Boston architect Brian Healy moved around for his early career, before settling and building in New England. He had studios in Florida, California, and New York, eventually opening his office in Boston. Healy acquired his bachelor’s degree in architecture at the Pennsylvania State University in 1978 and continued his studies at Yale where he encountered such influential professors as James Stirling, Vincent Scully, John Hejduk, Aldo Rossi, and Cesar Pelli, among others.
Healy graduated with a Master of Architecture in 1981 and then used traveling scholarship money from Yale, the Van Allen Institute, and the American Academy in Rome to travel around the world for a year, exploring ancient ruins in Ireland, Italy, Greece, Sudan, Egypt, India, Nepal, and Thailand. Prior to the trip, he had worked at the offices of Charles Moore and Cesar Pelli. Upon his return, he designed and built homes in Florida before working for Richard Meier in New York. In 1985, he started Brian Healy Architects. Parallel to that he taught at over twenty universities across North America, including Yale, Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. Healy was the 2004 president of the Boston Society of Architects and, from 2011-2014 he served as Design Director at Perkins + Will.
The architect’s work has been collected in a new volume COMONPLACES: Working on an American Architecture. He has realized numerous residential projects including single and multi-family buildings across the United States. Prominent public buildings include the Grant Recital Hall at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; the Education and Community Center at Korean Church of Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts; a Student Center at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell, as well as sports facilities at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. In the following conversation, we discussed the architect’s design process, his thoughts on the notion of authorship, how to lead a client towards a consensus, teaching assignments, and progress from one project to the next.
Brian Healy: I think the fixation in our profession on the business of architecture should be superseded by what architects such as John Hejduk have called a poetic reinterpretation of how we might live. The two are not mutually exclusive, but somehow the latter seems to have been abandoned. There are, of course, many great schools out there and a few practices that share this perspective but increasingly, it seems like market forces are ruling the day.
When I decided to become an architect, it wasn’t to save the world. I simply could not think of something more potent than creating environments where other people would live. Architecture has the potential to set up opportunities for people to renew and refresh their lives. I always cared for that aspect of our profession.
My education allowed me to see architecture as more than just pursuing career opportunities. It can be a way of understanding how we live and why one does certain things in life and how they can affect the lives of others. Education is supposed to be liberating and aspirational. We should be civic leaders, not just service providers. I find that a lack of pragmatism often exposes other possibilities which should be explored and pursued. If one focuses exclusively on the business of architecture, we can miss the potency of architecture and how it might be useful.
Vladimir Belogolovsky: I agree with you. At the same time, saying that the lack of pragmatism opens possibilities can make many clients nervous, no?
BH: I don’t think our day-to-day efforts should be exclusively about obtaining the next project or commission. It’s important to me that people get what they want out of a project or building. And if I can help them get it, nothing makes me happier. I do not wish to impose my viewpoint on anyone. I care for how people live in these buildings and want them to be as open and accessible as possible.
VB: I came across a passage, in which you described architecture as “making poetic vacancies and poetic imaginings.” Could you elaborate on that?
BH: Well, it should go without saying that what we do is complicated and difficult to both conceive and construct. I’m fond of an old Tao meditation that notes that “Life is too ugly, too violent, that we need something delicate to care about.” I think architecture can help with that.
VB: Then perhaps you could tell me why you got into architecture in the first place.
BH: My father was born in Harlem in Upper Manhattan and he told me that my great grandfather worked on the stained-glass windows in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan. I remember going there with him and my brothers and – while my younger brothers were all racing around the building, trying to figure out just which window he made – all I could think of was… somebody actually made this place? It was probably the first time that it occurred to me that buildings and places as grandiose as they may be, in fact, are designed and built by human hands. I was about ten years old then and my family had just bought a couple of acres in a field on Greene’s Farm in Bucks County, Pennsylvania where we built a new home. It was a neo-colonial wooden structure with a stone façade and a nice place to grow up with my six brothers.
It was there that I learned to also appreciate the beauty of barns, outbuildings, farmhouses, and local, modest vernacular architecture like roadside billboards and farm stands. These experiences strongly influenced my decision to study architecture. It also reinforced a belief that architecture is not only found in the extraordinary world of St. Patrick’s, but also in the everyday ordinary world. They blur. I don’t think architecture should be limited to select structures or those found in history books. The commonplace also has the potential to become architecture.
As architects, we only make the places and buildings. We don’t always live in them. When I design a home, or a lab, or a church, I speculate on how someone else – or some group – might occupy it and relate to it. That’s what I mean when I describe architecture as making poetic vacancies. We can suggest how a place can grow by adding to it. In the end, every decent building needs to be an appropriate addition to what is already there – not as a foil or compliment – but as an indication of how that place can evolve and grow.
VB: In the early 1980s, after Yale, you worked for some of the leading American architects who were at their prime then, including Richard Meier who was just awarded the Pritzker Prize then, and Cesar Pelli, the Dean at Yale at the time. Before that, you also worked at the office of Charles Moore. I wonder how was your experience working with him and what did you learn from him?
