I think you just have to try and be conscious of not only the ideas that are floating about, but also your reasons for why you're attracted to them. And you have to try and think about whether or not they are the right reasons and the right part of our natures. Welcome to Archonix Sessions 1-1. I'm Amelia Teller-Hockberg, and this week, January 25th, 2016, I speak with Scott Merrill, the winner of this year's Driehaus Prize, for his work under his firm, Merrill Pastore & Colgan.
Merrill began practicing solo in Florida in 1990 and works at a range of scales in a forum true to what the Driehaus celebrates, traditional classical architecture. The award started in 2003 by the Architecture School at Notre Dame, celebrates and gives 200 grand to an architect whose work and, now I'm quoting from their website, embodies the highest ideals of traditional and classical architecture in contemporary society and creates a positive cultural, environmental, and artistic impact. Scott spoke with me about what the prize means to him, and his view of architecture is primarily about serving our human nature, not fulfilling a formal agenda. I hope you enjoy our one-to-one interview with Scott Merrill.
Can you tell me how it felt to first win this prize, I learned that you were the winner? Well, I was, and obviously gratified, and I thought the thing that was unusual about the way I was notified was that it was more or less live the jury was meeting or had just finished meeting, and I was home on Saturday night and one by one the jurors all got on the phone to speak to me, and I think more than anything, that's what impressed me. They all offered their personal congratulations, and I was just incredibly human. And it wasn't what I expected at all, but it was really, that was the best thing about it.
I feel that nothing substantial has changed. I feel like this week is very much the same as other weeks, and I feel like my practice is quotidian. I feel like I live and work in the state that keeps architects generally humble. It just to me, the week is remarkably similar to every other week, because my overwhelming impression is intense ratification, but that most things are going to remain the same.
Wow. So they each personally give you a call and then tell you, this is why we feel we're giving the prize to you. What kind of things were they passing on? The phone was basically handed around on the other end, right?
So it was a single call, but in turn, I spoke to each of the jurors and right after the deliberations, they concluded, and they didn't explain the decision. I'm a little bit at sea about that and would have to speculate, but it was just that they felt that it would be appropriate to get on the phone, and each of them to speak to me personally, which was touching. I mean, incredibly touching. Yeah, that's wonderful.
That does sound kind of unheard of in the world of conferring these types of awards. Incredibly civil, right? Yeah. So what was your impression of the award before having one?
Like, what did it occupy any particular space in your architecture career of prestige or something to work towards of sorts? Prestige is a difficult way to think of it. For me, obviously, the recognition by people who share some of the same concerns that I do, I know most of the jurors and there are people that I look up to, great deal, many of them, you know, older and role models for me. And so it's just the recognition more than the prestige would describe it more in those terms.
And you say you were familiar with the work of some of the jurors themselves. So who specifically was on the jury this year? You remember particularly? Well, there was one gentleman who was a developer who had given me some of my first work.
And in fact, he had given me 200 feet of the most beautiful beaches in Florida to do a project when I hadn't built anything. And, you know, so it was incredibly personal from my standpoint that he was on the jury. There were a couple of people on Lee on Korea was on there in Dimitri Porfirius and then a couple of people who write really well about architecture. We told Rubensky and Paul Goldberg.
And as I say, I spoke to each of them in turn. So let's go back a little bit. I'm interested in not only the work that you do now, but kind of how you came to do this work, because also, of course, receiving a work like this is not a simple sign of the times kind of indication, but something that is a response to an accruing body of work over years of practice. So let's maybe go back to the beginning.
What first drew you to architecture? Well, I guess a couple of things. My wife's from Vermont, and you have a state that's pretty much Cas and Amber, and it's pretty easy to see a state at a point in mid-19th century. Not in an nostalgic sense, but it's a very touching thing to see those towns.
Then the other thing that I think was influential was when I lived in Washington, D.C. I saw one of the most beautiful rural and agrarian counties just outside Washington, D.C., being consumed by exurban development. And one reason why I went to Florida was because it seemed at the time in 1988, it was sort of ground zero for land use. And I think it was one of the saddest things that I could personally witness.
And so it became very important to me when I was still pretty young to put forward as many different models for, let's say putting the best face on slightly denture and more compact developments. Did that also guide you into architecture school? No, you were talking about the for school. Wherever.
I mean, that guided you. The way you wanted to form your practice, I understand. And because you have locations both in Florida and also in Atlanta. But I'm wondering, even before that conceptually, in terms of your own professional passion, what initially interested you to pursue architecture?
