uh, to start off. I always identify on the tape that today is, uh,
Tuesday, January the 24th of 2006. And I'm Pam Stevenson. I'll be the
interviewer, and Manny Garcia is our videographer, and we are at the
visitor Information Centre of a SU at Apache and Rural Road. Uh, doing
this interview for the Living History video project for the Arizona State
University Retirees Association. Now that I got all that done, um, like
for you to introduce yourself, give me your full name. Well, uh, I'm
Gerald Rainie McSherry.
And just to get some basic background. When were you born? And where were
you born? I was born on the 13th of August 1931
in Belfast, Northern Ireland, The youngest of 11 Children. I'm the only
one to go to college. Well, that's an interesting story. Right there. Um,
why don't you tell? Tell me a little bit about growing up. Did you grow up
in Belfast? Yes, I did. Yes. Well, um I grew up. Really? My memories in
Belfast really go back to about 1935 3435. But probably my most important
memory is my memory of the Second World War. The first place that American
troops landed in in the UK in the Second World War was in Belfast. So I
remember seeing pictures of US troops coming off ships so on. But I was
also we were bombed three times and I was in the first two of those
blitzes. So I had experience under the table hiding under the table, not
hiding under the table, but sheltering under the table. And, uh, we had a
an unexploded bomb landed outside our house about three or four doors down
from our house. And I remember walking past that as a child. Uh, we were
being taken to a shelter, had to vacate the house. And I remember seeing
people with steel helmets, soldiers with steel helmets tinkering with the
bomb as we were walking past it. Of course, I had no fear of being at that
age. You don't have any fear. You just think, Oh, that's interesting. I
wonder what's happening there. It's kind of a frightening childhood,
though. Well, I mean, I had then I had the experience of the IRA bombs
later on, so I fond memories of Ireland.
I did it? Not really. No, it's beautiful in many ways. So did you grow up
in the city then? Yes, I grew up in in the north side of Belfast, and the
street I lived on was, you know, it sloped up towards the mountains
and I could see from my from my house I could see the cranes in the
shipyard where the Titanic was built. The actual part of the shipyard
where the Titanic was built. I heard a good story about the Titanic. By
the way, can I digress here quite a bit. Well, the story about the Titanic
was a friend went to, went there for the first time, and his wife went
downtown and bought a T shirt. And it said in the front of the T shirt, we
built the Titanic and the back said that she was all right when she left
here. So I thought that was a typical Belfast comment.
Now, if you were the youngest of 11 Children, what did your parents do for
a living to support all that big family? Oh, well, my father was a baker,
and, uh, and which was a good thing to be in the Depression because not
many people had worked during the Depression. So the 19 thirties, when I
grew up in the 19 thirties, he was never out of work. And so he was able
to support us. We always had bread. That's another good reason to be a
baker. I hung right. But having that many older brothers and sisters must
have been an interesting experience. Yes, I had. I had four brothers and
five sisters, and, um, was it like having a lot of extra parents, too?
Well, actually, I had. I had five brothers, but one of them died in
childhood. That's why I was the youngest of 11 for those who can count.
Um, so you grew up during the Depression and then the war years. Did you
go to school like normal? Yeah. I just went to elementary school the same
as normal schools in the United States until I was 14. And then I was very
fortunate. Since all my siblings had left, I was able to go to grammar
school and grammar school in Britain is kind of like you're streamed to go
to university or into one of the professions. When you go to a grammar
school or the next tier up, which is public school, which isn't very
public, really. You know, like Eaton and Harrow and places like that. So
none of your older siblings had been able to go on to school. Or did they
? No. No, There's various reasons for that. But no, none of them did. So
why was it that you were so fortunate? Well, I was the youngest by quite
quite a distance. My nearest brother to me was six years older and he went
to see in the Merchant Navy. And then my other brothers were very much
older than me. My sister, the nearest living relative I have is my sister
, who was six years older. And, uh, that's it's just the two of us left.
So when when you went to school, what did you have plans of what you were
going to do then, uh, when you grew up? Well, I had thought vaguely of, uh
, of being a naval architect because, you know, you look down. You saw the
cranes in the shipyard and I had always thought about building ships, and
I thought vaguely about that. But my strengths weren't in in the in the
engineering area. They were really in, uh, English and history, those kind
of subjects.
And so
when you went to school, was it like high school that you went to then
after it was more like a prep school? Yes, it's the same as high school,
but it was more. Not everyone got to go there. Let me put it that way. You
you either had to. You had to sit in entrance 6 a.m. Your parents had to
pay for you or you had to win a scholarship to get into that kind of
school.
My parents paid for me.
So did you have to choose like a major at that point? Or did you just
graduate thinking you'd go on to university? Well, you see, in those kind
of schools you do five years of French and you do three years of physics
and you know, it's like you. You get a good liberal education before you
leave. A lot of people leave those kinds of schools and they go into
business and they don't go on to university.
So what did you do? Well, I? I couldn't afford to go to university um my
father died when I was 19, and, uh, like through a brother in law, I got a
position in an architect's office. I could always draw one of I got prizes
for art in school, So I went into an architect's office and became an
apprentice. I didn't get paid as an apprentice. I was an apprentice for
five years, I think I got paid my last two years, and I went to night
school. I went to the Belfast College of Technology, and I sat for the
Royal Institute of British Architects examinations,
which they had examinations after three years, which they called
intermediate examinations. And so
that's what I did. So it be when you got that first job in the architect's
office, then was your goal to become an architect? Well, yes, yes, was.
Why did you want to be an architect?
Well, it was kind of accidental. You know, I, I really wanted to go and
study history at Trinity College, Dublin. But I didn't have the resources
to do that.
Well, in doing architecture, you say you were not paid. How did you
survive to do to live without being paid well and then we just just
managed somehow, you know, it wasn't I used to walk to work and things
like that. Did you just live with your family or where I live with my You
know, in Ireland, you never leave your parents.
You stay with them until you get married. So some people stay until
they're 50. But anyway, I didn't I didn't plan on staying that long. OK,
so what kind of architecture did you do there? Mostly industrial
architecture. I used to as an apprentice. I used to crawl over a flower
bag with one egg, one end of a tape while the other, more senior person
measured took the measurements that the kind of thing I did during my
first year, I also used to trace drawings and do some elementary drawings.
