just to identify the tape, I'm pam Stevenson and today is monday november
the 24th pam. Let me, can you hear me? Okay, well I can now, I'm just
trying to identify on the tape the date and where we are that it's
november 24th 2000 and three. And we're here at A. S. U. Doing an
interview for the Arizona State University retirees association Living
History video project. And I'd like for you to introduce yourself. Um tell
us your name and what your role was at A. S. U. When you, when you retired
basically. And then we'll go back and get more details. Well, my name is
Jim Elmore and I came to A. S. U. In 1949 and was the founding dean of the
College of Architecture during the 1st 24 years. I was in the in the
leadership role as the college grew from. Uh well at first I just taught a
single course and then it became a,
I didn't even have a name to begin with, it was part of the industrial
arts department and uh then it became a division and new College of
Engineering and finally in 60 for the College of Architecture,
why don't we go back and get a little bit of background about you? Um
First um why don't you tell me where you were born? And when you were born
? I was born in, in Lincoln Nebraska on september 5th 1917,
which was Labor Day. My mother has an entirely different view of Labor Day.
Uh and I went to school Lincoln high school. I did spend ages 10 to 15 in
a little town of 917. My dad was a lumber yard manager, but then I
graduated from Lincoln High School and the University of Nebraska where I
received an ROTC commission as second lieutenant. And this was in 1939.
And in 1940 I went to active duty with, became the Corps of Engineers for
six years until 1946.
So you were in the Army Army Corps of Engineers during World War Two. Want
to tell us a little bit about what sort of things you did during those
years? Well, it was a staff position, normally uh three 73rd Engineer,
General Service Regiment. I was one of two officers that led the advanced
party for the regiment to packing tonight. Park and in England. Oh, and we
went over on the queen mary, remember that very well and prepared for the
regiment to come. But then after not very long I was able to get back with
a former commander at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey sigh potter who was in the
planning division of the Chief Engineer's office. And so that's where I
spent the rest of the war actually. My work years were spent in them
Washington, new york philadelphia London paris and Frankfurt. I always, I
felt kind of lucky about that and sympathized with those guys out in the
pacific uh it was a good experience that I had and I over to the military
?
Yeah, it doesn't sound like you had to spend too much time on the front
lines with your life in danger though. No, I was, I did see, I think the
first buzz bomb and for a time our offices in London were in the
Selfridges, an ax on the very top floor where there was only six inches of
concrete and when we would hear a buzz bomb we'd go up and watch it go
down.
That's the closest I ever came. I went to to the continent at about D 21 I
think it was something like that. Mm hmm.
And then road to paris on the top of a
laundry machine. I think it was mm hmm. And spent 18 months in, in paris
and then time in Frankfurt Germany uh before I came home on a liberty ship.
And I remember out on the prowl wondering what I was going to do and I
decided to pursue the, the course that I had followed at the University of
Nebraska where I studied architecture. It was not yet then accredited and
it followed the boz art curriculum. And and so I decided to go back to
Colombia on the G I. Bill where I hope to get an accredited degree in one
year. Ah but they wouldn't give it to me. I had to take two years, but but
I got a master's degree and very shortly after that my wife and I came to
, to phoenix. Your master's degree was in architecture architecture. What
brought you to phoenix? Well, and and I drove around the country for seven
weeks in 1948
and it boiled down to Houston san Francisco and phoenix and we decided on
phoenix I would come to work for Gary in jones fred. Gary is a well known
architect here, Hugh jones had been with Skidmore owings and Merrill of
the firm where I had worked while I was spending the two years at Columbia
before and after and who jones had left Skidmore and come out to join fred
and that was the contact that we made here and we decided that I would
come join the firm as soon as I had passed the exam in in new york. And I
remember so well I was working loaned out to Harris and Obama bits from
Skidmore owings and Merrill was working on the secretariat building of the
, of the United Nations when my wife called and toyed with me a little bit
to make me think I had passed part of the exam and it turned out I had
passed the whole thing on the first try. And so within three weeks we
brought our way to phoenix and uh we have been forever glad that this,
that we made the right choice. What was phoenix like when you came here in
1949 you said, Yeah,
well
what was finished like it was a little town. The road map that we followed
showed it had a population of 65,000. Excuse me. I've just got to get a
drink.
I'm putting together, I'm rambling now. I'm putting together an exhibit
that the college will mount in february pictures of then and now. Ah
All right. Um And it goes back to 2 1951 is the oldest picture I've got.
And what I'm doing is and what I have done is take the same pictures of
the same places, 2030 and 40 50 years apart. And uh when you asked that
question, I'm I'm remembering some of those pictures of of what downtown
phoenix looked like over the agricultural fields out on the west side of
town. Ah What Van Buren looked like of looking west picture of that and
what it looks like now with.
Well the most prominent thing was the Valley bank, octagonal side up on
top of the professional building. The security building was there where
Gary and jones had their office, but
it's not so much a matter of what was there then, because there wasn't
much. Uh huh. And the now picture shows Arizona center and the the whole
enchilada.
