WEBVTT

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 uh, to start off. I always identify on the tape that today is, uh,

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Tuesday, January the 24th of 2006. And
I'm Pam Stevenson. I'll be the

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interviewer, and Manny Garcia is our
videographer, and we are at the

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visitor Information Centre of a SU at
Apache and Rural Road. Uh, doing

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this interview for the Living History
video project for the Arizona State

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University Retirees Association. Now
that I got all that done, um, like

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for you to introduce yourself, give me
your full name. Well, uh, I'm

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Gerald Rainie McSherry.

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And just to get some basic background.
When were you born? And where were

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you born? I was born on the 13th of
August 1931

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in Belfast, Northern Ireland, The
youngest of 11 Children. I'm the only

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one to go to college. Well, that's an
interesting story. Right there. Um,

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why don't you tell? Tell me a little
bit about growing up. Did you grow up

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in Belfast? Yes, I did. Yes. Well, um
I grew up. Really? My memories in

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Belfast really go back to about 1935
3435. But probably my most important

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memory is my memory of the Second
World War. The first place that American

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troops landed in in the UK in the
Second World War was in Belfast. So I

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remember seeing pictures of US troops
coming off ships so on. But I was

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also we were bombed three times and I
was in the first two of those

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blitzes. So I had experience under the
table hiding under the table, not

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hiding under the table, but sheltering
under the table. And, uh, we had a

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an unexploded bomb landed outside our
house about three or four doors down

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from our house. And I remember walking
past that as a child. Uh, we were

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being taken to a shelter, had to
vacate the house. And I remember seeing

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people with steel helmets, soldiers
with steel helmets tinkering with the

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bomb as we were walking past it. Of
course, I had no fear of being at that

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age. You don't have any fear. You just
think, Oh, that's interesting. I

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wonder what's happening there. It's
kind of a frightening childhood,

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though. Well, I mean, I had then I had
the experience of the IRA bombs

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later on, so I fond memories of
Ireland.

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I did it? Not really. No, it's
beautiful in many ways. So did you grow up

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in the city then? Yes, I grew up in in
the north side of Belfast, and the

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street I lived on was, you know, it
sloped up towards the mountains

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and I could see from my from my house
I could see the cranes in the

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shipyard where the Titanic was built.
The actual part of the shipyard

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where the Titanic was built. I heard a
good story about the Titanic. By

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the way, can I digress here quite a
bit. Well, the story about the Titanic

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was a friend went to, went there for
the first time, and his wife went

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downtown and bought a T shirt. And it
said in the front of the T shirt, we

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built the Titanic and the back said
that she was all right when she left

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here. So I thought that was a typical
Belfast comment.

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Now, if you were the youngest of 11
Children, what did your parents do for

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a living to support all that big
family? Oh, well, my father was a baker,

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and, uh, and which was a good thing to
be in the Depression because not

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many people had worked during the
Depression. So the 19 thirties, when I

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grew up in the 19 thirties, he was
never out of work. And so he was able

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to support us. We always had bread.
That's another good reason to be a

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baker. I hung right. But having that
many older brothers and sisters must

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have been an interesting experience.
Yes, I had. I had four brothers and

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five sisters, and, um, was it like
having a lot of extra parents, too?

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Well, actually, I had. I had five
brothers, but one of them died in

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childhood. That's why I was the
youngest of 11 for those who can count.

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Um, so you grew up during the
Depression and then the war years. Did you

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go to school like normal? Yeah. I just
went to elementary school the same

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as normal schools in the United States
until I was 14. And then I was very

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fortunate. Since all my siblings had
left, I was able to go to grammar

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school and grammar school in Britain
is kind of like you're streamed to go

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to university or into one of the
professions. When you go to a grammar

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school or the next tier up, which is
public school, which isn't very

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public, really. You know, like Eaton
and Harrow and places like that. So

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none of your older siblings had been
able to go on to school. Or did they

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? No. No, There's various reasons for
that. But no, none of them did. So

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why was it that you were so fortunate?
Well, I was the youngest by quite

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quite a distance. My nearest brother
to me was six years older and he went

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to see in the Merchant Navy. And then
my other brothers were very much

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older than me. My sister, the nearest
living relative I have is my sister

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, who was six years older. And, uh,
that's it's just the two of us left.

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So when when you went to school, what
did you have plans of what you were

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going to do then, uh, when you grew
up? Well, I had thought vaguely of, uh

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, of being a naval architect because,
you know, you look down. You saw the

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cranes in the shipyard and I had
always thought about building ships, and

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I thought vaguely about that. But my
strengths weren't in in the in the

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engineering area. They were really in,
uh, English and history, those kind

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of subjects.

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And so

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when you went to school, was it like
high school that you went to then

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after it was more like a prep school?
Yes, it's the same as high school,

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but it was more. Not everyone got to
go there. Let me put it that way. You

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you either had to. You had to sit in
entrance 6 a.m. Your parents had to

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pay for you or you had to win a
scholarship to get into that kind of

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school.

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My parents paid for me.

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So did you have to choose like a major
at that point? Or did you just

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graduate thinking you'd go on to
university? Well, you see, in those kind

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of schools you do five years of French
and you do three years of physics

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and you know, it's like you. You get a
good liberal education before you

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leave. A lot of people leave those
kinds of schools and they go into

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business and they don't go on to
university.

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So what did you do? Well, I? I
couldn't afford to go to university um my

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father died when I was 19, and, uh,
like through a brother in law, I got a

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position in an architect's office. I
could always draw one of I got prizes

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for art in school, So I went into an
architect's office and became an

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apprentice. I didn't get paid as an
apprentice. I was an apprentice for

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five years, I think I got paid my last
two years, and I went to night

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school. I went to the Belfast College
of Technology, and I sat for the

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Royal Institute of British Architects
examinations,

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which they had examinations after
three years, which they called

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intermediate examinations. And so

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that's what I did. So it be when you
got that first job in the architect's

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office, then was your goal to become
an architect? Well, yes, yes, was.

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Why did you want to be an architect?

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Well, it was kind of accidental. You
know, I, I really wanted to go and

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study history at Trinity College,
Dublin. But I didn't have the resources

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to do that.

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Well, in doing architecture, you say
you were not paid. How did you

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survive to do to live without being
paid well and then we just just

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managed somehow, you know, it wasn't I
used to walk to work and things

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like that. Did you just live with your
family or where I live with my You

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know, in Ireland, you never leave your
parents.

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You stay with them until you get
married. So some people stay until

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they're 50. But anyway, I didn't I
didn't plan on staying that long. OK,

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so what kind of architecture did you
do there? Mostly industrial

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architecture. I used to as an
apprentice. I used to crawl over a flower

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bag with one egg, one end of a tape
while the other, more senior person

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measured took the measurements that
the kind of thing I did during my

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first year, I also used to trace
drawings and do some elementary drawings.

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And And once you pass the exams, then
how did that change what you were

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doing? Or, well, it in in, uh, in
Britain. The universities where you

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study architecture are tied very close
to the Royal Institute of British

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Architects. So once I had an
intermediate examination that would have

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taken me into the fourth year of a
five year university programme because

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it was recognised by universities and
universities in Britain. Specialise

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, You know, as soon as you go in,
virtually since you get a liberal

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education at the equivalent of the
high school level, you simply go in and

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and specialise in the profession that
you choose to go into. So

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that's what happens. So then I
confused you. Pass the intermediate exam.

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Then Did you continue on working in
the architect? Oh, yes. I worked in

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architectural offices as an
architectural assistant. I earned money and

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eventually got married and so on. Did
you become a full architect and

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start your own firm? Or why did you?
No, no. I got a government grant to

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go to University College, London. So I
went there for two years and

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finished with a diploma in
architecture from University College London and

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the same year that I got my diploma
because I had worked so long in

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offices, I became a registered
architect and a member of the RIB A.

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And then what did you do? Let's see.
Well, I went back to what year would

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that have been? That would have been
about 1960.

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And then I went back to, you know,
This is a long history. And can you Can

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you put up with all this? Well, then I
went, Um, let's see. I went back to

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Belfast and I worked in an architect's
office. I should say that when I

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was in London, I met this. I don't
know how you would call him a planning

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enthusiast is one word. Um, in fact,
he there was a photograph of him

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selling apples in front of a barrel in
London because he believed in

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selling planning. And his name was
Professor Percy Johnson. Marshall, by

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the way, At that time, he wasn't a
professor. He worked for the London

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County Council. Well, he later became
a professor at Edinburgh University

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and where they had a new programme in
planning City planning actually was

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called civic design.

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And, uh, I later went after working in
an office for a couple of years as

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an architect, I worked in housing and
church buildings.

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I decided that my interest was wider.
I had become very interested in

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planning not only through Percy's
lectures, but through the lectures and

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planning that I had as an architect,

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because I like the history part of it.
You know. I think that's what drew

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me to it. I know there's a history of
architecture, but it's mostly a

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history of monuments. When when you're
talking about a history of planning

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, you're talking about the history of
people as well as as well as that.

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So I was very interested in planning
and the social social aspect of

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planning. See, in those days, people
believed that architecture had a had

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to make a social impact. We thought,
by building better houses, that we

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could help get people out of poverty.

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And so it was that social aspect that
attracted me into planning. And so I

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although I had two Children. By then,
I dragged my poor wife over to

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Edinburgh with the two Children and I.
I spent a year in graduate school,

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and then later I did a thesis and and
got my diploma in civic design from

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Edinburgh University. Then I went back
to the office that I worked in in

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Belfast and became involved in housing
and planning, and in 1968 I did a

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plan for Londonderry,

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which has since been implemented, and
I've written a book on that. So but

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let's see before that

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Londonderry in Northern Ireland. It
was a city built in the 17 th century.

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In fact, it was the first new town of
London to take. It was built by the

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London companies, and it's still has
its city walls and so on and so on. I

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, I guess. Over here we think of city
planning of being taking vacant land

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and building a city. But there you
already have very old cities, so it

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must be quite different. Oh, yeah. Oh,
yeah. City planning is quite

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different there. Uh, the idea that
someone, I mean, this the public good

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reigns over the individual. Good. I
mean, when I came to America, I

00:15:37.190 --> 00:15:42.366
decided why I went back into
architecture. When I came to America was, uh

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I looked at the city planning, and I
decided that it was an un American

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activity

00:15:49.210 --> 00:15:54.765
because simply people people, uh, you
know, property rights in in America

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, until recently with the with the
Supreme Court decision. But, uh, you

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know, property rights take precedence
over everything.

