WEBVTT

00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:06.040
today is april 24th 2013. We are conducting an interview for the Arizona

00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:14.177
State University retirees association
video history project. We are

00:00:14.210 --> 00:00:19.456
located today in the CSU community
services building. I am David Schultz

00:00:19.489 --> 00:00:23.506
lee, Professor emeritus of the School
of Architecture. The technical

00:00:23.539 --> 00:00:28.477
support staff today include john
Macintosh operating the camera and roger

00:00:28.510 --> 00:00:33.537
carter audio. He's also operating a
camera. Also in attendance is linda

00:00:33.570 --> 00:00:40.626
Vance Coy. Chair of the A S. U. R. A
video history project. Okay, please

00:00:40.659 --> 00:00:45.196
introduce yourself stating your name
and your positions at my name is john

00:00:45.229 --> 00:00:49.747
Mannion. I came here as dean which
dean of the College of Architecture and

00:00:49.780 --> 00:00:55.057
Environmental Design, did that job for
about 15 years and then returned to

00:00:55.090 --> 00:00:58.646
the faculty as a full time professor
and still am that professor of

00:00:58.679 --> 00:01:02.207
architecture like so to begin with,
let our viewers know about your early

00:01:02.240 --> 00:01:07.307
life. Where were you born and raised
and trace your life path? Well, I was

00:01:07.340 --> 00:01:09.596
born in 1936

00:01:09.629 --> 00:01:14.647
and at that time my family lived in
the city of Nottingham, famous for

00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:17.087
Robin Hood

00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:25.120
but in 1939 as you all remember
something happened and we actually moved

00:01:25.799 --> 00:01:32.227
from Nottingham to a place on the
northwest coast of England, a place

00:01:32.260 --> 00:01:39.137
called Southport and initially we
moved in with my grandfather and then we

00:01:39.170 --> 00:01:45.566
moved into a house there and I had my
school days all in South board which

00:01:45.599 --> 00:01:52.269
was fun back to England now when you
were growing up in World War 2, 1939.

00:01:52.540 --> 00:01:54.540
What was England like? And with the americans coming in to help fight the

00:01:56.590 --> 00:02:01.647
war? What was that like? Well, there
were several phases. I my earliest

00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:06.796
memories were when we were still
living with my grandfather and we were

00:02:06.829 --> 00:02:09.036
bombed.

00:02:09.069 --> 00:02:12.807
And I'm very, very memory actually
wasn't a bomb. It was what they call

00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:17.057
the landmine. Southport is where you
were when I was in a place called

00:02:17.090 --> 00:02:21.927
Birkdale, which is very close to
Southport. And this was before we had air

00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:29.166
raid shelters and the warning sirens
had gone off and my sisters and I had

00:02:29.199 --> 00:02:34.087
gone downstairs and we're sitting on
the couch, the city in front of the

00:02:34.120 --> 00:02:40.916
fireplace. My mother was over the back
of the city, my grandfather was

00:02:40.949 --> 00:02:44.807
sitting in the armchair by the fire,
my step grandmother was sitting the

00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:49.827
other arm chair and my father was
putting his helmet on because he was an

00:02:49.860 --> 00:02:54.517
air raid warden. And he was about to
go out anyhow, he heard a strange

00:02:54.550 --> 00:03:01.427
whistling noise and he said, everybody
get down. So my grandfather and

00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:05.106
step grandmother threw themselves on
the floor in front of the fireplace.

