That’s the way it was written.” Well, it has to be altered. You have to learn how.” (Dorothy Canfield Fisher)
 
“I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters.” (James Michener)
 
“The vital difference between a writer and someone who merely publishes is that the writer seem always to be saying to himself “if I am not clear, the world around me collapses.” In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas is a curious anticlimax.” (Alfred Kazin)
 
“Writing and rewriting are a constant search for what one is saying.” (John Updike)
 
“Always, always the last chapter slips out of my hands. One gets bored. One whips oneself up. I still hope for a fresh wind and don’t very much bother, except that I miss the fun that was so tremendously lively all October, November, and December.” (Virginia Woolf)
 

Influences: Christian Norberg-Schulz

 
Christian Norberg-Schulz

An earlier blog entry of mine, “Genealogy of Influence,” promised a series of posts about the architects and theorists who influenced my architectural world view. This is the latest post in the series.  

Christian Norberg-Schulz (1926-2000) was a Norwegian architect, educator, and architectural theorist. Though he initially worked as an architect—being a member of PAGON (Progressive Architects Group Oslo Norway), with whom he designed several notable rowhouse projects in Oslo in a decidedly modernist style—he is best known for writing a series of highly influential books from 1965 onward about the phenomenology and psychology of place. His books are important to grasping the significance of meaning and experience to architecture, a concept that stood in contrast to the rationalism and prevalent anti-historicism of postwar modernism. He wrote about making and inhabiting places in the real world—places connected to history and community—in an accessible and compelling manner. 

An understanding of the dominant ideas and beliefs within the architectural profession and the schools of architecture during the period when Norberg-Schulz first came to prominence is necessary to appreciate why his theories would prove so persuasive. They would find widespread acceptance at a time when architects had largely ignored the essential roles of meaning, memories, and emotion in architecture and place-making. His writings were very much part of the zeitgeist during the formative years of my education and would forever shape my approach to architecture.

A significant portion of Norberg-Schulz’s theories derived from the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s methods of interpreting the being of human existence. This was perhaps no more evident than in his book Genius Loci: Towards a Phenomenology of Architecture, which was published in 1979, just prior to my 1980 arrival at the University of Oregon to study at the School of Architecture and Allied Arts. In Genius Loci, Norberg-Schulz translated Heidegger’s notions of “dwelling,” “gathering,” and “thing” into a study of place and meaning. More specifically, it is “the meanings which are gathered by a place” that provides the best understanding of genius loci.(1)

Norberg-Schulz spoke of the phenomena of places and the importance of recognizing how meaningful environments help you feel “at home.” He wrote about how the landscapes we regard as meaningful have accumulated mythologies about them, such as the differentiation of high places that belong to the earth and yet rise toward the sky and heaven above. Additionally, he used specific cities he was familiar with—Prague, Khartoum, and Rome—as concrete examples of the phenomenon of place.

He noted a defining aspect of Prague is how its urban spaces are focused on towers and spires, and how churches, town halls, and old house alike simultaneously hug the ground and aspire to reach the sky. Norberg-Schulz observed how Prague would become different over the centuries and yet remain the same, as new buildings adapted to what was there before.

The genius loci of Khartoum stems both from its geography and the fact it originated as three distinct settlements. Located at the confluence of the White Nile and the Blue Nile in Sudan, Norberg-Schulz remarked visitors cannot form a unified visual image of Khartoum, as its vast dimensions are tuned to the infinite expanse of the desert surrounding the city. Despite this indeterminate character, Norberg-Schulz saw order and meaning in Khartoum’s standing between Arabic-Islamic desert culture and the “magic world” of Africa proper, as well as its importance as an interior watershed distinct from other African regions related to the coasts—Khartoum thus being at the center of several worlds.

Norberg-Schulz likewise asserted that Rome is defined more by its rootedness in the surrounding landscape—the features of the campagna and Rome’s seven hills—than by its monumental grandiosity. The city originated within that landscape as a vernacular cluster of settlements, later becoming a more comprehensive totality comprised of separate urban foci (monuments, streets, and piazzas) loosely organized about a system of axes (the cardo and decumanus). Rome’s architecture, characterized by plasticity and heaviness, shapes and determines the properties and boundaries of the public realm.

By relating the examples of Prague, Khartoum, and Rome, Norberg-Schulz illustrated the concepts of “meaning” and “structure” as key to understanding the genius loci. The “meaning” of any object consists in its relationship to other objects, whereas “structure” denotes the formal properties of the system of relationships; hence they are aspects of the same totality. In his view, that totality comprises the genius loci, or sense of place. From a phenomenological perspective, place is an integral part of existence.

