Cultured Magazine

174 culturedmag.com place we want to preserve. We chose a really hard boundary facing the sculpture park; it's the future southern entrance to the campus, so the building has a certain confidence and definitive aspect. But on the east, west and northern sides, as it approaches the residential neighborhood and different landscapes, it's much more broken down. When entering the building, you always enter a courtyard first, which is barely defined by a few walls and a porch with landscape in the middle. It belongs to the building as well as to the garden and the outdoor space. It's a kind of in-between place. It acts as a transition not only between architecture and landscape, but as a space that is shaded by existing trees to adjust one's eye before you enter the building, because the Drawing Institute is dedicated to works on paper with very sensitive lighting requirements. We didn't want a manmade effect going into a very dark space from a bright space. The sequence of walking in, from the outside to the inside, gradually diminishes the amount of brightness. It doesn't feel like a bright space because your eyes have enough time to adjust. This was one of the biggest issues we dealt with. Another is the typology of the building. We did a lot of analysis of the campus before we started designing. We noticed a liturgical aspect to the buildings: the Rothko Chapel, the Byzantine chapel, the central space of the main Menil Collection building has a nave-like quality, and the Dan Flavin installation has a broader space. There's also the history of the Menils. She was a Protestant, he was Catholic and they supported the church, civil rights and social justice. So we felt that the liturgical feeling would work well for the Drawing Institute. We looked at a lot of monasteries and cloisters to inform the courtyards. In some monastic cultures there are two courtyards—one for the nuns to intermingle with the public and one inner courtyard that the public is not allowed to access. Similarly, there are two courtyards outside and one that the public has only visual access to. It really serves the people that work there as well as visiting scholars. AH: For me, the courtyards break down the separation of public and private space in a very powerful way that blurs the boundary between inside and outside landscape. That again answers these intractable problems of architecture. On the one hand it creates this strong boundary, and on the other hand it's actually dematerializing it with the garden and courtyard. Going back to the question of the project of the practice versus the project in the academy, I wonder if you could talk about your project in the academy in critical terms. How does one translate the academic conversation of criticism more generally to educate and expand the audience? ML: Academia is a place for discourse and discussions. I like the model of the Enlightenment, where there is a certain decorum, but once you have that you can be very open-minded about sharing if you agree or disagree. It is important not to take it personally. Oftentimes, discussions become so vicious and forensic—arguing to win an argument. But architecture is a collective practice. Even with decisions I don't agree with I treat my colleagues with respect, and this ethos is important for the academy. Once we have the base we can have a discussion. AH: What do you think are the different trajectories at the GSD right now, and how will you insert yourself or inflect those trajectories? ML: I think there are many different trajectories. It's a large school, so there are many directions and generations—certainly a very optimistic one that was exposed to computer-generated design when it was very new, and a later generation that sees it as something more ubiquitous. They see the problems but lack that overconfidence that it alone can change the world. I think it's important to have the extremes, but the important thing is to cultivate discourse and discussion. We want the students to make their own decisions and not to be acolytes or followers. AH: So besides the project of liberalism and openness, do you see yourself bringing an agenda to the GSD? ML: I certainly do. I want to emphasize the importance of building. I am a product of my beliefs, my time and my background. I was trained at a time when architecture could be the answer to any problem. Architecture can engage any issue in cultural study. In hindsight, there are some issues that architecture might not answer, and if you want to do this you should be a filmmaker or a software designer. I'm not interested in asking what is the problem, but what can architecture contribute best to that problem? Oftentimes in the past, in academia, architecture is treated like a trash can. Whatever problem is out there is thrown to architecture. I think it's important to define the limits of what it can do. But we have to first ask what architecture cannot do. We cannot solve world hunger, but we can contribute in a smaller way. Understanding the perimeter actually helps liberate architecture to focus on what it should do best. Mastering the understanding of the built environment is important—something I would like to continue to focus on in school. AH: What about criticism today? How does one educate the general public regarding architecture? How can we create a more critical, enlightened public? ML: To put it very simply, there are critics that write for the general public and there are critics that write for architects and other critics. These two realms need to be closer together. Certainly in the first example the critic has a role, the responsibility of deciphering architecture for the general public and understanding the interest of the general public. The latter, which is a bit more specific and inside baseball—it just serves its own purpose. It becomes this feedback loop with no way out. I think one of my models is Adolf Loos, who wrote in such a simple way but with a lot of erudition. He wasn't trying to be indecipherable, to close off the general public. It has a certain democratic way that I aspire to. Architecture is a very slow art. It's best when you give it time and presence. AH: How do you balance your professional practice and your academic project? ML: Not to sound pessimistic, but in the context that we practice, architects have very little power. Within the academy you can come up with a program at the tail end of a much larger bureaucratic process, where much has been decided and you are hired to give it form. I think one or two generations before us believed in a certain type of posture of resistance. In my generation, even speaking for a younger generation, maybe we see that early form of resistance translated into form is purely rhetorical. AH: Like a language. ML: Correct. There is not really a modernist, avant-garde model. For architects to be transgressive we have to take more of a Trojan Horse approach and find a way to do something else within that structure. It's a very subtle way of doing it. Clockwise from top: Mark Lee pictured at the Nolitan Hotel in New York; a rendering of the Menil Drawing Institute's interior; the Pavilion of Six Views in Shanghai, China.

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