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By Invitation: Looking Up: Peter Pennoyer's New York

The AD100 Hall of Famer, architect, author, and historian joins the 51黑料网's podcast

By Invitation features discussions by architects, designers, garden professionals, urbanists, craftspeople, and luminaries in the classical design field about the relevance of the classical tradition in today's modern world.

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Looking Up: Peter Pennoyer's New York

In this episode of By Invitation, host Caroline Slaten explores New York City's past and present with AD100 Hall of Famer, architect, author, and historian Peter Pennoyer.

To know Peter is to know an endless source of fascinating stories, observations, and insights. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation that spans America's great architects, the surprising connections between architecture and everyday life, Peter's passion for collecting curious objects, and a fresh way of seeing New York the next time you walk its streets.

Along with being the founding principal of Peter Pennoyer Architects, Peter has co-authored numerous books, taught classes, mentored countless students and young professionals, and served as the past chairman and a board member of the 51黑料网. He is a recipient of an Arthur Ross Award for architecture as well as The Richard H. Driehaus Prize.

Whether you're an architect, an enthusiast, or simply someone who loves New York, this lively conversation offers a masterclass in curiosity, observation, and the enduring power of great architecture.

Episode Transcript

Peter Pennoyer: 00:02

I think it's the richest language, and it's a language that's evolved over millennia, and it's a language that allows you to participate with architects you admire and to try to address the same problems that architects you admire addressed. And you're in dialogue with all of these towering figures when you engage with classicism, but it's the common language, it's accessible.

Caroline Slaten: 00:30

Welcome to By Invitation, a podcast of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, where we're dedicated to advancing the understanding, appreciation, and practice of classical design. I'm your host, Caroline Slaten, and in each episode we'll explore the people, places, and ideas shaping the world of classical design. Today we're going to explore New York City past and present with A.D. Hall of Famer, architect, and historian Peter Pennoyer. To know Peter is to know he is a vault of knowledge and stories, so settle in for tales about some of America's notable architects, a peek into Peter's hobby of collecting interesting curiosities, what laundry has to do with architecture, and tips for a new and interesting way to look at New York City next time you are walking down the street. And by invitation, here is today's guest, Peter Pennoyer. Along with being the founding principal of Peter Pennoyer Architects, Peter has co-authored numerous books, taught classes, mentored countless students and young professionals, and served as the past chairman and a board member of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art. He's a recipient of an Arthur Ross Award for Architecture, as well as the Richard H. Driehaus Prize.

Caroline Slaten: 02:10

What age did you start considering design and architecture?

Peter Pennoyer: 02:14

I started thinking about architecture when my father began bringing home plans for buildings that the city was reviewing. He was president of an obscure agency called the Art Commission, which met in the attic of City Hall and reviewed anything that would be placed on city property. So it could be a public school, it could be a bus stop, a water fountain, anything. So he would bring home plans. And he also was on the board of the Metropolitan Museum where he was on the, I don't know what they called it then, the architecture committee. And so he would take me on tours with Drexler and we'd walk around as they were building the Temple of Dendur wing and as they were building the Lehman Wing. And so that um, set me thinking. And then we had family friends who were architects who made it seem like a really fantastic thing to do, to go to work and draw. So I was young when I thought about it.

Caroline Slaten: 03:19

If you were to have any other career besides architecture, what would you do?

Peter Pennoyer: 03:24

I think there, well, there's so many interesting careers that I thought about at various times. I think law would be really interesting because I love history, and law is partly based on on history and understanding history. Um, so I think lawyer, maybe, and I also love to work with my hands and make things. So I think sculpture occurred to me for a while, and I made these cardboard, huge cardboard pyramids in our yard and spray painted them various primary colors, which was exhilarating until I oversprayed the paint and got paint all over the flagstones in the terrace.

Caroline Slaten: 04:05

And then you got in a little trouble.

Peter Pennoyer: 04:06

And my father said, What have you done? My mother said, Don't stop him. He's being creative.

Caroline Slaten: 04:12

He can't stifle creativity.

Peter Pennoyer: 04:14

Anyway, so that yes, I think a sculptor would be an amazing way of being an artist.

Caroline Slaten: 04:20

Do you sculpt now at all?

Peter Pennoyer: 04:21

I do not sculpt. I have no abilities nor have I tried. I admire people who can, who can do that.

Caroline Slaten: 04:30

And you're a born and bred native New Yorker. So I think you must be able to relate to the city as a living, shifting entity where the past is constantly overlaid by new development. How has the fabric of the city changed throughout your life?