00:03:05.139 --> 00:03:10.686
My mother threw herself over us and my
father went down behind the couch

00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:15.666
and I don't remember the noise but I
remember this almighty flash and the

00:03:15.699 --> 00:03:22.726
drapes came in and then out taking the
windows with them, but none of us

00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:29.587
were hurt but if we've still been in
our beds, we would have been cut to

00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:37.620
shreds by window glass, but that was
that was one bit of it. And ah and

00:03:38.629 --> 00:03:44.717
then then we moved into our own home
later on. And of course by this time

00:03:44.750 --> 00:03:50.557
the war was well and truly in
progress. Uh and uh by this time we also had

00:03:50.590 --> 00:03:54.247
an air raid shelter and the warnings
would go off and we'd go down in the

00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:57.017
middle of the night and sit under the
air raid shelter. And my parents

00:03:57.050 --> 00:04:03.767
were very wise. Candies were in
extremely short supply. During the war my

00:04:03.800 --> 00:04:11.800
parents had a can of candies which
only appeared when we went down to the

00:04:12.110 --> 00:04:15.867
air raid shoulders. So we actually
quite looked forward to the warnings

00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:21.036
going on. And my my mother, my father
would be out patrolling the streets.

00:04:21.069 --> 00:04:26.147
My mother would tell us stories about
when she was a little girl and so

00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:31.027
that lasted obviously for us. The war
started basically in 39 went all the

00:04:31.060 --> 00:04:33.507
way to 45.

00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:41.540
I remember distinctly the the
celebrations for ve. Day and V. J. Day ah on

00:04:42.920 --> 00:04:46.856
the streets of the town where we were
living and there were lots and lots

00:04:46.889 --> 00:04:51.746
of americans around because this was
an R. And R. Place for americans. It

00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:55.517
was a seaside resort town and there
were lots of americans around. Of

00:04:55.550 --> 00:04:58.687
course they didn't have fireworks but
they had those awful thunder flash

00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:03.757
things that they use for training
people so they let the thunder flashes

00:05:03.790 --> 00:05:08.556
off in the streets. Yeah and I decided
I didn't enjoy that noise, but I

00:05:08.589 --> 00:05:13.937
can remember that. I uh I went to
grammar school, which in England means

00:05:13.970 --> 00:05:19.207
an academic high school. It was quite
a small one and only 350 boys. It

00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:24.817
was gender separated. My sisters went
to the girls high school uh and I

00:05:24.850 --> 00:05:32.306
was in a advanced path. So I went
through quite quickly

00:05:32.339 --> 00:05:39.337
and actually graduated when I was just
17 and went on to Liverpool

00:05:39.370 --> 00:05:45.707
University to study architecture. Uh
and that was a five year program.

00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:48.087
There

00:05:48.120 --> 00:05:50.926
one of the things about Liverpool was
that it always had a strong

00:05:50.959 --> 00:05:55.666
connection to the United States and
one of the rules of the game in many

00:05:55.699 --> 00:05:59.846
architecture programs and certainly at
Liverpool was that you had to take

00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:06.327
a an internship in your fourth year
and I was lucky enough to get an

00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:10.137
internship in new york

00:06:10.170 --> 00:06:17.327
and I worked for the famous architect
guy called Marcel breuer in new york

00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:21.697
and instead of only doing the six
months, which was the normal internship

00:06:21.730 --> 00:06:28.796
, I took an extra year and worked for
most of that with Marcel breuer, I

00:06:28.829 --> 00:06:33.806
worked for some other people at night
and on the weekends and so on. But

00:06:33.839 --> 00:06:39.806
at the end of that time I decided I
really needed to see the United States

00:06:39.839 --> 00:06:44.817
and so I bought a secondhand vesper
motor scooter

00:06:44.850 --> 00:06:50.046
and traveled on my own all the way
around the United States over a period

00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:55.286
of about three months and that was one
of the sort of turning points of my

00:06:55.319 --> 00:06:59.616
life where I, I learned that I could
manage on my own and then eventually

00:06:59.649 --> 00:07:04.457
went back to England and finished at
Liverpool. While I was in the United

00:07:04.490 --> 00:07:11.767
States. I had met my wife and I had
decided that this was, this was

00:07:11.800 --> 00:07:18.007
something that needed to be permanent.
So I got myself a a fellowship at

