25 Frank Ferguson is a no-nonsense sort of designer. He is simple. Simple is powerful when it comes to design; simple is enduring. So simple is just basically better. And he understood that very, very well. It’s hard to do things simple. If you can do it, you have more enduring building. We do a lot of buildings, but are they architecture? We do a building: the roof doesn't leak; we can find the front door and all the exit signs work. You know, those things must happen. And they are important things to have to happen. But are they brought to the level of a piece of architecture? Sometimes; sometimes not. There are a thousand buildings before you get to one piece of architecture. Abravanel Hall is a piece of architecture. How did your career evolve? Why did you stay in Salt Lake City? I tell you why: I was given some nice projects to work on. I was given the responsibility to design the initial ’81 expansion of the Salt Palace on South Temple. I was excited. It was a big project. I'm a young guy; 25 or 26 years old and I've got to go in and make this first initial presentation to the client. This is what is so wonderful, magic, about this work. It is what keeps you coming back. You've got all the drawings, you've got the design, and it's the first time the client sees it. There's this certain joy that takes place when you reveal this project. They've been waiting for it. You’re wanting to be sanctioned, that you've done the right thing. And when they see it, they get excited about it. I tell you, it's compelling, and then you get to do this again and again on every project. Then as Judd and the firm got older, we were making way for a new generation to take over. I was offered the position of principal in the firm a year and a half after I was there. That might have been a ploy to keep me from wandering off, and it worked, so I stayed. Those guys were moving on. My responsibilities got larger. Good people came in. We had Peter Emerson involved; Peter's a wonderful leader. John Shuttleworth … So, the firm kind of evolved from Ralph and Judd to Peter and me and John and others. With that evolution comes the fact that all this joyous work, like designing buildings got throttled back because now you've got to go out and get work. You've got to prepare. Preparing for interviews is half the thing now that architects do. I didn't like preparing interviews. I didn't like to take the time. And then the last seven or eight years, I could back off and enjoy myself a little bit more – to pick the projects and spend as much time as I could mentoring people. My mentoring role was very fulfilling. I felt like we contributed to the community. I feel good about my body of work; I felt like we had a lot of good people come on up to keep the big story going. What are you particularly proud of? The one that stands out is the 2002 Olympic ski jump, bobsled, luge and interpretive buildings. The project had a cast of thousands. I think it is a pretty good building. It's not really a building. It's a built environment. It was an opportunity to work on a building type that there are only a few of in the whole world; so, you can work on a unique building type and put it in a context of a unique spot in Utah. The ski jumps were cut into the hill instead of these ski jumps like in Europe where they're sitting on top of the hill and are on stilts. By doing that, it didn't seem too much in your face. It also allowed the prevailing winds to come around and blow up the jump so that these jumpers could go for further on the building. Programmatically the building was simple. There's one front door and there's only really one way out – down the hill. Otherwise, you must walk back up. It was an appropriate building. It was laid out well on the hill. The buildings I like best that I've done are simple. I don't do a lot of fussy details. It is going to be a relevant building for a long time. I still like Governors Plaza. There are a lot of things that went wrong because developers took money out of it. It could have been a better building, but it was an appropriate building on South Temple. A developer tore down a historic building on that site, in the middle of the night because the city was going to file an injunction preventing it from being torn down the next day. Before they did it, he bulldozed the building so he could build an office building where this old house was. There was no way after that bad behavior that he was going to get approval from the Historic Landmarks Commission to build anything, so he sold it to another developer. That The buildings I like best that I’ve done are simple. I don’t do a lot of fussy details. It is going to be a relevant building for a long time. — continued on page 26 Jud Daniels and Burke Cartwright
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