Uh So that's what what phoenix was like and
and what Tempe was like. I've lived in phoenix and worked in Tempe for all
the time. I never lived in Tempe and I hardly ever worked in in phoenix? I
was back and forth all the time. You made that choice. Well I didn't come
to teach at A. S. U. I came to be an architect starting with an
established firm. The work ran out rather quickly with with fred Kyrie and
I went to work with Ed Varney who was in the lower arcade, the arcade of
the lures buildings. And then started to teach one night course over here
and that's what what brought. But there being no college of Architecture
or no program in architecture closer than Los Angeles or Berkeley or Salt
Lake City or lubbock texas. There seemed to be an opening here and and I
gradually drifted into that. And that became my career for 37 years here
on the on the campus. Ah I'll tell you how did you come to teach that
first class? How did that happen?
Well, I have I guess I encountered Mill Ensign who was teaching over here.
Both are kind of course. And so that's how I got into it. Uh He stayed
for only a year because he was more interested in developing his practice.
But my first course was
it was it was a history course and it was in the just it was only all
Goodwin Stadium, the west, the west stands
and we were a part of the industrial arts department under louis neb the
industrial arts department had just moved from another building on the
campus and it was an industrial arts program. There was a programming
upholstery for heaven's sake. And our first video courses were up under
the seating and the it leaked. But then we got our own concert hut in 1951
where we
we were there for a couple of years I guess and had to leave because it
was torn down. This was the first building that had architecture over the
door and it was torn down for the first building of the College of
Business, which was just then north of of Goodwin Stadium. Um And so
you asked what, what phoenix and Tempe were like? Uh huh. Oh, I might as
well continue with this rambling account uh pam because
at that time
College Avenue was full of local traffic cars up and down College Avenue
which became Katie Mall. Oh we were in ah 10 different places on the
campus, one in the old business building, we were in the basement of the
student union building until we had to get out so the bowling alleys could
be installed. And so then we were in the training school, in the unburned
portion of the training school and in cross hall, which had been the
dining hall and then the pain training school where we just joke that we
were undergoing pain training, it was good restrooms, had neither heating
or cooling then. And this was until we got our own building in 1970 fred
Desiree had been the architect of his first sketches, uh huh show the
single building for art and architecture complex. That's what it was to be.
And he had architecture on the 2nd and 6th floors and I resisted that.
And fortunately Gilbert Katie backed me up. We had to again have a
building with College of Architecture over the door. Ah
and so we that was our new building in 1970 that's the old building now.
It's kind of ironic that for a college of Architecture do not have a
building for the 1st 20 years. Well, we didn't have much stature for all
that time. We were growing
and
the students that we produced as graduates. Uh, some of them are very, uh
, very theme. Shall I, shall I talk about that. Let's talk a little bit
about how the school grew from, you came to teach one class. How did it
grow to become school of college?
Uh,
mm hmm. Break away and become, Well, I remember, pardon? You said it was
part of industrial arts when you first came. Yeah. Break away and become
its separate entity when the College of Engineering was formed, I think,
and I believe that was in 1956.
So it wasn't very long. Uh
hmm. How did it? It just kind of grew like topsy, I remember writing to
the National Architectural Accrediting Board to learn what the procedures
were for becoming accredited. And I remember the reply was, we should
start a two year program and, and go on from there. Maybe we could be a
forceful pioneer, the letter said. Uh, so we just had the opportunity to
add to the faculty to accommodate the students who came, I remember
recruiting one guy, I see him every now and then, he's in practice. This
was back in the fifties. Um,
well Benny Gonzalez, I wanted to talk about two students and one faculty
member, I wanted to be sure and and talk about that. Oh, Benny was
graduated in 54 I think it was, which was before we had the accredited
program and that didn't come until 61. Ah But Benny was a fireman and a
student and he made the working drawings for my house and functioned as
the general contractor and employing
fellow firemen to do the electrical work and the, and the painting and all
the rest of it. And so Benny was even preceded or or being accredited um,
in building that house. Uh, it was a house next door to the one that the
first one that we had built. And while it was a building, um another
former student, Nick Deveny, who was in that very first class in the
quantity hut in 1951. Nick now lives across the street from me and I refer
to him as my oldest living student. Um Nick was supervising work on the
boomer house and the Edelman House of frank Lloyd wright, which were just
across the dirt road from where we were building our house, where was that
? In alta vista Park Estates, which was the a 40 acre track that was just
east of the biltmore Hotel, not included in the biltmore Holdings. Uh
So
well there's a little anecdote that goes along with that mrs boomer uh huh
was not in residence, but the Edelman's were both of the houses were just
across our, so we invited the neighborhood to a little coffee one sunday
morning. Um Mr Edelman was in very bad health, they had stayed at the
biltmore in a bungalow there for many winters and decided to have mr right
build a house for them, which he did is Usonian automatic. It was well the
the Edelman's came and at one point I wanted to see the inside of our
house. So I took a man and I remember mr mr Edelman sort of tiling across
the living room floor and slumping down on the couch, leaning his hands on
his cane and his chin and he looked around and said you see mama, like I
told you you don't have to get a genius to do a house uh That that was
about the highest accolade I I ever had that
to you or to Benny or both? Oh it was my design, yeah, it was my design.
