Intermission

The past two days I've been absorbed in meetings at the University (OU), and I haven't had time to fulfill my idea for the next blog entry, so this will have to tide us over: an image from my dissertation topic, the town of Cordes, and written entries about happenings. Perhaps this is a fitting image for the passing of Professor Folke Nyberg (of the Department of Architecture at the UW), news that I recently received. The two hybrid creatures on either side of the spandrel seem to clutch the moldings for dear life, and life is indeed dear. Many people knew Folke much better than I did, but he made a big impression on me. I remember his seminar on Nordic Classicism as a turning point in my life, because it was the first time a professor had said, "I don't know about this topic, and we will explore it together." Of course, he knew plenty about it, but he gave us the sense that we all were in the detective work as a team. What better gift to give students than this sense of confidence that their findings were as worthy as those of the professor! The other thing I knew about Folke was that he could be counted on to write an article for Column 5, the in-house publication of CAUP that I helped launch with Rebecca Barnes, and then went on to produce for several years with the students. His articles were always dense and needed editing, but they were fascinating, and filled with marvelous surprises of illustrations, like the chunks of unidentified fruits that you find in pistachio ice cream. Jennifer Dee was a genius with the editing of his articles, and my job was mostly to make them fit and use the illustrations to best advantage. I really think his long list of Column 5 articles would make a great collection for a book.

I have attended two extended faculty meetings so far, and met my three colleagues who were hired this year: Lisa Holliday, who's teaching Structures; and Daniel Butko and Stephanie Pilat who are teaching lecture classes and studios in Architecture along with me. Stephanie and I form the "History and Theory" department, although Stephanie is much more suited to take on the Theory component, and I will happily pass that baton to her (although there were theories in the Middle Ages about art and architecture!). She and I are looking forward to working together, and her web site is: http://www.reconstructdesign.com/. She and her husband (also an architect) were working in the Detroit area and there is a project on their site that compares possibilities for Detroit housing with the ina-casa projects of post-war Italy. There are many interesting people here that I am looking forward to learning more about, including Hans Butzer, who with his wife designed the Oklahoma City Memorial. I saw it recently, at night, and it was spectacularly beautiful. I loved the contrast between the clarity of the monument design and the chaos of the mementos left by friends and relatives of those killed on the chain link fence at the streetside. Here is a good website to see some views: http://www.daxx.net/MemorialNite.html.

On another topic, I had wanted to post some photos of lesser-known Bruce Goff houses, photos that I had taken while I was here in April being interviewed, but alas, they are not in this computer, so I'm going to re-take them and do a post devoted to the guy, who was one of my heroes in the late 70s. I also want to tell you about the upcoming exhibit and conference here that is a commemoration of his work, and also about how the Seattle architect Grant Gustafson is connected to him (if you don't already know). And, I'd like to post some photos of Oklahoma-the-land , which I intend to visit this weekend. Those are the coming attractions...