The Architectural Part of My Walter Mitty Life
David
Thank you for sharing your impressive architectural background. So often it was the type of architectural career I had dreamed of but could not make happen. Like my architectural design professors at LIT/LTU I wanted to be a practicing architect with my own firm and teach part-time.
My version of that life is described briefly below.
Thank you for sharing your GBA and academic architectural background
1983 to work on Iowa College of Law architectural interiors.
I left fully in 2002 after finishing my last 3 projects as part of the new firm DiClemente Siegle /Gunnar Birkerts FAIA.
In 2002 I became interim Dean of LTU' s College of Architecture and Design
left in 2004 to become Director of School of Architecture at University of Illinois.
My last 2 projects were the Cathedral Renovation and the Rozsa Performing Arts Center before finally leaving in 2002.
I also had a brief hiatus during late 1994 through 1996 when I joined LTU full time as faculty member.
In total I worked with Gunnar as a proxy designer and director for over 17 years....the defining experience of my life.
Yes I have often dreamed/fantacized about returning to LIT/LTU to teach architecture or perhaps at other architectural schools, perhaps a different one each Summer. Thanks to my architectural design professors and Dr. Pellerin I fell in love with architecture between 1962 and 1966. Most of my grades I WINGED IT getting Bs with a couple As.
Bob Champlin
Harvey Ferraro (Bruce Goff intern and LIT grad)
Carl Luckenbach and his partner
Glen Smith a Cranbrook grad student who taught
part-time during my Junior and Senior years
Zonars - Senior year
my architectural career lasted from the Spring of 1966 to 1983/4
Leonard G. Siegal (where I met Bob Bodnar as my first job captain)
T. R. Rogvoy
Earl Confer
Ferruccio P. DeConti
Design House Interiors
Gunnar Birkerts
SH&G - graphics & signage designer until SH&G laid off over 200 employees due to a scandal related to the State Capital project
Robert B. Alpen
then I moved to Florida with my first wife and her complete family
Powell-Edge - project architect & designer Palm Beach
Massiello & Assoc - project architect & designer working nights & weekends North Palm Beach
S&T - originally working at nights on their promotional materials until they had an open cubicle Palm Beach then West Palm Beach
S&T-Signage & Graphics a separate firm that S&T partners financed and I ran from 1973 to 1976
laid off during the crisis or collapse in 1976
RAB-architecture & design in Boynton Beach & Delray Beach Spring 1976 to Fall of 1977
returned in the Fall of 1977 as a contractual architect, graphics & signage design director working 25 or less hrs in preparation to go on to work on a doctorate in the teaching of creative thinking traits, skills and tools. I left in August of 1979.
1979 to 1983/84 did freelance projects in Athens, GA
1980 to 1984 taught both in the UGA Art Dept and School of Environmental Design: intro to architecture in both schools; intro to interior design, furniture design, lighting design, rendering in the Interior Design Dept of the Art Dept.
Back to my devotion to Gunnar...
GBA
DS/GBA - obviously missed that part of Gunnar's career
1998 to 2002 era in my life I was traveling around the world trying to develop my life as an advocate of Creative Thinking around the globe and wasn't reading
PA,
Arch Record,
AIA Journal,
Domus or any other architectural journals
or even books about architecture then
Reading your history with Gunnar and architecture as a LTU professor or Dean just caused me to go to my shelves of architectural books about Gunnar to find these 4 books in my architectural library:
Gunnar Birkerts: Buildings, Projects and Thoughts 1960 - 1985
©1985 signed to me by Gunnar in 1990 (no memory of how that happened)
Domino's Mansion:
Thomas Monaghan, Gunnar Birkerts
and the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright
@1988 (looked through but apparently not actually read)
The Architecture of Gunnar Birkerts
©1989 (read and looked thru many times)
Gunnar Birkerts: Process and Expression in Architectural Form
©1994 (just noticed that I probably have never read this book)
In files and boxes are many articles I tore out of various design and architectural magazines or the complete issues that I would never destroy that way because they are still sacred to me.
As you can see I have lived a Walter Mitty life for most of my 73 years.
I have been very fortunate that in each of the 8 fields/professions I have worked in from 1960 until now that I have met, got to know, became a colleague and friend with many people like Gunnar.
Unfortunately the short time I was actually a GBA employee
I only had two or three short talks with Gunnar outside of
a few design meetings while working on the Fed and the IBM buildings
and when I presented him giant cartoon Christmas cards the two Christmases I work their in 1968 and 1969.
one a giant cartoon of all the GBA employees
one a cartoon montage of many of his famous award winning designs
thanks for reading this far.
Best wishes to you David. Perhaps our lives will cross again and face to face sometime.