And And once you pass the exams, then how did that change what you were
doing? Or, well, it in in, uh, in Britain. The universities where you
study architecture are tied very close to the Royal Institute of British
Architects. So once I had an intermediate examination that would have
taken me into the fourth year of a five year university programme because
it was recognised by universities and universities in Britain. Specialise
, You know, as soon as you go in, virtually since you get a liberal
education at the equivalent of the high school level, you simply go in and
and specialise in the profession that you choose to go into. So
that's what happens. So then I confused you. Pass the intermediate exam.
Then Did you continue on working in the architect? Oh, yes. I worked in
architectural offices as an architectural assistant. I earned money and
eventually got married and so on. Did you become a full architect and
start your own firm? Or why did you? No, no. I got a government grant to
go to University College, London. So I went there for two years and
finished with a diploma in architecture from University College London and
the same year that I got my diploma because I had worked so long in
offices, I became a registered architect and a member of the RIB A.
And then what did you do? Let's see. Well, I went back to what year would
that have been? That would have been about 1960.
And then I went back to, you know, This is a long history. And can you Can
you put up with all this? Well, then I went, Um, let's see. I went back to
Belfast and I worked in an architect's office. I should say that when I
was in London, I met this. I don't know how you would call him a planning
enthusiast is one word. Um, in fact, he there was a photograph of him
selling apples in front of a barrel in London because he believed in
selling planning. And his name was Professor Percy Johnson. Marshall, by
the way, At that time, he wasn't a professor. He worked for the London
County Council. Well, he later became a professor at Edinburgh University
and where they had a new programme in planning City planning actually was
called civic design.
And, uh, I later went after working in an office for a couple of years as
an architect, I worked in housing and church buildings.
I decided that my interest was wider. I had become very interested in
planning not only through Percy's lectures, but through the lectures and
planning that I had as an architect,
because I like the history part of it. You know. I think that's what drew
me to it. I know there's a history of architecture, but it's mostly a
history of monuments. When when you're talking about a history of planning
, you're talking about the history of people as well as as well as that.
So I was very interested in planning and the social social aspect of
planning. See, in those days, people believed that architecture had a had
to make a social impact. We thought, by building better houses, that we
could help get people out of poverty.
And so it was that social aspect that attracted me into planning. And so I
although I had two Children. By then, I dragged my poor wife over to
Edinburgh with the two Children and I. I spent a year in graduate school,
and then later I did a thesis and and got my diploma in civic design from
Edinburgh University. Then I went back to the office that I worked in in
Belfast and became involved in housing and planning, and in 1968 I did a
plan for Londonderry,
which has since been implemented, and I've written a book on that. So but
let's see before that
Londonderry in Northern Ireland. It was a city built in the 17 th century.
In fact, it was the first new town of London to take. It was built by the
London companies, and it's still has its city walls and so on and so on. I
, I guess. Over here we think of city planning of being taking vacant land
and building a city. But there you already have very old cities, so it
must be quite different. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. City planning is quite
different there. Uh, the idea that someone, I mean, this the public good
reigns over the individual. Good. I mean, when I came to America, I
decided why I went back into architecture. When I came to America was, uh
I looked at the city planning, and I decided that it was an un American
activity
because simply people people, uh, you know, property rights in in America
, until recently with the with the Supreme Court decision. But, uh, you
know, property rights take precedence over everything.
No, no, no. Uh, you could take land for city development. You could draw a
stop line around cities. You could say you can't build anymore in inside
this outside the stop line. Because that's rural property. That's the
green belt you can't build there. And and so you had the whole phenomenon
of, uh, new towns in Britain, which they're not old times, but in the
sixties, they were new times.
So how long did you work in the city planning? Uh, in in Britain? Well, in
between, I had stints in America When I first came in 1965 on a Fulbright
scholarship to teach at the University of Kansas for one year. And I liked
Kansas. I thought it was nice, and I liked teaching. I thought that was
good, too. Even though I was teaching architecture, I wasn't teaching
planning. So, um, I went back to, uh, come to Northern Ireland. And then
in 1971 I got an invitation to come full time. I should explain that by
1968
uh, things had gotten really bad in Northern Ireland. The the troubles
just began to break out, and by 1971 they were really quite bad. At that
time. I was working as a city planner for Belfast,
and I suddenly got this phone call from the United States. Would you like
to come and and as a full professor
and I said yes. And, uh and I came with again with this time I had three
Children. I just built a house for myself. But I decided that that America
offered more opportunity. So I really had two careers, you know? Anyway, I
came in 1971 to 73 when my wife got homesick in Kansas, Kansas.
I was there from 1971 to 73. My wife got terribly homesick, and at the
same time, my brother in law sent me an advertisement for a position in a
large housing authority in Belfast to become the Belfast
architect for responsible for all public housing in Belfast.
So considering my wife's feeling, I couldn't refuse to do that. I went
back and of course, the troubles were still
pretty bad. But, you know, it's like you have to know where to go and
where not to go. I mean, there were car bombs and so on, so you could
something accidentally could happen. But generally speaking, there were
parts of the city which were not violent, and, uh so we went back and, uh
, after being city architect for a year, Uh, I was appointed the chief
architect of the housing organisation, and I had, uh I had about 607 100 I
can't remember now. Staff architects, landscape architects, engineers and
so on. And we were building 20,000 houses a year, and when I went in, I
became the chief architect and planner we had, um um we were only building
5000 houses, and my job was to try and and produce. When I when I say we
were building, we had 20,000 houses under contract, but we were only
completing 5000 houses. So after I left, after two years, we had risen to
7500 houses so that, you know, I never really sought these kind of
positions. They just haven't. If I was advising young people now about
taking opportunities, I would say yes, look at your opportunities very
carefully and take the ones that will advance your career. But I But I
would say Don't do what I did, which was to take every opportunity that
came along. And I think that's really a good idea at
the time. Oh, yes, quite quite rational at the time. Yes,
and Kansas had to be a big change from Belfast. But what was it like? You
said your wife didn't like it, but Oh, no. She she liked Kansas and she
liked the lifestyle and so on. But she was homesick for friends and that
kind of thing. What about your kids? What did they think of it? They I had
wonderful kids. They just went along. They were quite secure.