Peter Pennoyer: 04:44

I mean, it's changed, you know, radically. Um when my parents bought their house on 65th Street, the Third Avenue L was still was just coming down. I don't remember it because I was an infant. But and then there were, you know, the the the tall neighborhoods, especially on the Upper East Side, east of Lexington Avenue, were all low tenements and brownstones. So it had a completely different flavor. The tall buildings that I recall as a child were One Wall Street and Rockefeller Center, the Seagrams Building, the Lever House. But, you know, there was the the city is just radically different now.

Caroline Slaten: 05:31

You talked about some towers. You've designed quite a few classically inspired towers. How would you say that classical detailing can be adapted for the verticality of a skyscraper?

Peter Pennoyer: 05:43

I haven't done super talls like my friends at RAMSA, but I have done buildings that are 22 stories. So I think in New York those actually aren't considered tall, but but classical details work. The basic conception of a tall building as a base, middle, and top was always the best solution for resolving height and mass. Setbacks add to the complexity. But even though you end up with asymmetrical massing with setbacks, the classical language still helps you organize facades and helps meet you compose facades that don't seem like you know random decoration of zoning diagrams, which some of the modern buildings do.

Caroline Slaten: 06:28

And you mentioned one wall. I've accompanied you once on a historic walking tour you gave of the Wall Street area, and it was a really fascinating look. And now I see those buildings much differently after that. How does that kind of tall tower compare to designing a 20-story tower?

Peter Pennoyer: 06:46

I mean, I think the problem is is different because you, although you experience a tower as a pedestrian the same way, whether it's tall or super tall, its appearance on the skyline is a different matter when it rises above everything around it. And that building has a radically different approach. Ralph Walker made the facades like undulating curtains that just spill down from the top of the building all the way to the sidewalk in a kind of undulating profile. I think Stern called it in New York 1930 like a curtain, like a stage curtain. So there are no horizontal datums, there's no string chorus, there's no bass, there's no cornice. It's all just this wonderfully undulating sculptural, sculptural presence. And even the windows are folded. I don't think anyone's achieved that since, although Frank Gehry's building in the financial district, I think, tries to do that, or at least Paul Goldberger wrote that he thought Gehry was channeling One Wall Street, but I'm not sure. It doesn't quite have that same energy.

Caroline Slaten: 07:56

And what is it about that area, the downtown Wall Street area, that's makes it such an important mecca for classical design?

Peter Pennoyer: 08:03

I mean, I think it's the it's the uh intensity of having so many buildings around such small streets, such narrow streets, and also that the street grid is irregular. So you have plots that are completely irregular, polygonal shapes, that are filled out by building bases, which then resolve into beautifully symmetrical towers. So you have Brown Brothers, which was Delano and Aldrich. Um, you have the first city bank building, you have Standard Oil, um all of these buildings teach us lessons about how architecture meets the street and how it meets the sky. And they're all so compact. And the wonderful surprise of a walking tour down there is that you can walk around and talk about a building, but it may not be till five blocks later that you look back and actually get a view through one of the canyons of the top of the building. So you have to really navigate your way around the whole financial district to be able to see any of these buildings. There's that famous view down Wall Street, which so many great photographers have captured. Uh, we're looking beyond. On the left is the Morgan Bank building, and on the right is the sub-treasury, and then in the distance is Trinity Church, Richard Upjohn's beautiful brownstone masterpiece.

Caroline Slaten: 09:29

It's an incredible view. Peter, you wear so many different hats. You're an architect, a mentor, an educator, historian, author. I'm probably missing some. Which of these disciplines do you feel most closely connected to?

Peter Pennoyer: 09:49

I think it's all related to architecture for me. And when I write about architectural history, which I do most often with my partner in writing, Ann Walker, I try to bring an architect's eye to looking at buildings. I try to suppress that way of looking at things and instead react to buildings as as design. But on the other hand, I'm fascinated by primary sources. So I'm very interested in how buildings were received in their own time and how the building succeeded in the context of the original architects' intentions as opposed to some writing now about historical architecture and certainly criticism and philosophy, the architecture schools where one's supposed to filter historical architecture through a contemporary political lens, which leads to judgments, which I think are sometimes interesting but often misplaced. I'm astounded by how much was built and how many great buildings were built in such a short period when New York was just bursting with energy and sort of finding its identity, especially those architects who were fueled by having attended the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris, but also then embracing the city beautiful movement. And Whitney Warren comes to mind. He had just a brilliant stroke of a dramatic flair almost in using the language of French modern architecture, which is what we call the style that many of them brought back from Paris. And his work at Grand Central Terminal is, you know, unsurpassed. It is, for me, the center of the island of Manhattan, the concourse room is. And the stories are, some of them are not about architecture as much as they are about, let's say, the ego of someone like Warren, and which I think is related to how he was able to impose his will on the board of the New York Central. One example is that the structure of that building is actually set to support a tower from the moment it was built. But Whitney Warren convinced the board, which included Vanderbilt and Morgan, to forego the tower because it would undermine the building's presence as a civic monument. And he was right, of course. And we can see that he was right when you look at the Detroit train station, which he designed, which does have a tower over it. But how he was able to convince a company that was a profit-making enterprise to forego the clear profit motive of building a tower is extraordinary. Then there are stories that aren't really about architecture that give you a clue to his personality. The painters were ready to paint the ceiling of the concourse, the whole vault on one of his shirts. And the shirt had been sent to Paris to be laundered, which is a very common thing then. So Whitney Warren then made them wait a week. And one of his assistants showed up with a little basket with a shirt in it and said, This is the one.