This is the first draft for a potential book about
Alan's Walter Mitty Life
Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com
David
Thank you for sharing your impressive architectural background. So often it was the type of architectural career I had dreamed of but could not make happen. Like my architectural design professors at LIT/LTU I wanted to be a practicing architect with my own firm and teach part-time.
My version of that life is described briefly below.
Thank you for sharing your GBA and academic architectural background
1983 to work on Iowa College of Law architectural interiors.
I left fully in 2002 after finishing my last 3 projects as part of the new firm DiClemente Siegle /Gunnar Birkerts FAIA.
In 2002 I became interim Dean of LTU' s College of Architecture and Design
left in 2004 to become Director of School of Architecture at University of Illinois.
My last 2 projects were the Cathedral Renovation and the Rozsa Performing Arts Center before finally leaving in 2002.
I also had a brief hiatus during late 1994 through 1996 when I joined LTU full time as faculty member.
In total I worked with Gunnar as a proxy designer and director for over 17 years....the defining experience of my life.
Yes I have often dreamed/fantacized about returning to LIT/LTU to teach architecture or perhaps at other architectural schools, perhaps a different one each Summer. Thanks to my architectural design professors and Dr. Pellerin I fell in love with architecture between 1962 and 1966. Most of my grades I WINGED IT getting Bs with a couple As.
Bob Champlin
Harvey Ferraro (Bruce Goff intern and LIT grad)
Carl Luckenbach and his partner
Glen Smith a Cranbrook grad student who taught
part-time during my Junior and Senior years
Zonars - Senior year
my architectural career lasted from the Spring of 1966 to 1983/4
Leonard G. Siegal (where I met Bob Bodnar as my first job captain)
T. R. Rogvoy
Earl Confer
Ferruccio P. DeConti
Design House Interiors
Gunnar Birkerts
SH&G - graphics & signage designer until SH&G laid off over 200 employees due to a scandal related to the State Capital project
Robert B. Alpen
then I moved to Florida with my first wife and her complete family
Powell-Edge - project architect & designer Palm Beach
Massiello & Assoc - project architect & designer working nights & weekends North Palm Beach
S&T - originally working at nights on their promotional materials until they had an open cubicle Palm Beach then West Palm Beach
S&T-Signage & Graphics a separate firm that S&T partners financed and I ran from 1973 to 1976
laid off during the crisis or collapse in 1976
RAB-architecture & design in Boynton Beach & Delray Beach Spring 1976 to Fall of 1977
returned in the Fall of 1977 as a contractual architect, graphics & signage design director working 25 or less hrs in preparation to go on to work on a doctorate in the teaching of creative thinking traits, skills and tools. I left in August of 1979.
1979 to 1983/84 did freelance projects in Athens, GA
1980 to 1984 taught both in the UGA Art Dept and School of Environmental Design: intro to architecture in both schools; intro to interior design, furniture design, lighting design, rendering in the Interior Design Dept of the Art Dept.
Back to my devotion to Gunnar...
GBA
DS/GBA - obviously missed that part of Gunnar's career
1998 to 2002 era in my life I was traveling around the world trying to develop my life as an advocate of Creative Thinking around the globe and wasn't reading
PA,
Arch Record,
AIA Journal,
Domus or any other architectural journals
or even books about architecture then
Reading your history with Gunnar and architecture as a LTU professor or Dean just caused me to go to my shelves of architectural books about Gunnar to find these 4 books in my architectural library:
Gunnar Birkerts: Buildings, Projects and Thoughts 1960 - 1985
©1985 signed to me by Gunnar in 1990 (no memory of how that happened)
Domino's Mansion:
Thomas Monaghan, Gunnar Birkerts
and the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright
@1988 (looked through but apparently not actually read)
The Architecture of Gunnar Birkerts
©1989 (read and looked thru many times)
Gunnar Birkerts: Process and Expression in Architectural Form
©1994 (just noticed that I probably have never read this book)
In files and boxes are many articles I tore out of various design and architectural magazines or the complete issues that I would never destroy that way because they are still sacred to me.
As you can see I have lived a Walter Mitty life for most of my 73 years.
I have been very fortunate that in each of the 8 fields/professions I have worked in from 1960 until now that I have met, got to know, became a colleague and friend with many people like Gunnar.
Unfortunately the short time I was actually a GBA employee
I only had two or three short talks with Gunnar outside of
a few design meetings while working on the Fed and the IBM buildings
and when I presented him giant cartoon Christmas cards the two Christmases I work their in 1968 and 1969.
one a giant cartoon of all the GBA employees
one a cartoon montage of many of his famous award winning designs
thanks for reading this far.
Best wishes to you David. Perhaps our lives will cross again and face to face sometime.
This is the first draft for a potential book about
Alan's Walter Mitty Life
Alan
alan@cre8ng.com
http://www.cre8ng.com
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