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Interview with Anthony Lumsden page 5
V5:I could ask plenty of questions about that, but I think we'd better
just go on! Are you happy with architectural education today?
AL:I don't know a lot about architectural education today.
V5: Well, but you've got a lot of young people in your firm who've just
come out of school. You know what they are equipped with.
AL: I've always thought that I could make the young people out of school
very useful in a design office. As young architects, I can make them very useful - absolutely.
V5: Well, we were just wondering if you were going back to Sydney for the
Olympics in 2000.
AL: I don't think so. But when I was a kid I went to the Olympics in
Helsinki, since I had two friends that were competing on the Australian team. They had good, fast swimmers, and world cup cyclists, and rowers and whatever, but the weight lifters were hopeless! So the weight lifters all went home (laughter). Since they had left, we moved into the Olympic village! So we had free meals for about three weeks. The Olympic swimmer John Marshall, a world record holder, swam past me like this (strong, fast arm strokes)! You had to be there! Million dollar seats - I had million dollar seats!
Put Australia down for the Olympics! I was in Australia a year ago and Sydney was absolutely beautiful. Have you ever been to Sydney? It is a bit like San Francisco Bay, but it's smaller. One side of the bay has all these trees up the hills, and all these houses that have this wonderful hue. The water's bluer than here, I mean the light's better than here, except on some days, like when you get a great day in Los Angeles. But physically it's an extraordinary place. The water's warm and you can surf. I'd go out there for a bit if I could.
V5: Mark quoted you saying that "Saarinen was the greatest architect of the
twentieth century who was not a genius." Can you talk a little bit about that?
AL: I didn't say that. (Laughter from all)
V5: (Mark:) You said that once in class. You said "Wright was a genius, Le
Corbusier was a genius," that's what you were talking about. You said that Saarinen was a large contributor, and that young architects can learn a tremendous amount from him and the Saarinen office. You also said how hard he worked and how successful he was in competitions. I think it really stuck with
everyone in the room.
AL:You're probably right, I may have said that in a class. The statement
is true!
V5:What did you learn in that office?
AL: Eero was very honest. Honest in a way...the problem is the same one
with an acrobat or a tightrope walker. It's that he's not talking about the best moves when it comes on the ground, he's talking about his ability to make judgements when he performs. And Eero could do that. When Eero was performing he could do it, he would say "okay, this is working," or "this isn't working." He didn't cheat himself. And most people do, you know. If somebody says, "I like it," that's all fun. If they like it, it must be good.
I wouldn't say that Eero wasn't impressed by others, but he was very much his own man in relationship to judgements. I'm sure that's true of Mies, I'm sure that's true of Wright, and I'm sure it's absolutely true of Le Corbusier. With Eero, the honesty was there, the energy was there, a lot of energy, but not the genius of Kahn or Le Corbusier.
V5: How do you account for the enormous diversity of projects coming out of
the Saarinen office? I mean the TWA Terminal, and -
AL: Well they're not as diverse as you think, but I think - well, I never
understood it at first. Eero first had to have a systematic analysis of buildings, and then he understood that you could apply a discipline to them. You analyze the traffic, both the controls, and then you put this damned shape on top of it. He never talked about it that way. He did the analysis and then he had these damned ideas about shape. What he didn't know about shape is that, with the discoveries today, that you can make more complex juxtapositions and different things.
I think also that he thought it was good to do different buildings. I mean, I don't know, but in my opinion, our buildings have been consistent, I think he thought "It is good to have done a Dulles, because I've done a TWA". I mean it isn't easy to understand the range of work by Le Corbusier. When I first saw Ronchamp when I was at school, I thought, what in the hell is going on? But after a long time, I think you can get to understand it.
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