Originally posted on www.designmyhome.com
This post contains correspondence I recently had with Daniel Libeskind (well, actually someone on his staff), I’m sure he has better things to do then to correspond with an obscure architect from the backwoods of Minnesota. Before I get to it, however, I would like to indicate that my intention is not to be rude or disrespectful. This is part of my profession that I have never been able to understand and there is a certain level of irritation when I see it practiced. Thankfully, the internet and email give me a forum to express myself.
Mr. Libesikind,
I wanted to thank you for the opportunity I had to attend a lecture you gave at my graduate school at Washington University several years ago. The lecture was interesting. In light of the recently completed addition to the Denver Art Museum, I found myself perusing your web site and had similar feelings that I experienced nearly ten years ago while listening to your lecture.
In listening to, and recently reading, the descriptions of your projects I must confess that I don’t understand any of it. At first, I am tempted to explain this by demeaning myself. It is easy to assume that I simply don’t have the experience, exposure, education or just plain smarts to get what you are saying. As a result, I have decided to try and read your words and look for real meaning, the symbolic “meat” of what you are trying to say.
I have come to the conclusion, that the fault for the murky understanding of your verbiage is not mine, but rather yours. I look at your works, and while I have no desire to emulate, I can appreciate them on an abstract, formal level. I would even call it beautiful and inspired, except for one thing. You refuse to defend your work with meaningful words, assembled in a way that enlightens. Instead, you hide your thoughts in confusing dialogue.
Your work reminds me of an experience I had in graduate school. The project was to design a parliamentary building for an African country. The professor asked us to consider the environmental performance of the structure in its design and design a building with as little environmental footprint as possible. One student pinned on the board at a mid-project review an intriguing sweeping design that was elegant and refined. He presented it by suggesting that the form was a direct response to the prevailing environmental forces of the region. All fine and good except that it simply didn’t do what he said it did. The building was oriented 90 degrees away from optimum for prevailing winds and it would only utilize the solar potentials for about 40% of the day. I challenged him on these points, and he tried to repeat the obviously inconsistencies louder and quicker in an attempt to win support. In the end, I pulled him aside and told him that I thought his solution was beautiful and had many redeeming qualities, but the defense of his work that I wanted was for him to admit that he invented a form that he fell in love with because of the form itself. No amount of reverse justification was going to make the design perform. Simply saying it would do something doesn’t make it so.
My criticism of your work is similar. Formally, every project you have on your website is interesting, compelling and sometimes beautiful. But your justification for the form is simply incomprehensible. Is it really such a problem for an architect to design something because it’s beautiful and because he likes it? Or to have a clear purpose or program and to express it in terms that are understandable? We spend countless dollars and hours to develop and hone our skills of observation and design yet are encouraged by the elites in our field to obscure what beauties their might be behind justifications and language that simply doesn’t mean anything.
At the end of your lecture, I had an enlightening conversation with the Director of Graduate Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He asked me what I thought of the presentation. I admitted that I didn’t understand what you were talking about. (This is the enlightening part) He admitted that he didn’t understand it either, not in a pejorative tone, rather a reverent one. He added, “He (Daniel Libeskind) is just on a different plane.” I learned then and there that there was no desire for students of architecture to become good practitioners of a trade, but rather to be be purveyor a perceived heroism at the expense of quality work.
I hope that I will be known as a good architect who understood his clients and worked to meet their needs in a creative and beautiful way. Sometimes good design and beauty is just beautiful, enough said.
Douglas Oldham, AIA
The Reply
Douglas: Thank you for your thoughts and e-mail, and we are glad you enjoyed the lecture. I’m sorry you had difficulty understanding some of the project descriptions on our web site. Please let me know if you need any additional information. Best, Jessica
And my response
Jessica,
Thank you for your reply. Good to see you can be terse when needed 
I know that it is unreasonable to expect that Mr. Libeskind would ever read (or care) what I wrote. Notwithstanding, I am disappointed. It is too bad that more architects aren’t willing to engage in a good discussion about their trade. It’s a beautiful and powerful thing we do and I’m not sure even Mr. Libeskind appreciates it (I know most of the time I don’t). If he did, he would take more care in the presentation (and description) of his work. On the other hand, maybe he is just giving the clients what they want. I’ve always wondered if I mussed my hair, wore black, talked in an accent and spoke irrationally about “light”, “motion” or some other ethereal term incongruent with architecture if I would start getting heroic projects too. Hmmmm, something to consider.
Thanks again.
Doug