So you were back over there supervising 600 people and building thousands
and thousands of houses, brand new houses. Yes, they were. And it was an
interesting situation because, say, I was building a house. I'll just say
, at $20,000 as a figure, I was building a three bedroom house for $20,000
in one part of Northern Ireland, and I was building the same house in the
Shankill Road, which was controlled by Protestant paramilitaries or the
Falls Road, which was controlled by the IRA Catholic paramilitaries. Then
the house would cost considerably more. It might cost 30,000 because the
idea of protection rackets that you have in big cities in the United
States that became a way for paramilitaries to make money, you had to
either employ paramilitaries. The builder had to employ paramilitaries on
his workforce. Paramilitaries who didn't work and they would come and they
would take their machinery if they wanted to build barricades and things
like that. And I had a very close interface with with, um with what you
call citizens, civic groups or citizen groups. Uh, and, uh, most of them
were run by paramilitaries. And I had to go to these public meetings in
the Falls Road and the Shankill Road and say why we weren't building
houses quickly enough and so on. And, uh, I find, actually, well, I don't
want to You know, I could go. I could tell these kind of stories forever,
but I was in danger of. Actually, I we had to look under my car for a bomb
every morning. I had to take a different route to leave my Children at
school every day and things like that. I mean, this could be a story in
itself
that doesn't sound like a very pleasant way to live. So in 1976
I finally decided I was coming back to United States because I had an
offer to become chair of the Department of Architecture in the University
of Kansas because they couldn't fill the position and someone had a lot of
friends. Let me put it that way. We're good friends. And and so did you
take that? I took that position and I said, Yes. This is for good this
time, dear, we're not coming back this time. So that was my final farewell.
But I really When I when I came here, I was 45 you see, 45 years old, so
I had really finished a career as an architect. Probably as high as I
could have gone in architecture. I could have stayed there, Had I lived, I
might have gotten an OBE or something like that. But, I mean, I had really
gone as far as I could go in my profession. So I was really my My decision
was I was I wanted to try a teaching career because I always wanted to
write and do those things. I want to design architectural buildings or
like you were doing the more practical kinds of things. Well, well, I
realised that you know when you do those things, you do those things in
Really, in your younger years, when you get older, unless you're unless
you have the good fortune to become a designer in a large practise, you
really don't do do that. I mean, the guy who owns the practise and make
some money is is really the equivalent position I was in in Belfast. As a
chief architect, you have 500 or 200 or 30 or 20 or 10 people working for
you, and they actually do the design. You may you may produce some kind of
concept that they follow, but the old idea of architects designing really
goes back to Frank Lloyd Wright and another age. And there are some people
who still do that. But mostly, mostly speaking, these large firms have
partnerships, and people are a lot of different kinds of tasks. So I had
long ago lost that ambition. Yes. Yeah. So you came back to head up the
the the School of Architecture Architecture. Which University of Kansas?
That Lawrence, Kansas. Nice time.
Uh, quant traders was its most famous episode. I think,
um, So, um, did you you plan to make that your the rest of your life's
work at that time. Yes, I plan to stay there and teach.
And what caused you to leave there? Someone who didn't like me recommended
me for the dean's position at Illinois Institute of Technology.
And I went out of curiosity because Illinois Institute of Technology was a
very famous school. It was had a lot of famous architects from the B house
who had really formed the reputation of that school, the major one being
nice, Vander Ro and, um So I unexpectedly became Dean of I in Chicago.
What year was that? 1980 1979 1979.
Move to Chicago. Yes, but this time my two siblings, unlike their Irish
counterparts, had been anxious to get out of the house. They didn't want
to stay with Mama until they were 30. So, um, they were they were gone by
that time. And so we just had our youngest son who was nine years old, and
and so how did you like Chicago? Oh, I loved it. I I It was just heaven
for me because the architecture being, you know, with its European
background, I really understood it very well, and I understood the faculty
and the way they looked at architecture quite different to most
architecture schools. It's a very rigid kind of European kind of
curriculum, nothing like Kansas, which was built. It was really grew out
of the Beaux are kind of background, which is most most American schools
grew grew out of that background. I think Harvard didn't. But most
American schools and, uh, they, uh, they hold background for that kind of
when I describe Beaux are, I don't know whether you know what I mean when
I say that, but but it's basically using a historical background. Using
ancient monuments as a way to learn about architecture is Beaux is the
French name for the school BEAUX,
and that's that's the name of the the kind of tradition it it it is. An
actual school called the Beaux Arts in Paris is an actual school. But the
tradition the Beaux Art tradition, was brought over to America from France
until they until the 19 forties, when the Bauhaus, the German influence,
came to Harvard and IIT in Chicago.
So how did you like it at the IIIT? Is said. Oh yeah, I, I really, really
liked it very much. It's very nice. I really But you didn't stay there too
long. Well, um, somebody, a guy called Elmer Gooding called to see me one
day and he came to see me in my home in in, uh, I lived in South Chicago,
not far from the White Sox park. Actually, I have an interesting story
there. Also, because I lived in the house that was built for the former
mayor. I rented it. And, uh, I had a very reasonable rent because the
brother of the former mayor lived next door and Jimmy Carter had stayed in
the house, so it was quite a nice house. Well, how did Elmer find out
about you? Oh, Elmer. Well, Elmer, someone had again. Someone nominated me
for a position here, and I was at a conference. I think it was in, Um, let
me see in Quebec.
And Bob Hirschberger, who was on the faculty here, and Roger Slants, who
was chair of the architecture school, got me into a corner in Quebec and
persuaded me that I should come here. Well, the other thing that was
happening at that time, there was a lot of retrenchment going on. This was
the 1980 S. There wasn't a lot of money going around and in in IT, which
was a private institution. You couldn't really do much, you know, without
without funding, you can't really move forward. So the idea of coming to a
university where there was going to be lots of funding and so on, At least
that's what I was told. Uh, that that was one of the things, but what
really settled? It was We visited down here and, uh, from Chicago, and we
stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool. And it was February, and I had my
wife and son with me, and it was snowing in Chicago, and I think that
finally settled it. So came to Tempe a good time to Yeah, I think. Yes.
