Then there was my thesis – hated by half the graduating class and the faculty because it allowed owner/residents to build their own homes within a superstructure of concrete. It allowed regular people to tread on that “sacred ground” owned by the architect.
The other half of the class and the faculty loved it and praised it and it ended up getting published in ARCHITECTURAL RECORD magazine. This was the beginning of something that kept happening for the rest of my life – condemnation and praise appearing on the same plate. It caused me to learn to take neither seriously.
It took several months to cut all the cardboard to make the model. I would almost go crazy. So, for a break, I would go out and ride my motorcycle around a racecourse that I had created behind my apartment. Over and over again, I went around the same track. By the end of my thesis, I was at one with the motorcycle. Later, I went to Taos, New Mexico right after graduation to race motocross. My game plan was to get injured so I would not have to go to Vietnam.
My thesis allowed people to build their own homes within a concrete superstructure in a city block in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. Apparently this trod on sacred architectural ground.
From the sidewalk you could see nothing but the concrete superstructure. Architectural control was there, yet people had freedom of expression in their homes. I guess some felt this was a cardinal sin in the architectural world. Thus began my disdain for the architectural profession.
