John Hejduk, Wall House 2, Any Art Or Architecture School
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5_Janney_essay_06-07-089E.qxp 12/10/06 1:17 pm Page 162 5_Janney_essay_06-07-089E.qxp 10/6/06 8:40 PM Page 163 “The Architect is responsible to create the spirit of a Problem #2: Create a musical instrument that is part thought. And to translate it through whatever medium of an existing or invented ritual. is available, whether it be in a text, in a drawing, in a Ritchie Israel, The Breath. model, in a building, in a photograph, or in a film. The Yevgeniy Verbitskiy, Indirect Communication. Architect concerns himself/herself with the mysteries of space and form, and is also obligated to invent new programs. It is essential that the Architect creates works John Hejduk, Wall House 2, any art or architecture school. Soon after, in walked Jay Iselin, the president of that are thought-provoking and ultimately life-provoking. Groningen, the Netherlands. The Cooper Union. John introduced us, and Jay turned to me saying, “It’s a great Or more precisely, life-giving to what appears to be at Designed 1973, built 2001. pleasure to have you teaching at our school. Welcome aboard.” Short of a few first inanimate materials. The Architect enters into a social contract in the deepest sense. To search for qualities and experiences of being dumped by girlfriends whom I was sure loved me, I was never human values which give spirit.” so caught off guard. I tried to play it cool, thinking this was not what it appeared to be; this was some strange academic protocol that I had yet to learn. But the “The sound of dreams, like the dreams themselves, next fall, I was a visiting professor at arguably the most radical architecture school can be strange. When we awake we are able to cap- in the world. From “zero to hero”—or professor, anyway. I was teaching a course ture fragments of the images in our dreams, but we on my ideas titled “Sound as a Visual Medium” as part of the Advanced Concepts almost never can capture the sound of our dreams. In our journey from painting through literature and in Space seminar series. John would come sit in occasionally but never critiqued then within the body we have crossed over from an what or how I was teaching; he gave me free range, and I explored the notion of open external to a closed internal…” sound and architecture with my students. —J. Hejduk, Evening in Llano Among other assignments, I took the students to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to tour the Musical Instrument Collection and then asked them to design musi- As Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union, cal instruments of their own (“form versus function” on a micro scale). In addition, John Hejduk was a revered architect, poet, and educator whom I knew only by students were required to integrate their instrument into a ritual of their choice or reputation when I was in college. In the early seventies, he was part of a group creation (“What act has meaning for you?”). that published a book titled Five Architects—Charles Gwathmey, Michael Graves, I took them to visit different artists, composers, and architects around the city Peter Eisenman, Richard Meier, and Hejduk. I referred to them as the “Jive Five,” whose work related to sound and space—performance artist Laurie Anderson, partly because I thought the architecture was extremely over-intellectualized. composer Morton Subotnick, acoustician Chris Jaffe, poet Quincy Troupe, and the So, it was with some trepidation in 1983 that I found myself standing in an film sound-editor for the Coen brothers, Skip Lievsay. I once took a class to a elevator with John and curator David Ross at the Institute of Contemporary Art Grateful Dead concert at Madison Square Garden. This was at a time when the Dead’s drummer, Mickey Hart, had just published his first book, Drumming at the Edge of Magic, in which he explored the origins of drums and rituals. I got quite a In speaking of Order, [Louis] Kahn called that which does not yet exist, Silence. look when I presented the request for twelve tickets to the school administrator. That which exists, he called Light. Silence is the unmeasurable, the desire to be. —John Lobell I was all ready to launch into my defense of it, but John walked in the office, looked at it, and signed off with no discussion. John Hejduk in Boston. I was rehearsing for the first performance of HeartBeat to be performed Once, one of my students, Frank K., was designing a “musical instrument for a there. David introduced us and I stepped out at my floor. blind shaman.” He was very involved in researching the way in which blind As it turns out, John came to the performance the next day. Afterward, he people perceive space, and what a blind shaman’s instrument might both look and Question: “Mr. Charles, What is soul?” Charles: “It’s a little like electricity. walked up to me, shook my hand, and said, “If you ever want to teach, call me,” and sound like. Coincidentally, that week, Ray Charles was performing at the Blue Note. We don’t really know how it works, but then walked away. It was not until seven years later that I called him to discuss the Even though he knew who Ray was, I actually had to talk Frank into coming with it’s got enough power to light a room.” concept of the teaching profession in general. When his secretary put me through to us; he was reluctant to leave the design studio with so much work to do. But I him, he said, “I remember that performance like it was yesterday.” Surely, he had me assured him this was a once-in-a-lifetime event and great “research” for his project. confused with someone else, but I thanked him and asked if I could come talk with Frank and I still talk about this show as one of the most memorable educational him about teaching at the college level; how my concepts of sound might work in experiences for both of us. any pedagogical environment, or if they would fit at all. All of New York City is a school, and there are great opportunities for teaching in We met the next week in his office at Cooper Union in New York. He greeted me any place and learning at any moment. I mentioned the Ray Charles incident to warmly and reiterated how that performance of HeartBeat with Sara Rudner was one Hejduk the next week. I told him how great it was to have Frank at the show, how it of the most beautiful performances he had ever seen. Now I was certain that he had was not only a first-hand experience for his research, but how our subsequent con- the right guy, but not sure what he saw. So I talked about the genesis of the idea a versations gave me such a fresh perspective on teaching. John replied, “If you are bit, wondering how to get this discussion around to my questions about teaching in not learning from your students, then you are not teaching.” This was not the first time I thought that John knew more about what I was thinking than I did. 162 163 163 √.