Yeah. What was your first impression? Other than that it was warm in
Arizona. What did you think about Arizona State University?
Well,
it was It was very, very scattered, you know, It didn't seem to be It
didn't seem to hold as a planner and an architect. It didn't seem to hold
together very well. I mean, there was one huge building, of course, G. And
And there were the remnants of what had once been streets and the building
seemed, you know, every building was different. And, uh, coming from, uh,
I I where all the buildings are virtually the same. And coming from Kansas
, which was a campus of 25,000 students set in kind of a verdant, you know
, hilly pasture, if you like. It was completely different. Yes, but the
people were very nice and I visited.
And what was the the? Was it the college of architecture at that time when
you and what was it like? The college? Um
well, it was going through a period of transition because everything here
was growing very fast, including schools. And my predecessor, Hugh Burgess
, had built the school what had been a school of architecture into a
college of architecture. And the college he had expanded it by bringing in
other programmes. Uh, industrial design. I think he brought in, or
industrial engineering that might have been called from the school of
engineering. He had brought in a new programme on interior design. There
was a programme on planning, but it wasn't planning. When I looked at it.
It was disaffected faculty from architecture who were mostly in the field
of solar design. Solar energy design
and the school had outstretched, outrun its resources. Uh, I mean, one has
to give credit to my predecessor in having the vision to see that
architecture had to exist alongside other specialisations and and not just
in its narrow kind of vogue. So, um, but it had outrun its resources. So
there were problems, which is probably why they were looking for a new
dean. And I had always thought that my attitude to problems has always
been that problems are opportunities. And so I saw the problems and I saw
an opportunity, and I came into the physician, and, uh, the first thing I
did was to present a five year plan to Jack Kinzinger, who was the vice
chancellor for academic affairs now Provost position. And I gave him a
five year plan of how I would turn around the, uh college
And, um, that was my first step. And that was forward, of course, to
President Nelson and, um, who was president at the time.
So I was going to ask you about the what was your relationship with
President Nelson, and well, uh, it was very distant at first. I mean,
deans and presidents aren't, you know, aren't like that necessarily unless
you're the dean of engineering or the dean of business, that can be
different or the or the research in the research field. But, uh, I formed
a very close relationship with President Nelson because President Nelson
had an interest in architecture. He had an interest in building, and it
came, I think, from his own interest in crafts. And I think I should say
hobbies. But, uh, there was a lot of building going on on the campus at
the time, and he formed what was called a design review board, and he
brought in a friend of his Japanese architect. His name will come to me
eventually, but, um, and he asked me to chair that committee since I was
dean of architecture. And so from that point on, every building built in
campus had to go through the design Review Board. I was chair of that
committee. Roger Slants was on it. Who? He was chair of architecture. Um,
there were two or three outside architects, including alumni and Um And so
all the all the schemes had to go through that committee. And I formed a
close relationship with Russ Nelson through that committee because he was
interested in what was being built. And at that time, when you asked me
what the campus looked like, you know, there are vast areas of car parking.
There were no multi story car parks, nothing like that. So I mean, the
multistory car parks came in with President Nelson and the building
activity that took place during that time in the school of architecture. I
mainly what I did, there was I consolidated programmes in the school I. I
hired a new chair of planning who, um was really had a background in
geography and Betty Burns, and at that time, planning was a was something
that was causing friction on the campus because everyone wanted to have
planning is such a nice title. The geographers wanted to have it, and
public programmes wanted to have it, and I had to liaise with deans across
the campus and eventually persuade them that that it could be in planning
and it was big enough to allow for their interests as well So I and I took
the disaffected faculty from from the planning department, moved them back
into architecture. But then again, that was a positive move. Because
working with Dean Wolf, who was a graduate Dean at the time I was able to
get an MS programme, which was a master of science degree, which before
that we had only been allowed to have professional degrees, which are
considered somewhat less than an MA or an MS. And we had the MS degree
then in solar design. Well, it was called building design, I think. And,
uh and that was really the groundwork for a doctoral degree. That would
come later. That and the planning programme, where we had a master of
planning as well. So those two things I got in a short period of time, as
as dean and how big was the college when you came? How many students did
you have and where was it? Oh gosh, It's located roughly in the same
position. Just just
the building is there now was that
the grey building opposite Ne Hall was really the main school building,
but the rest of the the rest of the school when the rest of the college
was in in scattered throughout the university, in in huts there best way
in temporary buildings and and, uh, other other locations. So? So the last
part of my five year plan was to get a new building for the for the for
the college. And then, um well, that happened When, um let's see,
about my third year there, I must have been 1985
86.
In 1985 I had a request up for an extension to the, uh, architecture
building, which was
when I used the word extension loosely because it exceeded the size of the
existing building. And, uh, I had faculty involvement in in, uh, drawing
up a plan or not a plan, but a programme for that. And, um, I was very
fortunate. My It turned out to be my last year as Dean. I didn't know it
was going to be my last year as Dean, but the regions were visiting. They
, um the college and I was showing them around the facilities. It was one
of those rare days in in Arizona when the rain was coming down in sheets
and we walked around into the one of the temporary buildings with two of
the regions. I can't I can't remember who it was, who the regents were at
the time. But we walked into the studio and there were students working at
their drawing boards diligently because they had all been warned. The
visit was coming and, uh, working diligently on their drawings with
umbrellas up over their drawing boards. And I think it was within two or
three months that I got word that we were going to get a get the extension.
So, you know,
has an aspect in all of these things
timing, timing is everything being at the right place at the right time?
Didn't it seem rather ironic to you when you came to see about whether you
wanted this job, that the college of architecture really didn't have a
suitable building of any college that to have a building?
It had the building that they had was good and the founding dean, James
Elmore, who was still there when I arrived a wonderful person. I hope you
interview him. Uh, he had built that first building. It was a new building
and it held the school. But you see, Hugh Burgess was, um how should I put
it? Not only was he a dreamer, but he had great entrepreneurial skills.