Prague (photo by Moyan Brenn from Italy, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

Norberg-Schulz believed one cannot describe place solely through analytic, scientific means. He argued exclusively objective and scientific approaches failed to provide people with the “existential foothold” necessary to meaningfully experience the environments they inhabit or use. Fundamentally, spaces where life occurs are places, and places are spaces with distinct character. Recognizing its genius loci requires reinforcing the larger order with each new intervention, continuing the existing pattern or structure, and embodying and expressing its essential spirit.

Importantly, Norberg-Schulz advocated for recovery from a loss of meaning and place during a period in architecture when settlement as a place in nature, when urban foci as places for everyday living, and when meaningful sub-places where one could feel both individuality and belonging, were not priorities. He restored the necessity of experiential considerations in design such that a building is not merely a building but a shared spatial experience—a locality—that embodies and shapes the values of its environment and culture.

I owe a debt to Christian Norberg-Schulz for helping me understand the concept of architectural phenomenology and for stressing the importance of experiential qualities in the design of our built places.

(1)    According to Wikipedia, the term genius loci comes from classical Roman religion, being the ancient Romans’ protective spirit of a place. In contemporary usage, and thanks in large part to Christian Norberg-Schulz, genius loci refers to a location’s distinctive atmosphere. 

Hello, World. Meet (Eugene) Oregon.

 
Hayward Field, July 16, 2022, moments before the start of the Men's 100m final (screenshot from NBC Sports television broadcast).

When the International Association of Athletics Federations (now World Athletics) selected Eugene in 2015 as the host city for the 2021 World Athletics Championships, the prospect of hosting the greatest athletes on Earth to compete in the ultimate track and field event seemed dreamlike, too fantastic to imagine. Yet here we are: The Championships in all their glory have arrived and are in full-swing (albeit postponed by one year due to COVID-19). At this moment, Hayward Field in Eugene is very much the center of the track and field universe.
 
2,000 athletes from 192 member federations are competing in Eugene. Media coverage is worldwide. Next to the Olympics, the World Athletics Championships is the biggest stage there is for the sport. Previous host cities most recently include Moscow, Beijing, London, and Doha, with Budapest and Tokyo to follow Eugene. 2022 is the first time the event has occurred on American soil. That Eugene will forever be listed as the site of a Worlds Athletics Championship is heady stuff.
 
Despite being “too small and too remote—too parochial,” Tim Layden of NBC Sports describes Eugene at once as both a fitting host for the championships and an unlikely sports capital. In his background piece for NBC’s coverage, he details how our city became the heart of track and field in America, recounting Hayward Field’s storied history and the culture of running in Track Town USA.  He and many other afficionados of the sport regard Eugene as track and field, and track and field as Eugene. In Layden’s view, such a symbiosis is unique in American sports—an insightful and instructive observation by an outsider.
 
I am under no illusion about what hosting the World Athletics Championships will mean for Eugene going forward. After the lights have dimmed and the intoxicating high of Oregon ‘22 has passed, I expect Eugene will reap some benefits, but nothing suddenly transformative. Hosting a world-class athletics showcase does not confer stature as a world-class city. Eugene is destined to remain a smallish burg in a scenic state, a backwater even, but that is far from being a bad thing. We can build upon the championships by further reinforcing Eugene’s sense of identity, of which a uniquely elite reputation in the world of athletics plays a part. The greatest legacy of Oregon ’22 will be if it instills a lasting pride in Eugene and in what differentiates our small corner of the world from anywhere else.

Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet: J

Main entry porch, Johnson Hall (photos by me unless noted otherwise)

This is the next in my Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet series of blog posts, the focus of each being a landmark building here in Eugene. Many of these will be familiar to most who live here but there are likely to be a few buildings that are less so. My selection criteria for each will be threefold:  

1. The building must be of architectural interest, local importance, or historically significant.
2. The building must be extant so you or I can visit it in person.
3. Each building’s name will begin with a particular letter of the alphabet, and I must select one (and only one) for each of the twenty-six letters. This is easier said than done for some letters, whereas for other characters there is a surfeit of worthy candidates (so I’ll be discriminating and explain my choice in those instances).

This entry’s selection begins with the letter J, for which my choice is Johnson Hall on the campus of the University of Oregon.
 
