The Robb Report Collection

Architects Rule

Theres Bissell

05/01/2002

There was scant deliberation on the part of Hugh Newell Jacobsen some years ago when dream patron Jacqueline Onassis tapped him to design her Martha’s Vineyard saltboxes. Today’s in-demand architects, however, systematically put the mere-mortal variety of client through a far more rigorous review before signing on to the job.

“They think they’re interviewing me,” reveals Jacobsen of the people who come to him to design their houses. The Washington, D.C., architect, known for a classical-minimalist style in residential and institutional projects throughout the United States and internationally, says, “In fact, I’m asking, ‘Do you read books? Do you collect art? Are we on the same page?’ ” While few clients occupy Jackie O’s rarefied stratum, to Jacobsen culture is key. “The Irish have this marvelous phrase: Is he one of us? You’re always looking for that. Poetry, magazines, movies. I need someone to know something about art and history so he doesn’t say to me later, ‘What’s this dumb thing you’re doing with the molding?’ ”

Indeed, the client selection process is an increasingly significant element in high-end residential architecture, whether it is conducted casually or done pro forma. At the New York office of Richard Meier of Getty Center fame, the director of new development screens hopefuls prior to any meeting with Meier. When the architect is a known entity (widely published, often with a practice devoted to a range of building types), it’s axiomatic that not everyone who crosses the firm’s threshold is going to walk away with a contract for the design of a new house. In every case, the architect-owner relationship will become too lengthy, too intimate and too important for each party not to determine from the outset if it’s a good match.

Renowned Princeton architect (and Target product guru) Michael Graves explains, “Since I’m the design principal for each project undertaken by my office, I have to be very selective in taking on single-family residences, which are always design-intensive.” Adds Jacobsen, “I don’t do the pitch, the sell—and I’m not running in a popularity contest. My first job is simply to make sure I don’t get a stick of a client.” (Click image to enlarge)
So how to begin? The following five cardinal rules will help get your foot (and house fantasies) in the door. To the extent that rapport is established and a commission results, a few of these pointers will serve you well through the duration of construction.

Know The Architecture

Callas Shortridge -- sharp lines, rich materials, and graphic open spaces

A certain amount of research is imperative. There is no greater turnoff to an architect than dealing with someone who is not at least minimally conversant with his or her work. Seek out magazines, books and web sites if you lack firsthand knowledge of the firm’s built projects. Says Barbara Callas, a principal of Callas Shortridge Architects in Los Angeles, a small practice distinguished by a bold, vibrant modernism and progressive-thinking clients, “When someone contacts us not knowing who we are or even what style of architecture they want, it’s a clear sign that it would never work for either of us.” (Click image to enlarge)

The architecture of Albuquerque practitioner Bart Prince is also not for the timid. Highly expressionist, it is an organic, sculptural medium of material and form. “A woman called because I had designed a house for a friend of hers,” Prince recalls. “At first I assumed that she knew the building, but it turned out it was in another state and she hadn’t been there—and I realized she just wanted to have the same architect as her friend. I told her to go look at the house and then call me. I never heard back. (Click image to enlarge)
“Some people are trying on architecture,” he adds. “I had someone with millions of dollars who wanted a Georgian mansion, and I just said to him, ‘Why do you want to hire me?’ ”

Be Flexible

Margaret McCurry, a partner with her husband, Stanley Tigerman, in Chicago’s Tigerman McCurry Architects, is a prime proponent of modern classicism: Her intellectual-romantic houses are contemporary realizations of the American vernacular. McCurry’s ideal client? “One who is open and flexible about what form the program—number of bedrooms, types and function of spaces, etc.— should take. Clients will walk in with magazine spreads and visions of so many rooms in so many square feet for so much money. I often have to tell them to put away the pictures. If they can’t make the transition to what’s realistic, they will be disappointed.

“I like someone who comes to you for the right reasons, and who is willing to compromise,” she emphasizes. “They might start out with images of French Country. I’ll say, but this is America. Let’s see if we can duplicate that spirit and keep that memory of place. A many-million-dollar job recently went away—French Country, actually. Stanley told him, ‘Go to France!’ The person wasn’t open to discussion, so he’s better off without me.”

