As part of our ongoing series of interviews with architectural legends, we are proud to present this interview with RK Stewart. It was a pleasure to interview him and to learn more about all the contributions he has made to the industry. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Beginning When did you decide to become an architect? As a kid growing up in the ‘60s in the Midwest, I built car models and airplane models. In suburbia, there were houses being built all over the place, with lots of scrap lumber and materials. I started banging things together, and I got into making stuff. In high school, I thought, “So who are the people who are making cool stuff?” Architecture lured me in and has never let me go. Talk about your training. I was raised in St. Louis, the home of Washington University (WashU). My father was very excited about me going to WashU, and he tried to sell that idea of “And you can live at home,” which didn’t sound like the best idea in the world to me. Kansas and Missouri had a reciprocal agreement where kids from Missouri could go to either the University of Kansas or Kansas State University for in-state tuition. So, I went to Lawrence with my folks and fell in love with the University of Kansas campus; it’s always ranked as one of the most beautiful campuses in the U.S. I went directly into architecture, and following my four-year degree, Fount Smothers, my primary instructor, pointed me to the University of Michigan, which has one of the longest running architecture programs in the country. I went up to Ann Arbor and graduated in 1975 with a Master of Architecture. Those of you with white hair might remember that ‘75 was a year of pretty deep recession with stagflation, so jobs were few, especially for those right out of university. Between my graduation in August and December of that year, I made about 60 contacts with firms all across the country. Most of the time, I’d walk into a place, and there’d be nobody at the reception desk. I’d look around the corner and back in the drafting room. There were three guys with their shirtsleeves rolled up, bent over their parallel bars. The owner perked up with, “Can I help you, son?” I said, “Yeah, I’m just wondering if you need help?” They’d say, “No, but good luck.” That went on for months. Academia Luckily, Fount Smothers had become the chair of architecture at Louisiana State University and needed somebody to fill in for a faculty member on sabbatical. I spent a semester teaching introductory design in Baton Rouge. After that semester, I was able to join the faculty at Mississippi State University. Mississippi State’s School of Architecture had only been stood up about two years earlier in Starkville. In 1976, everything was brand new. William McMinn, FAIA, was the dean, James Barker, FAIA, was the associate dean, and we had about 12 faculty. We were making traditions every day because whatever we did, it was the first time it had ever been done. Dean McMinn, who had worked at CRS out of Houston, was a true legend. The Dean persuaded the folks at CRS to join us as adjunct faculty for about a year. We had our fifth-year students in Jackson getting an urban project while developing their thesis projects. CRS would send guys over for three days a week to work with them. That experience made me understand that there was a lot more to learn about creating buildings than exploring spatial concepts. Since those days, I’ve really tried every day to learn something new but also teach something to someone else. I figured out early on that the teaching component is perhaps more important than the learning component. In our industry, we’re constantly mentoring our younger staff, the contractors we work with, the consultants we work with and, more importantly, our clients because everybody knows what we do, right? Most laypeople, having lived their entire lives in a building, think they can do this stuff. Once you illustrate to them that there are a lot more choices that go into every decision creating a building, Former Presidents RK Stewart, FAIA, with Jeanne Jackson, FAIA, at Investiture 9
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