Harry Cobb

Henry Nichols Cobb, FAIA, longtime partner of I M Pei, died in early March of this year. 

Having worked for and admired him, I thought I’d post a personal memory. 

When I arrived in Manhattan after college looking for work, I took my resume to the Pei Cobb Freed offices in Midtown. I didn’t get past the receptionist.

Years later, after I won a national award, I got a call from Mr. Cobb. He said that my work had beautiful “mise en scene” and that he would like me to come by to discuss a project. After looking up “mise en scene” (nice compliment) and getting my best suit out of storage, I met Mr. Cobb. He was quiet and mannerly and quickly put me at ease. He was obviously steeped in the history of architectural drawing, and in the process of producing good architectural illustrations. Mr. Cobb was also sure of what he wanted and what he didn’t want—in other words, a pleasure to work with. Eventually I worked on a number of projects for him.

… a couple of examples…

Dusk view of the centerpiece of Canary Wharf.

Interior rendering of a corporate headquarters in Spain.

I’ll leave the last, and appropriately elegant, word to Mr. Cobb.

“If the truth be told, perspectivists have a wickedly tough row to hoe. They are the servants of servants—unless the client happens to want a pretty picture but is too cheap to hire an architect, in which case they are just servants. So why should the tenth anniversary of the American Society of Architectural Perspectivists be the occasion for anything more than a sympathetic shrug and a condescending nod? Here’s why.

“In the age of cyberspace, perspectivists may be the last true romantics. And how could it be otherwise? For they alone celebrate in their art that supreme distillation of romance, the vanishing point. Has there ever been an invention of the human mind so irresistibly alluring, so mysteriously seductive, so real yet elusive, in sum so essentially and ineluctably romantic as is the vanishing point? Not the least of its romantic qualities is its name. As anyone who has ever constructed a perspective drawing knows, this passionately imagined, infinitely distant point in space is actually nothing more than the point of convergence for a few straight lines inscribed on a flat surface. But to call it such would deprive it of all its romance.

“Let us then salute the one art that finds its origin in the vanishing point; and let us salute also those who, following in the great tradition, today dedicate themselves to the practice of that art. Through their skillfully rendered representations of architectural visions, they remind us, as we now more than ever need to be reminded, that we are all at heart romantics."

Henry N Cobb, FAIA (in “Architecture in Perspective 10” exhibition catalog, 1995)

Cesar Pelli

César Pelli died July 19 at age 92.

As with I M Pei, the major media obituaries cover his life and work better than I ever could.

However, having worked on many of his projects over the years I thought I’d comment. 

My first personal experience with Pelli’s work was the Winter Garden at the World Financial Center in New York City. I did not work on the project but did explore it as an average citizen. It was and is a joy to experience: space, light, people and palms, all in the middle of the big city. On winter weekends I took my kids there to play on the monumental marble steps. 

About the same time Pelli needed a rendering quickly of a proposed high-rise in Malaysia. The image was a hit, ending up on the covers of all the southeast Asian magazines. It was an interesting job which I’ve already posted on here. The design is thoroughly modern but had a strong reflection of Malaysian culture. It introduced me to Pelli’s interesting body of work.

And that “work”? It was, speaking as an architect, well thought out and clean. It was also surprisingly various: he never really had a “style”. He seemed to take the DNA of the place the project was to be built in and formed it into a landmark building. Speaking as an architectural illustrator, Pelli’s work was enjoyable. The designs were fun to explore, and he was confident enough to let me try out new ideas. .

Pelli was charming and diplomatic. While Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale he was known for effortlessly smoothing the personal conflicts found in such an institution.

Pelli rejected the idea of celebrity architect. He was gracious and kind every time I met with him. 

He was a “good” man: a mench!

Just as a personal “footnote”,

A partial list of projects I rendered: 

Al Jeraisy Headquarters (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Cleveland Hospital

Exchange Place competition (Toronto)

KLCC retail mall (Malaysia)

Columbus Circle competition (NYC)

Cheung Hong Center (Hong Kong)

KLCC symphony hall (Malaysia)

Mayo Clinic, Gonda Building (Minnesota)

Bank Boston (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Enron Headquarters (Houston)

Pittsburgh Convention Center competition

Battery Park City residential block (NYC).

Office Tower (Tampa)

I.M. Pei

Ieoh Ming Pei died 16 May 2019.