00:16:08.500 --> 00:16:16.177
No, no, no. Uh, you could take land
for city development. You could draw a

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stop line around cities. You could say
you can't build anymore in inside

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this outside the stop line. Because
that's rural property. That's the

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green belt you can't build there. And
and so you had the whole phenomenon

00:16:31.849 --> 00:16:37.456
of, uh, new towns in Britain, which
they're not old times, but in the

00:16:37.489 --> 00:16:42.076
sixties, they were new times.

00:16:42.109 --> 00:16:48.797
So how long did you work in the city
planning? Uh, in in Britain? Well, in

00:16:48.830 --> 00:16:56.830
between, I had stints in America When
I first came in 1965 on a Fulbright

00:16:57.418 --> 00:17:04.607
scholarship to teach at the University
of Kansas for one year. And I liked

00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:08.696
Kansas. I thought it was nice, and I
liked teaching. I thought that was

00:17:08.729 --> 00:17:11.617
good, too. Even though I was teaching
architecture, I wasn't teaching

00:17:11.650 --> 00:17:19.650
planning. So, um, I went back to, uh,
come to Northern Ireland. And then

00:17:21.597 --> 00:17:29.597
in 1971 I got an invitation to come
full time. I should explain that by

00:17:31.699 --> 00:17:33.756
1968

00:17:33.789 --> 00:17:38.717
uh, things had gotten really bad in
Northern Ireland. The the troubles

00:17:38.750 --> 00:17:44.535
just began to break out, and by 1971
they were really quite bad. At that

00:17:44.568 --> 00:17:51.107
time. I was working as a city planner
for Belfast,

00:17:51.140 --> 00:17:55.676
and I suddenly got this phone call
from the United States. Would you like

00:17:55.709 --> 00:18:02.305
to come and and as a full professor

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and I said yes. And, uh and I came
with again with this time I had three

00:18:07.799 --> 00:18:14.785
Children. I just built a house for
myself. But I decided that that America

00:18:14.818 --> 00:18:21.406
offered more opportunity. So I really
had two careers, you know? Anyway, I

00:18:21.439 --> 00:18:29.439
came in 1971 to 73 when my wife got
homesick in Kansas, Kansas.

00:18:30.769 --> 00:18:36.996
I was there from 1971 to 73. My wife
got terribly homesick, and at the

00:18:37.029 --> 00:18:43.156
same time, my brother in law sent me
an advertisement for a position in a

00:18:43.189 --> 00:18:48.785
large housing authority in Belfast to
become the Belfast

00:18:48.818 --> 00:18:54.956
architect for responsible for all
public housing in Belfast.

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So considering my wife's feeling, I
couldn't refuse to do that. I went

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back and of course, the troubles were
still

00:19:04.150 --> 00:19:09.315
pretty bad. But, you know, it's like
you have to know where to go and

00:19:09.348 --> 00:19:13.627
where not to go. I mean, there were
car bombs and so on, so you could

00:19:13.660 --> 00:19:17.016
something accidentally could happen.
But generally speaking, there were

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parts of the city which were not
violent, and, uh so we went back and, uh

00:19:23.509 --> 00:19:31.509
, after being city architect for a
year, Uh, I was appointed the chief

00:19:32.358 --> 00:19:39.305
architect of the housing organisation,
and I had, uh I had about 607 100 I

00:19:39.338 --> 00:19:44.555
can't remember now. Staff architects,
landscape architects, engineers and

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so on. And we were building 20,000
houses a year, and when I went in, I

00:19:50.709 --> 00:19:58.709
became the chief architect and planner
we had, um um we were only building

00:19:59.049 --> 00:20:06.486
5000 houses, and my job was to try and
and produce. When I when I say we

00:20:06.519 --> 00:20:10.815
were building, we had 20,000 houses
under contract, but we were only

00:20:10.848 --> 00:20:18.805
completing 5000 houses. So after I
left, after two years, we had risen to

00:20:18.838 --> 00:20:25.906
7500 houses so that, you know, I never
really sought these kind of

00:20:25.939 --> 00:20:31.357
positions. They just haven't. If I was
advising young people now about

00:20:31.390 --> 00:20:36.075
taking opportunities, I would say yes,
look at your opportunities very

00:20:36.108 --> 00:20:41.676
carefully and take the ones that will
advance your career. But I But I

00:20:41.709 --> 00:20:46.206
would say Don't do what I did, which
was to take every opportunity that

00:20:46.239 --> 00:20:53.305
came along. And I think that's really
a good idea at

00:20:53.338 --> 00:20:59.877
the time. Oh, yes, quite quite
rational at the time. Yes,

00:20:59.910 --> 00:21:05.706
and Kansas had to be a big change from
Belfast. But what was it like? You

00:21:05.739 --> 00:21:10.776
said your wife didn't like it, but Oh,
no. She she liked Kansas and she

00:21:10.809 --> 00:21:15.236
liked the lifestyle and so on. But she
was homesick for friends and that

00:21:15.269 --> 00:21:20.717
kind of thing. What about your kids?
What did they think of it? They I had

00:21:20.750 --> 00:21:26.835
wonderful kids. They just went along.
They were quite secure.

00:21:26.868 --> 00:21:31.256
So you were back over there
supervising 600 people and building thousands

00:21:31.289 --> 00:21:37.696
and thousands of houses, brand new
houses. Yes, they were. And it was an

00:21:37.729 --> 00:21:43.335
interesting situation because, say, I
was building a house. I'll just say

00:21:43.368 --> 00:21:51.368
, at $20,000 as a figure, I was
building a three bedroom house for $20,000

00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:56.926
in one part of Northern Ireland, and I
was building the same house in the

00:21:56.959 --> 00:22:01.367
Shankill Road, which was controlled by
Protestant paramilitaries or the

00:22:01.400 --> 00:22:08.055
Falls Road, which was controlled by
the IRA Catholic paramilitaries. Then

00:22:08.088 --> 00:22:16.088
the house would cost considerably
more. It might cost 30,000 because the

00:22:16.368 --> 00:22:20.436
idea of protection rackets that you
have in big cities in the United

00:22:20.469 --> 00:22:26.545
States that became a way for
paramilitaries to make money, you had to

00:22:26.578 --> 00:22:31.607
either employ paramilitaries. The
builder had to employ paramilitaries on

00:22:31.640 --> 00:22:37.276
his workforce. Paramilitaries who
didn't work and they would come and they

00:22:37.309 --> 00:22:40.795
would take their machinery if they
wanted to build barricades and things

00:22:40.828 --> 00:22:47.147
like that. And I had a very close
interface with with, um with what you

00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:55.180
call citizens, civic groups or citizen
groups. Uh, and, uh, most of them

00:22:56.130 --> 00:23:00.916
were run by paramilitaries. And I had
to go to these public meetings in

00:23:00.949 --> 00:23:05.967
the Falls Road and the Shankill Road
and say why we weren't building

00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:12.847
houses quickly enough and so on. And,
uh, I find, actually, well, I don't

00:23:12.880 --> 00:23:16.367
want to You know, I could go. I could
tell these kind of stories forever,

00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:23.186
but I was in danger of. Actually, I we
had to look under my car for a bomb

00:23:23.219 --> 00:23:27.506
every morning. I had to take a
different route to leave my Children at

00:23:27.539 --> 00:23:33.555
school every day and things like that.
I mean, this could be a story in

00:23:33.588 --> 00:23:35.785
itself

00:23:35.818 --> 00:23:42.016
that doesn't sound like a very
pleasant way to live. So in 1976

00:23:42.049 --> 00:23:47.456
I finally decided I was coming back to
United States because I had an

00:23:47.489 --> 00:23:53.967
offer to become chair of the
Department of Architecture in the University

00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:59.555
of Kansas because they couldn't fill
the position and someone had a lot of

00:23:59.588 --> 00:24:04.746
friends. Let me put it that way. We're
good friends. And and so did you

00:24:04.779 --> 00:24:10.887
take that? I took that position and I
said, Yes. This is for good this

00:24:10.920 --> 00:24:18.486
time, dear, we're not coming back this
time. So that was my final farewell.

00:24:18.519 --> 00:24:25.565
But I really When I when I came here,
I was 45 you see, 45 years old, so

00:24:25.598 --> 00:24:30.956
I had really finished a career as an
architect. Probably as high as I

00:24:30.989 --> 00:24:34.795
could have gone in architecture. I
could have stayed there, Had I lived, I

00:24:34.828 --> 00:24:39.206
might have gotten an OBE or something
like that. But, I mean, I had really

00:24:39.239 --> 00:24:45.467
gone as far as I could go in my
profession. So I was really my My decision

00:24:45.500 --> 00:24:50.107
was I was I wanted to try a teaching
career because I always wanted to

00:24:50.140 --> 00:24:58.140
write and do those things. I want to
design architectural buildings or

00:24:58.390 --> 00:25:02.117
like you were doing the more practical
kinds of things. Well, well, I

00:25:02.150 --> 00:25:06.206
realised that you know when you do
those things, you do those things in

00:25:06.239 --> 00:25:12.506
Really, in your younger years, when
you get older, unless you're unless

00:25:12.539 --> 00:25:18.887
you have the good fortune to become a
designer in a large practise, you

00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:23.075
really don't do do that. I mean, the
guy who owns the practise and make

00:25:23.108 --> 00:25:28.045
some money is is really the equivalent
position I was in in Belfast. As a

00:25:28.078 --> 00:25:33.785
chief architect, you have 500 or 200
or 30 or 20 or 10 people working for

00:25:33.818 --> 00:25:41.756
you, and they actually do the design.
You may you may produce some kind of

00:25:41.789 --> 00:25:48.196
concept that they follow, but the old
idea of architects designing really

00:25:48.229 --> 00:25:54.506
goes back to Frank Lloyd Wright and
another age. And there are some people

00:25:54.539 --> 00:26:00.805
who still do that. But mostly, mostly
speaking, these large firms have

00:26:00.838 --> 00:26:06.916
partnerships, and people are a lot of
different kinds of tasks. So I had

00:26:06.949 --> 00:26:13.246
long ago lost that ambition. Yes.
Yeah. So you came back to head up the

00:26:13.279 --> 00:26:19.805
the the School of Architecture
Architecture. Which University of Kansas?

00:26:19.838 --> 00:26:24.627
That Lawrence, Kansas. Nice time.

00:26:24.660 --> 00:26:31.217
Uh, quant traders was its most famous
episode. I think,

00:26:31.250 --> 00:26:36.226
um, So, um, did you you plan to make
that your the rest of your life's

00:26:36.259 --> 00:26:42.406
work at that time. Yes, I plan to stay
there and teach.

00:26:42.439 --> 00:26:47.156
And what caused you to leave there?
Someone who didn't like me recommended

00:26:47.189 --> 00:26:52.835
me for the dean's position at Illinois
Institute of Technology.