And so he outgrew the building. No time at all. And so that's why we had
the college scattered on our campus. So Well, tell me a little bit about
getting the new building. You got the OK for it then? Were you responsible
for overseeing that? Or how did that work? Well, just at that time,
uh, President Nelson invited me out for lunch
and Paige Mulholland had I should explain. Paige Mulholland, who was the
executive vice president and in charge of a SU west, had just left. By the
way, someone had asked my opinion once about a SU west and I said, I don't
know why they're building a way out there. If I was building a new campus
, I'd build it downtown using some of those nice old buildings that they
have there. I think I said that to President Nelson at the time, actually
, but a building on the West campus wasn't a choice. It was
It was the It was really mandated by the Legislature. Some legislators got
together from the West Side and virtually said, You know, we need a We
need a campus out there. Students can't people. The students out there
can't go on driving long distances into into the main campus. So Tempe. So
the West campus was on the horizon, and Paige Mulholland was in charge of
that under President Nelson. And he left. You know, I should make these
stories shorter. President Nelson took me out for lunch
and he said to me, He said, Would you like to become
vice president for the West campus? We want? We're building a new campus
out there, and with your experience in architecture,
maybe you would be Would you be willing to do that? And, uh and I said,
Well, you know, I don't know whether I'm the right kind of person to do
that. Being one has to be modest at first. So he said, Well, I said, Why
me? He said, Well, you remind me of, um of a duck swimming, calm on the
surface, but paddling like hell underneath. And I was very flattered at
that. Naturally, though later, you know, several years later I was
watching a John Wayne movie and found It was one of his lines in the movie.
But anyway, at the time, I was flattered. And so I went back to Norman,
and, uh, I said, Well, what I said to him at the time was, I don't want to
leave the deanship yet. Could I be Dean and vice president for a SU West
for a year? Until I finished my job here as Dean. And, uh, because I had a
new a new chair of the design department, which I was reorganised under
under my deanship. And he said, Yes, I could do that because the West was
in temporary accommodation out on the West side in Montebello School and
Alhambra school. So for one year, I was Dean until noon. And at noon I
went out to the West Side and I was vice president at the West side.
What? What did the job of vice president for the West campus? What did
that entail? How big was the campus? That what year was that? 1980 1985
8686.
It must have been 8585.
So how big was that campus now? Um, it was, uh Well, we didn't have a
campus. We just had these temporary buildings. And, uh so I was in charge
of temporary buildings and and recruiting a faculty and a few few people.
I, I said I. I began building an administration,
and but some of the administration was already there because Paige
Mulholland had appointed a dean of faculty
who you might say was the equivalent of the, uh Well, while she was dean
of faculty, she was building new faculties, so so theoretically in a
structure, she would have been the vice chancellor for academic affairs
and the new campus. But that was and he had also appointed a head
librarian, Helen Gator, and a few other people. And I added to that two
people from two people from the, uh the college wanted to come with me.
Dick Arius, who was associate Dean, wanted to come. So he was an architect
also so, and a planner. So I brought He appointed him associate vice
president, and I should say he was appointed. I shouldn't say I appointed
him, and, uh and then I also brought Paul Zusi, who was my manager and and
very an excellent person while I was Dean. You know, I'm talking about
what I did, and I should count. I mean, I should counter that right away.
No one does anything by themselves. You do things because you have lots of
good people around you and you channel their energies. You persuade them.
You you bully them, you do all sorts of things. But those are the people
that get things done. And so when I went out to West campus, I knew that
what my job was was to head a team of people of, like, mind to build a new
campus. And I was very fortunate. I have I had very good people. I also
hired a person called Barry Bruns, who was in the, uh, who was in the
administrative end of the the business side of the Central administration
here. And he's still there. Barry Bruns is still there, and so is Paul
and many of the other people who I hired as who were hired as as the early
faculty are still there. And and then I go back and see them every now and
then. But then I, I should continue my story in 1986 we got a 300 acre
site at Thunderbird between Thunderbird and UH, 51st and 43rd Avenues. It
was given to us by the state, the state state property,
and we were also given my first year as a vice president. I had to spend
$7.1 million on this new site, and I had to spend something like $2
million hiring for hiring positions that had to be spent in my first year.
Because if it wasn't spent my first year, it would revert back to the
state Legislature. So I had to very quickly get moving on building the
campus. And within seven months, I'd spent all the money and there was
they had started landscaping on the campus. They had started all the
infrastructure in the campus, you know, building tunnels and so on. Of
course, we had to break ground before that. I think we we broke ground
about two or three months after I was appointed. And so when you were
appointed, there were no there were Did you say you just dropped the land
? You didn't even have the the actual land yet? No. We had we had a plan.
We didn't have actual what plans that architects could work from. We had a
planning document which had gone through the design review board and where
we persuaded the, um, we persuaded the planners who were NBBJ from Seattle
being appointed by, uh, they had been appointed by, um earlier by Paige
Mulholland. And we had persuaded them to put in courtyards because, you
know, that's if you look at, um, at architecture in arid time. Usually you
have courtyards and covered spaces and so on. So we we persuaded them to
include that in their plan. But their plan you see emerged is a diagram.
This size had never been approved by the regions, and I was out there
building it without approval of an actual plan by the regions. What the
regions did approve were actions which you took step by step. So the first
thing I did was to had to do was to put in a utility tunnel because that
that was needed that would be needed. This was below ground, so it was
something that would be needed right away. The second thing I did was,
well, this all happened concurrently.
We had to put a landscape around the perimeter of the site, which was part
of the plan because the residents in the area who had been involved in
early planning they wanted to make sure that the campus fitted in with the
neighbourhood. So we did all the landscaping around the exterior and and
with the rest of the money, I appointed an architect to plan the first
building, which was meant to be a multi purpose building, which I decided
it would be the library.