00:07:18.040 --> 00:07:23.577
Harvard and I went to Harvard as a
graduate student in the Graduate School

00:07:23.610 --> 00:07:30.877
of Design. And while I was there, my
wife and I got married and so we

00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:35.947
finished up there. Let's go back to
when you met your wife, you were in

00:07:35.980 --> 00:07:43.717
new york. Just describe how that has.
Well I had got this job with Marcel

00:07:43.750 --> 00:07:51.750
breuer in new york and initially
rented an apartment in Borough Hall in

00:07:52.629 --> 00:07:59.366
Brooklyn and I really didn't like that
very much. And so I went up to the

00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:03.746
area around Columbia University and it
so happened by the time I went up

00:08:03.779 --> 00:08:11.779
there, their semester, that spring
semester was over and I found myself a

00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:18.906
room in the fire, Gamma delta
fraternity house at Columbia University.

00:08:18.939 --> 00:08:25.986
Obviously the students were gone and
they needed rent for the room, I

00:08:26.019 --> 00:08:31.036
took a room there and it so happened
that one of the members of that

00:08:31.069 --> 00:08:36.616
fraternity. I had a girlfriend who was
singing in the Pirates of Penzance

00:08:36.649 --> 00:08:42.287
and the minor Latham theater of
Barnard college, which is the sister

00:08:42.320 --> 00:08:46.947
college of Columbia College, but also
part of Columbia University, but in

00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:54.026
those days they were separated
actually, there's still and so they were

00:08:54.059 --> 00:08:58.626
looking for male voices to sing in the
choir of the pirate, another choir

00:08:58.659 --> 00:09:03.447
, the chorus of the Pirates of
Penzance. And and I've done a little

00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:06.577
singing so I thought I might as well
do that. So I went to that and that

00:09:06.610 --> 00:09:14.610
one of the cast parties, I was
introduced to my wife because we were both

00:09:14.740 --> 00:09:19.876
tennis players. And so our first date
was on the tennis court long since

00:09:19.909 --> 00:09:27.837
disappeared Barnard college and we got
married in the, the break between

00:09:27.870 --> 00:09:32.907
the fall and the spring semesters of

00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:37.476
of my time at Harvard. So she was on
the back of that vespa motor scooter

00:09:37.509 --> 00:09:43.606
when you went across. Not then, but
when we, by the time

00:09:43.639 --> 00:09:48.346
uh by the time we got married the
vespa motor scooter had been swapped for

00:09:48.379 --> 00:09:55.026
a lamb britta. Oh yeah, more
horsepower. My wife had a job at that time

00:09:55.059 --> 00:10:03.059
with IBM in the middle of boston and
my job was to get it to IBM by eight

00:10:03.179 --> 00:10:08.697
o'clock in the morning. So we would
tool down Storrow drive with her sight.

00:10:08.730 --> 00:10:12.927
She had to sit side saddle because IBM
is uniform didn't give her enough

00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:18.217
room to sit astride. So she sat side
settle on the lam britta going down

00:10:18.250 --> 00:10:23.207
Storrow drive, attracting a certain
amount of attention,

00:10:23.240 --> 00:10:30.047
which was fun. And then we decided
that we needed to go somewhere where

00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:37.736
neither of us was at home. And so we
went to live in Munich and I got a

00:10:37.769 --> 00:10:43.577
job within 24 hours of arriving in
Munich with a professor. What was then

00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:49.047
the technical hoax, a Munich, It's now
the technical University, a guy

00:10:49.080 --> 00:10:55.396
called fred Angara and I worked for
him for two years.