Caroline Slaten: 12:57

That's incredible.

Peter Pennoyer: 12:58

Um yes, he also um he loved parties and he loved dressing up, and he threw a party for one client that was so over the top that it led to all sorts of trouble. And the client had to leave New York, basically leave America for the rest of his life. So, yes, every one of these architects was in that period had enormous productivity and very interesting stories.

Caroline Slaten: 13:26

Which of those architects would you say most has or maybe there's multiple that have inspired you and informed your work today?

Peter Pennoyer: 13:34

I think all of them do, but I think Delano, most of all, because he was dealing with a very sparing vocabulary. He used classicism with a with a light touch. He was uh you know, partly just interested in I say the sort of more restrained versions of federal architecture in Georgian, even though it annoyed him when anyone tried to label his buildings as one particular style. But he did have uh just enough ornament, just enough sort of you know, detail it's almost like just enough butter for the bread, or not quite enough. I think is more interesting for me personally than Whitney Warren, who went over the top, as you can see at the New York Yacht Club, if you're interested in seeing the most over-the-top Beaux-Arts building in New York.

Caroline Slaten: 14:29

Always leave them wanting a little more, right?

Peter Pennoyer: 14:32

Yeah, yeah.

Caroline Slaten: 14:33

And do you have any must-read books you would recommend for someone eager to learn more about architectural history?

Peter Pennoyer: 14:39

I mean, I think Roger Scruton On Architecture, his book is just a foundational book, which I didn't discover until just a few years ago. I think that's a really important book. And I think there are two volumes of Bob Stern's collected essays, which are just brilliant and help you understand how we came through postmodernism and how traditional architecture was really woven into architectural practice after the kind of hegemony of modernist orthodoxy was falling in the 70s.

Caroline Slaten: 15:19

What about traditional and classical architecture speaks to you? Why do you use that medium?

Peter Pennoyer: 15:24

I mean, I think it's the richest language, and it's a language that's evolved over millennia, and it's a language that allows you to participate with architects you admire and to try to um address the same problems that architects you admire addressed. And you're you're in dialogue with all of these towering figures, and when you engage with classicism, but it's a common language, it's accessible, it takes hard work, it is humbling because when you begin drawing a classical building, or at least in my case, I realize that I'm probably not quite as talented as the lowliest draftsman at McKim Mead & White in 1905. I mean, it does put you in your place. So I think it's an endlessly rewarding language, and it's it's it spurs the imagination and it's completely flexible. It is, you know, the opposite of what it's being accused of often, which is kind of a barren orthodoxy. It's not that. It's a challenge.

Caroline Slaten: 16:29

Well, and speaking of challenges, one of the things I most admire about your work is that it doesn't all look the same. You have a varied style. Like, for example, you did a Czech Cubism house. Tell me about working with different styles and how do you even know how to begin to design in that way?

Peter Pennoyer: 16:47

So architecture, as you know, is collaboration. And Gregory Gilmartin, who has worked with me for 40 years now, is a brilliant designer and scholar of architecture who's actually brought architectural history into his into his head when he draws, he's actually drawing on history, not in the way one uses a pattern book where you look over at a picture and then copy it or modify it. It's simply coming from his head. And so Rowdy Meadow was an incredibly challenging assignment because we were asked to incorporate an obscure style called Czech Cubism, which only existed for six years in and around Prague before World War I, into a country house. And I was almost going to give up and think we'd be fired. But Gregory reminded me that we had bought, when we were in Prague together in 1985, three books on Czech Cubism. And he said they were waiting on the shelf like fine wine waiting to be consumed. So I'd say in that case, you know, without that team and without Gregory at the head of it, we would not have been able to accomplish that. And it is a matter of studying it and understanding what the essence of it is and what the roots of it are, and then sitting down and drawing it, not just talking about it or thinking about it. And so we welcome a diversity of styles, but each one of them takes a lot of work and the clients aren't willing to, nor should they be asked to pay for your continuing education. So a lot of this happens on off hours when we're reading books and traveling and looking at buildings that might fit the bill.