Why don't you just describe for me the first time you went out to see the
new what was going to be west campus, what did it look like? Well, it was
just 300 acres of desert basically in the middle, but, uh, neighbourhoods
all around it. But it was just desert scrub and, uh, nothing there, I
should say there was a small elementary school which took up a small
section of the site. Uh, and, uh, the school is still there, but, um, that
was even Thunder road at that time. We see it now. There's restaurants in
it. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, no, it wasn't at all. In fact, I went out to
live there a few years. Well, a year later, I went out to live there
permanently at Arrowhead Ranch. I bought one of the first houses out at
Arrowhead Ranch. And, uh, because I want to be near the new campus and And
when I got out there, there was nothing but orange groves. And now, of
course, the forecast that the population would double at that time proved
proved correct. In fact, it's doing more than doubling. And the land where
the campus was to be was not former farmland. Oh, yes, it had. Yes. I
think it had been owned by the science family who are very prominent
family. They gave money for the first classroom building on the main
campus and the very old family. And, uh, but because you said it was
desert, I thought maybe it had been farm cotton fields or well, well, I'm
saying it had a desert appearance. Desert. I shouldn't say it was It was
virgin. No, no, it wasn't Virgin Desert. No, no. Different kind, different
kind of theatre. Yeah, well, in some ways, I would think with your urban
your city planning and, um, architectural background that that would have
been kind of a fun challenge for you. It was It really was. I, uh the
thing was, you see that this little plan that we had had never been, uh,
translated into larger drawings. So one had to be make it up as make it up
as you go along, you know? And, uh, there's a story about the Emperor
Constantine, you know, standing with the stick and drawing out the
circumference of where Constantin Nova was going to be built. And I felt a
bit a bit like that, you know, because what I had to do was decide. Well,
uh, in this little plan that I had the main building, the library building
, was at the centre of the campus. So we knew where that was going. And,
uh and so, uh, from that, we were able to decide we we had a We had a
civil engineer who kind of marked out the boundary of where things would
approximately be. So we started in the centre line in the centre of the
campus. It's a good place to start and built the first building and the
library building. And, uh, we couldn't get funding for it. because at that
time we had a governor who, um, who had a very funny outlook on budgets.
And which governor was that? Governor?
Um oh, gosh,
me, governor, me
and governor Me, His idea of budgets was, um Now, that's the sticker price.
What's the real price? Was his idea of budgets, but anyway, he, uh he he
had he had been a car salesman. Yes. He he offered to give us half of the
money for the library building. This was after we had spent the first
year's budget half of the money for the library building. But, you know,
you can't sign a contract with with, um, with the contractor saying, Well
, we have the money this year. We don't know when we get you the rest, but
eventually, uh, he was replaced by a more moderate governor, and, uh, we
did get the the full money for the first building. And so that was
that was built.
By the time that was built, I was almost on the point of leaving, but we
kind of laid out the campus on certain grounds. I said I was able to set
ground rules for the campus. I remember going out with Russ Nelson and the
architect for the library and agreeing on the stone and brick that would
be used. The colour of the stone and brick kind of matched the colour of
the ground where we were going to be building. And I had said that a
campus to have kind of a feeling of a campus and a feeling of permanence
and a feeling of place had to be built of brick and stone. And, um so that
was one of the things I laid down ground rules. One of my ground rules
rules also that they Well, I had the idea that that real universities that
I knew of like Oxford and Cambridge and Prince even places like Princeton
and places like that they, uh they were. They had this idea of permanence
, which you get with breaking stone. But they were also built on the
what's what was called the monastery model, where you had courtyards and
you had cloisters and and that seemed to be absolutely appropriate for
this climate because I used to walk across this campus with without any
shade to meetings and one of the things I thought if one could only walk
in shade. So I said every building had to have an arcade, and, uh, and
that and that the design of buildings should they should relate to each
other, which is one way through materials, but that every building should
have a courtyard
where faculty could meet and so on, so that the campus did take that form.
And I and I stood with Jack de Barlow, who was the architect for the
library, and we marked out the first large square. Fortunately, he was
also the architect for the classroom building. So once one builds
the first prominent building on the campus and then another building
alongside it, which reverts to it, the rest of the buildings have to
follow that if one reads city planning, one knows that. And so the rest of
the buildings did follow, even though there were five different architects.
Um, the buildings all took the same guidelines. And so there's a unity
about a SU west. If you go out there that you won't find, uh, anywhere
else here
and there is a climate, it's very adaptable to the climate. And, uh, So
how long were you out there to see some of those things. I saw the first,
the library building and the the classroom building getting off the ground.
And then I offered my resignation to rust at that time, and he accepted
it simply because there was a lot of infighting going on
really about faculty positions and whether the arch there were some people
who wanted who thought that the campus should be a university and its own.
Because, really, when it was formed Frank sect and said to me when I
first took the position Frank sect and said, Well, we don't know whether
that's going to be a separate university or not So part of the the kind of
, um, machinations shall I put it that went on between faculty and
administrators was related to this, and I really didn't have very much
support from any of the vice presidents on the, uh, main campus, with the
exception of um, with the exception of Henry Reeves, who was the vice
president for research and the vice president for students at the time,
were very supportive. But the other vice presidents had all their own
access to grind, and we're not really all that supportive and I felt under
the circumstances, I couldn't continue. So I gave my resignation to Russ,
and after, after a while, he accepted it. So I want to actually, uh, I
want to say that I had written several times the the remit that I was
given to build the campus was written in very narrow terms. And I remember
writing to Ross. In fact, I have a memo still suggesting that it would be
better if the university, this university and the and the A SU West was
actually modelled on London University, where London University has a
central administration and and it's made up of separate colleges. I
attended University College London, which is part of London University,
and Imperial College, which is an engineering college as part of London
University King's College, part of London University. So, in fact, I
recommended that to Russ, but it kind of disappeared, but now it has
reemerged, so I'm glad to see it has reemerged as a concept. So did you
kind of feel that you were caught in the middle of all this? Yes, I
actually I felt I had been to use an expression hung out to dry Have you
heard that expression? Yes. It's not a very nice feeling. But on the other
hand, uh, you know, I, I really had my I had really good relationships
with with my colleagues, apart from those kind of battles which I didn't
really want to fight. And, uh, my heart wasn't in that my heart was in the
campus. In fact, it's still buried there, and I have been able to
participate on the design committee for the campus up until the present
day.
So you haven't completely broken Oh, no, no, no. The West campus. But I
was glad I was really glad to get back to teaching in a way, you know,
because that's what I had come to do in the first place. You resigned as
the head of the West campus? Yes. And what was your actual title out there
? Vice president for the West campus.
