Consider the Architect
December 18th, 2020
Starring: Richard Morris Hunt (male, 60’s)
An empty stage. Richard Morris Hunt, in his gilded age Sunday best, sits atop an orange stepladder. There are building plans and sketches piled around him and the ladder, some of them rolled up into cylinders:
RICHARD MORRIS HUNT
I ask you. What is the job of the architect?
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Not a trick question.
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To build. Yes? Not construct, but build. The architect builds.
I built houses. Let me tell you how.
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The choice to build at all is the greatest leap the architect makes. To build is to risk. Consider the factors, the variables, the intangible facets! There is too good a chance what they build will fall.
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But let’s say the architect does build. What then?
Then the architect begins with nothing. Empty space. To the architect, empty space is terrifyingly enthralling. The possibilities are endless! What will they build? And if and when they do, will it last? Will it thrive?
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It begins with the foundation. The soul of the house.
Its history, its past, its immutable truths all lie down here, in the depths.
Once built, the foundation is difficult to alter. Holds up everything above it. Without it, the house cannot stand.
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When the foundation’s set, the framing begins. The bones of the house. The house gets its shape, its size, its definition. Some beams may be longer, larger, more apparent. Others, you may never know they’re there. Nevertheless, they are all essential.
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So. The foundation is set, the frame is built. Then roofing. Or siding. Or insulation.
And slowly but surely, the home begins to show its true self.
A pinch of trimming here, a dash of plumbing there, a sprinkle of flooring. Then the interior! Carpets and lights and paintings and plants and furniture! A magnificent, flowing ecosystem, each with its own rules and values, liberties and limitations!
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It is no small feat to build a home. Because to build a home is to build a life. A family.
We are all architects, in a way. We stand on foundations built by those before us, hoping to build families and legacies that will stand the test of time, generation to generation.
The Vanderbilts trusted me to do that. And I did. I built houses for the wealthiest family on planet Earth. Homes unlike anything the world had ever seen. Tall, sturdy, stately, elegant, made of the finest, richest materials known to man.
But they still fell. Nearly every one. If not demolished, then abandoned, sold...museumized.
You see, the lives we build inside our homes are what really keep them standing. It took me a long time to come to that. The things that stand the longest are the things that mean the least.
So if you want to be an architect, in life or in profession, a word to the wise.
Stick to building parking lots. They’ll stand the test of time.