00:26:52.868 --> 00:26:58.696
And I went out of curiosity because
Illinois Institute of Technology was a

00:26:58.729 --> 00:27:04.097
very famous school. It was had a lot
of famous architects from the B house

00:27:04.130 --> 00:27:09.127
who had really formed the reputation
of that school, the major one being

00:27:09.160 --> 00:27:17.160
nice, Vander Ro and, um So I
unexpectedly became Dean of I in Chicago.

00:27:19.670 --> 00:27:27.367
What year was that? 1980 1979 1979.

00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:34.456
Move to Chicago. Yes, but this time my
two siblings, unlike their Irish

00:27:34.489 --> 00:27:39.285
counterparts, had been anxious to get
out of the house. They didn't want

00:27:39.318 --> 00:27:45.835
to stay with Mama until they were 30.
So, um, they were they were gone by

00:27:45.868 --> 00:27:53.315
that time. And so we just had our
youngest son who was nine years old, and

00:27:53.348 --> 00:27:58.476
and so how did you like Chicago? Oh, I
loved it. I I It was just heaven

00:27:58.509 --> 00:28:03.656
for me because the architecture being,
you know, with its European

00:28:03.689 --> 00:28:09.266
background, I really understood it
very well, and I understood the faculty

00:28:09.299 --> 00:28:12.526
and the way they looked at
architecture quite different to most

00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:17.246
architecture schools. It's a very
rigid kind of European kind of

00:28:17.279 --> 00:28:24.476
curriculum, nothing like Kansas, which
was built. It was really grew out

00:28:24.509 --> 00:28:30.406
of the Beaux are kind of background,
which is most most American schools

00:28:30.439 --> 00:28:34.305
grew grew out of that background. I
think Harvard didn't. But most

00:28:34.338 --> 00:28:42.338
American schools and, uh, they, uh,
they hold background for that kind of

00:28:42.439 --> 00:28:45.347
when I describe Beaux are, I don't
know whether you know what I mean when

00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:51.867
I say that, but but it's basically
using a historical background. Using

00:28:51.900 --> 00:28:59.367
ancient monuments as a way to learn
about architecture is Beaux is the

00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:06.996
French name for the school BEAUX,

00:29:07.029 --> 00:29:13.236
and that's that's the name of the the
kind of tradition it it it is. An

00:29:13.269 --> 00:29:18.085
actual school called the Beaux Arts in
Paris is an actual school. But the

00:29:18.118 --> 00:29:23.656
tradition the Beaux Art tradition, was
brought over to America from France

00:29:23.689 --> 00:29:31.496
until they until the 19 forties, when
the Bauhaus, the German influence,

00:29:31.529 --> 00:29:36.246
came to Harvard and IIT in Chicago.

00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:42.877
So how did you like it at the IIIT? Is
said. Oh yeah, I, I really, really

00:29:42.910 --> 00:29:47.686
liked it very much. It's very nice. I
really But you didn't stay there too

00:29:47.719 --> 00:29:53.877
long. Well, um, somebody, a guy called
Elmer Gooding called to see me one

00:29:53.910 --> 00:30:00.377
day and he came to see me in my home
in in, uh, I lived in South Chicago,

00:30:00.410 --> 00:30:05.535
not far from the White Sox park.
Actually, I have an interesting story

00:30:05.568 --> 00:30:10.585
there. Also, because I lived in the
house that was built for the former

00:30:10.618 --> 00:30:16.946
mayor. I rented it. And, uh, I had a
very reasonable rent because the

00:30:16.979 --> 00:30:22.926
brother of the former mayor lived next
door and Jimmy Carter had stayed in

00:30:22.959 --> 00:30:28.785
the house, so it was quite a nice
house. Well, how did Elmer find out

00:30:28.818 --> 00:30:35.706
about you? Oh, Elmer. Well, Elmer,
someone had again. Someone nominated me

00:30:35.739 --> 00:30:42.486
for a position here, and I was at a
conference. I think it was in, Um, let

00:30:42.519 --> 00:30:45.315
me see in Quebec.

00:30:45.348 --> 00:30:51.736
And Bob Hirschberger, who was on the
faculty here, and Roger Slants, who

00:30:51.769 --> 00:30:58.305
was chair of the architecture school,
got me into a corner in Quebec and

00:30:58.338 --> 00:31:02.627
persuaded me that I should come here.
Well, the other thing that was

00:31:02.660 --> 00:31:05.916
happening at that time, there was a
lot of retrenchment going on. This was

00:31:05.949 --> 00:31:13.949
the 1980 S. There wasn't a lot of
money going around and in in IT, which

00:31:14.229 --> 00:31:18.795
was a private institution. You
couldn't really do much, you know, without

00:31:18.828 --> 00:31:25.555
without funding, you can't really move
forward. So the idea of coming to a

00:31:25.588 --> 00:31:30.176
university where there was going to be
lots of funding and so on, At least

00:31:30.209 --> 00:31:35.075
that's what I was told. Uh, that that
was one of the things, but what

00:31:35.108 --> 00:31:42.647
really settled? It was We visited down
here and, uh, from Chicago, and we

00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:48.065
stayed in a hotel with a swimming
pool. And it was February, and I had my

00:31:48.098 --> 00:31:52.607
wife and son with me, and it was
snowing in Chicago, and I think that

00:31:52.640 --> 00:32:00.640
finally settled it. So came to Tempe a
good time to Yeah, I think. Yes.

00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:03.967
Yeah. What was your first impression?
Other than that it was warm in

00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:09.186
Arizona. What did you think about
Arizona State University?

00:32:09.219 --> 00:32:12.867
Well,

00:32:12.900 --> 00:32:19.285
it was It was very, very scattered,
you know, It didn't seem to be It

00:32:19.318 --> 00:32:23.825
didn't seem to hold as a planner and
an architect. It didn't seem to hold

00:32:23.858 --> 00:32:29.467
together very well. I mean, there was
one huge building, of course, G. And

00:32:29.500 --> 00:32:36.186
And there were the remnants of what
had once been streets and the building

00:32:36.219 --> 00:32:41.217
seemed, you know, every building was
different. And, uh, coming from, uh,

00:32:41.250 --> 00:32:46.196
I I where all the buildings are
virtually the same. And coming from Kansas

00:32:46.229 --> 00:32:53.236
, which was a campus of 25,000
students set in kind of a verdant, you know

00:32:53.269 --> 00:32:59.347
, hilly pasture, if you like. It was
completely different. Yes, but the

00:32:59.380 --> 00:33:03.496
people were very nice and I visited.

00:33:03.529 --> 00:33:07.196
And what was the the? Was it the
college of architecture at that time when

00:33:07.229 --> 00:33:14.535
you and what was it like? The college?
Um

00:33:14.568 --> 00:33:20.045
well, it was going through a period of
transition because everything here

00:33:20.078 --> 00:33:25.196
was growing very fast, including
schools. And my predecessor, Hugh Burgess

00:33:25.229 --> 00:33:32.956
, had built the school what had been a
school of architecture into a

00:33:32.989 --> 00:33:39.347
college of architecture. And the
college he had expanded it by bringing in

00:33:39.380 --> 00:33:43.916
other programmes. Uh, industrial
design. I think he brought in, or

00:33:43.949 --> 00:33:46.825
industrial engineering that might have
been called from the school of

00:33:46.858 --> 00:33:53.196
engineering. He had brought in a new
programme on interior design. There

00:33:53.229 --> 00:33:58.936
was a programme on planning, but it
wasn't planning. When I looked at it.

00:33:58.969 --> 00:34:03.335
It was disaffected faculty from
architecture who were mostly in the field

00:34:03.368 --> 00:34:09.796
of solar design. Solar energy design

00:34:09.829 --> 00:34:16.706
and the school had outstretched,
outrun its resources. Uh, I mean, one has

00:34:16.739 --> 00:34:21.756
to give credit to my predecessor in
having the vision to see that

00:34:21.789 --> 00:34:27.825
architecture had to exist alongside
other specialisations and and not just

00:34:27.858 --> 00:34:35.858
in its narrow kind of vogue. So, um,
but it had outrun its resources. So

00:34:36.619 --> 00:34:40.526
there were problems, which is probably
why they were looking for a new

00:34:40.559 --> 00:34:45.916
dean. And I had always thought that my
attitude to problems has always

00:34:45.949 --> 00:34:49.635
been that problems are opportunities.
And so I saw the problems and I saw

00:34:49.668 --> 00:34:55.186
an opportunity, and I came into the
physician, and, uh, the first thing I

00:34:55.219 --> 00:35:03.219
did was to present a five year plan to
Jack Kinzinger, who was the vice

00:35:03.269 --> 00:35:09.195
chancellor for academic affairs now
Provost position. And I gave him a

00:35:09.228 --> 00:35:15.956
five year plan of how I would turn
around the, uh college

00:35:15.989 --> 00:35:21.155
And, um, that was my first step. And
that was forward, of course, to

00:35:21.188 --> 00:35:28.945
President Nelson and, um, who was
president at the time.

00:35:28.978 --> 00:35:32.206
So I was going to ask you about the
what was your relationship with

00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:36.736
President Nelson, and well, uh, it was
very distant at first. I mean,

00:35:36.769 --> 00:35:41.227
deans and presidents aren't, you know,
aren't like that necessarily unless

00:35:41.260 --> 00:35:44.445
you're the dean of engineering or the
dean of business, that can be

00:35:44.478 --> 00:35:52.478
different or the or the research in
the research field. But, uh, I formed

00:35:52.539 --> 00:35:57.217
a very close relationship with
President Nelson because President Nelson

00:35:57.250 --> 00:36:03.206
had an interest in architecture. He
had an interest in building, and it

00:36:03.239 --> 00:36:09.747
came, I think, from his own interest
in crafts. And I think I should say

00:36:09.780 --> 00:36:15.706
hobbies. But, uh, there was a lot of
building going on on the campus at

00:36:15.739 --> 00:36:22.655
the time, and he formed what was
called a design review board, and he

00:36:22.688 --> 00:36:28.227
brought in a friend of his Japanese
architect. His name will come to me

00:36:28.260 --> 00:36:34.655
eventually, but, um, and he asked me
to chair that committee since I was

00:36:34.688 --> 00:36:42.688
dean of architecture. And so from that
point on, every building built in

00:36:42.728 --> 00:36:48.376
campus had to go through the design
Review Board. I was chair of that

00:36:48.409 --> 00:36:55.925
committee. Roger Slants was on it.
Who? He was chair of architecture. Um,

00:36:55.958 --> 00:37:03.958
there were two or three outside
architects, including alumni and Um And so

00:37:04.010 --> 00:37:08.106
all the all the schemes had to go
through that committee. And I formed a

00:37:08.139 --> 00:37:12.376
close relationship with Russ Nelson
through that committee because he was

00:37:12.409 --> 00:37:16.416
interested in what was being built.
And at that time, when you asked me

00:37:16.449 --> 00:37:19.695
what the campus looked like, you know,
there are vast areas of car parking.