The dangerous flip side of intractability, perhaps, is an across-the-board embracement of everything in an architect’s portfolio. Whether it’s because they are unsure of their own taste or they think that an architect is infallible, clients sometimes pursue a top architect even when they’re not really sure that they like the work. Magic conjured up for one project doesn’t automatically guarantee that it can happen again.
An untenable situation for Bart Prince is that of a potential client wanting a house exactly like one he’s already designed. “I insist that it be individual to them and their site; I never want to repeat what I’ve done. Once they understand the thing about it that is attracting them—the essence—then it can be specific. That takes a certain willingness to evolve.”

Talk Money/Money Talks

Even for very large residences, clients can be surprisingly averse to discussing the parameters of their budget. Barbara Callas, stating a universal truth of her profession, says, “From day one, we aspire to the clearest communication. The nonlinear path is never good, but especially not when both sides are trying to arrive at the cost and affordability of architecture.” Finances should be central to the initial interview, she counsels. “One possible client we said good-bye to was just shopping price—he wanted architecture, but he wanted it for free. It was obvious to us, so, accordingly, we priced ourselves out of his market. We didn’t come up with a totally inflated figure; we simply went to the extreme end of our scale. That way, if he had come back and said yes, we could look at ourselves in the mirror. We’re no more expensive than anyone else, but we won’t take a client who thinks good design doesn’t cost something.”

To Hugh Jacobsen, there is wealth, and there is wealth. “Someone will say, ‘I have original oil paintings.’ You see them and they are the worst Miró ever done, the worst Picasso. You think, well, another label buyer. You feel,” he says wryly, “so very flattered to be the chosen architect.”
“Money is important, but it’s not everything,” Margaret McCurry maintains. Bart Prince agrees: “It’s never strictly a question of money. Sometimes the most attractive clients are the ones without much to spend. The desire to do something interesting with no real preconceptions is the thing for me.”

Queue Up And Have Plan B

Signature architecture can take a long time to materialize (two to four years is standard), or it can be out of reach altogether. In nonrecession times, most busy architects will so much as tell you to get in line. “I always have to consider my schedule—and those of the four studios in my office that support the architectural work—in order to make sure we can do any project within the time requested by the potential client,” says Michael Graves. “When we have to decline a project, we do our best to refer the applicant onward, typically to another architect who has worked with our office before starting a practice on his or her own.” (Click image to enlarge)

And of course there is the slim-to-no-chance category of architects—those who have essentially eliminated residential projects from their practice. Architecture demigod Frank Gehry, for one, has not worked in the residential sector for about a dozen years. His office does consider (“even if only briefly”) every project that comes its way; still, unless your tandem commission is a major museum in São Paulo, you can pretty much save yourself the call (another reason to “know the architecture”).

Offer Transcendence

Richard Meier, architect of the Getty Center

For Richard Meier, whose sleek houses approach museum status, there has to be something unique as an enticement: a design challenge (a current project in Santa Barbara is prompting him to optimize sea breezes for cooling); or a great site (a new house in Westchester, N.Y., sits on a vast parcel of land, overlooking a reservoir). (Click image to enlarge)

“The site may be irresistible,” Michael Graves concedes. “In deciding which residential projects to accept, we look at the interplay of various factors, including design scope, which is usually too limited in an addition/renovation project. Intangibles are important: the clients’ interests in the arts, for example. But even more critical is the issue of personality. Designing a house is a partnership.”

He could be speaking for his lauded peers in observing, “When the clients’ goals for a project align well with mine—rather than being based on the mere desire to have ‘a house by a famous architect’—the process will be a success.”

Know Your Architect

Hugh Newell Jacobsen, Architect, 2529 P St. N.W. Washington, D.C. 20007, 202.337.5200, www.hughjacobsen.com;
Richard Meier & Partners, 475 10th Ave. New York, NY 10018, 212.967.6060, www.richardmeier.com;
Michael Graves & Associates, 341 Nassau St. Princeton, NJ 08540, 609.924.6409, www.michaelgraves.com;
Callas Shortridge Architects, 3621 Hayden Ave. Culver City, CA 90232,
310.280.0404, www.callas-shortridge.com;
Bart Prince, Architect, 3501 Monte Vista N.E. Albuquerque, NM 87106, 505.256.1961, www.bartprince.com
Tigerman McCurry, Architects, 444 North Wells St. Chicago, IL 60610, 312.644.5880, www.tigerman-mccurry.com