making visits to Le Corbusier's buildings in France. I visited Mies's Villa Tugenhat in Brno, Czech Republic, in 1976 and saw it again, fully restored, in 2014. My work is indelibly influenced by modernist ideas about space and form. We are, for better or worse, in a postmodern era where it informs the larger discourse. Can you distinguish between postmodernism and classicism?
One aspect would be the part of postmodernism that's making fun, that we could say, Ha-ha. With classicism, we could get serious about using architectural paradigms. That's an interesting point. It makes me think of Memphis, which definitely had a spirit of fun, like some of Charles Moore's work, too.
Oh, yes. Charles Moore had a lot of anxiety as well as a spirit of fun and irony. I think that the postmodernists were anxious as to "what can we do?" When I look at your work, I'm sometimes struck by the sumptuous interiors. Were you ever tempted to shift to hospitality, which has an appetite for sumptuousness?
I certainly did enjoy designing the freestanding double staircase in the Kalb House in Illinois (1992), based on a beautiful precedent in the Shrewsbury House by Francis Costigan in Madison, Indiana (1846), both definitely sumptuous. After designing churches inspired by my love of Baroque examples, though, I've reoriented to developing a Romanesque simplicity in new ecclesiastical designs at the request of clients like the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, for a new seminary in Nebraska, and for the Benedictines at Annunciation Abbey at Clear Creek in rural Oklahoma for a new monastery. These major commissions were for clients who were seeking to express in their architectural work a radical return to the roots of Catholic religious practice. Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, completed in 2010, is based on paradigms of Romanesque architecture in Italy. The Benedictine monastery, in construction in phases since 2013, is based on austere French Cistercian models.
35
