Good words from the Hammer

Perhaps one of the highlights of my professional life happened earlier this week, when my former studio critic/professor, known fearfully as the Hammer, as in Sledgehammer, paid me a simple compliment about the work we're doing on a joint project.

Architecture school was rife with instances of cutting criticism of work that one labors over for a seemingly long time and then pins it up on a wall for judgment. Even the name of the process, the design "jury", conjures images of exposing oneself to frank comments with little regard for feelings or acknowledgement of hard work. Everyone knows that the process is difficult, and no one cares about the "suffering", since it really isn't. What counted was the final product, and more often than not it was pretty crappy, since we were all students.

So we developed a thick skin, and those who didn't either didn't finish architecture school or went on to become insufferable prima donnas. Lots of THOSE in our field, to be sure. The scant praise that many of us received, especially from the Hammer, grounded us well and ultimately served us in a good way. I like to remind others that our work is just Tab "K" in a development binder, a single piece of a multi-piece puzzle that is the development of a building within an urban fabric that has to be paid for somehow and approved politically and bureaucratically.

So a simple "you're doing a great job" from an 84 year old acclaimed modernist, on a project we're collaborating on, was a great way to begin one of the last weeks of a tough year.