by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Tom Kundig, FAIA, is a principal with Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen Architects in Seattle. On May 16, Kundig, Lebbeus Woods, and Wes Jones received the Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The awards are chosen each year by a jury of architects to recognize an American whose architectural work is characterized by a strong personal direction. Creating some of the most inventive structures today, his buildings meld industrial sensibilities and materials such as steel and concrete with an intuitive understanding of scale. Kundig is the subject of Tom Kundig: Houses, released by Princeton Architectural Press earlier this year.

Education: I got my BA in environmental design from the University of Washington. Following that, I took a year off to travel and spend some time in the mountains. I did a lot of mountain climbing back in my youth. Then I came back to do my MArch at the University of Washington.

Interest in architecture: My dad is an architect, so when I left home to go to UW, the last thing in the world I wanted to be was an architect. I thought that I had enough of the business and what I perceived it was all about. But, interestingly, because of my dad’s profession, I had been exposed to and worked with a lot of artists in the Spokane area. I worked with one artist in particular, Harold Balazs, who became a mentor. I always knew that I would not be an artist, but I helped Harold and watched him construct his ideas and his large-scale metal sculptures. I grew up around this and hence was always fascinated by the assembly of the artist’s idea. Frankly, I sometimes found the assembly of the unfinished pieces was more interesting to me than the finished pieces because of the process of making these things.

When I went to the University of Washington, my focus was more into geophysics, the science of the larger earth and cosmic movements. I’ve always been fascinated by that. I was also taking art classes at the same time because I was still interested in that poetic side of science. It doesn’t take much of a leap to know that architecture is that synthesis between science, engineering, and fabrication and the poetic: the more intuitive side of art. So, it was kind of a natural. It was almost like it was inevitable in a way. I eventually began taking architecture classes and got back into architecture. It was a good thing to turn away from architecture and then turn back to it to realize how important the profession really is to me and the way I think and operate. Now, I couldn’t be happier. It’s the right thing for me and I just pinch myself when I think of all the things and the people that I’ve gotten to work with over the years.

Dad’s reaction to following his path: Oh, he was appalled. It was a particularly difficult profession in the ’50s and ’60s, certainly in a small town in eastern Washington and northern Idaho. Of course, all parents just want their kids to do whatever they’re interested in, but there was obviously some concern. Now, he’s excited. It’s a terrific profession. I think it has been better for my generation and certainly the following generations, the X and Y generations. It’s a different story for architects now than it was in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

Design philosophy: It does tie into some of my interests from my youth: watching the fabrication of ideas, but also growing up on construction sites as a kid with my dad. Obviously, I grew up in a large landscape. Eastern Washington and northern Idaho are mountainous and high desert, and that clearly had a profound effect on my philosophy of architecture. If I have a bias, it is to nature and the nature of materials. How they age, work, and come together, and the authenticity of those materials are important to me.

When I was a mountain climber—that was a moment in my life where clearly I was engaging the larger natural landscape with equipment and devices and trying to put together these elegant climbs. That’s the real nature of mountain climbing: how to solve the problem in as quick and elegant a way as possible. I think that had a significant influence on my work. That intersection between the devices we make as human beings and how they relate to this larger natural world. When I think back on it, about the time you turn 48 or 49, you begin reflecting on why and how you make decisions. They are very personal and very intuitive, and it seems to me that there’s a pretty clear relationship with some of these early years in my upbringing. They have had a profound influence on my architecture, and continue to.

Dream project: I’m working on them right now in some ways. It’s a hard question to answer because there are so many terrific places and people to work with. When I lecture, I sometimes propose the idea that my dream projects would be smaller rather than larger. [There would be] a lot of them in different places so I could meet people in other cultures and landscapes and engage them. These projects would be open public structures or open landscape structures. I’ve always felt that architecture is more of a background to and, in a way, frames what’s happening around the building whether it’s a cultural or natural landscape. One of my real pleasures in what I do is that I get to work in all these places, with all these different people. So, the dream project is a culmination of a career. There is no one project.

On the bedside table: I have just re-read for the third or fourth time, In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizake. I find that book to be very important to my career. The other book I just finished is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Right now I’m reading Nathan Glazer’s From a Cause to a Style, which is a pretty interesting collection of his essays on architecture.

On receiving the Academy Award in Architecture: I got a letter a few months ago that I had been nominated and that was a total shock. Then to actually get it was a second shock. It’s a hell of an honor. It’s a really important honor because if you look at the history of who they’ve nominated and given the awards to, it’s some real mentors and heroes. The three guys that I’m up there with for architecture: Eric Owen Moss [the recipient of the Arnold W. Brunner Memorial Prize in Architecture], Wes Jones, and Leb Woods, to me, it’s just a hell of an honor to be on the same podium with those guys because they all have an independent and provocative notion of architecture, which I consider to be really important. They’ve always been free spirits in our profession, and I think we need as many of those spirits as we can possibly get. I’ve always felt that they’re terrific provocateurs.

What’s so great about the award is that somebody recognized that the four of us really do bring a personal vision to our work and it’s all different. That’s the exciting part of it. There’s also going to be an exhibit of all of our work with other artists at the Academy of Arts and Letters. That’s very exciting for me because it’s not just architecture. I’ve always felt that architecture is and should be a part of literature, art, sculpting, dance, and music. We all feed and riff off each other. I think that’s important.

Residential vs. commercial: I really enjoy residences because it’s a personal, idiosyncratic, special relationship with the client, but also I love working on public buildings because they have such a wide-ranging effect on the public. I think we’re so lucky to be able to do what we get to do, both in a very personal, almost intimate scale and on the larger public scale, which also has intimacy to it because you’re affecting individuals. The perfect career for me personally is to do 50 percent residential and 50 percent public work. I think the two feed and inform each other and make the other better.

There’s a landscape architect whom I worked with on the Mission Hill Family Estate Winery who said that the truly great landscape architects first know the garden and how the garden works. I think that’s true with architecture also. The architects who have left truly great buildings and legacies at their root did intimate shelters for people.

Advice for students: I’m not an academic or a teacher, but I’m asked to lecture a lot to student bodies. My point to students of architecture is that they need to understand that they have to bring their personal voice to their work. It’s going to take years of apprenticeship and working in the business to understand how to carry that voice in an authentic, clear, and skilled way. I spent years climbing mountains and worked for a sculptor and did things that were not a direct line to architecture, but I think everything I did has a lot to do with my architecture. When I work on things, I bring that experience and history to the work, and it affects and brings a personal resonance to it. I think that’s the spirit of really great architecture. You have to be comfortable that you have a personal vision and voice in the work you do. Use magazines and books and professors for information, but don’t let that be the way you do it. Your personal style and experiences should be your guide.