ORAL HISTORY of LAWRENCE BRADFORD PERKINS Interviewed by Betty J. Blum Compiled Under the Auspices of the Chicago Architects

ORAL HISTORY OF LAWRENCE BRADFORD PERKINS 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 © 1986 Revised Edition Copyright © 2000 The Art Institute of Chicago This manuscript is hereby made available 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 the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of The Art Institute of Chicago. ii CONTENTS Preface to Revised Edition iv Outline of Topics vii Oral History 1 Biographical Profile: Dwight Heald Perkins 156 Biographical Profile: Lawrence Bradford Perkins 158 Selected References: Dwight Heald Perkins 159 Selected References: Lawrence Bradford Perkins 161 Index of Names and Buildings 163 iii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION It has been more than fifteen years since Lawrence Bradford Perkins (1907-1997) welcomed me into his home in Evanston on November 8, 9, 10, and 17, 1985 to tape record his memoirs. Larry’s recollections bear witness to ideas, events and personalities of the recent past and has become an increasingly important and much consulted resource for students and scholars locally and worldwide. His testimony has proven to be a vital link connecting the career of his father Dwight Heald Perkins (1867-1941), a prominent Prairie School architect, with the history of Larry’s own career and that of the firm he co-founded in 1935 with Philip Will, the Perkins and Will we know today. To better serve the increased research demands of scholars and students today, we have revisited our original presentation and reformatted the text to read more easily and accurately, corrected typographical errors, expanded and repaginated the index and table of contents, and added biographical profiles for both Dwight Heald Perkins and Lawrence Bradford Perkins. Apart from these mostly front and back matter changes, nothing in the text has been altered. Larry speaks with a voice of authority about highlights of his father’s architectural career, recalling memorable events and personalities, speaking about his father’s personal vision and the general mindset of his circle at the turn of the century, while revealing some of the more intimate details about the man he so admired. After studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dwight Heald Perkins began his architectural career in Chicago as a draftsman in the office of Burnham and Root, in whose employ he worked on commissions for many buildings that are now landmarked. After the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, Perkins, with the assistance of Daniel Burnham, established his own office and built Steinway Hall. There, a group of architects who have come to be known as the Prairie School gathered together to share progressive ideas and their infrequent commissions. Perkins became an authority on school architecture: he was the Chicago Board of Education architect (1905-1910) and a principal in several firms (Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton, and Perkins Chatten and Hammond), architectural offices for which educational facilities were a specialty. Perkins felt his civic responsibility deeply. As his friend Tom Tallmadge said, “we think of Perkins as a citizen and patriot almost before we think of him as an architect.” He was a dedicated conservationist, a tireless supporter of reform groups such as the Committee on the Universe and founder of the Prairie Club, an advocate of the small parks iv and playground system, and because of his indefatigable and effective efforts has come to be known as the Father of the Forest Preserve System. Following in the footsteps of his father, Lawrence Bradford Perkins' career was launched by a commission to build a school. In 1938 his young and inexperienced firm garnered a coveted commission and worked with the respected architect Eliel Saarinen to design and build the innovative Crow Island School in Winnetka, Illinois. Larry, like his father, became a respected authority on school architecture and design. Perkins and Will entered a period of phenomenal growth after the war when the building boom brought the firm numerous school, hospital, and office building commissions in the United States and abroad. Larry's recollections of his fifty-year career (1935-1985) are especially valuable as a connective chapter in Chicago architectural history because of the death of his former partner Phil Will (1906-1985) and because the management team of Perkins and Will has now passed to a new generation of architects and engineers. Perkins’ 8-1/2 hour oral history was recorded on six 90-minute cassettes that have been transcribed and minimally edited by Larry and me to maintain the spirit and flow of his recollections. The transcription is available for research and study in Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago and accessible on the Art Institute’s web page. The Department of Architecture is grateful to the Cliff Dwellers Club for funding Larry Perkins' oral history. It is fitting that the club fund this effort because, as Larry recalls, it has played such an important role in the lives and careers of both Larry and his father. Larry has had the distinction of being the architect with the longest continuous club membership, since 1932, and was so honored by a celebration in his honor at the Cliff Dwellers Club in May of 1986. Regretfully in 1997, at the age of ninety, Larry Perkins died. A selected bibliography for both Dwight H. Perkins and Lawrence B. Perkins has been compiled from sources that I found helpful in my preparation. For those who wish more material on Larry Perkins' career or that of Perkins and Will, one may consult the photographs of many of Perkins and Will buildings in the Hedrich-Blessing photograph archive at the Chicago Historical Society. One may also follow Larry's own suggestion to experience his architecture first-hand by seeking out the buildings themselves. Architectural drawings remain in the archives of the Perkins and Will firm in Chicago. v Larry Perkins deserves thanks for his conscientious cooperation during the research and recording phases of this endeavor, as does his wife Joyce, who graciously provided elegant repasts to renew our waning energies during our recording sessions. Kai Enenbach, our transcriber, deserves our appreciation for her careful attention to details of this manuscript using the modest equipment of fifteen years ago, and to Robert V. Sharp goes gratitude for his editorial assistance. To Annemarie van Roessel, my departmental colleague, who has coordinated all phases of this revised edition: scanning, repagination, reformatting, providing access on the Art Institute of Chicago's web page with exceptional skill, perception and judgment, go my sincere appreciation and thanks. Betty J. Blum May 2000 vi OUTLINE OF TOPICS Dwight H. Perkins Family Background and Architectural Education 1 Employment at Burnham and Root 4 Steinway Hall Memories 6 Committee on the Universe 9 On Being the Chicago Board of Education Architect 14 Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton 18 Vision of the Forest Preserve System 21 Fatherly Advice about Larry’s Career Choice 24 Perkins, Chatten and Hammond 28 Abraham Lincoln Center and Frank Lloyd Wright 31 1922 Chicago Tribune Competition 35 Larry Perkins Architectural Education at Cornell 37 Century of Progress Exposition, 1933, and General Houses 42 Meeting Phil Will 46 How Perkins, Wheeler and Will Took Shape 48 The Why and How of the Crow Island School Commission 54 Collaborating with the Saarinens 58 Opinions of Crow Island School 66 Recollections of Eero Saarinen 75 Perkins and Will Gears Up for the Post-War Building Business 77 Comparing Perkins and Will with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill 84 How the Perkins and Will Partnership Worked 87 Mies van der Rohe Effect On Perkins and Will 89 Site Fabrication 92 Form Follows Function 95 Publicizing Perkins and Will 97 Public Housing 99 Steel and Glass, a Miesian Aesthetic, Comes to Perkins and Will 102 vii Todd Wheeler and Hospital Work 104 United States Gypsum Building Commission 107 Commission in Mexico 110 First National Bank Building Commission 112 Architecture and Works of Art 119 Sketching in Europe with UIC Students 122 Travel 124 The American Institute of Architects 126 The Cliff Dwellers Club: Personalities and Events 129 Impact of Career on Family and Other Matters 140 Perkins and Will's Impact on Architecture 147 The Architectural Press 148 A Colleague Remembers Larry Perkins and Phil Will 150 Built Examples of the Perkins and Will Legacy 152 New Directions at Perkins and Will 154 viii LAWRENCE BRADFORD PERKINS Blum: Today is Friday, the 8th of November 1985, and I'm with Larry Perkins at his home in Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Perkins, I'd like to begin with your comments about your father, Dwight H. Perkins, and then we’ll work our way into your career, if that's all right with you. Perkins: It's highly all right with me. My comments about my father will be strictly free from prejudice. I hope you don't believe that but he came pretty close to being a saint in many ways. He certainly was a deeply good person. He was a humorous and fun person but I don't think he ever laughed at anybody—with them, yes. He could come into a room—he was a very dignified, good looking man—anywhere, any place in this country or elsewhere, and people were prepared to like him before he ever spoke, and afterward, too. He was a very direct man. I remember once when Frank Wright told me, “Your father is a very simple man”—there is a very elaborate story that may appear later—and he was indeed simple but not the way Frank Wright meant it.

Load more