Eugene Kohn, FAIA

by Heather Livingston
Contributing Editor

Summary: Eugene Kohn, FAIA, is the chair of Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. In 1976, along with William Pedersen and Sheldon Fox, he founded KPF based on a commitment to design excellence. Kohn has served as partner-in-charge of many of KPF’s major domestic and international projects and is responsible for many of the firm’s new commissions. Among his many honors, Kohn has been recognized by the National Education Fund, the Sheltering Arms Children Service, and the New York Society of Architects. Kohn is an executive fellow of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, the first architect to be awarded the title. On May 19, the University of Pennsylvania School of Design conferred on Kohn its Medal of Achievement.

Education
I have a bachelor of architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by three years in the Navy as an officer. I then went back to graduate school and got a master’s, also at Penn with Lou Kahn and many other famous people who were there at the time. Then over the years between attending classes and teaching, I’ve continued my education. I’ve taken courses in real-estate development at Harvard and taught at the design school. I also teach a Harvard Business School full course on the value of architecture and design, and I continue to do all the courses the AIA requires, so I keep learning.

Hobbies
I love to paint. In fact, I was in a show in London that did very, very well. I do watercolors … mainly because I just enjoy it. Architecture takes so long to accomplish that it’s wonderful when you can do a painting in watercolor in half an hour to an hour and see it finished. If you don’t like it, you throw it away, whereas with a building you can’t throw it away too easily and it takes so long.

I also love to play tennis. I love to play golf. I still like to shoot baskets and throw a football around. I like hiking and being with family and friends.

Currently reading
I’m reading Journals 1952-2000, a book that Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. did of his memos, letters, and notes during his time with the Kennedys and others. I’m also reading Fareed Zakaria’s book, The Post-American World¸ which deals with America’s position in the world since Iraq and what’s happening now. Right now I’m reading everything about international issues and America’s place in the world in the years ahead.

KPF currently is working on several of the world’s tallest buildings, including the Shanghai World Financial Center. Is demand growing for super tall structures, even as terrorism and seismic concerns increase?
The simple answer is yes, and the reasons are as follows: super tall buildings from an earthquake point of view are probably the most safe to be in, because they are designed to deal with earthquakes, high winds, and other forces, whereas low structures are not usually designed to resist earthquakes, particularly buildings built many years ago using brick or stone. A tall building is a very safe building when it’s designed to meet code and by good architects and engineers from around the world. They’re going to be safe buildings in the worst of earthquakes.

In terms of 9/11 and its impact, it was a concern in this country for a while. I think there were very few office buildings being proposed that were super tall in America after 9/11, but certainly in Asia and the Mideast in particular, that was not a barrier. Even in London today, you’re seeing very tall buildings being built. Back in America, in our old World Trade Center, you’re seeing very sizeable buildings being built, so I don’t think it’s as much a concern today. We’re designing the buildings to be safer and allow for exiting a lot quicker, so people can get out of buildings should there be some kind of major problem. But I think people are gaining confidence that the value of the tall building is there. When you think about the energy issue that we face in sustainability, density in cities is extremely important, and in the tall building in particular, which puts a lot of people on a small piece of land. The tall building really does work effectively in helping to reduce energy costs and making our cities more viable and more exciting in many ways.

You can’t live your life always worried that somebody’s going to get in a plane and blow up your building. If you start doing that, one, it’s not going to be the quality of life that you want to have, and two, I think you deal with that kind of terrorism a different way. You try to prevent it rather than deal with the building having to stop it.

I think most people around the world are excited by the tall building. They love the views from it, love the image of it. These buildings for many nations become the image and the icon for the nation and the company. Not all are great, but there are a lot of very good ones built or being built. The one we’re doing in Shanghai, which will be the tallest building in the world for a short period until the one in Dubai is done, is going to be a spectacular building. It’s being dedicated on July 25.