00:10:55.429 --> 00:10:59.437
And at the end of that time I realized
that I was never going to be able

00:10:59.470 --> 00:11:04.866
to speak german well enough to live
permanently in Germany. And so there

00:11:04.899 --> 00:11:10.427
was a question of what to do. My
initial idea was maybe would be wonderful

00:11:10.460 --> 00:11:14.437
to work with the United Nations. I
like the idea of being a kind of world

00:11:14.470 --> 00:11:18.957
citizen. And so I wrote to the United
Nations and they wrote a rather

00:11:18.990 --> 00:11:22.957
Bruce letter back saying come back
again in 10 years time when we don't

00:11:22.990 --> 00:11:28.736
have to teach you anything. So that
was the end of that. But my wife was

00:11:28.769 --> 00:11:36.769
working for a propaganda radio station
uh, oriented in Munich oriented to

00:11:37.679 --> 00:11:45.679
the Ukraine. And she happened to be in
the library at lunch one day there

00:11:45.730 --> 00:11:51.626
and saw a copy of the London Times and
believe it or not in those days,

00:11:51.659 --> 00:11:56.067
the London Times on its front page
didn't have news. It had classified

00:11:56.100 --> 00:12:00.577
advertising and way down the list
there, there was a classified

00:12:00.610 --> 00:12:05.797
advertisement for a teaching position
at Cambridge University. I had

00:12:05.830 --> 00:12:08.547
thought I might want to teach, but I
didn't think I wanted to teach quite

00:12:08.580 --> 00:12:15.307
that soon but it was a question of
what to do next. So I send off a letter

00:12:15.340 --> 00:12:18.307
and to my great surprise

00:12:18.340 --> 00:12:23.687
a few weeks later I got a letter back
inviting me to go to Cambridge for

00:12:23.720 --> 00:12:31.006
interview. Um I had never been to
Cambridge before

00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:34.886
but while I was at Harvard I was a
frank Knox fellow and frank Knox had

00:12:34.919 --> 00:12:39.207
given money for english students to go
and study at Harvard and one of the

00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:42.907
other english students who had been on
the frank Knox fellowship with me.

00:12:42.940 --> 00:12:48.937
I had a position as a junior fellow at
one of the Cambridge colleges. So I

00:12:48.970 --> 00:12:52.217
wrote to him and said I'm coming for
an interview where do you think I

00:12:52.250 --> 00:12:57.087
should stay? And so he he said well
why don't you come and stay in my

00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:03.577
college? He was the junior fellow of
christ's college Cambridge. So I went

00:13:03.610 --> 00:13:07.626
and he ensconced me in the guest room
of the college and he said oh by the

00:13:07.659 --> 00:13:15.037
way you're invited for sherry in the
combination room before dinner and as

00:13:15.070 --> 00:13:18.736
your only guest tonight you'll be
sitting next to the master of the

00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:25.957
college. So I that was lovely and I
went and had a lovely glass of sherry

00:13:25.990 --> 00:13:32.506
and a nice meal. The master was a very
gentle, nice man and we had a

00:13:32.539 --> 00:13:38.016
lovely conversation and he found out
all about me and so on and it was a

00:13:38.049 --> 00:13:40.736
very nice evening, went back to the
guest room, had a good night's sleep,

00:13:40.769 --> 00:13:45.167
got up the next day and went off for
an interview and lo and behold who

00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:49.337
was the chair of the interviewing
committee. But the master of christ

00:13:49.370 --> 00:13:54.646
college Cambridge, who knew all about
me by this time anyhow, the net

00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:58.947
outcome of all of that was that I was
offered a very junior a faculty

00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:03.787
position at Cambridge at the ripe old
age of 26 right place, right time.

