Basking in the San Diego sun and the proud glow of family and friends, 62 AIA members and five colleagues from other nations joined the Institute family of Fellowship and Honorary Fellowship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies’ outdoor plaza in La Jolla, Calif., on May 9. The celebratory and ceremonial event honors the inductees for their significant contributions to architecture and society nationally, and for consistently achieving excellence in the profession.

As the new fellows, AIA leadership, and guests absorbed inspirational views of the Pacific Ocean and the horizon beyond, 2003 Jury of Fellows Chair David Meckel, FAIA welcomed them to the stunning site. Joining Meckel at the podium, Chancellor Sylvester Damianos, FAIA; Vice Chancellor Betsey Olenick Dougherty, FAIA; Bursar Ted P. Pappas, FAIA; and Secretary Lawrence J. Leis, FAIA, offered their congratulations to the 2003 class.

Connecting the investiture to the broader notion of design’s influence on society, AIA President Thompson E. Penney, FAIA, said, “At a time when the public is searching for higher values . . . as we unleash the power of research to develop a body of verifiable evidence that shows precisely how design matters . . . design may be emerging as the co-equal in shaping the destiny of our planet . . . as science and technology were for the 20th century.”

”We recognize today the achievement of our distinguished colleagues,” Penney continued. “The integrators, the facilitators, and the visionaries; the trusted counselors and guides who demonstrate the potential of our profession and point the way to a better world.”

With that message and the Fellowship charge from Chancellor Damianos, each new inductee approached the stage to receive a Fellowship medal from Penney, and was welcomed into the College as they crossed the line of water that divides Salk’s plaza.

Salk’s Legacy: Poetry + Proof
Standing in the place where Penney noted that poetry and proof come together, Damianos told the audience that it has been more than 40 years since Jonas Salk, the physician and medical researcher who invented the vaccine for polio, selected the site for his institute for medical studies. Salk and architect Louis Kahn, FAIA, focused on designing the most efficient laboratories—embodied in four separate, single-story parallel “rather unremarkable but efficient” buildings. However, with bids awarded and construction begun, “while gazing out across that endless flat plain that is the ocean, Salk came to the realization that this design would not provide the splendid spirituality that inspired him in Assisi,” the 13th-century village visited by the scientist in the early 1950s to distance himself from recurring disappointments in his quest for a polio vaccine. “With the influence, he intuitively designed the research that later resulted in the desired vaccine.”

“The day after the contractor arrived for layout work,” Damianos continued, Salk informed Kahn that they should cancel the construction contract and redesign the laboratories, certainly to be equally efficient, but in the context of spirituality and enriching environment on the order of which he had experienced in Assisi.”

“We are the beneficiaries of that decision here today,” Damianos said. “Here he left his legacy as a good ancestor for future generations. We are indeed privileged to be here today.”

—Tracy F. Ostroff

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