Caroline Slaten: 18:26

And then does that change your vocabulary and your outlook moving forward? Do you take that then to your future projects?

Peter Pennoyer: 18:33

Absolutely. So I'm working on a house now that is going to look more modern, is I think the right word, and than what one would normally expect from my office, especially in the Hamptons, where we're used to doing shingles. And so some of the forms and some of the moldings from Rowdy Meadow will help us bring the house to a level that we would not have been able to do had we just been looking at more recent examples of contemporary houses on the beach. So what we do is we simply find out everything we can about the street, the town, the village, the campus. And we have hundreds, we have thousands of books. So we we usually have books that give us a beginning of exploring, you know, precedents. But really, it's also helpful in getting the community to support a project to show the people who live there that you appreciate their history and understand the building typologies and the actual monuments that they appreciate. So it helps us be successful, but it requires study and it requires throwing aside your assumptions about what would be, you know, correct. We just had a meeting with a client and we were proposing cast iron columns on a portico on the front of their house, which they had never seen in their neighborhood, obviously. But people do have porticos in front of houses in Connecticut. We pulled out a book of Labrouste and were able to show them a drawing of a beautiful cast iron column from his library building in in Paris. So it's both making it contextual, but also if you're trying to design a house that's French in a neighborhood that did have some French country houses, you need to know where to look at.

Caroline Slaten: 21:11

How do you go about getting a community to feel confident about a new thing being built or a renovation of a project that already exists that's beloved by the locals?

Peter Pennoyer: 21:26

I think there's a natural inclination to be worried about change if you love your neighborhood. Many of us would actually prefer that nothing happened. Even if your neighbor's house is a little run down. The idea of someone else coming in and building something new is terrifying. And in fact, Paul Goldberger years ago pointed out that part of the preservation instinct is because people are simply terrified of what might come next if you tear down a building. I think buy-in is understanding the community, relating your facade to what's there, if it's not that. Having a story that makes sense as to why the building isn't of that style. There always has to be, I think, a story. We took on a project in Virginia, and the original house was built in the 1850s and it was never completed. So it was a very strange thing. But it was National Register and Virginia State Register. And the first architect had immediately wanted to add on a big wing to make a huge family room and a mega kitchen and huge bathrooms. And when we took over, I said, if you want to preserve the soul of the house, we're going to have to achieve all of that within the footprint of what we have. And we'll modify it and we'll respect and we'll also complete this house because it wasn't completed, but we understand where the style would have led the architect or the builder. So that was an example of getting of getting buy-in. But the Virginia State people were very worried that a New York architect had showed up and was going to touch this jewel of an old Italianate villa.

Caroline Slaten: 23:01

Your firm designed the now iconic Art Deco-inspired clock in Moynihan Train Hall, which is now such a photographed background for both locals and visitors alike. It's such a landmark moment. And how does it feel to add your thumbprint to the fabric of Manhattan in that way?

Peter Pennoyer: 23:19

I was so grateful that we were asked to the competition. It was just such an amazing moment. And it was also interesting because the the place had almost been completed when Governor Cuomo decided, you know, we need a clock. So it was very late in the game, which I think made it even more interesting. Everyone in the office was so proud to do that. And it was fun because it was essentially like a design-build assignment where from the beginning we had to propose who would make the clock and who would make the case for the clock, and what the font would be on the dial of the clock. So it was a complete package, and it was done very quickly, which is also fun because sometimes when we build things, it can take two years. And it was in the middle of COVID and everyone pitched in, and the the Americlock executive drove the clock himself from I think it was Minneapolis, where it was manufactured, on a flatbed to get it to New York, and we all rolled up our sleeves.

Caroline Slaten: 24:22

And I recall that there was a lot of work or thought that went into, like you said, the font, but also the visibility.

Peter Pennoyer: 24:29

Yeah. So at some point at close to the end of the actually manufacturing process, Hyde Park actually made the case. They did a brilliant job. Um we had a panic call from Albany asking how could they be sure that you'd be able to read the dial, the clock, you'd be able to read the number and see that it's 9:22? And I called the associate who's working on it in the office because it was COVID. We were all at home. And he had already thought of this. He'd snuck into the office, printed out on our mega printer the dial. It must have been five feet wide, and then gone back home and on a Sunday hung it from his window and then measured out the distance. The furthest point you could see this thing in Moynihan Hall and showed him, you know, proved that he could actually read it from whatever it was, 122 feet. So that was the that was the experiment that I didn't know that someone in the office had taken.