He is described in Wikipedia as “a Chinese-American architect,” but that hardly does him justice. In fact, he was a curious amalgam of Western and Eastern, modern and classical, businessman and artist, pragmatist and theorist.

Other people were closer to Pei, and there are plenty of books and articles covering his life and work. Here I’d simply like to offer a couple of examples of his genius as shown in his comments on renderings I did for him.

He had a sure eye:

Many designers and architects have a hard time making up their minds. Mr. Pei was a pleasure to work for, because he knew what he wanted. When I finished the rendering of the Louvre, it did not show the fountains spraying. 

Mr. Pei insisted that they were necessary to complete the visual effect of the design. He was right: The fountain spray seems to moderate between the hard geometry of the glass pyramid and the ornate classicism of the old Louvre façade.

He was steeped in both art and architecture:

I always make pastel color sketches of any proposed rendering. When I showed Mr. Pei my sketches for the Athens Museum of Modern Art, he saw the mottled effect of the pastel in the sky and insisted that the effect be reproduced in the final. 

I had thought the mottling was a bug,but he saw it as an impressionist feature (along with the “van Gogh trees”). Again, he was right.

Finally…

He brought a classical eye to the ever-churning world of modern architecture. His best work shows a nuanced balance between the desperate newness of modern life and the ageless beauty of simple forms.

He will be missed.

Hugh Hardy

I have been quite busy from the beginning of the year, and so have only now felt able to acknowledge the death of my mentor and friend, Hugh Hardy, on March 17.

The first time I saw Hugh was at a building where his company was vacating a floor, and I was involved in the renovation of that same floor for a new tenant. I found myself in the elevator with him, and was so flustered at being alone with a longtime architectural hero that I stood there tongue-tied. 

That was in 1986. Three years later I had gained some experience doing perspectives for offices where I worked, and I began working as a freelance architectural renderer. Late in 1991 I got a call asking if I had time to work on the Vancouver Library competition. That competition was won by Moshe Safdie, but Hugh liked my work and we got along easily.

I did rendering work for Hugh, as well as his partner Malcolm Holzman, for the next ten years. Although his projects were usually performing arts venues, he was quite capable of designing more prosaic buildings. 

Anyway… 

There are obituaries out there that outline his career better than I can. The following are, instead, a few personal observations.

Hugh was a bright and optimistic man. He always seemed to have a mischievous smile on his face. He was witty, and was always a pleasure to talk to. His intelligence was obvious, but he wore it lightly. He was comfortable with his genius. 

He was one of the few architects I worked for who would step back and evaluate a painting as a whole. He understood the details of a project but knew that the overall impact of a rendering was its ability to seduce from across the room. 

He was an artist-architect though not a petty diva. He designed with the human experience in mind. He did not design personal monuments. He understood the plastic arts yet was sensitive to the function and context of a successful building.

I believe he saw humans as clearly as anyone can but was not depressed or angered by the tragedy of our flawed character. He accepted life’s joys and sadnesses good-naturedly. He combined the smile of reason with the smile of irony.

He was a good man. He will be missed.

Ada Louise Huxtable

Ada Louise Huxtable died this past Monday.  Her influence was so strong that every architect of my generation must have felt her presence while he worked.  She was THE architectural critic who set the standard for all later practitioners; always well informed, well connected, but at the same time always uncompromisingly CRITICAL.  And after all, that is what a critic is supposed to be. 

I’ve looked through my newspaper clippings, and didn’t find any article by her on a project I was connected with.  This is to be expected since she gave up her Sunday column at the New York Times in 1982, just before I became involved in some of the high profile projects of 80’s and 90’s.  Nevertheless, I remember Sunday mornings with Ada’s prose, which was direct, opinionated, and refreshingly free of fashionistics.  A very nice interview of her by the New York Times is here.

Her best book, in my opinion was The Tall Building Artistically Reconsidered (1982).  It takes up the old argument over how to “dress” the structural skeleton of a skyscraper, and was titled after Louis Sullivan’s The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered. She sides with the rational, modern solution of glass and steel, but you can’t avoid the feeling that she misses the lyrical play of the Beaux Art at its best.

Huxtable always emphasized “reason and reality”, and was skeptical of power and profit.  But you have to see the whole mix, and she was exceptional at seeing with a clear eye how far art could impinge on business, and vice versa.  

I don’t have any drawing that might illustrate her life, but I think she would be agreeable to allowing Sullivan the “last line.”