I'm not sure that there was a defining moment. I will say that I went through a two-year period between college and graduate school. I was not an undergraduate in architecture. I only got an M.R.C.
and graduate school. And what did you study before that? I was an econ major and as an undergraduate. But in the two years between undergraduate and graduate school, I spent sort of a parapetetic life.
I was sort of a carolac phase. And Carolac was still in his mother's house, I think, when he was 26. And by the time I was 26, I'd been in all lower 48 states exclusively by driving. And during this period of time, I graduated from school into a really bad economy in 1979.
And it's very much like the economy was for graduates coming out of school in 2009, except on top of that, there were really high interest rates. And so there weren't a whole lot of jobs and opportunities. And so travel didn't have much in the way of opportunity costs, let's say. And I didn't have a lot of money.
And I bought a cheap car and I spent a better part of two years just driving hitchhiking and then delivering cars for other people. And I saw everything across the country. And it was incredibly interesting to me to see the different types of buildings that were singular or peculiar to different parts of the country. And so I was interested that the middle South had dog trots and the ones had shotguns and all the different types of lodges throughout the national parks, the grain elevators in Kansas, the tobacco barns in Richmond, the mailtop house tobacco farms in Kentucky, Barnes in Kentucky, in Ohio.
And I was just incredibly impressed by the variety of the built environment. It was also a point in time when a lot of this stuff was disappearing. And so you also had a sense that it wasn't going to stay that way for much longer. And I guess if there was a process by which I really became interested in architecture, it was probably during these years.
Well, so I'm thinking about how oftentimes architecture education is represented today as a kind of free-for-all space for speculative research, often involving new technologies, to the course of simply seeing what forms can come up and what the implications of those forms might be. And there seems to be very little, at least in terms of what is prioritized on a public basis and such in terms of how the greater public discusses architecture and what is seen as new interesting architecture that is much less to do with regionalism and vernacular architectures than it has to do with new materials and new softwares and such. And this is, of course, a generalization of how the field moves, and of course, both parties are represented throughout. But I'm wondering specifically, now that you've kind of been anointed by this prize that awards classical and traditional architecture, do you think of that field of architecture as somehow different than the overly simplified polar opposite of architecture that is more technologically driven and technologically innovative, I would say, maybe for making?
So let's start with the premise that every architect is trying to somehow proceed with good faith until he proves otherwise, he or she proves otherwise, and that they're trying to figure out as best they can what their times demand of them and what modern architecture should look like. We should not ask everybody to be interested in the same things that seems to me. And there are a lot of people who are driven by formal preoccupations. There are a lot of people who are driven by theoretical preoccupations.
There are a lot of people who are driven by technique, interest, and technique, or even large impersonal forces like globalization. I would say that the thing that sets my interest part a little bit is the relative way that I give to, oh, I would say our nature is human nature, and how that affects the way we receive ideas and are attracted to certain ideas and predispose to certain ideas. And I guess that's probably an inherently conservative preoccupation, maybe more so than things that move a little bit faster, because all our nature might change a little bit over time, they certainly change the defibrillation pace. So I think maybe the affinity with classical and traditional architecture has, for me more to do with our nature is sort of a more of a temperamental attraction than it is necessarily first and foremost, one of forms.
Does that make any sense? Absolutely. No, I think you've had on a very topical distinction that we deal with on the site every day of trying to figure out what people's motivations are as architects effectively. And that's why I wanted to start with just the initial inspiration question, like how did you come into this?
And I think your role in economics is really interesting as well, because if you first and foremost think of it as you do, then that does give you a different outpost to address these issues. And you would say if you're trying to solve a problem or trying to innovate technological form or trying to just simply experiment. I think that there is room for all of these initiatives and all these questions, it's just a matter of not getting pinned into what kind of forms you then make out of that as that being the only thing that you're interested in. Well, one of the way to come at this would be, I would say that the best definition or the most becoming description of architecture that I can think of is a description of writing fiction that was later in Rio Conner wrote one time.
She said, it's about everything human and we're made of dust. And if you're sworn getting dusty, then it's not a grand enough job for you. And I mean, I'm basically a child of the humanities, right? And so I see architecture very much through the lens of history and politics and fiction, you know, as much as anything else.
And it's these fields that are just preoccupied with our nature. I mean, you can't imagine thinking about politics or history without having our nature to be central and then really important. And so my background as much as anything is in these fields. And these were the things that I love before I love architecture.