00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:06.907
Yeah, well getting to know the right
people at the right place at the

00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:14.940
right time. Um I was on a five year
term contract but I was lucky enough

00:14:15.230 --> 00:14:20.516
to get that translated into i tenure
track and then a tenured position. So

00:14:20.549 --> 00:14:28.549
I I taught at Cambridge for 14 years.
Um and during that time I was lucky

00:14:29.009 --> 00:14:33.077
enough to be able to build a house
which we still own and we will be going

00:14:33.110 --> 00:14:40.787
to very shortly go back there every
summer now. Uh and uh so we also

00:14:40.820 --> 00:14:45.106
practice as an architect while we were
in Cambridge, all of the faculty at

00:14:45.139 --> 00:14:50.587
Cambridge University School of
Architecture where published practicing

00:14:50.620 --> 00:14:56.677
architects. And so it was just a
natural thing for me to do. And so we did

00:14:56.710 --> 00:15:00.106
quite a few buildings and published
quite a few buildings and then we were

00:15:00.139 --> 00:15:06.457
lucky enough to win a major design
competition for the Borough museum in

00:15:06.490 --> 00:15:12.886
Glasgow and I stayed with that project
with my partner through design

00:15:12.919 --> 00:15:16.896
development drawings.

00:15:16.929 --> 00:15:23.677
And then I was invited

00:15:23.710 --> 00:15:29.386
to interview at Cornell for the chair
of architecture at Cornell. So I

00:15:29.419 --> 00:15:33.596
went to Cornell, it was april and it
was freezing cold, the streets were

00:15:33.629 --> 00:15:36.707
covered in ice. I don't think this
looks very good. So I was happy when

00:15:36.740 --> 00:15:41.096
they didn't offer me the position. But
it put in my mind the notion that

00:15:41.129 --> 00:15:45.976
maybe there was something other than
being a a attended faculty member at

00:15:46.009 --> 00:15:54.009
Cambridge. So a little later I was
invited by the then dean of the College

00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:58.907
of Design, Architecture, Art and
Planning at the University of Cincinnati

00:15:58.940 --> 00:16:04.177
to go and meet him in London to talk
about the directorship of the

00:16:04.210 --> 00:16:08.967
architecture program there. I wasn't
initially that interested, I didn't

00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:13.396
think that Cincinnati probably was in
the same league as Cornell or

00:16:13.429 --> 00:16:18.626
Cambridge, but I was lucky enough to
have an american friend who was also

00:16:18.659 --> 00:16:22.287
a faculty member at Cambridge who said
you know I've worked in offices

00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:26.646
with the graduates of Cincinnati and
they're very good. I think you ought

00:16:26.679 --> 00:16:31.016
to go and have a look. So I said sure
I'll come out. So I went out and it

00:16:31.049 --> 00:16:34.197
was april again and the daffodils were
blooming and I thought this looks

00:16:34.230 --> 00:16:42.230
quite nice. Um And so anyhow they
offered me the job which

00:16:42.639 --> 00:16:46.516
my wife was delighted to hear because
as an american. My wife's from

00:16:46.549 --> 00:16:51.256
Brooklyn, she put up with being an
american wife in Cambridge for long

00:16:51.289 --> 00:16:56.506
enough. And so she was very happy with
the idea that we would be going to

00:16:56.539 --> 00:17:04.539
Cincinnati. Ah I had never lived in
the midwest. I obviously went through

00:17:05.250 --> 00:17:11.097
the midwest on my trip around the
states, but I discovered that well, two

00:17:11.130 --> 00:17:15.306
things. One is that

00:17:15.339 --> 00:17:20.486
americans are extremely snobbish about
whether you live on the coast or

00:17:20.519 --> 00:17:24.506
not, if you live on the east coast,
then you're one kind of person if you

00:17:24.539 --> 00:17:27.316
live on the west coast or another kind
of person. And if you're in the

00:17:27.349 --> 00:17:33.947
middle you are to be pitied. Uh and
and I learned that that is an entirely

00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:39.957
inappropriate and completely wrong
estimation of the midwest, I know

00:17:39.990 --> 00:17:46.296
you're from the midwest, so, but I
learned to have a huge regard for the

00:17:46.329 --> 00:17:53.407
culture of the Midwesterners. Ah they
were honest, hardworking, they were

00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:57.506
completely un presumptuous. They were
wonderful people, both as colleagues

00:17:57.539 --> 00:18:03.746
, Sanders, students. Yeah, well I went
there to be ahead of the School of

00:18:03.779 --> 00:18:10.536
architecture, but fairly shortly after
I had arrived, they slightly

00:18:10.569 --> 00:18:15.266
reorganized the college and I became
the director of the School of

00:18:15.299 --> 00:18:20.417
Architecture and Interior Design. So I
took on responsibility not only for

00:18:20.450 --> 00:18:25.427
architecture but also for interior
design and I took that very seriously.

