else about the book, it seemed insiderish, coy. All I could think about was whether or not all the time Charlie’d spent putting this thing together was going to show up on my bill.
I called Charlie, hoping to find out what I was supposed to make of the booklet and to thank him for the subscription to Progressive Architecture . I confessed my bewilderment (the irritation I kept to myself) and asked him exactly how the book fit into the process. Charlie cheerfully explained that he’d collected these images after reading my letter, that this was something he often did at the beginning of a job. “Next time we meet, we’ll go through it together. That’ll give me a better sense of what’s important to you, what sort of feeling you want here. I find it’s usually better to hear somebody’s gut reaction to a specific picture than for either of us to try to describe some sort of effect, which can get pretty abstract, and lead to misunderstandings.” Charlie distrusted words, I realized; the booklet was his pointed response to my wordy and, probably to him, overly abstract letter.
I told him that I’d actually found his book kind of abstract, and couldn’t always see the relevance of a particular picture to the project at hand. For instance, what was the story with that mansion?
“Isn’t that guy great? I love how that bay window curves outward without ever extending beyond the wall—it’s tucked in there almost like this eyeball with a big heavy brow over it.”
“So?”
“Well, the curve of the window gives you a sense of just how thick the wall around it must be, and I thought maybe we want to tuck the daybed into a bay like that. It might be really neat.”
And what about those fig. 1 / fig. 2 assembly instructions?
“Just a little joke. But it’s also a reminder to me to keep the construction fairly simple here, and that I might want to draw this project in some different way. Because a conventional plan and elevation isn’t going to tell you how all the parts fit together, or what order you need to do things in. These are things you can usually count on the contractor to figure out. But you may need something more like one of these diagrams—an instruction manual.”
We arranged a time for me to come to Boston, and I thanked him for the magazine subscription. “I should warn you,” Charlie said, “ PA can get pretty wild. But you’ve got to read it if you want to know what’s going on in architecture right now.” I asked Charlie if he was a subscriber. He said he used to read it religiously but hadn’t in the last couple of years. “It’s a lot of fun, but I don’t have time for that stuff these days. You’ll see. It’s not the real world.”
The first issue of Progressive Architecture to arrive happened to be its annual awards edition, its thirty-ninth, which singled out a dozen or so new projects—houses, museums, office buildings, artists’ lofts—for praise. * The magazine was oversized and lavishly produced, with lots of full-color photographs on heavily coated stock. It had the look and heft and even some of the glamour of a fashion magazine. Except that all the models here were buildings—there were virtually no people in sight.
I saw right away what Charlie had meant when he said, “It’s not the real world.” Almost all of the award-winners were not real buildings—they were drawings and models of buildings that, in many cases, would never get built. This seemed peculiar. Wasn’t reviewing a set of architectural drawings a little like trying to review a play without going to see it? How could you tell whether or not the building really worked before it was built? Of course I never asked this question of Charlie or anybody else; I figured it was probably naïve, and liable to mark me as unsophisticated. (Though I was amused to see a few years later that Progressive Architecture had instituted a new department called the “post-occupancy critique,” in which a
I called Charlie, hoping to find out what I was supposed to make of the booklet and to thank him for the subscription to Progressive Architecture . I confessed my bewilderment (the irritation I kept to myself) and asked him exactly how the book fit into the process. Charlie cheerfully explained that he’d collected these images after reading my letter, that this was something he often did at the beginning of a job. “Next time we meet, we’ll go through it together. That’ll give me a better sense of what’s important to you, what sort of feeling you want here. I find it’s usually better to hear somebody’s gut reaction to a specific picture than for either of us to try to describe some sort of effect, which can get pretty abstract, and lead to misunderstandings.” Charlie distrusted words, I realized; the booklet was his pointed response to my wordy and, probably to him, overly abstract letter.
I told him that I’d actually found his book kind of abstract, and couldn’t always see the relevance of a particular picture to the project at hand. For instance, what was the story with that mansion?
“Isn’t that guy great? I love how that bay window curves outward without ever extending beyond the wall—it’s tucked in there almost like this eyeball with a big heavy brow over it.”
“So?”
“Well, the curve of the window gives you a sense of just how thick the wall around it must be, and I thought maybe we want to tuck the daybed into a bay like that. It might be really neat.”
And what about those fig. 1 / fig. 2 assembly instructions?
“Just a little joke. But it’s also a reminder to me to keep the construction fairly simple here, and that I might want to draw this project in some different way. Because a conventional plan and elevation isn’t going to tell you how all the parts fit together, or what order you need to do things in. These are things you can usually count on the contractor to figure out. But you may need something more like one of these diagrams—an instruction manual.”
We arranged a time for me to come to Boston, and I thanked him for the magazine subscription. “I should warn you,” Charlie said, “ PA can get pretty wild. But you’ve got to read it if you want to know what’s going on in architecture right now.” I asked Charlie if he was a subscriber. He said he used to read it religiously but hadn’t in the last couple of years. “It’s a lot of fun, but I don’t have time for that stuff these days. You’ll see. It’s not the real world.”
The first issue of Progressive Architecture to arrive happened to be its annual awards edition, its thirty-ninth, which singled out a dozen or so new projects—houses, museums, office buildings, artists’ lofts—for praise. * The magazine was oversized and lavishly produced, with lots of full-color photographs on heavily coated stock. It had the look and heft and even some of the glamour of a fashion magazine. Except that all the models here were buildings—there were virtually no people in sight.
I saw right away what Charlie had meant when he said, “It’s not the real world.” Almost all of the award-winners were not real buildings—they were drawings and models of buildings that, in many cases, would never get built. This seemed peculiar. Wasn’t reviewing a set of architectural drawings a little like trying to review a play without going to see it? How could you tell whether or not the building really worked before it was built? Of course I never asked this question of Charlie or anybody else; I figured it was probably naïve, and liable to mark me as unsophisticated. (Though I was amused to see a few years later that Progressive Architecture had instituted a new department called the “post-occupancy critique,” in which a
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