Penny built it and I've always been so proud of Benny and and the work
that he has done in Saudi Arabia in texas, the Scottsdale city Hall and,
and while there's one other student that I want to talk about frank Henry
who was our first graduate with the uh, that enabled us to be accredited
and at that time commencement exercises were on the football field in Sun
Devil Stadium with the airplanes flying over. This is almost as often as
they do now. And when President Durham asked will candidates for the
degree Bachelor of Architecture 1961
please rise frank Henry stood up. He was in a class by himself. He really
was uh excellent designer. He worked with architects locally and now frank
is teaching at Taliesin West where he conducts guided tours and he does a
masterful job of it. He works in the archives there. So Benny and frank or
or two guys that I think sort of stand for
the graduates that that we produced, I'm proud of them all. There were 434
during my watch. I even take a vicarious pride in the ones that graduated
after my time.
Let's go back a little bit. I interviewed Benny and I did an interview
with many Gonzalez a couple of years ago and he talked about going to
school here, but it was kind of complicated because you didn't actually
give a degree for architecture. Can you explain what, what a student had
to go through after they took your courses to become an architect. Well
Benny went to the school in Mexico,
but the the degree with which he graduated was called Bachelor of Science
in industrial arts with an area of concentration in industrial and
Architectural drafting and design. That's what it said on his diploma. Ah
And so
he became registered without just by passing the exam. I guess I thought
of that. A lot of them didn't, he said he had to, he had to go somewhere
else to get some more education before he took the exam. Or was that just
his choice to Mexico to the architecture down there, it was always
possible to get registered without a degree. And then he worked with
Blaine drake. He worked, I did a couple of houses that he did. He worked
for drover, weaver, drover.
And just somehow I can't tell you the specifics, but it was a possible
course of action. And he followed it did most of your students then in
those early days did they go on to pass the exam and become architects? I
don't know what percentage of them did. Certainly most of them did. Mhm.
And I remember and if book that I have here that a issues college of
Architecture the 1st 25 years, which was my watch. Uh We noted that
a third of the students came from Arizona, a third from California and a
third from elsewhere that roughly approximates it. And
two thirds of the students stayed here as nearly as we could stay.
But they went to Australia to Germany to England. Uh
And we heard back from them and have had exhibitions that showed their
work of which we can be proud. What attracted them here in the early days
? What what attracted them to come from all over
just because we were here, I guess.
Uh probably the early students were all local and we had grow a little bit
before. We sort of attracting students from elsewhere. Excuse me.
You're gonna have to do a lot of editing, editing. We just want to kind of
get the history down. Yeah. So I don't know you were the only architecture
school in Arizona then at that time. Right. So the local ones didn't have
a lot of choices. Yeah. So you say you came and you started teaching one
class? When did you become full time? Working well, pretty soon. Really?
Because I remember. And it says so in this orange book that in 1950
President Grady Gammage hired me full time. I had the salary of $3800 a
year. And I was really delighted did you continue to do some architectural
designing? But in addition,
uh I associated with a a group of four other architects weaver and drover
and have er and barney in a group. We called planning associates to
undertake work on larger scale than individual buildings because all of us
felt the importance of, of buildings being in context with their
environment and mm hmm.
Mhm.
See you mentioned that, Grady Gammage was the president when he hired you.
Tell me a little bit about those years when he was president. Uh huh.
Well we uh
during during those years we were
take in the
one of the first story wings and then the third story of the a wing of the
engineering center.
But that was even after Dr Gammage, I remember this that uh
we had our annual
awards dinner and banquet in the spring of the year in the student union
building. As many as 500 people from friends and relatives and the
community came to those annual events where the dinner was three and a
quarter
and it must have been in the very early, one of those that Dr Gammage and
misses the damage came to the event
and uh I remember yeah, it had to be done. Uh we had the first thing in 7
58 and I think President Gammage died in 58 anyway on that one occasion,
oh he asked me up, what what's this I hear about college of the university
at, at the University of Arizona being the best school in the worst and I
said oh that's just something said little as saying and dr Gandhi said,
well he is saying it and you can tell I've never forgotten that ah oh
there are so many little events like that. I've gone beyond your question
now, I was asking you about your memories of dr Gammage um you mentioned
frank Lloyd wright, you know, frank Lloyd wright and Gammy to her friends
at some point to why don't you talk a little bit about frank Lloyd wright
? Well, I've already told you one story about frank Lloyd wright. Um
I
I I took students out there quite often and talked with him and I had one
appointment with him by by appointment and I remember so clearly I can
still see him coming into the living room through that little brightly
lighted atrium and thinking what a match between a man and a place this is.
We had a nice conversation and uh on several occasions I saw him there. I
don't think he would have known me if he'd recognize, would have
recognized me if he saw me on the street. But I did manage to get him to
come to the campus Matthews hall to speak to a joint meeting of the
student chapter in the Central Arizona chapter of the American Institute
of Architects. I had um suggested to him that he would come and just chat
with the boys about architecture. But I made the mistake of putting a big
upholstered chair out there sort of conspicuously for him to sit in and he
pulled out a manuscript, triple spaced and went on a considerable length.
