Try, try again
Mosio, Jacqueline Bell
TRY, TRY AGAIN Jacqueline Bell Mosio I used to think that the really brilliant and famous of this world were different from you and me because they did things right the first time. Working at a...
...Now the pace picked up...
...Then the senior ar-chitect visited each project area, accom-panied by the design architect...
...What distinguished the really good architects was precise-ly a willingness to revise, rework, redo...
...Was that item really correct...
...I was particularly interested in the building's central courtyard, to be made of specially cut stone arranged in an in-tricate pattern...
...Even in the hands of Federal Express a document was not safe from revision...
...He seemed to have a connection with the project that drew him to any disorder, whether it was the result of distraction, oversight, or con-scious decision...
...I learned to predict when he would appear...
...While some of the changes were mandated by the owners or were determined by the availability of mate-rials, others seemed part of an ongoing process of clarification and refinement...
...Day by day, the deadline neared...
...As project secretary, I watched the de-sign for a building complex take shape on the desks of thirty architects...
...That afternoon brought a general meet-ing...
...One of the firm's partners had created the de-sign concept, and the staff was working out the plans down to exact details of flooring and banister styles...
...A young architect worked on the courtyard drawing for months...
...The other lesson came in a flash as I looked at the final project drawings...
...The next set of plans had to be read-ied, so the entire process was repeated: more revisions, more plans redone, over and over again...
...The real difference between the bril-liant and the famous and the rest of us is the set of qualities that precedes the fame: a willingness to review and revise, to set-tle for nothing less than perfection, a lim-itless capacity for attention to detail, and a deep caring that cables a connection to the work...
...The work advanced, supervised by the senior ar-chitect in charge of the project...
...The documents were reviewed by others and their suggestions incorporated- often into what I had thought was the finished product...
...If witnessing this procedure wasn't enough to disabuse me of the idea that architectural ideas spring perfectly formed from the heads of brilliant peo-ple, then working with the architects on letters, lists, even memos, did...
...The supervising architect had the uncanny habit of appearing at just the moment something less than correct was happening...
...It was perfect in itself, like an old hand-drawn map val-ued for its artistic attributes as much as for the city it traces out...
...I don't know if the architects were pushed beyond their limits reworking the plans, but they were pushed...
...Yes, but it had been revised, was the answer, and the tone of voice made it clear it could be revised many more times...
...Then there's something about working outward from-or is it inward toward-an absolutely perfect and beau-tiful inner design...
...The dead-line was imminent but manageable...
...The outcome of it all was-revision...
...the archi-tects worked overtime and under pres-sure to make the changes...
...For a few days the fog-eyed architects stayed home or came in late...
...Double check it...
...Working at a distinguished architectural firm with accomplished architects, I finally learned what the real differences are...
...Besides learning to respect the pow-ers of revision and developing a passion for detail, there were other lessons I learned...
...Each time he achieved what seemed the epitome of design elegance, the concept architect would come by, make changes, and push it further...
...Review was constant...
...The same zest for revision dominated all work given to me by the architects...
...The sheer mass of quantitative detail was numb-ing, but necessary to the material expression of the design's fine points: the shape of the buildings' corners against the sky, the feel of an open area, the exact tones of the facing under the sun in that geographical location, the size of peb-bles for the walkways, the sound of water in a semi-enclosed space...
...A large part of my work consisted of turning handwritten drafts into perfect final products...
...The following morning the team architects puttered at their desks while a meeting went on in the conference room where the key architects sat around a narrow black table with the model in the center...
...Rewrite...
...Individual areas were revised and re-vised again...
...Didn't you finish that plan yesterday...
...What I saw-when I stopped thinking of courtyard, stairways, walls, entrances and elevator shafts-was a harmo-niously balanced design, delicately drawn and beautiful...
...I asked someone working on the same plan again...
...Team architects drew the concept into a two-dimensional reality, while assis-tants measured, cut, and glued thin foam-board to create a model complete with green areas, roadways, sponge-bowered trees, and tiny cars...
...The royal path from imagination to reality is paved with details...
...Detail was treated with reverence...
...Could this paragraph be phrased better...
...This was only the first stage, how-ever...
...The architectural plan as drawing had a mandala-like quality: It seemed to invite me into the experience of a larger design...
...After an intense weekend of round-the-clock work, the plans were finally sent off for review...
...Thick books of specifications went out with each set of drawings...
Vol. 124 • July 1997 • No. 13
