Oral History of Reginald Malcolmson
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ORAL HISTORY OF REGINALD MALCOLMSON Interviewed by Betty J. Blum Compiled under the auspices of the Chicago Architects Oral History Project The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings Department of Architecture The Art Institute of Chicago Copyright © 1990 Revised Edition © 2004 The Art Institute of Chicago This manuscript is hereby made available to the public for research purposes only. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publication, are reserved to the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries of The Art Institute of Chicago. No part of this manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of The Art Institute of Chicago. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface iv Outline of Topics vi Oral History 1 Postscript: Architect's Statement 139 Selected References 141 Curriculum Vitæ 142 Index of Names and Buildings 143 iii PREFACE On August 28, 29, and 30, 1988, Reginald Malcolmson and I met in Chicago to record his memoirs. As far back as his memory can reach, Reginald has been a seeker of new solutions pressing the limits of knowledge of the day. He is inspired by a special vision that looks towards the future and attempts to satisfy the anticipated needs of tomorrow. Reginald is a visionary architect who is a proponent of the linear city. Reginald's exceptional career began in Dublin, Ireland, in an established architectural practice, which he left in 1947 to come to Chicago to return to school to study with Mies van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Mies's personality and methodology has inspired Reginald and informed his work ever since. His career has had a two-fold thrust: as an educator to inform students, and as an architect designing visionary projects that are embryos yet unborn. Our interview sessions were tape-recorded on six 90-minute cassettes, which have been transcribed, edited, and reviewed by both Reginald and me for accuracy and clarity of intent. This transcript has been minimally edited to maintain the flow, spirit, and tone of Reginald's narrative. It was Reginald's desire to include his "manifesto" to set forth his own assessment of the ultimate significance of his career. The tape recordings and transcript are available for study in the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago. Although Reginald has officially retired from his faculty position at the University of Michigan, he maintains a rigorous schedule of travel, lecturing, writing, exhibiting his work, and working on projects in his private practice. I am grateful to Reginald for his willingness and cooperation in recording his memoirs despite an uncertain health condition at the time. His scrupulous attention to detail has improved the final draft of this document. My thanks go also to Mrs. Malcolmson who gave this project her support. Reginald's work and ideas have been documented by a representative selection of architectural drawings in the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago, at Avery Library at Columbia University, exhibition catalogues accompanying exhibitions of his work, and writings by Reginald and by others. References that I found particularly helpful in preparing this interview are attached. iv Reginald Malcolmson's oral history is one of several sponsored by the Department of Architecture at The Art Institute of Chicago in cooperation with the Canadian Centre for Architecture. We wish to thank the CCA for their support and encouragement in this endeavor. Special thanks go to Sarah Underhill for her editorial assistance, and to transcribers Kai Enenbach, Angela Licup and Wilma McGrew for their careful transcription of this document. Betty J. Blum June 1990 The above preface remains unchanged since it was written fourteen years ago. However the intervening years have brought change. Reginald Malcolmson died in 1992, and electronic communication has vastly increased in importance as a method by which information is transmitted. We are grateful to the Paul and Robert Barker Foundation for support to scan, reformat, and make this entire text available on The Art Institute of Chicago’s website, www.artic.edu. We are pleased for this opportunity to make this document accessible for research worldwide. Thanks are due to several people in this effort: Stephanie Whitlock provided assistance in proof-reading and re-indexing this revised edition, and Annemarie van Roessel skillfully oversaw the entire conversion and republication process. Betty J. Blum March 2004 v OUTLINE OF TOPICS Influence of Family on Decision to Become an Architect 1 Early Education 8 Apprenticeship with John MacGeagh 14 City Planning Influences 23 Work with Phillip and Roger Bell 29 Decision to Study with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe at IIT 32 Arrival and Early Experiences at IIT 38 Students and Faculty at the Institute of Design and IIT 47 Mies as Hero Figure 49 Graduate Thesis 51 Naum Gabo in Chicago 56 Impressions of Hilberseimer 60 Impressions of the Relationship Between Mies and Hilberseimer 61 More on Graduate Thesis 64 Relationship with Dan Brenner and Work on Jacques Brownson's Residence 69 Study with Alfred Caldwell 71 Position as Mies's Administrative Assistant 72 Impressions of Willem M. Dudok 73 Merging of the Institute of Design with IIT 77 Impressions of Konrad Wachsmann 78 Mies's Resignation from IIT 87 Appointment as Mies's Temporary Successor at IIT 92 Impressions of Changes Over Ten Years at IIT 95 Characterization of Ludwig Hilberseimer 100 Appointment as Dean at University of Michigan 103 Impact of Career on Family 106 Decision to Leave IIT in 1964 108 Impressions of the Architectural Establishment in Chicago 110 Thoughts on the American Institute of Architects 112 Visionary Architecture 115 Industrialized Houses 127 Contribution to Architecture 137 vi Reginald Malcolmson Blum: Today is August 28, 1987, and I am with Reginald Malcolmson in Chicago to record his oral history. Reggie was born in Dublin in 1912, educated in Dublin, and was a successfully practicing architect in Belfast until 1947 when he came to Chicago to study with Mies van der Rohe at IIT. Throughout your career your work has been published, your writings have been published, you have lectured, your drawings have been exhibited, and you have taught. You are an internationally recognized visionary architect, along with being an educator for many years of your life. Reggie, how did it all start? Why is architecture your chosen profession? Can you begin as far back as you remember? Was your family influential in your decision? Malcolmson: I would say yes and no. I was born in 1912, as you say. In fact, I was born in what you might call Joyce's Dublin. He'd left in 1905 but the aura of it was still around. In fact, the house that my family was living in when I was born was only something like half a mile from where Joyce had lived before he left for Paris. He was living in what was called a Martello tower. Martello towers were the invention of an Italian architect/engineer, some time, I think, in the eighteenth century. A number of them were built along the coastlines of England and Ireland in the time of Napoleon because there was a fear that Napoleon would launch an invasion. Nothing happened, of course, but these Martello towers actually had ancient cannons on the roof on a rotating trackage of some kind and they were supposed to be able to sink anything that came over the horizon. My memory of them is naturally somewhat fragmented. The extraordinary thing is I have a very good visual memory and I can remember back to a time probably before I could walk. I can remember being in a baby carriage and that must be something like about 1913. And then, of course, the traumatic event of World War I came in 1914. My mother's family are Bourkes. My wife often relates to me 1 that a friend of hers, a lady friend of hers in Ireland, when I told her that my father's family came from County Cavan which was in the middle north of Ireland and my mother's family came from County Mayo in the West, she roared with laughter because these are very rural areas. That's real rural Ireland and they are the centers of what is called Gaelic football and hurling. These are indigenous games that have been played for centuries in Ireland. My mother was actually born in the city of Dublin. She was born on the same street as Bernard Shaw was born on but some twenty years afterwards and in Synge Street. I was born, in fact, in a nursing home. It was an eighteenth-century house about fifty yards from what is called the Parnell Monument. That's the monument, incidentally, by a very famous American sculptor, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, who was born in Dublin and emigrated to America, I would say, probably when he was about thirty or so. He was already a known sculptor before he left for the United States. There are a lot of pieces, I think, in the East, of Gaudens. There are some in Washington, monumental sculptures. What I am getting around to is that, as I told you, my mother's family were Bourkes and two of her brothers were childhood heroes of mine. They were soldiers of the First World War in an Irish regiment, and I can remember them as young men in military uniforms around 1915. One of them became an aviator, the other one became an engineer. The aviator didn't survive World War I. He was killed in a fiery crash in the end of the war—the last months of the war, in fact.