Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad’s 75th birthday. In 1939 he was the first baby born in Rock Springs, Wyoming. As far as the arts go, today my thoughts turn to architecture.

My father is an architect and, as a child, it was a great privilege to accompany him to a job site. He called these visits “inspections,” because the purpose was to inspect the progress of a building that he had designed. On a rare day off school, or perhaps during summer break, I was so excited when it was my turn to go with him. I am the fifth of six children and he never took more than two of us at a time (though I don’t remember my teenage sisters caring about missing going to work with dad). Usually the site was somewhere in Salt Lake City, but I remember trips as far as Price, Utah.

I would have so much fun with my brother or little sister exploring the church building through unfinished walls—to me there’s no greater playground than a half constructed building. The smell of wood, sheet rock, new carpet and paint always remind me of my dad. We would collect the round metal pieces left behind from new electrical outlets. There may be an official name for them, but we affectionately called them “slugs” and we’d take them home to be our play money. I liked hearing my dad give corrections to the subcontractors, proud that he was the boss of everybody else.

But the most memorable part of these experiences was following my dad around as he meticulously noticed every line, curve and corner of that building. It was almost as if it were part of him. He would get on his tape recorder and make an audible note to himself if a beam, a light fixture or some other detail were wrong. I remember looking around when he would make such a report trying to see what needed correction, but everything looked fine to me. He knew what that building was capable of becoming, and wanted it to function at its full capacity, even if future patrons might not notice small inaccuracies. I came to appreciate the joy and pride my father took in fine tuning something he had created. An architect has to have the vision of a finished product, even from the earliest sketches. I have the image fixed in my memory of him hunched over his drafting table with a red pencil. My father made a plan on paper (he learned his craft long before computer drafting), and then saw that plan into fruition.

I am spending this holiday break at my parents’ house and I decided last night to ask my dad about some of his favorite architecture. We talked a little about Frank Lloyd Wright and he showed me photos from his college trip to Arizona to see some of Wright’s famous houses. But he said his favorite two buildings are the cathedral of Notre Dame and St. Peter’s Basilica. He traveled in Europe as a young man after completing a mission for his church. Witnessing these religious masterpieces is what inspired him to become an architect. He dedicated his career to designing buildings where people could worship God.

I’ve had the privilege to walk in and around these two cathedrals, and many others. They are beautiful and inspiring on so many levels.

Notre Dame in Paris

 

St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome