Barbara Eberhard's Blog - Posts Tagged "architect"
Making the Case for Maverick
I'm calling my father's biography (tentatively - don't hold me to it) A Maverick for the Built Environment. There are different aspects of being a maverick, though. And in many ways, they all apply.
Oxford defines maverick as "an unorthodox or independent-minded person". I've interviewed a bunch of his old colleagues from various jobs. I've got his papers - well, most of them. There's no question this definition fits. Although trained as an architect, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Dad didn't design after 1958. Instead, he was interested in "systems thinking" and research. I have testimony he gave before Congress in 1972 about the need to understand how people use buildings, not just to design them.
Dictionary.com defines maverick: "a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates." This definition also applies in that Dad challenged the AIA, including taking a small niche shell part of the AIA and turning it into a $60m organization he called the AIA Research Corporation.
Vocabulary.com has this definition: " A maverick is a rebel, someone who shows a lot of independence". In 1985, I went to work for a company - now defunct - called Codeworks Corporation. Our goal was to create a database of building codes across the country for architects to use if they were designing a building in a jurisdiction where they didn't usually. There I met an architect named Bill Brenner, who was my boss and is still my friend. He knew my father, though mostly by reputation. He was the first one who said to me, "Your father is someone that you either love or hate." What he meant was that Dad challenged the conventional thinking of architects and "rebelled" against those who were more interested in design than in the architecture my dad defined as the intersection of art, engineering, and science.
"If you describe someone as a maverick, you mean that they are unconventional and independent, and do not think or behave in the same way as other people." (Collins English Dictionary)
Yup, that's my dad.
Oxford defines maverick as "an unorthodox or independent-minded person". I've interviewed a bunch of his old colleagues from various jobs. I've got his papers - well, most of them. There's no question this definition fits. Although trained as an architect, and a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Dad didn't design after 1958. Instead, he was interested in "systems thinking" and research. I have testimony he gave before Congress in 1972 about the need to understand how people use buildings, not just to design them.
Dictionary.com defines maverick: "a lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates." This definition also applies in that Dad challenged the AIA, including taking a small niche shell part of the AIA and turning it into a $60m organization he called the AIA Research Corporation.
Vocabulary.com has this definition: " A maverick is a rebel, someone who shows a lot of independence". In 1985, I went to work for a company - now defunct - called Codeworks Corporation. Our goal was to create a database of building codes across the country for architects to use if they were designing a building in a jurisdiction where they didn't usually. There I met an architect named Bill Brenner, who was my boss and is still my friend. He knew my father, though mostly by reputation. He was the first one who said to me, "Your father is someone that you either love or hate." What he meant was that Dad challenged the conventional thinking of architects and "rebelled" against those who were more interested in design than in the architecture my dad defined as the intersection of art, engineering, and science.
"If you describe someone as a maverick, you mean that they are unconventional and independent, and do not think or behave in the same way as other people." (Collins English Dictionary)
Yup, that's my dad.