Well, I suggested to Russ that the title should be provost, and he he did
for the next appointment. And he did. You know, he was very Russ was very
good. I mean, he he took advice very well, and, uh, and he he could reject
it as well of course, but he he was good about listening. Yes. And so you
left that position at the West campus and you came back to teach it. Yes.
Yes. So tell me. About what? What did you How does that work out? Well,
not to go out at first. It was kind of quite a shock coming back. At first
, I mean, 11 had to forget it wasn't too hard to forget that one was Dean
. I mean, I could do that pretty easily. I was. I was quite relieved not
to be when I came back, but by that time, we had the new building. So it
was nice, Uh, 11 or two of the faculty were very good. They shared their
offices with me, and that was very nice. And, uh, and then I eventually
got an office to myself in the new building, and I was teaching things
that I was interested in. You know, I was teaching a design studio with
third year students, which are really It's an interesting year to teach.
And I was teaching, uh, I was teaching ethics architectural ethics at the
graduate level. I was also teaching some urban design courses. So I was
teaching things that I knew about and had, you know, I didn't even have to
think about it. It was nice. Well, it's not that unusual for, um, like,
even a dean. Or like, we just interviewed Lady Core this morning, and he's
now teaching. So it's really not unusual in academic to go back and and
teach, um, and get rid of all those administrative headaches.
Well, tell me about, um, describe a little bit how you've seen a SU change
from the time you came here today. Well, I must say, uh, one of my
disagreements with the administration was that I felt that they in order
to build branch campuses, you can't keep growing on the main campus. And I
thought the main campus had got much too large. I mean, it was approaching
40,000. I think at that time and in order if you're if you're going to
create, I mean the theory of, uh, of the new towns in London, which I was
very attuned to. I even worked in a new town in Scotland somewhere in my
history. Uh uh. What what happened was they They restricted the growth of
the Centre City in order to build these new towns which were still related
to the Centre city by fast transportation. And so I always felt that it
was wrong not to cap enrollment on the main campus. I would have kept it
at 35,000 students and then put allowed, rebuilt all the other campuses on
the surplus of the students who wanted to come here but couldn't. And I
thought this could become a more specialised kind of campus, more research
oriented, whereas the new campuses could take up more of the academic role
of the main campus. So I mean, I had these ideas, and, uh, but I wasn't in
a position to have anything to do with these ideas. But the knowledge of
what should be done and what wasn't being done kind of gnaws at you a
little bit. But, uh, you know, in retrospect, I was able to close all
those things in my mind as a teacher and interact with my students and the
faculty, and I really enjoyed myself very much those last years. I was
able to write for the first time, and I was able to get up to speed on
computers again, thanks to all my colleagues over there.
Let's see you talked about some of the people you worked with. Oh, look,
this is
Are there any other particular people that stand out in your mind that
were part of your career here?
Well, I, I found Elmer Gooding, who always worked in the, uh, in the
academic affairs office. The most helpful person, Matt Betts, was also
helpful in those early years. Um,
let's see,
a lot of the other deans I really got on very well. The deans really were
a very collegial group at that time. Chuck Wolf, the dean for research.
Um
oh, they They've all gone a long time ago, and they're probably all out of
my memory now, But, um, when you look back, um, over your career here,
what would you say? It was your the thing that you're proudest of that
you'd like to be remembered for? Um
Let's see. I suppose the West campus, the buildings on the West campus, I
don't think it would. Look, if I hadn't been there, it wouldn't look the
way it does. So that's a pretty good legacy to leave you to campus. Now
it's growing up. Um, are there some things that that you wanted to do that
, that you weren't able to do that?
Well, I would like to stay at the West campus a little longer, but I think
my my timing was right to leave, So I would like to have done that. I
would like to have written more. I only published one book while I was on
the faculty here, so I'd like to have published two. Well, I published on
the plan that I did for Londonderry, which was completely built after 30
years. So that's how long you have to wait to see something, you know, the
city scale built. So I was able to write about that, and maybe you should
write a book about the West campus well
in process. I don't know whether I'd like to bring all the skeletons out
of the cupboard on that one to be recorded for history. Someday, when
somebody who likes to look back 100 years of history of the West campus,
they'll be interested to know some of those things.
Let's see,
Do you have any particular memories or stories of things that have
happened here that, uh, you want to talk about? Well, I mean, my favourite
one was really the regents coming in that day when it was raining. I think
that was my That's my favourite memory of this campus. Oh, the, uh, on the
west campus. Do I have any favourite memories?
Well, I've had a lot of memories, but I don't think any of them really
stand out. I was presented on the opening of the library. I still have it
at home. I must return it to the library. I was presented with a stone
arch with my name on inscribed on the top of it and a plate on the on the
teak base. And I could scarcely carry it to my car. And I have it at home
. I think that was a kind of a joke, but that was that was a nice memory
too. So it was probably a good feeling. Oh, yes, it was. Yes. I still go.
I still I use that library very frequently because it's near home now. Is
the campus finished a building or are they still building building? Oh, no
, no. We just completed a building recently. Uh, and, uh so at this time
we have a circular. Now we have a circular courtyard.
One of the things in the campus was that each courtyard could be different.
That this was one of my dictums was that while the outside would have to
reflect what was going on with buildings opposite and adjoining, to give
the campus a kind of unity that the interior spaces, the courtyards could
be whatever you liked, architects could do whatever they liked in the
courtyards. I must say, I really admired my profession,
the architects who were able to say, Well, we understand what this is
about, and we'd like to build our signature building that says, This is my
building, but we will do what the campus want. And they did it. It's been
very nice
that well, I have one great memory of the West campus, and that was when
we were building One of the things I noticed about well, you must be aware
of this campus is you don't know where to enter this campus. There are so
many entrances, and I and I determined that we would have one main
entrance on the on the main camp on the West campus, and, uh, the first
architect who was appointed to do it didn't make a really good job of it.