00:37:19.728 --> 00:37:24.526
There were no multi story car parks,
nothing like that. So I mean, the

00:37:24.559 --> 00:37:29.717
multistory car parks came in with
President Nelson and the building

00:37:29.750 --> 00:37:34.736
activity that took place during that
time in the school of architecture. I

00:37:34.769 --> 00:37:41.236
mainly what I did, there was I
consolidated programmes in the school I. I

00:37:41.269 --> 00:37:49.066
hired a new chair of planning who, um
was really had a background in

00:37:49.099 --> 00:37:57.099
geography and Betty Burns, and at that
time, planning was a was something

00:37:59.909 --> 00:38:03.006
that was causing friction on the
campus because everyone wanted to have

00:38:03.039 --> 00:38:07.526
planning is such a nice title. The
geographers wanted to have it, and

00:38:07.559 --> 00:38:12.706
public programmes wanted to have it,
and I had to liaise with deans across

00:38:12.739 --> 00:38:16.675
the campus and eventually persuade
them that that it could be in planning

00:38:16.708 --> 00:38:24.115
and it was big enough to allow for
their interests as well So I and I took

00:38:24.148 --> 00:38:29.717
the disaffected faculty from from the
planning department, moved them back

00:38:29.750 --> 00:38:33.945
into architecture. But then again,
that was a positive move. Because

00:38:33.978 --> 00:38:39.666
working with Dean Wolf, who was a
graduate Dean at the time I was able to

00:38:39.699 --> 00:38:46.365
get an MS programme, which was a
master of science degree, which before

00:38:46.398 --> 00:38:50.385
that we had only been allowed to have
professional degrees, which are

00:38:50.418 --> 00:38:57.845
considered somewhat less than an MA or
an MS. And we had the MS degree

00:38:57.878 --> 00:39:04.856
then in solar design. Well, it was
called building design, I think. And,

00:39:04.889 --> 00:39:09.436
uh and that was really the groundwork
for a doctoral degree. That would

00:39:09.469 --> 00:39:14.477
come later. That and the planning
programme, where we had a master of

00:39:14.510 --> 00:39:20.646
planning as well. So those two things
I got in a short period of time, as

00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:25.106
as dean and how big was the college
when you came? How many students did

00:39:25.139 --> 00:39:29.526
you have and where was it? Oh gosh,
It's located roughly in the same

00:39:29.559 --> 00:39:34.477
position. Just just

00:39:34.510 --> 00:39:37.936
the building is there now was that

00:39:37.969 --> 00:39:42.236
the grey building opposite Ne Hall was
really the main school building,

00:39:42.269 --> 00:39:49.195
but the rest of the the rest of the
school when the rest of the college

00:39:49.228 --> 00:39:55.276
was in in scattered throughout the
university, in in huts there best way

00:39:55.309 --> 00:40:03.309
in temporary buildings and and, uh,
other other locations. So? So the last

00:40:03.840 --> 00:40:11.077
part of my five year plan was to get a
new building for the for the for

00:40:11.110 --> 00:40:19.110
the college. And then, um well, that
happened When, um let's see,

00:40:21.539 --> 00:40:28.635
about my third year there, I must have
been 1985

00:40:28.668 --> 00:40:30.845
86.

00:40:30.878 --> 00:40:38.878
In 1985 I had a request up for an
extension to the, uh, architecture

00:40:40.239 --> 00:40:43.675
building, which was

00:40:43.708 --> 00:40:48.396
when I used the word extension loosely
because it exceeded the size of the

00:40:48.429 --> 00:40:55.307
existing building. And, uh, I had
faculty involvement in in, uh, drawing

00:40:55.340 --> 00:41:01.717
up a plan or not a plan, but a
programme for that. And, um, I was very

00:41:01.750 --> 00:41:07.135
fortunate. My It turned out to be my
last year as Dean. I didn't know it

00:41:07.168 --> 00:41:12.126
was going to be my last year as Dean,
but the regions were visiting. They

00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:20.159
, um the college and I was showing
them around the facilities. It was one

00:41:21.128 --> 00:41:28.986
of those rare days in in Arizona when
the rain was coming down in sheets

00:41:29.019 --> 00:41:32.747
and we walked around into the one of
the temporary buildings with two of

00:41:32.780 --> 00:41:36.945
the regions. I can't I can't remember
who it was, who the regents were at

00:41:36.978 --> 00:41:43.006
the time. But we walked into the
studio and there were students working at

00:41:43.039 --> 00:41:46.227
their drawing boards diligently
because they had all been warned. The

00:41:46.260 --> 00:41:52.017
visit was coming and, uh, working
diligently on their drawings with

00:41:52.050 --> 00:41:57.865
umbrellas up over their drawing
boards. And I think it was within two or

00:41:57.898 --> 00:42:03.066
three months that I got word that we
were going to get a get the extension.

00:42:03.099 --> 00:42:07.267
 So, you know,

00:42:07.300 --> 00:42:12.057
has an aspect in all of these things

00:42:12.090 --> 00:42:16.175
timing, timing is everything being at
the right place at the right time?

00:42:16.208 --> 00:42:21.166
Didn't it seem rather ironic to you
when you came to see about whether you

00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:25.247
wanted this job, that the college of
architecture really didn't have a

00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:29.595
suitable building of any college that
to have a building?

00:42:29.628 --> 00:42:36.467
It had the building that they had was
good and the founding dean, James

00:42:36.500 --> 00:42:39.997
Elmore, who was still there when I
arrived a wonderful person. I hope you

00:42:40.030 --> 00:42:47.376
interview him. Uh, he had built that
first building. It was a new building

00:42:47.409 --> 00:42:53.236
and it held the school. But you see,
Hugh Burgess was, um how should I put

00:42:53.269 --> 00:42:59.445
it? Not only was he a dreamer, but he
had great entrepreneurial skills.

00:42:59.478 --> 00:43:04.287
And so he outgrew the building. No
time at all. And so that's why we had

00:43:04.320 --> 00:43:09.405
the college scattered on our campus.
So Well, tell me a little bit about

00:43:09.438 --> 00:43:13.247
getting the new building. You got the
OK for it then? Were you responsible

00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:20.037
for overseeing that? Or how did that
work? Well, just at that time,

00:43:20.070 --> 00:43:24.467
uh, President Nelson invited me out
for lunch

00:43:24.500 --> 00:43:27.845
and Paige Mulholland had I should
explain. Paige Mulholland, who was the

00:43:27.878 --> 00:43:34.026
executive vice president and in charge
of a SU west, had just left. By the

00:43:34.059 --> 00:43:37.747
way, someone had asked my opinion once
about a SU west and I said, I don't

00:43:37.780 --> 00:43:40.827
know why they're building a way out
there. If I was building a new campus

00:43:40.860 --> 00:43:45.217
, I'd build it downtown using some of
those nice old buildings that they

00:43:45.250 --> 00:43:48.695
have there. I think I said that to
President Nelson at the time, actually

00:43:48.728 --> 00:43:55.807
, but a building on the West campus
wasn't a choice. It was

00:43:55.840 --> 00:44:01.146
It was the It was really mandated by
the Legislature. Some legislators got

00:44:01.179 --> 00:44:06.057
together from the West Side and
virtually said, You know, we need a We

00:44:06.090 --> 00:44:10.885
need a campus out there. Students
can't people. The students out there

00:44:10.918 --> 00:44:18.267
can't go on driving long distances
into into the main campus. So Tempe. So

00:44:18.300 --> 00:44:24.876
the West campus was on the horizon,
and Paige Mulholland was in charge of

00:44:24.909 --> 00:44:30.316
that under President Nelson. And he
left. You know, I should make these

00:44:30.349 --> 00:44:35.767
stories shorter. President Nelson took
me out for lunch

00:44:35.800 --> 00:44:42.166
and he said to me, He said, Would you
like to become

00:44:42.199 --> 00:44:46.227
vice president for the West campus? We
want? We're building a new campus

00:44:46.260 --> 00:44:52.425
out there, and with your experience in
architecture,

00:44:52.458 --> 00:44:58.477
maybe you would be Would you be
willing to do that? And, uh and I said,

00:44:58.510 --> 00:45:03.026
Well, you know, I don't know whether
I'm the right kind of person to do

00:45:03.059 --> 00:45:09.856
that. Being one has to be modest at
first. So he said, Well, I said, Why

00:45:09.889 --> 00:45:16.675
me? He said, Well, you remind me of,
um of a duck swimming, calm on the

00:45:16.708 --> 00:45:21.247
surface, but paddling like hell
underneath. And I was very flattered at

00:45:21.280 --> 00:45:25.166
that. Naturally, though later, you
know, several years later I was

00:45:25.199 --> 00:45:28.885
watching a John Wayne movie and found
It was one of his lines in the movie.

00:45:28.918 --> 00:45:35.287
But anyway, at the time, I was
flattered. And so I went back to Norman,

00:45:35.320 --> 00:45:40.217
and, uh, I said, Well, what I said to
him at the time was, I don't want to

00:45:40.250 --> 00:45:46.796
leave the deanship yet. Could I be
Dean and vice president for a SU West

00:45:46.829 --> 00:45:53.506
for a year? Until I finished my job
here as Dean. And, uh, because I had a

00:45:53.539 --> 00:45:58.586
new a new chair of the design
department, which I was reorganised under

00:45:58.619 --> 00:46:06.619
under my deanship. And he said, Yes, I
could do that because the West was

00:46:06.668 --> 00:46:11.905
in temporary accommodation out on the
West side in Montebello School and

00:46:11.938 --> 00:46:19.938
Alhambra school. So for one year, I
was Dean until noon. And at noon I

00:46:20.458 --> 00:46:27.115
went out to the West Side and I was
vice president at the West side.

00:46:27.148 --> 00:46:30.706
What? What did the job of vice
president for the West campus? What did

00:46:30.739 --> 00:46:36.356
that entail? How big was the campus?
That what year was that? 1980 1985

00:46:36.389 --> 00:46:38.646
8686.

00:46:38.679 --> 00:46:42.195
It must have been 8585.

00:46:42.228 --> 00:46:48.425
So how big was that campus now? Um, it
was, uh Well, we didn't have a

00:46:48.458 --> 00:46:53.836
campus. We just had these temporary
buildings. And, uh so I was in charge

00:46:53.869 --> 00:46:59.336
of temporary buildings and and
recruiting a faculty and a few few people.

