Eureka!

The ArchiTalks theme this month required some reflection.  In terms of major discoveries in my development and career as an architect, I don't really think in terms of surprise

revelations.  As with projects during my 20 plus years, typically the path is long and full of hard work and coordination with others.

I do, however, recall a poignant moment I experienced in my first year at school.

First Year was a bit of a struggle for me.  I had coasted through high school, really.  I was in the top 2% of my class of 300, and never really had to try that hard.  At least not like I had to in college.  I worked, don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t know what work was until architecture school.  Design Studio was a real adjustment.  I initially applied the same worth ethic  in that class as I had in high school classes.  I was always there and I always did what was asked.  But never more.  And in architecture school, that is only good enough for a B, B- maybe.  Sometimes a C+.  Along with all my other classes, I was still able to scrape together decent grades for the first semester.  But as Design Studio was approximately one-third of your credit load, and approximately two-thirds of all the work you had to do, I was just fair to middling in my class.  We started out with a class of 75 freshman students, and as our class shrank very quickly to about 60 that first semester (due to kids changing majors), I was in the bottom half of the remaining class at that point.

This is from a later trip, thus the leaves.

In either March or April of the second semester, the entire class that remained took a trip to Fallingwater.  We loaded up three or four blue Penn State vans, full of 18 year olds and drove the three hours to Mill Run, PA.  It was pretty dreary weather, as Western PA tends to be in early spring.  There weren’t too many leaves on the trees yet either.  In spite of all that, we were about to take over the most famous private residence in the entire world.  I didn’t know it yet but it would change my attitude, and my life.

The Money Shot

Our group pretty much had the run of the place.  As I recall we had almost unlimited access.  Most people have that one “money shot” looking up at the cantilevers from the water in their mind when they think of Fallingwater.  And while that was amazing to see for the first time, my moment came in a much more secluded and private location. But you can imagine, 18 year olds set loose on the grounds was bound to  unleash some shenanigans.  Kids were all over the stream bed, in the water.  I distinctly remember one girl had a white T-shirt on and, well, she got herself soaked.  And inside, had I been a docent that day, I would have been popping Maalox, afraid some kid would get mud on the original rugs or cushions or something.  Aspects of the interior were certainly dated, like the kitchen appliances at the time, but I was in a building unlike I had ever been before.  This was architecture.  I don’t think I had ever experienced it before.  I had hardly been anywhere before, let alone one of the masterpieces of the 20^th century.  Nearly everything you saw, touched, heard or smelled seemed to be orchestrated.  How the floor bled out of the boulders forming the fireplace and spilled outside seamlessly.  How the corner windows melted away to provide unobstructed view of the exterior.  How that one beam went out of its way to allow a tree to grow through the trellis.  How that one desk has a crescent cut out of it to allow the casement window to open.

The Trellis

As the day wore on, I made my way down those stairs that literally ended at the water.  I don’t know if Edgar Kaufmann ever used that platform at the bottom to go swimming, but it doesn’t matter.  I had my moment right there.  I got it.  Architecture is not about physics or calculations or drawing straight lines.  It isn’t even about getting good grades.  Architecture affects human emotion.  That is the point.  And everything I did in school after that changed.

photo: Daderot, CC0 1.0

We got back into those buses to go home with a part of me changed.  There were still shenanigans.  I remember we stopped for gas, and while the driver/professor went to pay, the guy sitting in the passenger seat wrote in the condensation on the windshield “BIG DADDY DON” in huge letters.  Our professor's name was Don.  Hey, we were still kids.

This post is part of the ArchiTalks series where a group of us (architects who also blog) all post on the same day and promote each other’s blogs. This month’s theme is "Eureka" and was led by Stephan Ramos.  A lot of other talented writers who also are architects are listed below and are worth checking out:
Lora Teagarden - L² Design, LLC (@L2DesignLLC)
Eureka!? Finding myself amid the "busy."
Jeremiah Russell, AIA - ROGUE Architecture (@rogue_architect)
Gee, golly, gosh EUREKA: #architalks
Eric T. Faulkner - Rock Talk (@wishingrockhome)
Eureka! -- Things That Suck
Michele Grace Hottel - Michele Grace Hottel, Architect (@mghottel)
eureka!!!!
Stephen Ramos - BUILDINGS ARE COOL (@BuildingsRCool)
Searching for that Eureka Moment
Jeffrey Pelletier - Board & Vellum (@boardandvellum)
Finding That "Eureka!" Moment in the Design Process
Keith Palma - Architect's Trace (@cogitatedesign)
Naked in the Street
Mark Stephens - Mark Stephens Architects (@architectmark)
Eureka moments and what do if clients don't appreciate them
Larry Lucas - Lucas Sustainable, PLLC (@LarryLucasArch)
Eureka for George in Seinfeld Episode 181