He had been under criticism for political views of some kind, but I
remember that day. He got here early and uh um my wife and and bobby
drover, we're blessing the sandwiches and the drinks together. And uh my
wife and came out with the play of sandwiches and ran into mr right, he
grabbed a sandwich and picked up the the top thing, can't touch it.
Somebody asked him what he would like to drink coffee with the juice of
half a lemon. Uh He was such a wonderful character and and everybody
admired him and worshiped him really in in architectural circles and
properly. They should. I was young at the time, quite young and thought
that anything was possible. And so when I was applying for a Arnold w
Brunner fellowship, well established scholarship program to allow one to
travel and study abroad, I wanted that very much and I thought it would be
helpful if I got a recommendation from from Mr. Right, I
was foolish, but I say I was young at the time. So I asked him for, he
wrote and said the I know of no reason why Mr Elmore should not have this
scholarship,
I didn't get it. Not exactly high praise.
Uh uh So what else? Well, I've heard some less flattering stories about
frank Lloyd wright. So some of the people in town in phoenix didn't pay
his bills and things like that. Did you ever hear stories like that wealth
? There are always those um
I don't know any unflattering. Well I guess the only one when one of his
clients uh, complained that his roof leaked. Mr Wright said, move your
chair.
He was good at that. He was quite a character from what I understand when
he came into phoenix, People noticed. And now also somebody told me a
story about him here on campus with Doctor Gammage when they were making
plans for the Gammage Auditorium. Were you involved? No, I was not
involved in that. So even though you were the, you know, the architecture
school, you weren't, they didn't consult with you about that? No, that's
right. We hadn't grown up far enough yet. Well, did you know about the
plans that they were making? Oh yes, yes. And I guess at that time
involved in the community as I was, I I had some thoughts about
local architects having an opportunity.
I think that
whatever we do whatever anybody does,
we should
look at all the alternatives. Look at the costs and all the benefits of
all the alternatives. Uh, that was a single minded choice and and a good
one and the history of architecture is full of such such choices. Now.
We're reading all about frank Gehry doing the Los Angeles Symphony Hall
and the balboa Museum and things like that As an aside, I tend to think
that that each architect with each building
is seeking to out shout the other architect and the result is
architectural acrobatics. Each one is a, is a stunt and that happens a
little bit here on our campus.
But as I said earlier, College Avenue used to go through with automobiles
serving the town of Tempe and it became Katie mole, which unites this
campus as a pedestrian precinct and makes an entity of it and whatever the
buildings are that don't much respect each other. Uh, it is now a unified
campus with the Gammage Auditorium, the music building, the fine arts
structure, the architecture building, all of them, uh, quite different
from each other, but unified into a single campus with the, with the malls
, uh, principle of them being the Katie mall and Gilbert Katie was, was
really the prime mover with, with President Durham, uh, for all of this
being established.
So was there ever any of, for master plan? I know later in later years
they did a master plan. But in the early years of the camp, Well, Dave
fervor put it in his book of the master plan that I did in 54 had
forgotten all about it and found it in my attic. And then in 60 of
Planning Associates, the group that I identify a little further
did two projects. One was for stanford Research, a convention center in
downtown phoenix and the other was a master plan for the campus. And
that's all printed in Dave's book, uh huh.
How closely did they follow those plans? Oh, nobody ever follows a master
plan a plan is something to be departed from, but only with good reason
and so I guess there were lots of good reasons. No, I I look back on those
things and I'm not real proud of them. But
did the early plants um include the malls in that? Was that an early plan
to get rid of it? Well,
Dave quotes me in his book as, as being the one who suggested that college
avenue be closed to vehicular traffic and become a pedestrian precinct. We
put a big tall library over it for people to walk under. But
no, Well, but point of that is that it that it's about them all, which has
such important
role to play in this campus.
Um
you certainly, you, you started the College of Architecture basically from
scratch. Can you talk about what, what were the key turning points? What
was the key turning points of the growth of the college?
The key points in the growth of the College of Architecture?
Well, the accreditation was, was really the key to it. I have a picture of
the accrediting team, a lunch in the President's residence.
Several members of the Board of Regents were there. Dean's President,
Durham Gilbert, Katie. Ah
that was the key. A key thing. Oh, that was in sixth. Okay, faculty hires
important,
some of the, some of the key faculty that you hired? Well, as I said a
little while ago, I wanted to talk about two students that was Benny
Gonzalez and
and frank Henry, there's one faculty member that I, I want to talk about
and that's, that's cal strub who joined in 1961 just after we were
accredited in the very next year. I've always said to anyone and everyone
that one of the best things that I ever did as dean was to hire a cow, I
can't take much credit for it because he and Sylvia, uh I wanted to get
out of Los Angeles and they wanted to come here but carol,
uh huh students loved him, He loved students. He brought much of the
inspiration on which our, our college would grow. There are others very
able faculty who contributed
an awful lot.
But I'll just mention cal as, as one, you can mention more than one if
you'd like. Well there's Marcus Whitman who came, he's an englishman who
had taught at Vassar.