00:46:59.369 --> 00:47:03.695
I, I said I. I began building an
administration,

00:47:03.728 --> 00:47:07.267
and but some of the administration was
already there because Paige

00:47:07.300 --> 00:47:11.916
Mulholland had appointed a dean of
faculty

00:47:11.949 --> 00:47:19.767
who you might say was the equivalent
of the, uh Well, while she was dean

00:47:19.800 --> 00:47:24.195
of faculty, she was building new
faculties, so so theoretically in a

00:47:24.228 --> 00:47:28.267
structure, she would have been the
vice chancellor for academic affairs

00:47:28.300 --> 00:47:33.086
and the new campus. But that was and
he had also appointed a head

00:47:33.119 --> 00:47:39.717
librarian, Helen Gator, and a few
other people. And I added to that two

00:47:39.750 --> 00:47:47.666
people from two people from the, uh
the college wanted to come with me.

00:47:47.699 --> 00:47:52.577
Dick Arius, who was associate Dean,
wanted to come. So he was an architect

00:47:52.610 --> 00:47:58.135
also so, and a planner. So I brought
He appointed him associate vice

00:47:58.168 --> 00:48:03.236
president, and I should say he was
appointed. I shouldn't say I appointed

00:48:03.269 --> 00:48:10.776
him, and, uh and then I also brought
Paul Zusi, who was my manager and and

00:48:10.809 --> 00:48:16.256
very an excellent person while I was
Dean. You know, I'm talking about

00:48:16.289 --> 00:48:21.467
what I did, and I should count. I
mean, I should counter that right away.

00:48:21.500 --> 00:48:26.736
No one does anything by themselves.
You do things because you have lots of

00:48:26.769 --> 00:48:32.195
good people around you and you channel
their energies. You persuade them.

00:48:32.228 --> 00:48:37.816
You you bully them, you do all sorts
of things. But those are the people

00:48:37.849 --> 00:48:42.445
that get things done. And so when I
went out to West campus, I knew that

00:48:42.478 --> 00:48:49.436
what my job was was to head a team of
people of, like, mind to build a new

00:48:49.469 --> 00:48:54.816
campus. And I was very fortunate. I
have I had very good people. I also

00:48:54.849 --> 00:49:02.456
hired a person called Barry Bruns, who
was in the, uh, who was in the

00:49:02.489 --> 00:49:08.787
administrative end of the the business
side of the Central administration

00:49:08.820 --> 00:49:16.820
here. And he's still there. Barry
Bruns is still there, and so is Paul

00:49:18.039 --> 00:49:25.287
and many of the other people who I
hired as who were hired as as the early

00:49:25.320 --> 00:49:30.345
faculty are still there. And and then
I go back and see them every now and

00:49:30.378 --> 00:49:38.378
then. But then I, I should continue my
story in 1986 we got a 300 acre

00:49:38.599 --> 00:49:46.599
site at Thunderbird between
Thunderbird and UH, 51st and 43rd Avenues. It

00:49:46.849 --> 00:49:51.905
was given to us by the state, the
state state property,

00:49:51.938 --> 00:49:58.186
and we were also given my first year
as a vice president. I had to spend

00:49:58.219 --> 00:50:06.219
$7.1 million on this new site, and I
had to spend something like $2

00:50:07.610 --> 00:50:14.256
million hiring for hiring positions
that had to be spent in my first year.

00:50:14.289 --> 00:50:17.217
Because if it wasn't spent my first
year, it would revert back to the

00:50:17.250 --> 00:50:24.046
state Legislature. So I had to very
quickly get moving on building the

00:50:24.079 --> 00:50:30.626
campus. And within seven months, I'd
spent all the money and there was

00:50:30.659 --> 00:50:33.686
they had started landscaping on the
campus. They had started all the

00:50:33.719 --> 00:50:38.155
infrastructure in the campus, you
know, building tunnels and so on. Of

00:50:38.188 --> 00:50:41.646
course, we had to break ground before
that. I think we we broke ground

00:50:41.679 --> 00:50:45.646
about two or three months after I was
appointed. And so when you were

00:50:45.679 --> 00:50:49.385
appointed, there were no there were
Did you say you just dropped the land

00:50:49.418 --> 00:50:55.736
? You didn't even have the the actual
land yet? No. We had we had a plan.

00:50:55.769 --> 00:51:01.807
We didn't have actual what plans that
architects could work from. We had a

00:51:01.840 --> 00:51:08.885
planning document which had gone
through the design review board and where

00:51:08.918 --> 00:51:15.467
we persuaded the, um, we persuaded the
planners who were NBBJ from Seattle

00:51:15.500 --> 00:51:22.276
being appointed by, uh, they had been
appointed by, um earlier by Paige

00:51:22.309 --> 00:51:29.135
Mulholland. And we had persuaded them
to put in courtyards because, you

00:51:29.168 --> 00:51:36.885
know, that's if you look at, um, at
architecture in arid time. Usually you

00:51:36.918 --> 00:51:41.686
have courtyards and covered spaces and
so on. So we we persuaded them to

00:51:41.719 --> 00:51:46.296
include that in their plan. But their
plan you see emerged is a diagram.

00:51:46.329 --> 00:51:52.405
This size had never been approved by
the regions, and I was out there

00:51:52.438 --> 00:51:56.327
building it without approval of an
actual plan by the regions. What the

00:51:56.360 --> 00:52:02.385
regions did approve were actions which
you took step by step. So the first

00:52:02.418 --> 00:52:08.756
thing I did was to had to do was to
put in a utility tunnel because that

00:52:08.789 --> 00:52:13.956
that was needed that would be needed.
This was below ground, so it was

00:52:13.989 --> 00:52:19.316
something that would be needed right
away. The second thing I did was,

00:52:19.349 --> 00:52:22.767
well, this all happened concurrently.

00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:27.365
We had to put a landscape around the
perimeter of the site, which was part

00:52:27.398 --> 00:52:32.537
of the plan because the residents in
the area who had been involved in

00:52:32.570 --> 00:52:37.037
early planning they wanted to make
sure that the campus fitted in with the

00:52:37.070 --> 00:52:43.595
neighbourhood. So we did all the
landscaping around the exterior and and

00:52:43.628 --> 00:52:47.796
with the rest of the money, I
appointed an architect to plan the first

00:52:47.829 --> 00:52:52.356
building, which was meant to be a
multi purpose building, which I decided

00:52:52.389 --> 00:52:56.356
it would be the library.

00:52:56.389 --> 00:53:00.827
Why don't you just describe for me the
first time you went out to see the

00:53:00.860 --> 00:53:04.356
new what was going to be west campus,
what did it look like? Well, it was

00:53:04.389 --> 00:53:10.787
just 300 acres of desert basically in
the middle, but, uh, neighbourhoods

00:53:10.820 --> 00:53:18.820
all around it. But it was just desert
scrub and, uh, nothing there, I

00:53:18.878 --> 00:53:23.925
should say there was a small
elementary school which took up a small

00:53:23.958 --> 00:53:31.958
section of the site. Uh, and, uh, the
school is still there, but, um, that

00:53:33.789 --> 00:53:38.655
was even Thunder road at that time. We
see it now. There's restaurants in

00:53:38.688 --> 00:53:44.456
it. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, no, it
wasn't at all. In fact, I went out to

00:53:44.489 --> 00:53:49.307
live there a few years. Well, a year
later, I went out to live there

00:53:49.340 --> 00:53:53.885
permanently at Arrowhead Ranch. I
bought one of the first houses out at

00:53:53.918 --> 00:54:01.686
Arrowhead Ranch. And, uh, because I
want to be near the new campus and And

00:54:01.719 --> 00:54:06.166
when I got out there, there was
nothing but orange groves. And now, of

00:54:06.199 --> 00:54:12.405
course, the forecast that the
population would double at that time proved

00:54:12.438 --> 00:54:16.626
proved correct. In fact, it's doing
more than doubling. And the land where

00:54:16.659 --> 00:54:23.166
the campus was to be was not former
farmland. Oh, yes, it had. Yes. I

00:54:23.199 --> 00:54:27.287
think it had been owned by the science
family who are very prominent

00:54:27.320 --> 00:54:31.905
family. They gave money for the first
classroom building on the main

00:54:31.938 --> 00:54:38.827
campus and the very old family. And,
uh, but because you said it was

00:54:38.860 --> 00:54:42.756
desert, I thought maybe it had been
farm cotton fields or well, well, I'm

00:54:42.789 --> 00:54:47.066
saying it had a desert appearance.
Desert. I shouldn't say it was It was

00:54:47.099 --> 00:54:52.727
virgin. No, no, it wasn't Virgin
Desert. No, no. Different kind, different

00:54:52.760 --> 00:54:56.767
kind of theatre. Yeah, well, in some
ways, I would think with your urban

00:54:56.800 --> 00:55:00.956
your city planning and, um,
architectural background that that would have

00:55:00.989 --> 00:55:07.086
been kind of a fun challenge for you.
It was It really was. I, uh the

00:55:07.119 --> 00:55:12.586
thing was, you see that this little
plan that we had had never been, uh,

00:55:12.619 --> 00:55:20.619
translated into larger drawings. So
one had to be make it up as make it up

00:55:21.208 --> 00:55:26.376
as you go along, you know? And, uh,
there's a story about the Emperor

00:55:26.409 --> 00:55:30.316
Constantine, you know, standing with
the stick and drawing out the

00:55:30.349 --> 00:55:36.046
circumference of where Constantin Nova
was going to be built. And I felt a

00:55:36.079 --> 00:55:40.566
bit a bit like that, you know, because
what I had to do was decide. Well,

00:55:40.599 --> 00:55:44.186
uh, in this little plan that I had the
main building, the library building

00:55:44.219 --> 00:55:49.845
, was at the centre of the campus. So
we knew where that was going. And,

00:55:49.878 --> 00:55:55.876
uh and so, uh, from that, we were able
to decide we we had a We had a

00:55:55.909 --> 00:56:01.537
civil engineer who kind of marked out
the boundary of where things would

00:56:01.570 --> 00:56:05.827
approximately be. So we started in the
centre line in the centre of the

00:56:05.860 --> 00:56:12.416
campus. It's a good place to start and
built the first building and the

00:56:12.449 --> 00:56:17.327
library building. And, uh, we couldn't
get funding for it. because at that

00:56:17.360 --> 00:56:25.360
time we had a governor who, um, who
had a very funny outlook on budgets.

00:56:26.969 --> 00:56:30.845
And which governor was that? Governor?