Many organizations and countries today want to commission “iconic” architecture. What’s fueling the recent demand for these structures?
We had icons before, although the rage today is greater. When you think back to the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building, the Empire State, Rockefeller, these were icons. Even in those times there was competition to build the tallest, most impressive. I think what’s happened more recently is that everybody wants to build an icon. Whether it deserves to be an icon or not I’m not sure, because to do icons you really have to do something quite special and spend a lot of money. And it has to make good sense where it is and have a reason to be other than just from an ego point of view—wanting to build the biggest twisted, turned, bent-over shaped building. I think those get to be a bit questionable. When you get tough economies like the one that we have in the U.S. today, I don’t think you’re going to see too many so-called icons where the sculptural shape dominates the function and cost of the building. I think you’re going to see simpler buildings because of the budgets, which may be a good thing because not every building in a city should be an icon. Every building shouldn’t compete with each other to see who could be the most unusual.

It’s nice when cities have a certain base concept, like Paris or New York, or a lot of European cities that have an overall feel, and context is quite similar. Then, when you put in a very special building, it’s quite different, like Frank Gehry did in Prague with his Dancing Building. It’s very unusual but it works there dramatically because all the rest of the buildings are quite uniform, of a similar texture and color, and are vertical and not leaning or twisted—so his stands out. I’m not against icons, but every developer and corporate leader you talk to says: “I want to build an icon,” and it may not make sense. What you want to do is build a sensitive and wonderful building that works for you and contributes to the community and to the context it’s in rather than fight with it.

Tall buildings are necessarily going to become more prevalent on the urban landscape. What needs to happen to ensure that these buildings have a long and a treasured life?
One, the design has to work and make good sense for where it is. It’s nice when the tall buildings are related to mass transit and are in locations where growth around them makes them important and their density works in that area. You want to coordinate with transportation and ensure that they don’t stand out by themselves but are part of a community. You see that in Hong Kong and obviously here in New York, where the tall buildings seems to work well with each other.

Two, I think you want to be sensitive to the size of the building related to its site, the community it’s in, its ability to handle the street population, and that there are ample services to go with it, because that keeps the building viable. In the design, our clients like to use the word “timeless.” They ask that the building look as great today as it will 30, 50, 100 years from now, and that it will be of materials and systems that have long life. But the building also has to be well maintained—architects can only do so much. They can design it and build it well, but if it’s not maintained properly, these buildings don’t perform as well or look as good.

Advice for young architects
What’s exciting about our profession is that we have a phenomenal opportunity to create an environment for people to live, work, learn, play, get well; we can create a built environment that is positive in their lives. I think people have forgotten that architecture is not just real estate or a building or an asset that’s a bottom line. These buildings affect the lives of many people. If you think about it, doctors have a lot of patients but their work really only affects that group, unless they do research or some phenomenal operation that can be copied. Basically, their work is related to their patients.

Architects, on the other hand, may work for very few people but their projects, their buildings influence many for generations to come, both positively and negatively. If you do something quite well and create a wonderful environment for people to live in, work in, play in, or learn in, you’ve done something that’s so important for society, for the health of people, and for the way communities and people relate. I don’t think enough emphasis is given to the role we play in society and how important it is. We’re much more important than most of the investment bankers and a lot of other people, because we really are contributing something very positive (when we do it well) to the landscape that affects people’s lives. Doing it well is important.

Because of the global economy, young architects have the chance to influence society like never before, because years ago most of us worked locally or regionally, a few nationally, and very few globally. Now we have a chance to influence the lives of people from Africa to China to South America to the Mideast, and if you do it well it’s a great accomplishment. This is a great time to be an architect, and they should approach it with high hopes. But one of the things they have to learn is being sensitive to clients and to the communities and learning the technology of buildings as well as the aesthetic because you’ve got to do both well. In the end, it’s solving the problems of the building so that it works well and does what it has to do in all aspects: physically, psychologically, and emotionally.