Open Notes at 85: Thoughts on the Journey

Jan Wampler is an International known architect and has practiced in over twenty countries including the United States. After graduating from Harvard, GSD in 1964 Wampler worked in San Juan, Puerto Rico as Director of the Diseño Urbano at ARUV. During this time, he designed numerous housing projects and received the First Design Award in 1968 from Progressive Architecture for the project La Puntilla in the old city of San Juan. Coming back to Boston, Wampler was Director of the Planning Design Group for the Boston Redevelopment Authority. During this time, he designed the 1976 International Exposition that was to be built in Boston. In 1970 he both started an office and was asked to teach at MIT, Architecture Program. At MIT Wampler taught till 2015 where he was Director of the Undergraduate Program. During this time, he also taught at Berkley and Pomona of the University of California as well as RISD, University of Sydney, and Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Wampler’s office has designed many projects and received many awards with the Angela Westover House receiving Design Awards from BSA and Massachusetts AIA. He has written 3 books, “All Their Own”, “Open Strings for e”, “Open Notes for Architects” He has been featured at MIT with several exhibitions, the major one entitled “Open Strings for E”, a summary of work for 25 years. Robert Campbell, architectural critic reviewing the exhibition referred to him as the “Walt Whitman of Architecture”. I now have a new book, “Open Notes at 85”. The book is 230 pages in length and is illustrated with color images of my architectural work over the years. It also contains an interview, in which I trace my progress and reflect on my personal thoughts on the future of architecture. I close the book with a proposal that architects take the lead on providing housing for the 2 billion people who lack adequate housing. The book has a foreword by world-renowned architects Fumihiko Maki, Aldo Van Eyck and John Habraken. _________________________________________________ Reviews: The life stories of interesting and accomplished persons will on occasion elicit in the reader the pleasurable thought that “you couldn’t make that up.” The architect Jan Wampler’s Open Notes at 85 is full of such moments—unexpected encounters with the famous, reversals of fortune after adversity both professional and personal, friends and acquaintances coming through in ways unforeseen, and especially the rewards of success through dogged persistence against unfavorable odds. If the book were fiction, the genre of magical realism would come to mind, along with characters like Forrest Gump and Zelig. Jan has had an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. But never does one doubt that it’s all true, because all the anecdotal treats are set within the absolutely down-to-earth through line of Jan’s professional credo, in which the measure of a building or other intervention is the degree to which it serves its users and the world, humanity writ large. His work has taken him to every corner of the globe, but there is no bowing to architectural fashion here, no trendy parametricism or unintelligible jargon, and no supertalls (he may well have been a bit rattled to learn that one of his early staff at the BRA went on to design what was for a time the world’s tallest building). Instead there is a dedication to solving real problems for real people, especially in the field of housing, whether at the scale of the individual dwelling or in massively ambitious proposals like that for the unbuilt 1976 Bicentennial World’s Fair in Boston Harbor, intended as a framework for reuse as a new community. This dedication Jan has in turn passed to his legion of students, at MIT and then at the University of South Florida, to whom the book is dedicated. Among its abundance of glorious illustrations are examples of student work, much of it based on field trips Jan has conducted with his charges all over the world, gathering background information for class projects. The result tends to be a lifetime of inspiration, as his able interlocutor and former student Paul Lukez displays in the book. Himself a distinguished practitioner, Lukez nimbly elicits the best of this young-at-heart sage’s thinking, experience, and work, leaving us all the better for it. Malcolm MacKenzie, Architect Author of "Who Seeks to Please" _________________________________________________________ With a life of connecting social justice, design, nature, and humanism, Jan Wampler gives us a glimpse into the elements that comprise his journey so far. In his thoughts about eight decades of woven experience Jan allows us to sample the direction and range of his influential work and teaching in his new book called, Open Notes at 85: Thoughts on the Journey. The compilation includes a spectrum of topics including architecture, teaching projects, painting, music, poetry, and inspired photos of the wide-ranging people encountered and influenced on Jan’s path. Colleagues and friends of Jan such as Aldo and Hannie Van Eyke, John Habraken, and Fumihiko Maki, have impacted Jan’s work and remarked on Jan’s special energy and focus to develop a personal way of explaining patterns and variations in our environment that make sense, and which inspire our collective experience. His teaching and practice have energized designers worldwide to pay attention to designing for basic human needs and to understand that the obligations of an architect go beyond an individual project. Incorporating civic ingredients and responsibilities to build with nature and recognizing a project’s life in context beyond self-important intent has been a hallmark illuminated in all of Jan’s work. The book is rich with a variety of historical background, images, and testimony about Jan’s distinguished work, all held together by a series of extensive, and deeply personal interviews with former student and acclaimed architect, Paul Lukez, FAIA. Jan’s red painting on the cover of Open Notes at 85 foretells the energy, warmth, and resolution of an imaginative practice and mentorship that has opened the minds of countless students and has contributed to the soul of our built environment. Steve Imrich, FAIA, Principal CambridgeSeven Associates (ret) _________________________________________________________ Open Notes at 85 – Thoughts on the Journey is the story of an architect-educator-artist-poet and humanitarian told in his own words through a series of interviews along with representations of professional, academic, artistic work encapsulating 70 years of dedication and passion to his craft. All through the book you see the perseverance of a person determined to make a difference in the world, someone not discouraged by setbacks along the way. This is best expressed in his advice given at the end of the book, “…you must be passionately involved with what you are doing when you design. It’s not a job. It’s a dedication to something that inspires and guides how you focus your life.” I found the book inspirational, stirring me to reassess my own direction and focus, reminding me of the important fact that design is more than making interesting things. Rather, it is about creating objects and places that make life more meaningful and habitable for others – clearly evidenced in words and pictures throughout the book. This book is for those who want to see what a life well-spent looks like, to find important advice for a life in design, education and art; to be inspired and at the same time summoned to look around and address the challenges that aggrieve us. Steve Cooke, Architect | Associate Professor SACD | School of Architecture + Community Design | College of Design, Art and Performance University of South Florida | 4202 East. Fowler Ave, HMS 301 | Tampa, FL 33620-8340 | www.arch.usf.edu Read more