Five Years in Four Minutes

by Eric Abeln
Graduate in Architecture

Good morning.

I would like to share with you a moment I experienced during an interview. While flipping through my portfolio, the interviewing principal casually stated, as if it were no big deal: “This is the best you’ll ever be.” He was referring to spirit, contemporary architectural knowledge, design freedoms, passions, hopefully not my actual designs. At first, I was offended. On the long commute home I thought about it and could see how this trap might be sprung. We remove ourselves from a rich and varied environment of idea, design, theory, and burst upon a world of budgetary oppression, design suppression, multitudes of responsibility, and distractions far more compelling than a midnight game of hacky-sack. What’s more, we’re young and naïve, aspiring professionals untainted by the stormy realities of building. Our new toy, architecture, becomes scratched, used, and stuffed into the back of the closet, forgotten lying next to baseball cards and Legos.

I then remembered Wednesday nights and found solace. Wednesday nights, when we could, was spent at Coco Bolo. We would gather studio mates and the rare friend outside of the college, and over a $5 carafe of sangria, we would soothe away the rigors of architecture school. The friends ranged from a few to many crowded around a dimly lit booth or breezy patio table, both littered with glistening glasses of adult punch. Of course, the conversation would always come back to architecture regardless of how many times we said we would not talk about it, it would return like an abandoned kitten, bitterly loved. We would muse and criticize, slam fists and vigorously point, exploring our new toy of architecture. We would share our theories, dreams, and inspirations; discuss problems and generate solutions. These conversations had direct, immediate impact on design, papers, presentations, all that we would do the next day into the wee hours of the morning. It was a dialogue that lasted long after the last carafe was poured, transcending time and place until finally, noticing only our intimate group remained and the staff was locking doors, we would concede to the outside world and move on.

I remembered these conversations and took solace, not in the ones we had, but the ones we will have in dusky bars, living room floors, over production tables. In order to break the rubric this interviewing principal believed to be ‘real life’ impeding the process of good design, of poetic space, we must habitually cultivate the lifestyle, the process, the architecture we have lived or dreamed or even just tasted over the last five plus years. We do not enter ‘real life,’ we create it. During this creation, we will encounter moments of choice dripping with sacrifice. The challenge, simple enough, is knowing what to sacrifice, when to sacrifice it, and how much. Through sacrifice, the value of one is transferred to another with the understanding that the value is not lost, but intensified and purified toward our individual and collective ultimate goals. While not immediately apparent, that value is returned accompanied with a greater understanding and appreciation for both that which was sacrificed and goal. The Irish novelist George Moore wrote: “Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn’t the dream destroy reality.” By continuing rich design and theoretical dialogue, by having the courage to recognize and embrace the inspiration in bar room conversation, by fighting for the right things while sacrificing the right things, we will begin to be true to ourselves and those around us, and begin to live up to this charge, this honor of architecture. Our toy can again be shiny and new, shared and played often.

Thank you.