Johnson Hall

 

North facade

Johnson Hall stands out as a unique example of the American Renaissance Style on the University of Oregon campus. State of Oregon Architect William C. Knighton designed what would become and remains the university’s main administration building. Completed in 1915, the building is named after John Wesley Johnson, the first president of the University of Oregon. Johnson Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
 
The American Renaissance Style was popular during the period spanning 1876 to 1917. According to Wikipedia, the style was an expression of the opinion among academics of the time that the United States was the heir to Greek democracy, Roman law, and Renaissance humanism, and that the architecture of the country’s institutions should accordingly emulate classical Greek and Roman architecture. The 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago would be particularly influential in promoting neoclassical principles of symmetry and balance in architectural design.
 
Perhaps fitting for the seat of the university’s administration, Johnson Hall stands out along 13th Avenue, thanks to the colossal Ionic columns of its 2-story tall, north-facing portico. At the same time, the building’s scale, brick veneer, and glazed terra cotta details complement and fit comfortably among its earlier, variously styled neighbors:  University/Deady Hall (1876), Villard Hall (1886), Friendly Hall (1893), and Fenton Hall (1906). Together, this eclectic assemblage formed the Old Quadrangle, with Johnson Hall as its southern terminus. The later ensemble of Hendricks Hall (1918), Susan Campbell Hall (1920), and Gerlinger Hall (1921) likewise joined Johnson Hall to shape the Women’s Memorial Quadrangle.
 
The axial organization imparted by the building’s relationship to the two quadrangles extends through its interior. The main floor and second floor lobbies dominate the plans; the first-floor space retains its original marble wainscoting, coffered ceilings, and varnished wood details, while the second-floor lobby originally featured a large, Tiffany-style skylight.

 

South entrance

In addition to the housing the president’s office and the university’s administrative functions, Johnson Hall once contained the Condon Geological Collection and the 200-seat Guild Theater. The 1949 Robinson Theater (now the Miller Theater Complex) addition to Villard Hall rendered the Guild Theater unnecessary, so the university removed it for expansion of the administrative offices within Johnson Hall.
 
Notably, Johnson Hall was one of the first examples of reinforced concrete construction in Eugene, and the first on the University of Oregon campus.
 
Until 2020, The Pioneer statue—dedicated to the pioneer spirit of the west—faced Johnson Hall across 13th Avenue, while The Pioneer Mother sat upon a pedestal within the Women’s Quadrangle, similarly oriented toward and on axis with Johnson Hall. Activists toppled both sculptures in an act of protest to draw attention to racial injustice and the darker side of 19th century western settlement, dragging The Pioneer onto the steps of Johnson Hall. Following the incident, the university placed both sculptures into storage, where they remain today.
 
The toppling of the statues was not the first time Johnson Hall occupied center stage amid periods of civil unrest. During April of 1970, as many as 200 students occupied the building, conducting a sit-in to protest U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and the on-campus presence of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). A further 700 protestors surrounded Johnson Hall, and some would clash with the police and National Guard, leading to numerous arrests. As a manifest symbol of the university’s authority, the building has since been the site of countless protests drawing attention to UO’s role in racial, economic, and environmental injustices. Most recently, the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation rallied at Johnson Hall, demanding safer, healthier working conditions and action by the university to stem the on-campus spread of COVID’s omicron variant.
 
Johnson Hall enjoyed its star turn as the administration building of the fictional Faber College in the 1978 movie Animal House. John Belushi’s manic prancing about the front of the building is comedy gold. The filmmakers shot the subsequent horse scene in what today is UO President Michael Schill’s conference room, which looks today much as it did then.

 

D-Day, Flounder, and Bluto sneak Doug Neidemeyer's horse into Dean Wormer's office (still from the movie Animal House).

The University of Oregon campus is home to Eugene’s single-best collection of noteworthy pre-World War II buildings. While I did not intend my Eugene/Architecture/Alphabet series to necessarily focus on older architecture, I am drawn to buildings with history—buildings that figure meaningfully in the memories of longtime Eugene residents. Newer buildings here simply haven’t accrued enough of these consequential memories, something only the passage of time may remedy. By virtue of its history, we view Johnson Hall today as a significant work of early 20th century architecture, remember it as a front-row witness to tumultuous, era-defining student demonstrations, and relish its place within popular culture. 

Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago

Limestone wall plaque outside the Wright Studio (all photos by me).