In fact it happened that that the president of Vassar at that time, Ted
Irq was brother of my high school chum and I got a good recommendation
from him on Marcus who was teaching there, he wrote on the public
buildings of Williamsburg, he spent some, some, some time there and he did
great things here as as well and students remember him uh very fondly. Uh
both of them are gone now
but
there are others
dave shots lee but he was after my time. Okay, I can't take, what about
you? How do students remember you students, what, how do the students
remember you?
Oh, I'm not sure they do. Mm hmm.
Well, some of them have been express
gratitude for the,
for the college that I put together. I mean that they, I think I put
together. Uh huh.
Okay. What
one of the things that I've always heard about you was the project, I
guess you'd call it where you had your students decide what they should do
about the Salt River. Well, that's the second important thing. The first
was to be accredited. Well, I guess the first was just too found the
school because of what it has done, what it is doing and what it is
capable of doing for the future with particular respect to this
metropolitan community. And it was that kind of a project that uh, that we
did, we did projects in the, in the local area habitually, that's where we
focused our design programs and design problems on. I remember when I was
still teaching design, assigning uh, a laundromat on Mill Avenue, Can you
imagine the laundromat on Mill Avenue Now we did a capital in Papago park
in 1950 frank Lloyd wright. He did his in 1957.
Ah Oh, I'm forever glad that neither one of them got built in, in, in
Papago park, seen pictures of his in life magazine and I interviewed less
Mahoney about that. But what was your design you talked to left Mahoney
back in the seventies.
Oh he told me stories about frank Lloyd Wright now, but tell me what was
your design for the capital?
There's a picture of it in the orange book with up under the stadium. Uh
In 1950 I guess this would have been with President Gammage and Justice
Applied and three of the students, it was a building reminiscent of the
secretariat at the U. N. Buildings because that's where I had been working
just before coming here. Uh Yet followed the philosophy
more that
Skidmore owings and Merrill followed
who did a design and in fact were the architects of the Air Force Academy.
But Le Corbusier and Gropius and Mies all did mechanical kinds of machine
made things. That's where that's the baby do it. Uh and that's what our
bill and we had four ft long fluorescent tubes inside to light it up. Uh
and that was our design frank Lloyd Wright's design of course is well
known. And and having brought up the Air Force Academy, there was a point
and counterpoint there to uh right, I thought that the Air Force Academy
should harmonize with the mountain backdrop,
it should fit in as he so often said to its own setting wherever that was.
And I think he did designs of the Air Force Academy as he did of of the
Arizona state capitol building in Papago park. Oh Skidmore owings and
Merrill were selected.
Their theory was that the Air Force academy had to do with flight. This
was something forward mechanical technological, It should stand on its own
feet and express its function uh, against whatever the backdrop
works in a little. Let's go back to the Salt River and what that project
of how that came about. Well,
in the years before we had developed the procedure of relating the design
projects of each level, 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th to each other, selecting
them from around the country around the community. Um, and it was in 19 60
five or six that we did one called Valley Focus 66. That was the name of
it. And it, uh, we made a publication on it. It had, it addressed canal
design. It made a plan for downtown Tempe, it did graphics and, and all
manner of things that were tied together and, and put into a publication
that jim wrap
put together and I thought that was, I thought that was uh,
you're rubbish.
I thought that the project had been so successful that the final faculty
meeting that year, which was at Chico's, I think it was not far down the
road here, a mexican restaurant. We used to have a lot of faculty meetings
and have a little fun at them too. But I suggested, let's do something
with the river. And so we did in that fall of of 66
bob McConnell was the fifth year critic and he had 16 students that
tramped up and down the river eroded on horseback, flew over in airplanes
, talked to every agency around the valley that could have anything to do
with the Salt river and build a model and came up with it and we presented
it in the student union building to community leaders and the picture of
it is in the orange book there
in March of 1967. I think it was some of the, some of the students were
there and identified bob McConnell was not for which I'm very sorry but
bob and I have maintained connection and incidentally he became dean of
Architecture at the U. Of A and
oh, incidental to that bob hershberger of our faculty also became dean of
the U. Of A and decree bus who was associate dean after my time is now the
Dean of architecture that you've a, so they are very much dependent upon
us for uh, but bob bob was not in that picture, but he was the mentor that
guided those 16 students well for the next three years we did design
projects that we're focused on what they had done up and down the river.
And then in March of 69 it was your, we convened about 80 business and
civic leaders at the Safari hotel in Scottsdale and made this presentation
, divided them into groups to recommend on various aspects of it and it
wound up with the motion being made by lyric Maryland who was the
president and founder of the Arizona Academy. The, mm hmm, organizers of
the Arizona town halls, Laurie moved that the Valley Forward Association
be asked to undertake the mhm funding management design and operation of
the Rio salado project, making use of all resources, public and private
and so that was seconded and that's what happened. Valley Forward was just
forming at that time and I was one of the founding members of Valley
Forward. So I became chairman of Valley forwards Rio salado committee.
