go get him.” We called her mom back and said, “We want him to speak at our event. We need you to get in front of him.” The next day, Gwen called me back: it worked! Gwen’s mom went and ran Al Gore down and said, “My daughter’s an architect. They’re doing this thing on sustainability. They really want you to come.” He turned to his assistant and said, “Let’s talk to these people.” We struck a deal, and he was on board. We announced it. As with many things around sustainability issues, there was some polarization. For every person who said, “That’s great. It’s exciting to see Gore there.” I got two of “I’m never coming to a convention again. How can you politicize the AIA? How can you politicize architecture? I’m dropping my membership,” which was a little disheartening, but I tried to keep a good face on it. And I tried to say, “We’ll miss you. You can come back any time.” The day was quite exciting. The CEO and I were able to spend a couple of hours with him over lunch. Whenever I’m dealing with an elected official, one of the things I always try and finish the conversation with is “What can we do to help you? What are you working on now?” Al Gore said, “I’m just finishing this book called ‘The Assault on Reason.’” That book foresaw many of the current issues we face, including challenges to authorities and questioning science. Al Gore was adamant that he wanted to spend time with the student organization. We sat in with him. The AIA president said, “Here’s this forum of 50 students. Do you want to just chat? I’ve got some questions I could ask.” Gore was great: “I want to hear your questions.” He’s having this conversation with them, and my phone starts going off with texts because the fire marshal was very concerned about how many people we were going to have in the room. They were counting very carefully and had held everybody outside the room and weren’t letting people in. The people were starting to get a little angry. I excused myself to try and help resolve the issue. We finally did, and we packed the room at 3,000. Not everybody was able to get in. There were some disappointed folks. I go out, and I introduce him. We shake hands, and I turn Al Gore loose. I’m in the green room and as nervous as a cat, thinking, “Wow, what’s going to happen?” He starts with this stump speech that I’d seen on YouTube, which is hilarious. Then as his talk went on, some of the things that he and I talked about at lunch started to come through. He’d say, “You guys are doing this, but we can take it here.” He was putting a challenge out to us. And I was so happy, I had tears in my eyes. The audience was just jacked up. They were going crazy. And I was like, “Now I’m going to have to go back out there and wrap this thing up?” I’m not exactly shy about being a provocateur, but this crowd reaction got me pretty nervous. He wrapped up, and I went out and thanked him. Then I proceeded to close the convention with my comments. I challenged the people in the room to go back to their practices, not to business as usual, but with a new perspective on what the potential of architecture is and what we can do, not just around building context and building history, but changing the planet. We are leaving the artifacts of our culture, and that’s an important piece of what we do, but also it is our goal to help save the planet. We are the only species on earth that knowingly, willingly fouls the nest. It continues to amaze me that we don’t have a more aggressive, more intelligent approach to what’s happening around us with the built environment. And so, having done my part, I left the stage and started to look at what’s next, just to continue to mentor, continue to try and learn and teach every day, and do what I can to bring us all along to a better-preferred future. What advice would you give to a young architect? The first thing is it’s not about you. It’s about the good you can do and should do with the skills and gifts that you’ve been given. It’s about the people who are going to inhabit whatever buildings you put together and also the people who just walk by on the street. You’re creating context. You’re creating history. It’s about getting things done. So, learn to build buildings. Learn what makes them tick. Learn building science. Know how to make a better building. And then I think it’s about celebrating the human condition. Just recognize that what you’re doing is going to have a ripple effect for 60 or 70 years; that building is going to be there. So don’t take it lightly. Two generations from now, somebody else is going to be inhabiting that space. Get your license. Get your license. Get your license. One of the things to recognize is, according to NCARB, there are 120,000 architects in the country. How many lawyers are there in the country? I don’t think the ratio looks good for us. It’s not all about you. It’s about what you leave behind. Think about those people, particularly those coming up behind you and how you mentored them and helped them to understand what they can do and should do as an architect.
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