00:56:30.878 --> 00:56:34.615
Um oh, gosh,

00:56:34.648 --> 00:56:37.916
me, governor, me

00:56:37.949 --> 00:56:45.095
and governor Me, His idea of budgets
was, um Now, that's the sticker price.

00:56:45.128 --> 00:56:52.135
What's the real price? Was his idea of
budgets, but anyway, he, uh he he

00:56:52.168 --> 00:57:00.168
had he had been a car salesman. Yes.
He he offered to give us half of the

00:57:01.688 --> 00:57:07.445
money for the library building. This
was after we had spent the first

00:57:07.478 --> 00:57:11.796
year's budget half of the money for
the library building. But, you know,

00:57:11.829 --> 00:57:16.477
you can't sign a contract with with,
um, with the contractor saying, Well

00:57:16.510 --> 00:57:20.997
, we have the money this year. We
don't know when we get you the rest, but

00:57:21.030 --> 00:57:28.706
eventually, uh, he was replaced by a
more moderate governor, and, uh, we

00:57:28.739 --> 00:57:35.206
did get the the full money for the
first building. And so that was

00:57:35.239 --> 00:57:37.827
that was built.

00:57:37.860 --> 00:57:42.247
By the time that was built, I was
almost on the point of leaving, but we

00:57:42.280 --> 00:57:47.445
kind of laid out the campus on certain
grounds. I said I was able to set

00:57:47.478 --> 00:57:53.057
ground rules for the campus. I
remember going out with Russ Nelson and the

00:57:53.090 --> 00:57:58.436
architect for the library and agreeing
on the stone and brick that would

00:57:58.469 --> 00:58:02.506
be used. The colour of the stone and
brick kind of matched the colour of

00:58:02.539 --> 00:58:07.997
the ground where we were going to be
building. And I had said that a

00:58:08.030 --> 00:58:13.217
campus to have kind of a feeling of a
campus and a feeling of permanence

00:58:13.250 --> 00:58:20.876
and a feeling of place had to be built
of brick and stone. And, um so that

00:58:20.909 --> 00:58:26.936
was one of the things I laid down
ground rules. One of my ground rules

00:58:26.969 --> 00:58:34.066
rules also that they Well, I had the
idea that that real universities that

00:58:34.099 --> 00:58:39.615
I knew of like Oxford and Cambridge
and Prince even places like Princeton

00:58:39.648 --> 00:58:44.706
and places like that they, uh they
were. They had this idea of permanence

00:58:44.739 --> 00:58:49.977
, which you get with breaking stone.
But they were also built on the

00:58:50.010 --> 00:58:55.287
what's what was called the monastery
model, where you had courtyards and

00:58:55.320 --> 00:59:00.126
you had cloisters and and that seemed
to be absolutely appropriate for

00:59:00.159 --> 00:59:04.956
this climate because I used to walk
across this campus with without any

00:59:04.989 --> 00:59:09.626
shade to meetings and one of the
things I thought if one could only walk

00:59:09.659 --> 00:59:15.296
in shade. So I said every building had
to have an arcade, and, uh, and

00:59:15.329 --> 00:59:19.876
that and that the design of buildings
should they should relate to each

00:59:19.909 --> 00:59:26.405
other, which is one way through
materials, but that every building should

00:59:26.438 --> 00:59:29.747
have a courtyard

00:59:29.780 --> 00:59:36.506
where faculty could meet and so on, so
that the campus did take that form.

00:59:36.539 --> 00:59:41.436
And I and I stood with Jack de Barlow,
who was the architect for the

00:59:41.469 --> 00:59:47.717
library, and we marked out the first
large square. Fortunately, he was

00:59:47.750 --> 00:59:53.776
also the architect for the classroom
building. So once one builds

00:59:53.809 --> 00:59:57.606
the first prominent building on the
campus and then another building

00:59:57.639 --> 01:00:01.336
alongside it, which reverts to it, the
rest of the buildings have to

01:00:01.369 --> 01:00:09.369
follow that if one reads city
planning, one knows that. And so the rest of

01:00:09.590 --> 01:00:15.126
the buildings did follow, even though
there were five different architects.

01:00:15.159 --> 01:00:21.135
Um, the buildings all took the same
guidelines. And so there's a unity

01:00:21.168 --> 01:00:28.077
about a SU west. If you go out there
that you won't find, uh, anywhere

01:00:28.110 --> 01:00:30.486
else here

01:00:30.519 --> 01:00:38.135
and there is a climate, it's very
adaptable to the climate. And, uh, So

01:00:38.168 --> 01:00:44.095
how long were you out there to see
some of those things. I saw the first,

01:00:44.128 --> 01:00:51.046
the library building and the the
classroom building getting off the ground.

01:00:51.079 --> 01:00:55.936
And then I offered my resignation to
rust at that time, and he accepted

01:00:55.969 --> 01:01:03.969
it simply because there was a lot of
infighting going on

01:01:03.969 --> 01:01:10.787
really about faculty positions and
whether the arch there were some people

01:01:10.820 --> 01:01:16.655
who wanted who thought that the campus
should be a university and its own.

01:01:16.688 --> 01:01:21.706
Because, really, when it was formed
Frank sect and said to me when I

01:01:21.739 --> 01:01:26.336
first took the position Frank sect and
said, Well, we don't know whether

01:01:26.369 --> 01:01:31.717
that's going to be a separate
university or not So part of the the kind of

01:01:31.750 --> 01:01:37.986
, um, machinations shall I put it that
went on between faculty and

01:01:38.019 --> 01:01:42.916
administrators was related to this,
and I really didn't have very much

01:01:42.949 --> 01:01:49.845
support from any of the vice
presidents on the, uh, main campus, with the

01:01:49.878 --> 01:01:56.316
exception of um, with the exception of
Henry Reeves, who was the vice

01:01:56.349 --> 01:02:01.385
president for research and the vice
president for students at the time,

01:02:01.418 --> 01:02:05.206
were very supportive. But the other
vice presidents had all their own

01:02:05.239 --> 01:02:10.267
access to grind, and we're not really
all that supportive and I felt under

01:02:10.300 --> 01:02:15.925
the circumstances, I couldn't
continue. So I gave my resignation to Russ,

01:02:15.958 --> 01:02:22.135
and after, after a while, he accepted
it. So I want to actually, uh, I

01:02:22.168 --> 01:02:27.456
want to say that I had written several
times the the remit that I was

01:02:27.489 --> 01:02:33.456
given to build the campus was written
in very narrow terms. And I remember

01:02:33.489 --> 01:02:38.747
writing to Ross. In fact, I have a
memo still suggesting that it would be

01:02:38.780 --> 01:02:46.006
better if the university, this
university and the and the A SU West was

01:02:46.039 --> 01:02:50.936
actually modelled on London
University, where London University has a

01:02:50.969 --> 01:02:56.856
central administration and and it's
made up of separate colleges. I

01:02:56.889 --> 01:03:00.896
attended University College London,
which is part of London University,

01:03:00.929 --> 01:03:05.017
and Imperial College, which is an
engineering college as part of London

01:03:05.050 --> 01:03:10.316
University King's College, part of
London University. So, in fact, I

01:03:10.349 --> 01:03:14.077
recommended that to Russ, but it kind
of disappeared, but now it has

01:03:14.110 --> 01:03:19.807
reemerged, so I'm glad to see it has
reemerged as a concept. So did you

01:03:19.840 --> 01:03:23.356
kind of feel that you were caught in
the middle of all this? Yes, I

01:03:23.389 --> 01:03:30.615
actually I felt I had been to use an
expression hung out to dry Have you

01:03:30.648 --> 01:03:36.256
heard that expression? Yes. It's not a
very nice feeling. But on the other

01:03:36.289 --> 01:03:41.635
hand, uh, you know, I, I really had my
I had really good relationships

01:03:41.668 --> 01:03:46.666
with with my colleagues, apart from
those kind of battles which I didn't

01:03:46.699 --> 01:03:51.865
really want to fight. And, uh, my
heart wasn't in that my heart was in the

01:03:51.898 --> 01:03:57.916
campus. In fact, it's still buried
there, and I have been able to

01:03:57.949 --> 01:04:03.845
participate on the design committee
for the campus up until the present

01:04:03.878 --> 01:04:05.945
day.

01:04:05.978 --> 01:04:10.925
So you haven't completely broken Oh,
no, no, no. The West campus. But I

01:04:10.958 --> 01:04:15.017
was glad I was really glad to get back
to teaching in a way, you know,

01:04:15.050 --> 01:04:21.675
because that's what I had come to do
in the first place. You resigned as

01:04:21.708 --> 01:04:25.595
the head of the West campus? Yes. And
what was your actual title out there

01:04:25.628 --> 01:04:31.905
? Vice president for the West campus.

01:04:31.938 --> 01:04:36.626
Well, I suggested to Russ that the
title should be provost, and he he did

01:04:36.659 --> 01:04:40.327
for the next appointment. And he did.
You know, he was very Russ was very

01:04:40.360 --> 01:04:46.546
good. I mean, he he took advice very
well, and, uh, and he he could reject

01:04:46.579 --> 01:04:51.327
it as well of course, but he he was
good about listening. Yes. And so you

01:04:51.360 --> 01:04:54.885
left that position at the West campus
and you came back to teach it. Yes.

01:04:54.918 --> 01:05:00.416
Yes. So tell me. About what? What did
you How does that work out? Well,

01:05:00.449 --> 01:05:03.856
not to go out at first. It was kind of
quite a shock coming back. At first

01:05:03.889 --> 01:05:09.316
, I mean, 11 had to forget it wasn't
too hard to forget that one was Dean

01:05:09.349 --> 01:05:14.217
. I mean, I could do that pretty
easily. I was. I was quite relieved not

01:05:14.250 --> 01:05:18.686
to be when I came back, but by that
time, we had the new building. So it

01:05:18.719 --> 01:05:23.497
was nice, Uh, 11 or two of the faculty
were very good. They shared their

01:05:23.530 --> 01:05:29.706
offices with me, and that was very
nice. And, uh, and then I eventually

01:05:29.739 --> 01:05:34.537
got an office to myself in the new
building, and I was teaching things

01:05:34.570 --> 01:05:39.467
that I was interested in. You know, I
was teaching a design studio with

01:05:39.500 --> 01:05:44.626
third year students, which are really
It's an interesting year to teach.