Valley Forward shepherded the project and kept it alive for the decade of
the seventies,
after which legislation was passed that that Valley forward had suggested
and drafted creating the real celebrity development district and I was
appointed to that. So I've lived with the real cilantro from from the
beginning uh and uh the real slaughter development district commissioned a
preliminary study that was done by uh los Angeles firm who now are located
locally uh and put before the voters are very what ambitious
program putting the whole thing together in one package and it was just
too much for the voters
and they voted it down. Uh Harry Mitchell, then mayor of of Tempe was on
the board. Uh the real slow Development district board and came in the
next morning. So we're gonna do it. And Tempe has done it. And and uh
while I am often referred to as the father of the real salada project.
it's the mayors of Tempe and the people who elected them that put the town
lake where it is their everlasting credit and that has served I think as
inspiration to phoenix to do what they're doing now with a five mile
stretch of the river and so it all came out of that uh let's do something
with the river business which started as a student project. Yeah,
that has been acknowledged in, in all of the things that have been written
about it since that. It did begin here in the college in uh that? S you,
did you ever think in the early seventies when form value forward and
we're going to do something with it that it would take this long.
I don't believe that. However, thought about how long it would take. I
thought only about the immediate next step ah but it didn't take quite a
while, didn't it?
Uh huh I think it was in the eighties that they put it up for a vote 87.
So the
real slow development district perished at that point. The vote was in 87
but
very soon
the name of the real slaughter parkway was established and name, excuse me
pam It's, I do want to say this,
the rio salado parkway in in Tempe will be extended.
I am sure one day
55 miles to from Saguaro Lake to the Australia mountain regional park,
it's already begun Tempe has got it in place. It's on phoenix's maps, it's
on Mesa's maps, it's going to happen one day a parkway for vehicles and
then up parallel or comparable parkway for pedestrians and equestrians and
bicyclists and, and others along this flowing stream that will connect
leaks here and there. Perhaps none as ambitious as, as town lake. But uh,
there'll be at least a trickle of water all the way along. And that will
happen maybe in another 30 years. I like to think that there can be a, and
an inaugural Real Seletto marathon that will start at both ends and finish
in Sun Devil Stadium. Ah, there is so much opportunity for this to happen
and the reality is that it's at the very heart of this metropolitan area.
What happens there is metropolitan infill
instead of spoil
and there are ways for this city to grow that
that will encourage that.
I have proposed an aerial city
with tall buildings over transit stations where people who can afford to
live on desert acres, but would prefer convenient access to the office and
to all of the governmental financial cultural sporting museum facilities
just by going downstairs and getting on the train. Uh,
and, and real slaughter is really at the heart of all of that. It's just
an opportunity and in the student's language, see if I can remember it,
they said they referred to it as a, a vast reservoir of open space, unique
to the heart of a great city. That's what they said. And that's what's
being exploited now. Uh,
I like to use the word exploited because despite its sinister implication
, it is possible to exploit things for the good. And, and that's what's
happening with me with a lot of, I think uh, we suggested at one point the
possibility of the olympic games or a World's Fair. Uh, there was a
regional urban design assistance team of the college of, of the American
Institute of Architects that came here in 1970 for and gave us what may be
the first glimpse we had of a single metropolitan plan with the peripheral
green Sward around the outside with the freeway net in its then proposed
form rapid transit
and the World's Fair. There's a group working on the world's Fair now in,
in ah for six or eight years out because of my connection with Real Solaro.
Their, their purpose is to exploit Rios Lotto beneficially to provide the
impetus for this vast reservoir of space to be developed to its highest
advantage. Uh,
and the world's Fair would be a first significant event in that regard. So
it's going to take 30 or it's going to keep on going forever. It's going
to keep building and and, and and the Metropolitan community will profit
friar from the beginning.
And even go to the point of remodeling part of it someday. It's, it's now
the focus of metropolitan phoenix any of those original students that we
see them when, when, when the town lake was dedicated bob McConnell came
up from Tucson and there were six of our students who were still in town
that were there and we got pictures of them and everything. And we get
together now and then. Uh there were 16. Originally. One has died, one is
in Australia. Uh, I could almost tell you about all of them. All right.
I told you I rambled.
I've got lots of rambling questions too. I just want you to reflect a
little bit of when you first came to A. S. U. And looked at the campus and
when you look at the campus today, what do you think about the way it's
changed?
Well, it has, it's a sea change on the desert. Um Let me start at Goodwin
Stadium where we had our first courses. I have a picture of the west
facade of, of, of Goodwin Stadium where there were the initials in letters
about two ft high or something like this, A. S. T. See. And the S. The A.
And the S. Are still were still prominently there in this picture and the
T. For teachers and see for college had been obliterated. Uh, And now of
course the building's gone and there's all the development of the college
of business that's happened there at that time. There were curbs and
sidewalks on on college Avenue. Uh And where we built our Kwanza hut, just
north of Goodwood Stadium and is now gone. Just north of that was the
student union side where there was nothing in, in 19 49 Dave's book would
show that better. But and there was a dormitory, East hall was where the
Hayden library is now.
And it was a barber shop about where the nursing building is,
where the
architecture foundation building is under construction now east of college.