And I think they all had a huge impact on how I think of architecture. So is there a formal way or a formal methodology that you use that integrates whatever particular interests in the humanities that you have into your current design process and your firm's current design process? I have a lot of formal interests. But at the same time, the formal interests are not foremost.
Like I said, I think that I'm much more interested in how our nature sort of have us being attracted to certain ideas. And, you know, form is interesting. It's almost like a perfectly innocent game of imagination. It's very, very important to us.
But it's not a driving consideration for me. If somebody else wants to work in a particular language and they have, there's something more important at stake, I'm happy to work in almost any language. And that either means that I have no principles or else I've sort of pushed back the importance of forms, you know, formal languages. And I think the latter is the case.
And so you've started the firm as a sole practitioner in 1990. And since then, the firm has grown substantially. But I'm wondering, how would you conceptualize and describe your maturation as an architect through the course of running that firm? How has your process changed or your style changed or your simply approach to the discipline?
Can you give some type of retrospective looking back on it? How would you describe the development from beginning to now? Well, you know, so much of how you develop has to do with the opportunities that are put in front of you. And I think that the work of the firm has followed two basic tracks.
We have continued to do small projects, I think, throughout for the last 25 years or so. But in the last 10, 15 years, we've also had the opportunity to work on some bigger projects. Many of them unrealized and unbuilt. But even being able to work in a much larger scale has been a sort of second track.
And to be able to think at a larger scale is something that has only been afforded us, I would say, in the last 10, 15 years. So I'd also like to ask a question that is a little bit perhaps semantic. But in being awarded the Dury House, you are now attached to these terms classical and traditional. And I don't know if you personally have ideas about those terms that makes you less or more likely to want to associate with them.
But of course, those terms in 1990, I can imagine, meant something different to both the general population and the architecture profession than they might now. So how do you feel those terms were received at the beginning versus they might pivot today? Well, you know, their terms are created with impossible amounts of meaning. And they're also frames that are very not always particularly helpful.
The reason I keep talking to you in terms of our natures is because I think that's my toehold on thinking about architecture more than particular forms. But the reason I might gravitate towards traditional forms is again, that if you're interested in our natures as people, it's, like I said before, it's a sort of inherently conservative idea. And it's inherently less fast moving, let's say, than if your primary interests are in technology or even theory. And so the things that I'm most interested in, I guess, don't change a whole lot over a period of time and certainly not over a period of 20 years.
Maybe what you're getting at is the perception of this has changed, but I'm not sure I can speak to the difference in perception of it. I think that's also a completely fair response because not only that, you know, I'm a representative of the media and you are an actual pro practitioner, that of course, like I have this self-conscious interest in perception and media portrayal of things. But of course, like you're by doing the work, that is not your core concern. But what I do want to also bring up in relation to this has to do with the general prestige at the prize that the Drieshaus confers.
What was your perception of the prize before winning if you had any? And what is it now? Now that you've won? I guess my perception has always been that there's a relatively small proportion of the profession that practices this type of architecture.
But that among those people who were interested in these things, it was probably the highest honor that could be accorded somebody who practices. But I mean, that's a big qualifier because it's still a relatively small number of people that hold these things to be the most important in practice, right? What about the money attached to the prize? Does that factor into you think an incentive that the Drieshaus is particularly giving the prize such that they might encourage more architects to do this type of work?
And do you think that's a effective way to promote a certain type of architecture? I think for me, it would be terribly ungrateful to not acknowledge that it's an enormous amount of money, right? At the same time, it's a little bit of beside the point. And once you acknowledge that it's an incredibly generous prize in monetary terms, there's not a whole lot else to say.
Do you have plans specifically of how to use the money? I don't. I mean, I practice with a couple of other people and it will be distributed and they'll do with it as a fee. But I don't think any of it was just awarded a couple of days ago.
And then we haven't really talked about it. Yeah, of course not. It's always fascinating to me when there is the prestige and the money coming together and whether or not, you know, if it's the cart leading the horse or so, like, what comes first and how necessary is it for the prize to have? And then how does that money get used just a fascinating question to see how that might encourage a certain type of practice?
So I appreciate you just answering it. I totally understand. Yeah, no, but I mean, it's, I mean, you have to understand that that's, it's marginal. It's a marginal consideration completely.
Again, it's the recognition from people who are interested in similar things. And I can assure you that I'm incredibly grateful for the large S and generosity of the prize. And I'm very fortunate in that regard. But you can imagine that it's embarrassing to try and answer these questions.