00:18:25.460 --> 00:18:29.917
I I thought that if I was going to do
that, I really needed to both think

00:18:29.950 --> 00:18:36.367
hard and find out what there was to
know about interior design. It also

00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:39.867
gave me the idea of multidisciplinary
schools, which is an idea that I

00:18:39.900 --> 00:18:47.036
brought with me uh, to, to, to this,
this university. Uh huh. But I

00:18:47.069 --> 00:18:54.556
thoroughly enjoyed my time at
Cincinnati. Um, the students were, as I've

00:18:54.589 --> 00:18:57.306
said, terrific.

00:18:57.339 --> 00:19:01.097
One of the reasons Cincinnati is as
good as it is, is because it's, it's

00:19:01.130 --> 00:19:06.506
one of the very few schools in the
United States that has a co op program

00:19:06.539 --> 00:19:12.407
and the co op program works
extraordinarily well for professional schools.

00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:18.016
My son is a doctor and he went through
medical school, which still works

00:19:18.049 --> 00:19:22.546
like a co op program. But basically
the co op program says that there's a

00:19:22.579 --> 00:19:27.236
freshman, you do a normal freshman
year, but from there on until the very

00:19:27.269 --> 00:19:30.546
end of your program, you alternate
three months in school with three

00:19:30.579 --> 00:19:37.006
months in an office and Cincinnati had
a marvelous array of offices

00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:40.417
available to the students, not only
all over the United States, but in

00:19:40.450 --> 00:19:45.147
many cases all over the world. And so
you have these fantastic midwestern

00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:51.296
students going to a very good school
in the midwest but also going out to

00:19:51.329 --> 00:19:55.927
offices all over the country and all
over the world working with some of

00:19:55.960 --> 00:20:00.207
the very best architects on some of
the most interesting projects

00:20:00.240 --> 00:20:06.766
that did actually pose a problem for
me. And the problem was that as I

00:20:06.799 --> 00:20:12.036
talked to the students, it became
clear that they thought that the most

00:20:12.069 --> 00:20:16.217
important part of their education was
what happened in the offices and

00:20:16.250 --> 00:20:20.756
that going to university was just a
kind of fun thing. And as I thought

00:20:20.789 --> 00:20:23.687
about it, I thought, well maybe
they've got some points here. You know,

00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:27.137
they're in an office, they're being
paid, they're working on real life

00:20:27.170 --> 00:20:32.927
projects with real live architects and
interesting cities and here they're

00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:37.506
paying for the privilege of working on
fictional projects with part time

00:20:37.539 --> 00:20:43.967
architects in the Midwestern city. So
it's not an even playing field.

00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:49.076
Quite obviously they enjoy the one
rather than the other. So it posed a

00:20:49.109 --> 00:20:55.897
problem for me, which is how to make
school as attractive as the office

00:20:55.930 --> 00:21:01.736
experience was. And my answer was too
optimistic the intellectual

00:21:01.769 --> 00:21:07.967
dimensions of the school so that they
had an intellectual experience at a

00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:13.576
higher level than they would have in
their offices. And so we hired a

00:21:13.609 --> 00:21:18.526
whole bunch of very, very bright young
graduate students from Princeton,

00:21:18.559 --> 00:21:23.556
Harvard and Yale. And that made a big
difference. Many of those have gone

00:21:23.589 --> 00:21:29.210
on to distinguished positions all over
the country. Since then,