01:05:44.659 --> 01:05:50.227
And I was teaching, uh, I was teaching
ethics architectural ethics at the

01:05:50.260 --> 01:05:56.827
graduate level. I was also teaching
some urban design courses. So I was

01:05:56.860 --> 01:06:01.686
teaching things that I knew about and
had, you know, I didn't even have to

01:06:01.719 --> 01:06:07.416
think about it. It was nice. Well,
it's not that unusual for, um, like,

01:06:07.449 --> 01:06:11.066
even a dean. Or like, we just
interviewed Lady Core this morning, and he's

01:06:11.099 --> 01:06:16.146
now teaching. So it's really not
unusual in academic to go back and and

01:06:16.179 --> 01:06:22.827
teach, um, and get rid of all those
administrative headaches.

01:06:22.860 --> 01:06:27.885
Well, tell me about, um, describe a
little bit how you've seen a SU change

01:06:27.918 --> 01:06:33.876
from the time you came here today.
Well, I must say, uh, one of my

01:06:33.909 --> 01:06:39.686
disagreements with the administration
was that I felt that they in order

01:06:39.719 --> 01:06:44.276
to build branch campuses, you can't
keep growing on the main campus. And I

01:06:44.309 --> 01:06:48.486
thought the main campus had got much
too large. I mean, it was approaching

01:06:48.519 --> 01:06:52.586
40,000. I think at that time and in
order if you're if you're going to

01:06:52.619 --> 01:06:57.977
create, I mean the theory of, uh, of
the new towns in London, which I was

01:06:58.010 --> 01:07:02.057
very attuned to. I even worked in a
new town in Scotland somewhere in my

01:07:02.090 --> 01:07:09.376
history. Uh uh. What what happened was
they They restricted the growth of

01:07:09.409 --> 01:07:15.095
the Centre City in order to build
these new towns which were still related

01:07:15.128 --> 01:07:20.816
to the Centre city by fast
transportation. And so I always felt that it

01:07:20.849 --> 01:07:26.175
was wrong not to cap enrollment on the
main campus. I would have kept it

01:07:26.208 --> 01:07:34.115
at 35,000 students and then put
allowed, rebuilt all the other campuses on

01:07:34.148 --> 01:07:38.646
the surplus of the students who wanted
to come here but couldn't. And I

01:07:38.679 --> 01:07:43.037
thought this could become a more
specialised kind of campus, more research

01:07:43.070 --> 01:07:49.686
oriented, whereas the new campuses
could take up more of the academic role

01:07:49.719 --> 01:07:56.486
of the main campus. So I mean, I had
these ideas, and, uh, but I wasn't in

01:07:56.519 --> 01:08:03.146
a position to have anything to do with
these ideas. But the knowledge of

01:08:03.179 --> 01:08:07.747
what should be done and what wasn't
being done kind of gnaws at you a

01:08:07.780 --> 01:08:12.146
little bit. But, uh, you know, in
retrospect, I was able to close all

01:08:12.179 --> 01:08:17.446
those things in my mind as a teacher
and interact with my students and the

01:08:17.479 --> 01:08:21.796
faculty, and I really enjoyed myself
very much those last years. I was

01:08:21.829 --> 01:08:25.656
able to write for the first time, and
I was able to get up to speed on

01:08:25.689 --> 01:08:33.689
computers again, thanks to all my
colleagues over there.

01:08:33.949 --> 01:08:37.765
Let's see you talked about some of the
people you worked with. Oh, look,

01:08:37.798 --> 01:08:39.866
this is

01:08:39.899 --> 01:08:43.036
Are there any other particular people
that stand out in your mind that

01:08:43.069 --> 01:08:46.206
were part of your career here?

01:08:46.239 --> 01:08:51.764
Well, I, I found Elmer Gooding, who
always worked in the, uh, in the

01:08:51.797 --> 01:08:56.795
academic affairs office. The most
helpful person, Matt Betts, was also

01:08:56.828 --> 01:09:02.066
helpful in those early years. Um,

01:09:02.099 --> 01:09:06.135
let's see,

01:09:06.168 --> 01:09:10.446
a lot of the other deans I really got
on very well. The deans really were

01:09:10.479 --> 01:09:17.206
a very collegial group at that time.
Chuck Wolf, the dean for research.

01:09:17.239 --> 01:09:19.506
Um

01:09:19.539 --> 01:09:24.086
oh, they They've all gone a long time
ago, and they're probably all out of

01:09:24.119 --> 01:09:30.566
my memory now, But, um, when you look
back, um, over your career here,

01:09:30.599 --> 01:09:34.655
what would you say? It was your the
thing that you're proudest of that

01:09:34.688 --> 01:09:39.986
you'd like to be remembered for? Um

01:09:40.019 --> 01:09:45.884
Let's see. I suppose the West campus,
the buildings on the West campus, I

01:09:45.917 --> 01:09:49.264
don't think it would. Look, if I
hadn't been there, it wouldn't look the

01:09:49.297 --> 01:09:56.467
way it does. So that's a pretty good
legacy to leave you to campus. Now

01:09:56.500 --> 01:10:02.956
it's growing up. Um, are there some
things that that you wanted to do that

01:10:02.989 --> 01:10:07.777
, that you weren't able to do that?

01:10:07.810 --> 01:10:11.006
Well, I would like to stay at the West
campus a little longer, but I think

01:10:11.039 --> 01:10:18.696
my my timing was right to leave, So I
would like to have done that. I

01:10:18.729 --> 01:10:22.817
would like to have written more. I
only published one book while I was on

01:10:22.850 --> 01:10:29.336
the faculty here, so I'd like to have
published two. Well, I published on

01:10:29.369 --> 01:10:33.916
the plan that I did for Londonderry,
which was completely built after 30

01:10:33.949 --> 01:10:38.946
years. So that's how long you have to
wait to see something, you know, the

01:10:38.979 --> 01:10:45.956
city scale built. So I was able to
write about that, and maybe you should

01:10:45.989 --> 01:10:51.175
write a book about the West campus
well

01:10:51.208 --> 01:10:54.817
in process. I don't know whether I'd
like to bring all the skeletons out

01:10:54.850 --> 01:11:01.626
of the cupboard on that one to be
recorded for history. Someday, when

01:11:01.659 --> 01:11:05.147
somebody who likes to look back 100
years of history of the West campus,

01:11:05.180 --> 01:11:09.956
they'll be interested to know some of
those things.

01:11:09.989 --> 01:11:13.996
Let's see,

01:11:14.029 --> 01:11:17.095
Do you have any particular memories or
stories of things that have

01:11:17.128 --> 01:11:22.286
happened here that, uh, you want to
talk about? Well, I mean, my favourite

01:11:22.319 --> 01:11:25.987
one was really the regents coming in
that day when it was raining. I think

01:11:26.020 --> 01:11:32.156
that was my That's my favourite memory
of this campus. Oh, the, uh, on the

01:11:32.189 --> 01:11:36.946
west campus. Do I have any favourite
memories?

01:11:36.979 --> 01:11:41.996
Well, I've had a lot of memories, but
I don't think any of them really

01:11:42.029 --> 01:11:46.857
stand out. I was presented on the
opening of the library. I still have it

01:11:46.890 --> 01:11:51.366
at home. I must return it to the
library. I was presented with a stone

01:11:51.399 --> 01:11:58.897
arch with my name on inscribed on the
top of it and a plate on the on the

01:11:58.930 --> 01:12:03.906
teak base. And I could scarcely carry
it to my car. And I have it at home

01:12:03.939 --> 01:12:08.187
. I think that was a kind of a joke,
but that was that was a nice memory

01:12:08.220 --> 01:12:15.036
too. So it was probably a good
feeling. Oh, yes, it was. Yes. I still go.

01:12:15.069 --> 01:12:20.055
I still I use that library very
frequently because it's near home now. Is

01:12:20.088 --> 01:12:25.156
the campus finished a building or are
they still building building? Oh, no

01:12:25.189 --> 01:12:32.425
, no. We just completed a building
recently. Uh, and, uh so at this time

01:12:32.458 --> 01:12:36.925
we have a circular. Now we have a
circular courtyard.

01:12:36.958 --> 01:12:41.265
One of the things in the campus was
that each courtyard could be different.

01:12:41.298 --> 01:12:49.298
That this was one of my dictums was
that while the outside would have to

01:12:49.458 --> 01:12:54.987
reflect what was going on with
buildings opposite and adjoining, to give

01:12:55.020 --> 01:12:59.706
the campus a kind of unity that the
interior spaces, the courtyards could

01:12:59.739 --> 01:13:03.616
be whatever you liked, architects
could do whatever they liked in the

01:13:03.649 --> 01:13:09.717
courtyards. I must say, I really
admired my profession,

01:13:09.750 --> 01:13:13.817
the architects who were able to say,
Well, we understand what this is

01:13:13.850 --> 01:13:18.076
about, and we'd like to build our
signature building that says, This is my

01:13:18.109 --> 01:13:23.937
building, but we will do what the
campus want. And they did it. It's been

01:13:23.970 --> 01:13:26.217
very nice

01:13:26.250 --> 01:13:31.406
that well, I have one great memory of
the West campus, and that was when

01:13:31.439 --> 01:13:35.987
we were building One of the things I
noticed about well, you must be aware

01:13:36.020 --> 01:13:39.805
of this campus is you don't know where
to enter this campus. There are so

01:13:39.838 --> 01:13:44.385
many entrances, and I and I determined
that we would have one main

01:13:44.418 --> 01:13:52.418
entrance on the on the main camp on
the West campus, and, uh, the first

01:13:53.350 --> 01:13:56.857
architect who was appointed to do it
didn't make a really good job of it.

01:13:56.890 --> 01:14:01.996
It wasn't really what I wanted, and so
somehow I got him out of the

01:14:02.029 --> 01:14:08.897
picture and I added the entrance to
Jack de Bartle, Lew's contract, who

01:14:08.930 --> 01:14:12.456
was building the library at the time,
and Jack at that time. He's much

01:14:12.489 --> 01:14:16.897
thinner now, but he was. He was quite
large at that time, you know, He was

01:14:16.930 --> 01:14:22.967
quite corpulent, I suppose would be a
good description. And he stood out

01:14:23.000 --> 01:14:27.805
in front of the campus on the centre
line of the campus on Thunderbird

01:14:27.838 --> 01:14:34.187
Road and he turned around to me and he
said, What about this?

01:14:34.220 --> 01:14:39.726
And I said That looks good because we
had already got. We had already

01:14:39.759 --> 01:14:46.476
introduced the semi circle in the
library and we already had the the

01:14:46.509 --> 01:14:54.076
arcades going like this as an idea. So
we have an arcaded entry to with

01:14:54.109 --> 01:14:59.357
bus stations and at the entrance, and
it was really based on Jack and

01:14:59.390 --> 01:15:04.925
Bartlet saying What about this? And
that was much with the way the campus

01:15:04.958 --> 01:15:09.925
was planned in those early days, we
didn't have. You know, we said Spotify

01:15:09.958 --> 01:15:15.956
This here and this here. That's but I
must say, I wouldn't recommend it to

01:15:15.989 --> 01:15:19.836
anyone who didn't know what they were
doing. We knew what we were doing.