North of of university was the old town. And I have a collection of
pictures that I took in 1956. I think it was of Old Town. Mm hmm. That's
another part of the change. Uh, there was a bungalow um, for the new work
for the 1970 College of Architecture building was that was removed. Ah
there were, there were
well, as I've said that it's a sea change that that that has taken place
there. But the big event I'll repeat was the, was the establishment of the
malls which have knit all this together to be such a wonderful place for
students to learn and teachers to teach. What do you think about the sort
of a hodgepodge of architectural styles though everything from the art
museum to the new Well, that's what I said a moment ago pam that
each architect seems to want to do his own thing without high regard for
what's nearby. I don't know what would have happened otherwise. And that's
why I think it's so doubly important that we have the malls to, to tie it
all together. Mm hmm. There is some
super architecture here that would be referred to by others. I don't like
the word but as world class and there's others that are rather indifferent
but it makes a wonderful campus. What are some of the examples that would
be called world class?
The coming core building which I haven't examined closely. But I know well
, the work of Eddie jones who is the architect and of course antoine pre
dark. Uh, I think the, the architects of our new building, the 18 99 18 89
architecture building did a masterful job. I think it's wonderful the way
the they to relate together. Although quite different from each other. Mm
hmm in detail of for instance, what the exterior walls appear to be. Uh,
but functionally, I I think it works wonderfully well, particularly that
bridge that connects the two where wonderful events have happened will
always happen. Uh,
well, I guess those are prime examples.
Um, did you have some questions dave Okay.
Before you start, he left, he didn't mention gamut, this one
with World Class. The Gammage Auditorium. If you talk to look, we talked
that
Gammage Auditorium. Is that one that you would consider to be world class
too. Anything that right does is it's kind of an interesting story about
his is an adaptation of something he did in Baghdad. Ah And
I guess I would say that
that's the most important thing about the Gammage Auditorium, is that
right? Did it?
And it has that kind of a stature that now attracts the final presidential
debate
coming up. Let's see here. Uh Oh, it's a marvelous facility. It really is.
Was the original, Did it survived the bombardment in Baghdad? They never
built in Baghdad. No,
I knew it was somewhere in the Middle East. I didn't realize it was
Baghdad,
They didn't build it. No, it was just a design. He had made just like the
design for the Arizona capitol. He did a lot of designs that didn't get
built, don't we all? I made a design for the, for the Arizona capitol
that I never published. I don't think anybody ever saw it. It's one of the
few drawings that I made, but it's quite accurate representation in very
fine lines of the east facade of the capitol. And in front of it was two
stories of parking topped with a, with a park uh with plants on it and and
ancillary buildings along each side stretching all the way down town. And
and and creating a a walkable
rooftop garden
connecting the capital with with downtown. I got all enthused about that.
I'm I take after my daughter with my little enthusiasms but ah I sort of
petered out on that. I didn't, maybe they took your idea and did the Deck
Park Tunnel over by the freeway.
No, they're going to, I didn't hear a panel the, the tunnel that over the
freeway that has a park on. Well, I was involved in that too. Yeah, I was
extension of that idea. Well, I was aesthetic consultant with Johannesson
, juran, the, the engineers who were commissioned to produce alternative
designs for the stretch from I 17 out through political Park, we were told
to do depressed on grade and Ariel up and down. I was very enthused about
the aerial concept and the helical coils for which I was primarily
responsible uh, jean Pulliam of the republic didn't like it and he didn't
want a freeway at all and succeeded in in holding it up for about 10 years
I think now is I as uh well, I'm very glad that that it's not 100 ft high
because I've been working on an aerial transit system up and down Central
Avenue as an alternative to the street chorus. Um I don't know how I would
have connected with 100 100 ft high thing. And actually, as I look back at
our drawings for the depressed concept with which has turned into the
tunnel, I think ours was a better design in that it was open, it was
depressed like it is now, but the sides were sloping grass and it was
still a park right down, like it would have been on the surface. Uh, so I
guess I
I'm not too happy about everything that we've, we've done, but
finished, it certainly is maturing?
I think I probably didn't answer your question there. They just catch
trigger your mind. Maybe it's not worth too much time, but john yelling
and the solar house and that competition. Gary Herberger was involved. You
brought in, want to say anything about that. I have a picture of the jury
up at El Tovar at the Grand Canyon. It was a very distinguished jury. I
don't know
if everybody would recognize these names but not owings of Skidmore owings
and Merrill was was one of them Federal Bluesky who was Portland's
architect and Dean at MIT Carlos Contreras, an architect from Mexico Tom
Creighton, the editor of Progressive Architecture magazine
and Jim Elmore because they had to have a local and so we had the jury
there that, that selected the design of a young architect from the
University of Minnesota, I think, collaborating with architects from Salt
Lake City, which was built on Shea boulevard at about miller, I think it
was not very successful because it was in the wrong place. And but when
Dave mentions this, I came to mind this picture that I took of that jury
standing on the steps of El Tovar in the bright sunlight, there's a good
picture and and Gary Herberger is there? He was in college at the time and
this was a solar house that they built. Yeah. Did you think at that time
that solar was going to become more common?
