Architects' Professional Responsibilities

I think that we have a responsibility as a professional to understand the time line of the
profession, what’s happening in the profession, who has made a contribution and learn from all
those things to free yourself to become your own voice. When I was building this house in North
Sea which we’re making the documentary of and I work with Peter Shelton my partner and my
dear friend from college Fred Morrison.

I realized as the building went up, I could kind of see the intellectual collage of who I was as
pieces of the building stood at various stages. I could feel the ghost of Luke Hahn when I looked
at the poor concrete. When I saw some of the glass details, I kept thinking of the architect’s
collaborative in Boston. When I looked at some of the woodworking on the cladding I thought of
Ed Barns or Sert and then the way the stair was conceived, I thought it looked Courvoisier. And I
started to realize that pieces of who we are often pieces of who we’ve looked and studied. But
it’s our responsibility to them become ourselves. So how do you take that where you can almost
dissect your own side key and the layers of building is such an interesting tapestry of those
pieces of who you are. And then hopefully when they come together, they become you but you
owe to who you’d become.

Then I realized when that building was done, I guess I love the archeology of great people and
my profession. Meaning whether it’s their drawing, it’s their furniture, their lighting that a kind
of design democracy to emerged which is such an American idea that we embraced many
cultures and we celebrate them and we celebrate ideas. So the building was a kind of
international amalgam of people and things that as Americans were very open to and that I have
actually collected the archeology of those people. And as those things occupy the building, I
realized that their archeology in form the building that they inhabit.