It wasn't really what I wanted, and so somehow I got him out of the
picture and I added the entrance to Jack de Bartle, Lew's contract, who
was building the library at the time, and Jack at that time. He's much
thinner now, but he was. He was quite large at that time, you know, He was
quite corpulent, I suppose would be a good description. And he stood out
in front of the campus on the centre line of the campus on Thunderbird
Road and he turned around to me and he said, What about this?
And I said That looks good because we had already got. We had already
introduced the semi circle in the library and we already had the the
arcades going like this as an idea. So we have an arcaded entry to with
bus stations and at the entrance, and it was really based on Jack and
Bartlet saying What about this? And that was much with the way the campus
was planned in those early days, we didn't have. You know, we said Spotify
This here and this here. That's but I must say, I wouldn't recommend it to
anyone who didn't know what they were doing. We knew what we were doing.
We made those kind of decisions. But it sounds like you did it more
standing there and looking than sitting in on a drafting board. Yes, the
drafting boards came afterwards
to actually look at it. I think that that's certainly something that
should be very proud that you put your mark on a whole university campus.
Well, I mean, when again, it took a lot of people to build that campus
there. All of the architects involved all of the people who worked for me.
Uh, you know, everyone. We worked as a team and it was really good. It
was a good experience. And although you don't have your name as the
architect on the building, your architectural vision is part of the look
of the campus. Well, that's the funny thing. All of the buildings have my
successor's name. Who
was there when all the final buildings were built and he he, uh Although I
didn't put my name on the library building. He somehow got his name on all
the other buildings. So they have the first provost name in all the
buildings. But that's all right.
I think history should record that you were
Well, Well, the first two buildings were really built. Well, the second
one was Was finished in his re and started in my but my successor and the
in the architecture college. Dean Meier was very glad to have the, um, the
extension to the college when he arrived and has always given me credit
for that. Although he was there during the time of the construction and
had all the headaches to do with the construction,
But, uh, but you have part of the vision to get it done. Well, um, what
kind of advice do you give young people? You? You talked a little about
that earlier. I think of, um, people that are trying to decide what they
wanna do with their lives or what? You know what they wanna study? What
sort of advice do you? Well, I would say Find out what your talents are,
if you know, you might have. You might have one or two or you might just
have one, but go in the direction of those talents and take them as far as
you can and when you've taken them, as far as you can search to see if you
have any other talents. And that's what I would say. And what are you
doing now that you are officially retired? Or are you still teaching? No.
I write a lot. That's when uh, that's when my wife drags me away from
watching Oprah Winfrey or something. No, no, I have been joking there, but
I have to close the door when it's being watched.
Yes, I am writing a book at the moment,
um, automatically on the best seller list. Even if you fib.
It's a good book, you know, to be true. Um, I hear you have some singing
talent, too. Well, I, I sang in my church choir for a long time, so I sing
tenor. There's a joke about that, but I don't think you want to record it.
Oh, I don't know.
Well, someone told me, uh, you know, people swim in very cold water in
Ireland. I once told a chap that I used to go in swimming at 56 degrees,
he said. Well, that's why all the Irish men are tenners
mhm. Me too. Do you ever think about how your life would have been
different if you hadn't come to the United States? Oh, sometimes, yes.
Well, I, I Well, I could really see what would ha would have happened in
Northern Ireland if I hadn't been shot or had my car blown up, I would
have retired as my successor did, with an order of the British Empire and
a meagre pension. And, um, I would have been very dull. I mean, very dull.
And, uh, I, I just love America. You know, I really do love it. And my
sons, my sons love it too. So they were They were very grateful that I
brought them here, and it's given me the opportunity of being everything I
could possibly have been and more so. I love America. Do you still go back
to Ireland? Yes, just just to visit the few relatives that we have left,
But not for any hacking to go back. Now, I don't have that go as a tourist
that that would be it. But incidentally, I love Arizona too. you know,
when I was a child, I had a brother who was an avid reader of, uh, of
Westerns. And I remember reading most of Zane Gray's books when, at the
age of 13. So it was ironic that and later I found when I was talking to
Mary Marie Sans, who was a great supporter of the West campus, she she had
, uh, she knew Ian Grey because they've lived here. They were old
Arizonans, and Zane Grey was at her wedding. It's not very interesting.
And I went out to see his cabin when I first came here, since it was burnt
down since. But I remember going out to see it. So I did have a have an
affection for Arizona in that sense. And also when I was in Kansas, I
worked on a research project with the Meninger Foundation, and I was I was
amongst all the Zuni, the Navajo and the Hopi tribes, and I went to their
meetings and I was involved in some stuff with them.
Well, it was a kind of a social social project, and it had to do with
housing and so on. I mean, it was really headed up by the Menninger
Foundation. But they wanted our views on certain things. So I got to
attend those meetings. That was long before I ever thought I would end up
in Arizona. And the other strange thing about Arizona was in my first When
I was here in 7373
I bought a Navajo rug and, um, in New Mexico, and, uh, the Navajo rug went
to Ireland. It went to Kansas. It went to Chicago. And it's now hanging in
my home in Arizona. So, I, I think sometimes maybe the rug brought me back
here. You know, the Irish are such romantic. I think about things like
this. That's a great story.
OK, anything else that you wanted to ask you Sure. I asked you ask? Well,
yeah, I we have a bottle of Irish whiskey down in that, and we thought
we'd give you a sip of that. You've had whiskey there, All the, uh
it would be a good thing to want to take for your
No II. I would need more than a glass of I suppose. Could you take me to
that? He hes
I can't get you to sing to anymore. Is there anything that I should have
asked you that I didn't? I don't think so. There's probably some things I
should have told you that I forgot. But
well, I will. But I mean, it was such a busy career.
Had a lot of yes,
but it was all in the same. I mean, I never left architecture. Basically,
I stayed in architecture, but I also did some of the other things that I
wanted to do. So. And now you say you're writing a memoir about your
mother? Yes, that's a very different Well, it's my interest in history.
It's really I'm writing it. It's from 1889 to 1970. So it's and I'm having
glimpses of Irish history through the through my mother's eyes. So,
yes, I have to get Oprah to read it. I have to get Oprah to read it.
That's right. OK, anything else I need to be thought of, I think otherwise.
I think we're ready to wrap it up. Well, thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your time and your and your stories. All of yourstory