Chicago was a “bucket list” destination for me, one that did not disappoint. Among the reasons why is because it was in Chicago that a young Frank Lloyd Wright would first come to prominence as an entirely original talent who sought nothing less than to create a uniquely American form of architecture. Of course, several of Wright’s most noteworthy projects figured prominently on my list of “must see” sights while in the Windy City.

Most who have little more than a casual interest in the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright know something about his formative years in the profession. He learned much from his early work experience as a draftsman, first under Joseph Lyman Silsbee and then later as an apprentice for the firm of Adler & Sullivan, gaining not only technical proficiency but also a preference for an American architecture not grounded in the classical teachings of the then-fashionable École des Beaux-Arts. It is in the village of Oak Park, west of Chicago, during the period spanning from 1889 to 1909,(1) that his built works displayed a progressive melding of the ideals of the Arts & Crafts movement, Louis Sullivan’s foreshadowing of modernism, and his own notions of an “organic” architecture fitted to the long, low landscape of the Midwest.

During my stay in Chicago, I made time to visit Oak Park, which offers a remarkable concentration of projects from this first and pivotal part of Wright’s lengthy and consequential career. I enjoyed a guided tour of his Home (1889) and adjoining Studio (1898), which served as his primary residence and professional office during this time. Additionally, there are 25 Wright-designed buildings in the surrounding neighborhood, of which I visited the Unity Temple (completed in 1908) and conducted a self-guided audio tour of ten houses displaying the full evolution of his design principles toward what became known as the Prairie Style of architecture.  

Unity Temple (1908)

Nathan G. Moore House (1895)

Hills-Decaro House (1896)

Frank Thomas House (1901)

Peter A. Beachy House (1906)

Arthur B. Heurtley House (1902), a favorite of mine.

I also made a pilgrimage to the Frederick C. Robie House (completed in 1909), which many (including me) consider to be the apotheosis of the Prairie Style. The Robie House is not located in Oak Park, but rather adjacent to the campus of the University of Chicago in the South Side neighborhood of Hyde Park. Historians attribute its architectural significance to its quintessential combination of Prairie Style features, notably the design’s decidedly horizontal emphasis, structurally expressive brick piers and cantilevered roofs, continuous bands of windows, not to mention its influence upon domestic design and lifestyle. I previously was not entirely familiar with the history of the house, so I was surprised to learn the Robie family’s time there was very short-lived (only one-year), that it would change hands several times, and that it was threatened with demolition before being acquired by the University of Chicago. The university turned over tours, operations, and necessary fundraising to the Frank Lloyd Trust in 1997. The Trust completed restoration of the Robie House in 2019, at a cost of over 11 million dollars.

Frederick C. Robie House (1909)

Steel beams supporting the roof cantilever 17 feet beyond their supports.

Detail view, exterior.

Living room.

Central fireplace. Note the split chimney and the opening through which the ceiling of the dining room beyond is seen as continuous.

While the Robie House was everything I expected it to be, I found the Wright Home and Studio to be a revelation. Given his relative youth—a mere 22 years and 31 years of age when he designed the home and later studio, respectively—I was entirely impressed by how fully Wright realized such architectural principles as the ideal of open living and working spaces (innovative at the time). The Studio is nothing less than fantastic, with carefully controlled daylight, thoroughly inventive detailing and ornamentation, and a masterful orchestration of space and volume. To say his talent was precociously mature is an understatement.

Wright Home (1889).

Inglenook.

Master bath:  The niche with the vase was initially a window with a view directly out. With the addition of the Studio, Wright placed a window to the left in a niche where the original window was located, thereby continuing to provide a source of daylight in the room while providing privacy.

Children's playroom. The mural over the fireplace is inspired by a tale from the Arabian Nights.

Exterior view of the Studio (1898)

Tour group inside the drafting room.

Looking up at the underside of the tall ceiling in the drafting room. The chains restrain the outward thrust of the octagonal dome.

The Studio's library. Wright like the room so much, he converted the library to be his personal office.

The work of Frank Lloyd Wright has served as a touchstone throughout my life in architecture. I am grateful for the opportunity to have traveled to Chicago and see so many examples in person. While a flawed human being, Wright was clearly a great and pioneering architect. That many of his projects have been maintained, restored, and are open to visitors is truly a blessing for Wright afficionados like me.

(1)    Wright married Catherine Tobin and settled in Oak Park in 1889, where they would raise six children). He scandalously left his family for a new life in Europe with Mamah Cheney, his neighbor and wife of a client, ending his period of residence and professional practice in Oak Park.