Yeah, it had to be, I mean it hadn't, he had always played a rule of the
sun. Not quite so technologically. I think even more now the photo
photovoltaic arrays dave, you would know more about that
offer the opportunity. And in the proposal I have for this high rise Ariel
village. Uh, the top has a sloping
votre vote, take a read a panel of 88,000 square feet which would produce
, I have explored it, enough electricity for that whole village of 1000 or
so people. Oh,
I told you I'd ramble, john Yellen. Do you have any special words? Hello
john yellow. It is, is an architect, not an architect, is a faculty member
that I would rank about with cal straw. But I think so far his, his
right international.
Um, mm hmm. The place is
john,
when I was dean, we only had uh, budget place lines for a part time people
and john taught courses for me that we're beneath his dignity was
mechanical equipment in buildings. He was very good at it. But he had
bigger ideas than that. And it was john that got me into it. It was john
that to put this whole living with the sun together. There is a big book
on that, that, that shows all of the uh huh uh, competitors works. Uh, and
everything. No, john was, it was a substantial
contribute to the excellence of our faculty actually. He became a full
time faculty member after my time as did George christian some an awfully
good architect too. I retained George because he had just come from I I t
working with hills, somebody in East Van der Rohe's school on city
planning and I asked George to teach us city planning course. And again
after my time it was possible for George to join full time. And George
used to take the field trips to Los Angeles or san Francisco with a group
of students and the process that that carol had been doing and and that
others have been doing. That was a feature of our program every spring? Uh
student annual field trip. Huh, john yelling. I know he was a real
proponent of solar because I remember doing a story with him around 1979
or so where he had a solar air conditioner on his house that he was trying
out. So did he really get more things going in that solar area? Yes. And
he inspired
the guy who followed him and whose name? I don't remember who and and Jeff
Cook stepped really into into it,
Jeff who passed away not, not long ago. Yeah,
yeah, that was sort of after my time.
The question I have, what,
what, what have you been doing since you retired?
Am I on now? Well, this was a sponsored study, not in the college of
architecture, but just for me. Uh, and I mentioned that simply to
date my interest in transit. It revived
when the conversations began about light rail in phoenix. And so in 1996
I went to a program at which it was being discussed
and at the end of the program, I sent my 1970 studies as I'm thinking, all
they had to do was look at it and start to build it. Ah but then I got
obsessed with it and that's the proper word. I haven't really worked on
much else except this and it's been fruitless. Um,
I've completed a proposal
and have made a four page, four pages of extracts,
which I've sent to a number of people who have been with me
Vern sway back uh,
who doesn't want to be identified. I mean, all of this. The problem is the
political angle here. It's, it's, it's a unpopular thing to do. I have
sent one letter to the Arizona Republic.
Well, my, my proposal is, is for aerial transit above the middle of
streets not interfering with traffic at all. And in so many other ways, I
asked simply that that there be a comparison of surface with alternative
two
to either verify or refute the claims of both of both the streetcars and,
and, and my proposal
so that we could see which would better serve Glendale Central avenue
downtown phoenix, South phoenix, sky harbor the writer the future
and the region ah that's what my proposal is about and those who have been
willing to say so recognize that, that Ariel is infinitely superior. It
not only provides better service, but opens the opportunity for the aerial
village that I alluded to. Uh, a little while ago. So three weeks or so
ago, the Republic in its issues column of the uh, sunday paper published
too special to the Republic. They were one was by skip Rimsza with all of
the laudatory comments that he's famous for. The other was a guy whose
name I can't remember from the Goldwater Institute, who the title of his
was Maricopa county voters. You're being railroaded.
Well, this seemed to me to, to invite, uh, an opposite comment. And so I
mailed one the next morning and I have provided copies of that to valley
forward it at their annual retreat of it was not published. And so I'm
preparing another now to send for it and I'm sending them both return
receipt requested.
This is an example of the power of the press. Uh, I'm not trying to sell
my design. I'm trying to sell them that they need to make the design.
Having considered all the alternatives and all the costs and all the
benefits of all the alternatives and that would let us know which is the
better thing to do. They claim that the 1989 program uh, was defeated by
the voters and the businessmen in tall buildings on central I don't know
didn't want anything Ariel out there. And besides, aerial costs more than
than the surface.
Well, dollar wise, that may be, and, and probably will be, but it neglects
the value of two lanes of traffic up and down the arterials where the
streetcars go, where automobiles used to go. That's a sacrifice. That's
worth an awful lot of money. And is the possibility of this aerial city
that I was proposing. So I'm not trying to sell that because it would sell
itself if anybody ever saw it, which
it begins to look like, like, like they're not going to see it. And the
only thing left for me is gonna be to throw myself in front of the
streetcar and then everybody, everybody will be, will be sorry that they
let that happen or maybe they won't be. It sounds to me like you're a man
ahead of your time designing the Rio Solano, 30 years before they built it.
Now, you've designed an aerial city probably 50 years before they'll
build it. It's too late. It's too late for phoenix. If we start, if we
bring back the streetcar, which we took out in 1948
that will introduce ongoing investment, that it will be unlikely to be
abandoned. The time is now. I mean, that's
you asked thequestion