BH: Charles was my first design instructor at Yale, and he wanted everyone to know that architecture could be fun. It could be ironic, even silly. It could be enjoyed in its making and enjoyable in its use, and simply make people happy. That’s my most significant lesson from him. Coming to Yale, it was something new to me because so many other professors were pretty uptight. [Laughs.] It was not his only agenda, of course. He was a larger-than-life guy and he would take the class up to his place in Newport. If people didn’t like his work, it was fine with him. He was very approachable and open to discussion, whereas some other professors would say, “This is not architecture, and there is nothing to talk about here.” But Charles didn’t want to define or limit what “architecture” was; he didn’t want us to either. He did not want us, as students, to feel pressure for a perfect definition of what architecture is – or could be.
In fact, what was wonderful about my education at Yale, was that all the great educators whom I encountered there – Stirling, Scully, Hejduk, Pelli, Kubler, Millard, Purves, Livesey – nobody presumed that what they just said was the end of the discussion. It was the beginning, and it was an opening for everybody to make new conclusions – or at least, present an alternative proposition. What seemed important was to have an open dialogue that leads somewhere to a critical point. I’ve tried to carry that forward but, I am sorry, the client isn’t always right – or the many expert consultants. [Laughs.] If I disagree, I will say so.
VB: It was said about you that you are mixing architecture with art. If you could touch on your design process? What are your typical inspirations and what are your initial steps?
BH: I like to draw and paint. I do so literally to put light on an idea, to illuminate a thought, and make it tangible, maybe legible. I am not interested in making an illustration or a documentary. But it is important to acknowledge that – when at Yale – we all worked in the A+A – the Arts and Architecture Building – with art studios on floors 4 and 5 and the architecture studios on 6 and 7 – with unbelievable art galleries and art history department right across the street. We would be riding the elevator and sharing the coffee shop with painters, printmakers, and historians – it was intense.
Making art is an ongoing aspiration and making architecture is very difficult. It involves vulnerabilities that most people are not comfortable with. Painting is something that I do all the time, and I often paint something entirely unrelated to my projects or to specific thoughts on architecture. Yet, these paintings inevitably become architectural. I may paint how a building sits in the landscape or dissolves into the city or sky. These paintings are frequently like collages of anticipated buildings. But working on a project always starts the same – by meeting the client and studying what the site might allow. I then simply need to spend some time in my studio to gather my thoughts.
VB: Alone?
BH: Yes, of course. I will naturally share my ideas with colleagues, and they are all welcome to critique and challenge those ideas, to analyze and probably improve them. That is the best part of a collaborative process. But what we need as a design team is a focus – a defined beginning. So, yes, I need to start a project alone. That’s how I initiate every project. I never ask for ideas from others in my office at the very beginning. I think an architect’s idea should be fully developed in his or her head before asking others what they think. That’s my feeling. Of course, we don’t have to agree, but that’s how I gather my thoughts.
VB: Would you then call yourself an author?
BH: Well, I’m not comfortable with that word because I think our profession has been much too obsessed with authorship. An editor might be more appropriate. I don’t believe Wright when he said that he “shakes them out of his sleeve.” Of course, he was a great architect. But our profession is collaborative, and the work has many fingerprints on it. It should and it does. So, sure, it is the lead architect who picks one path out of many. But there is always a team to bounce ideas off, to adjust direction, and dig deeper and deeper. Some clients or teachers may say, “That’s a great idea! Now, give me two more.” I don’t understand that concept. If it’s a great idea, then let’s dig deeper and see what the potency of that idea is? Why start out by getting distracted? Some people think it is restrictive, but I prefer to think of it as focused. The beginning is key, and you must decide after analysis which path you are taking.
VB: And it is you who will make that decision, right? You would not bring two-three ideas to a client and ask for direction, right?
BH: No! Why would I do that? Of course, when we work on our designs in the studio, we develop two or three options simultaneously. Many times, more with an iterative string of study models and planning diagrams.
VB: But it is up to you to decide what to show to the client.
BH: Of course! Who else? We inevitably come to a consensus, but I make the call.
VB: Many architects want the client to make that choice because they want the client to be happy, and more importantly – responsible.
BH: That’s ridiculous. I can’t even imagine a situation like that… then I am just a service provider, or a vendor peddling my wares? We are hired as professionals with experience, let’s not forget.
VB: Exactly.
BH: I think our profession is challenging enough. Well, no, I don’t do that.
VB: Do you think about progress in your work? Do you consciously think about a particular progression from project to project?
BH: I find satisfaction in the work itself. And I am very happy working out of the spotlight. Interesting things happen in the shadows. Of course, I am the same person. I ask similar questions – or maybe the same question, over and over – I’m never sure. People often tell me that my work has been consistent over the years. Depending on who tells me this, I think of it as a criticism or a compliment. [Laughs.].
