Thoughts on an Architect’s Journey: Open Notes at 85 Jan Wampler

In Thoughts on an Architect’s Journey, Open Notes at 85, the renowned architect and professor Jan Wampler looks back on his distinguished career, sharing his reflections, memories and poetic evocations of decades spent in the service of architecture. Split into several sections, including an extensive interview, summaries of some of Wampler’s architectural projects, ＂Soul Songs＂ in verse, essays by prestigious colleagues Aldo Van Eyck, John Habraken, Fumihiko Mahi and Robert MacLeod, and a selection of Wampler’s paintings, this is a privileged insight into the mind of an eminent architect, educator and artist, revealing the inspirations, motivations and beliefs that guided him throughout his life and work.

Aldo Ernest van Eyck was born on 16 March 1918 in Driebergen, the Netherlands. After studying at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in The Hague, van Eyck studied architecture from 1938-42 at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule in Zurich where he became acquainted with the international avant-garde. He remained in Zurich until the war ended and married fellow student Hannie van Roojen. In 1946, van Eyck moved to Amsterdam and worked there from 1946 until 1951 for the urban development division of the city’s Department of Public Works under Cor van Eesteren and Jacoba Bridgwater. He desig- ned more than 700 playgrounds, which he continued to design long after setting up his own practice in 1951. Van Eyck gained international recognition with his design of Amsterdam’s Municipal Orphanage (1955-60). His best-known works include the Pastoor Van Ars Church in Loosduinen (1963-69), the temporary sculpture pavilion at Sonsbeek (1965-66) and the PREVI housing in Lima, Peru (1969-72).Robert M. MacLeod, AIA is a Professor and Director of the USF School of Architecture and Community Design. Professor MacLeod’s academic research focuses on urban design and community planning issues within the ＂unfinished project＂ of the contemporary city, public space infrastructure, conditions of suburban sprawl, and redevelopment strategies for abandoned commercial centers and edges. He was the founding Director of the University of Florida’s Orlando ＂Citi-Lab＂ Studio and has served as primary investigator for se- veral funded research projects including the ＂West Kendall Study＂, an environmentally sensitive commercial and residential master plan for a 160-acre property south of Miami, bordering the Florida Everglades, and sponsored by the Rouse Company of Columbia, Maryland; ＂The Ruskin Project＂, a proposal for contempo- rary suburban re-development in southwest Florida; and ＂Intervention as Context＂, an analytical study of Orlando, Florida, the first of several Orlando-based research studies and projects.Over the past 30 years, Paul Lukez has been actively engaged in architectural practice, research, and education. Before founding Paul Lukez Architecture (www.lukez.com) in 1992, Mr. Lukez worked with (inter) nationally recognized architectural firms such as Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, William Rawn Associates, Arrows- treet Inc. and Wampler Architects. Mr. Lukez has received over 60 academic and professional honors. Mr. Lukez has taught architecture for over 20 years, including undergraduate and graduate studios and seminars. He was a full-time professor at MIT for seven years. He has also taught at Washington University, RISD, Roger Williams University, among other universities. He is a graduate of Miami University (BED) and MIT (M’Arch). He also wrote a book, Suburban Transformations (Princeton Architectural Press, October 2007), which proposes strategies and processes for transforming suburbs into more sustainable environments.In addition to teaching, Wampler runs a small architectural office. His interests are in design: the understanding and designing of the space between buildings as well as buildings that can respond to people’s needs. He has a substantial number of projects built. Wampler’s articles and buildings have been published in a number of architectural magazines. These include: ＂La Puntilla,＂ Progressive Architecture; ＂L’Empret- te,＂ L’Architecture D’Aujourd’hui, May/June 1975; ＂Boston Architecture＂, Andrea Leers and Alex Krieger, A&U, V. 222, March, 1989; ＂Thinking the City＂ exhibition; ＂Designing for Special Populations,＂ Architectu- re, January, 1987; ＂A Village in a House,＂ Space and Society, June 1984. He also authored a book in 1976, All Their Own, People and the Places They Build, the Schenkman Publishing Company, Cambridge, MA, 1976. He recently exhibited his work of the last twenty-five years at MIT entitled ＂Open Strings for e-Search on the Journey.＂ In a review of the exhibition by Robert Campbell referred to Wampler as ＂The Walt Whitman of Architects.＂Was a Japanese architect. In 1993, he received the Pritzker Prize for his work, which often explores pioneering uses of new materials and fuses the cultures of east and west. Maki was born in Tokyo. After studying at the University of Tokyo and graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture degree in 1952, he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, graduating with a master’s degree in 1953. He then studied at Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating with a Master of Architecture degree in 1954. In 1960 he returned to Japan to help establish the Metabolism Group. He worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in New York City and for Sert Jackson and Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts and founded Maki and Associates in 1965. Maki recently designed the London campus of the Aga Khan University along with a cultural centre as part of the King’s Crossdevelopment project. This was Maki’s first European projects and represented the third and fourth Aga Khan projects for Maki, who also designed the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat in Ottawa and Aga Khan Museum in Toronto. He was also assigned by the Sonja & Reinhard Ernst Stiftung to design the Museum Reinhard Ernst in Wiesbaden, Germany, to display the foundations’ collection of abstract art.N. John Habraken was born on 29 October 1928 in Bandung, Dutch East Indies. He studied architecture at Delft Technical University, the Netherlands from 1948 to 1955. From 1965 to 1975, he was the founding director of Stichting Architecten Research (Foundation for Architects Research) (SAR) in the Netherlands, researching and developing methods for the design and construction of adaptable housing. In his seminal book, Supports, Habraken proposes the separation of supports or base buildings from ＂Infills＂ in residential construction and design as a means of giving inhabitants a meaningful participative role in the design process. According to Habraken, the implementation of his theory into practice is left to the decision of ＂the architects＂. In 1967 Habraken was appointed professor at Eindhoven University of Technology, and charged with the responsibility to set up its new Department of Architecture and serve as its first chairperson. From 1975 to 1981 Habraken served as head of the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He taught at MIT until his retirement as professor emeritus in 1989. Habraken lived in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands. He died on 21 October 2023, at the age of 94.