Absolutely. So I'd like to just ask one more question about your education because the issue of the effectiveness of architecture education and in general the trends that permeate whatever is hip and attractive for a certain architecture school to advertise the potential students, these are issues that, of course, also influence the reality of practice and what topics and what concerns people who then go into practice have. So I'm wondering for you, how would you conceptualize and characterize the style of architecture education that you received? Well, so into Yale and Yale had a steady parade of people who came in for short periods of time from practice to teach studio.
They had a complement of full-time faculty members as well, who normally would teach sort of lower or middle level studios as well. And I mean, I think that that method of teaching served all of us really well, because there were people constantly coming in out of practice. And yet they were, I would say, at the top of their field. And they were also incredibly varied.
And so we had a chance to see people who had completely different approaches to the way practices might be run and designed thought about. So I can scarcely imagine a better way of trying to navigate the choices that you had when you got out of school. The wrap on it, of course, is that it's a little bit disorienting and that some of the interests can't be sustained. And so you have to weigh that on the whole whether or not that outweighs the advantages.
And I think on the whole it was a great education. And you've spoken many times about your core interest being in serving the inhabitants and the behavior of the person and the humanity behind the architecture. I'm wondering specifically if you then have your own way of deciding how successful a project might be based on that kind of initial inspiration and criteria. Well, I mean, personally, I think we need as many different scorecards for practice as you can possibly come up with.
And I think that field is large enough that we can all approach practices in completely different ways. And one of the consequences of being interested in our natures and what that has to do with architecture is that if I have any preoccupations, I guess it's in, you know, you can take ideas that are out there and you can try and evaluate them somewhat objectively. But what's really interesting to me is how different people can take these ideas and either be attracted to them or not find them attractive. And so one of the things that I'm most interested in is I guess I'm very wary of certain types of attractions to ideas.
And so I think a lot about whether certain ideas contain an element of vanity or fear or concerned about professional biases, where you're attracted to ideas that put architects sort of at the center of the ideas. And I guess I think I'm confusing you about what I mean by what our natures have to do with architecture. But what's really interesting to me is the fact that so many ideas appeal to us for maybe our lesser natures rather than our better natures. And I think you just have to try and be conscious of not only the ideas that are floating about, but also your reasons for why you're attracted to them.
And you have to try and think about whether or not they are the right reasons and the right part of our natures that are attracted to them. It's surprisingly difficult to keep people in the center of what we're trying to do, you know, to keep people's interests in the center of it and not have them be displaced by interests in things that place them on the margin. So it's really important to me that people are at the center of what we do. And that we always keep an eye on who we're serving and on their needs and the fragileness and the tenuousness of their lives.
And that we can as much as possible not put ourselves always at the center of situations and not put our formal preoccupations at the center of things. But we're constantly trying to put people that we serve at the center of things and not us as architects. One more thing I'd like to ask is simply about what kind of things you're interested in these days. So are you reading any books or listening to any music or watching any films that you'd like to share with our listeners and readers as something that might be inspiring or interesting with architects?
Inspiring. I don't know. You know, I told you I do love history. And in past few months, I've read two books that have been as helpful to me as anything.
James McPherson's History of the Civil War, which I've owned for 20 years and never been able to pick up and read. And I finally read it. And I'm so happy to read about Lincoln and to understand his take on our natures and his practicality in service of principle, his ability to hold incredibly fractious coalitions together. I just found it the most instructive history that I've ever read.
I'm reading a history by Doris Kerns Goodwin right now, which is a fascinating story about the friendship between and the relationship between Taft and Roosevelt. And I find that, you know, again, going back to the idea of temperament here are two people who share ideas almost completely. And yet there are temperaments or so different. And it's so interesting to see what temperament has to do with effectiveness and how they deal with other people.
I just bought a book by Professor Sanger at Harvard about, you know, there's this interesting debate going on between psychologists and humanists and scientists about whether our natures are malleable, improvable, or if they're fixed. And it seems to me that this is a really interesting debate and of great consequence. And these are the types of debates, I think, that are of the greatest interest to me because they have so much to do with how we're going to deal with everything. So Scott, thanks again so much for taking the time to talk with us.
And I really appreciate your candid perspective on these things. So thanks again. Thank you, Amelia. Take care.
Thanks for listening to our one-to-one interview with Scott Merrill. Donilo Voinov edits the podcast, and Matt Scalinges composed the music. Myself and Paul Petunia are the producers of one-to-one. New episodes come out every Monday.
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