01:15:19.869 --> 01:15:23.487
We made those kind of decisions. But
it sounds like you did it more

01:15:23.520 --> 01:15:27.845
standing there and looking than
sitting in on a drafting board. Yes, the

01:15:27.878 --> 01:15:30.937
drafting boards came afterwards

01:15:30.970 --> 01:15:36.206
to actually look at it. I think that
that's certainly something that

01:15:36.239 --> 01:15:40.116
should be very proud that you put your
mark on a whole university campus.

01:15:40.149 --> 01:15:45.687
Well, I mean, when again, it took a
lot of people to build that campus

01:15:45.720 --> 01:15:50.527
there. All of the architects involved
all of the people who worked for me.

01:15:50.560 --> 01:15:55.515
Uh, you know, everyone. We worked as a
team and it was really good. It

01:15:55.548 --> 01:15:59.217
was a good experience. And although
you don't have your name as the

01:15:59.250 --> 01:16:05.675
architect on the building, your
architectural vision is part of the look

01:16:05.708 --> 01:16:08.857
of the campus. Well, that's the funny
thing. All of the buildings have my

01:16:08.890 --> 01:16:13.206
successor's name. Who

01:16:13.239 --> 01:16:18.055
was there when all the final buildings
were built and he he, uh Although I

01:16:18.088 --> 01:16:22.717
didn't put my name on the library
building. He somehow got his name on all

01:16:22.750 --> 01:16:26.826
the other buildings. So they have the
first provost name in all the

01:16:26.859 --> 01:16:30.406
buildings. But that's all right.

01:16:30.439 --> 01:16:34.217
I think history should record that you
were

01:16:34.250 --> 01:16:38.836
Well, Well, the first two buildings
were really built. Well, the second

01:16:38.869 --> 01:16:46.869
one was Was finished in his re and
started in my but my successor and the

01:16:47.338 --> 01:16:54.397
in the architecture college. Dean
Meier was very glad to have the, um, the

01:16:54.430 --> 01:16:59.706
extension to the college when he
arrived and has always given me credit

01:16:59.739 --> 01:17:04.956
for that. Although he was there during
the time of the construction and

01:17:04.989 --> 01:17:09.237
had all the headaches to do with the
construction,

01:17:09.270 --> 01:17:17.086
But, uh, but you have part of the
vision to get it done. Well, um, what

01:17:17.119 --> 01:17:20.147
kind of advice do you give young
people? You? You talked a little about

01:17:20.180 --> 01:17:24.217
that earlier. I think of, um, people
that are trying to decide what they

01:17:24.250 --> 01:17:27.586
wanna do with their lives or what? You
know what they wanna study? What

01:17:27.619 --> 01:17:33.217
sort of advice do you? Well, I would
say Find out what your talents are,

01:17:33.250 --> 01:17:37.336
if you know, you might have. You might
have one or two or you might just

01:17:37.369 --> 01:17:43.437
have one, but go in the direction of
those talents and take them as far as

01:17:43.470 --> 01:17:48.397
you can and when you've taken them, as
far as you can search to see if you

01:17:48.430 --> 01:17:54.067
have any other talents. And that's
what I would say. And what are you

01:17:54.100 --> 01:17:58.116
doing now that you are officially
retired? Or are you still teaching? No.

01:17:58.149 --> 01:18:05.246
I write a lot. That's when uh, that's
when my wife drags me away from

01:18:05.279 --> 01:18:11.345
watching Oprah Winfrey or something.
No, no, I have been joking there, but

01:18:11.378 --> 01:18:17.015
I have to close the door when it's
being watched.

01:18:17.048 --> 01:18:23.385
Yes, I am writing a book at the
moment,

01:18:23.418 --> 01:18:29.126
um, automatically on the best seller
list. Even if you fib.

01:18:29.159 --> 01:18:33.906
It's a good book, you know, to be
true. Um, I hear you have some singing

01:18:33.939 --> 01:18:41.939
talent, too. Well, I, I sang in my
church choir for a long time, so I sing

01:18:42.009 --> 01:18:47.196
tenor. There's a joke about that, but
I don't think you want to record it.

01:18:47.229 --> 01:18:50.567
 Oh, I don't know.

01:18:50.600 --> 01:18:55.696
Well, someone told me, uh, you know,
people swim in very cold water in

01:18:55.729 --> 01:19:00.496
Ireland. I once told a chap that I
used to go in swimming at 56 degrees,

01:19:00.529 --> 01:19:08.529
he said. Well, that's why all the
Irish men are tenners

01:19:08.668 --> 01:19:12.206
mhm. Me too. Do you ever think about
how your life would have been

01:19:12.239 --> 01:19:17.376
different if you hadn't come to the
United States? Oh, sometimes, yes.

01:19:17.409 --> 01:19:20.635
Well, I, I Well, I could really see
what would ha would have happened in

01:19:20.668 --> 01:19:28.668
Northern Ireland if I hadn't been shot
or had my car blown up, I would

01:19:28.810 --> 01:19:34.786
have retired as my successor did, with
an order of the British Empire and

01:19:34.819 --> 01:19:42.746
a meagre pension. And, um, I would
have been very dull. I mean, very dull.

01:19:42.779 --> 01:19:49.326
And, uh, I, I just love America. You
know, I really do love it. And my

01:19:49.359 --> 01:19:53.055
sons, my sons love it too. So they
were They were very grateful that I

01:19:53.088 --> 01:20:00.217
brought them here, and it's given me
the opportunity of being everything I

01:20:00.250 --> 01:20:06.666
could possibly have been and more so.
I love America. Do you still go back

01:20:06.699 --> 01:20:12.147
to Ireland? Yes, just just to visit
the few relatives that we have left,

01:20:12.180 --> 01:20:17.296
But not for any hacking to go back.
Now, I don't have that go as a tourist

01:20:17.329 --> 01:20:22.296
that that would be it. But
incidentally, I love Arizona too. you know,

01:20:22.329 --> 01:20:27.857
when I was a child, I had a brother
who was an avid reader of, uh, of

01:20:27.890 --> 01:20:34.006
Westerns. And I remember reading most
of Zane Gray's books when, at the

01:20:34.039 --> 01:20:40.555
age of 13. So it was ironic that and
later I found when I was talking to

01:20:40.588 --> 01:20:46.576
Mary Marie Sans, who was a great
supporter of the West campus, she she had

01:20:46.609 --> 01:20:51.336
, uh, she knew Ian Grey because
they've lived here. They were old

01:20:51.369 --> 01:20:56.666
Arizonans, and Zane Grey was at her
wedding. It's not very interesting.

01:20:56.699 --> 01:21:00.967
And I went out to see his cabin when I
first came here, since it was burnt

01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:08.656
down since. But I remember going out
to see it. So I did have a have an

01:21:08.689 --> 01:21:13.006
affection for Arizona in that sense.
And also when I was in Kansas, I

01:21:13.039 --> 01:21:20.046
worked on a research project with the
Meninger Foundation, and I was I was

01:21:20.079 --> 01:21:26.135
amongst all the Zuni, the Navajo and
the Hopi tribes, and I went to their

01:21:26.168 --> 01:21:32.706
meetings and I was involved in some
stuff with them.

01:21:32.739 --> 01:21:37.717
Well, it was a kind of a social social
project, and it had to do with

01:21:37.750 --> 01:21:42.086
housing and so on. I mean, it was
really headed up by the Menninger

01:21:42.119 --> 01:21:46.366
Foundation. But they wanted our views
on certain things. So I got to

01:21:46.399 --> 01:21:51.595
attend those meetings. That was long
before I ever thought I would end up

01:21:51.628 --> 01:21:57.357
in Arizona. And the other strange
thing about Arizona was in my first When

01:21:57.390 --> 01:22:00.366
I was here in 7373

01:22:00.399 --> 01:22:08.399
I bought a Navajo rug and, um, in New
Mexico, and, uh, the Navajo rug went

01:22:11.479 --> 01:22:17.836
to Ireland. It went to Kansas. It went
to Chicago. And it's now hanging in

01:22:17.869 --> 01:22:24.696
my home in Arizona. So, I, I think
sometimes maybe the rug brought me back

01:22:24.729 --> 01:22:28.885
here. You know, the Irish are such
romantic. I think about things like

01:22:28.918 --> 01:22:32.376
this. That's a great story.

01:22:32.409 --> 01:22:38.987
OK, anything else that you wanted to
ask you Sure. I asked you ask? Well,

01:22:39.020 --> 01:22:43.467
yeah, I we have a bottle of Irish
whiskey down in that, and we thought

01:22:43.500 --> 01:22:49.317
we'd give you a sip of that. You've
had whiskey there, All the, uh

01:22:49.350 --> 01:22:54.897
it would be a good thing to want to
take for your

01:22:54.930 --> 01:22:59.536
No II. I would need more than a glass
of I suppose. Could you take me to

01:22:59.569 --> 01:23:03.277
that? He hes

01:23:03.310 --> 01:23:06.946
I can't get you to sing to anymore. Is
there anything that I should have

01:23:06.979 --> 01:23:11.826
asked you that I didn't? I don't think
so. There's probably some things I

01:23:11.859 --> 01:23:15.765
should have told you that I forgot.
But

01:23:15.798 --> 01:23:22.567
well, I will. But I mean, it was such
a busy career.

01:23:22.600 --> 01:23:26.296
Had a lot of yes,

01:23:26.329 --> 01:23:30.076
but it was all in the same. I mean, I
never left architecture. Basically,

01:23:30.109 --> 01:23:34.246
I stayed in architecture, but I also
did some of the other things that I

01:23:34.279 --> 01:23:38.687
wanted to do. So. And now you say
you're writing a memoir about your

01:23:38.720 --> 01:23:44.555
mother? Yes, that's a very different
Well, it's my interest in history.

01:23:44.588 --> 01:23:52.588
It's really I'm writing it. It's from
1889 to 1970. So it's and I'm having

01:23:53.699 --> 01:23:59.647
glimpses of Irish history through the
through my mother's eyes. So,

01:23:59.680 --> 01:24:03.925
yes, I have to get Oprah to read it. I
have to get Oprah to read it.

01:24:03.958 --> 01:24:08.845
That's right. OK, anything else I need
to be thought of, I think otherwise.

01:24:08.878 --> 01:24:13.286
I think we're ready to wrap it up.
Well, thank you very much. Thank you.

01:24:13.319 --> 01:24:19.319
Thank you for sharing your time and
your and your stories. All of yourstory