Caroline Slaten: 25:31

That's true dedication to the craft. So you also, Peter, have a passion and curiosity for antiques and historical relics. Is there a period of history or a type of piece you're most interested in collecting?

Peter Pennoyer: 25:49

I mean, I'm attracted to Regency furniture. I love American classical furniture. I think Duncan Phyfe had an amazingly deft way of designing graceful furniture where he incorporates carvings. So I'm interested in furniture that does include other art like carvings and gilding and other materials. But no, I have a fairly broad range of of taste.

Caroline Slaten: 26:16

Where do you source things? Do you ever go to auction?

Peter Pennoyer: 26:19

I think auctions are wonderful because you get to go and lift things up and look at them and poke them, which you can't do in a museum or you shouldn't do in a museum. You're not supposed to. And so I love all the auction houses. There's endless pleasure in sifting through those auction catalogs online now. I miss the printed ones actually. And then, you know, there's some dealers who are wonderful, like my friend Angus Wilkie, the people who collect, and the dealers are also so knowledgeable that it's always worth understanding that it's not just a transaction. You're actually learning something when you go to a good dealer.

Caroline Slaten: 27:00

Do you have anything unexpected that you collect?

Peter Pennoyer: 27:03

Unexpected, wow. I have two curiosity cabinets in my house, and they are full of unexpected, unexpected things. I don't know where to start the catalog. Uh, you know, a pigment set from the 1830s, because I think it's so interesting how people thought of color than, you know, a whalebone from a sailing ship in New Bedford from the 19th century, carved in the form of an alligator, and then medals. I enjoy collecting medals. Saint-Gaudens and all his circle created incredible medals and coins. But no, there's absolutely no discipline to my collection. But at least I keep I keep all the bric-a-brac tucked away neatly in two cabinets so it's not all over the house.

Caroline Slaten: 27:49

What about a period of time? Is there something you naturally gravitate towards?

Peter Pennoyer: 27:54

I'm interested in the 19th century because people were building fantastic mechanical models that show how how a mill was built or how a furnace worked. And so I enjoy collecting models and also science demonstration instruments. Are you familiar with that? So a physics teacher would actually have a big contraption with a crank to demonstrate a sine curve, like a whole machine to do that. I have a big soft spot for science demonstration instruments, and no one can tell me what they are. In fact, we have a big one when you come into the office, and actually the chairman of MIT walked in and said, that's a sine wave instrument. So, but no one else knows what they are, so they're mysterious and wonderful.

Caroline Slaten: 28:43

And does Katie your wife ever say, Don't bring anything else home?

Peter Pennoyer: 28:48

In our house in Millbrook, we have a bas-relief of Lincoln in the library above the door, and then we have a sculpture of Lincoln, a bust in bronze at the entry, and then a smaller Lincoln. And when I brought another Lincoln in in plaster, she said enough.

Caroline Slaten: 29:06

Too many Lincolns.

Peter Pennoyer: 29:07

That Lincoln is now in our- in our office.

Caroline Slaten: 29:16

Now, for such a firm that's so invested in traditional and classical design, you really do embrace technology. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Peter Pennoyer: 29:26

I mean, I think, you know, first of all, in building construction, I'm very interested in the science of building and how things can be built better and perform better, and how we can grow out of habits that may not be the most productive way of building things. So I try to learn from people who know what they're doing. As far as the technology of design, I think it has incredible promise in that it allows us to visualize things in 3D for illustration for for renderings. And the great strength of Revit is that it allows us to coordinate all the mechanical systems, all the structural systems, and all the architecture in one place with 100% accuracy so that conflicts are worked out ahead of time and not on site. The problem is that they encourage cookie-cutter architecture because they encourage you to import blocks and pieces of architecture into the model instead of designing them. So it encourages you to take a window that you've already designed and click and pop it into a facade, which is very efficient, very lazy, and probably for some architects very profitable. But we like to design a new when we design a house and not rely on a stocked library. But it's the - the uh, visualization is incredible.

Caroline Slaten: 30:48

You create these bespoke moments for your clients. Can you talk a little bit about how you give them something that's really customized to their taste and style and the way they use their home?

Peter Pennoyer: 31:00

We start with the assumption that we're going to be designing the house and all its details from scratch, which helps us then make the house relate to what the client is looking for. And then we try to share early on our books to show the client how other architects have approached similar design problems and get their feedback, not to copy those images, but to help people explain what they like. And then also we engage with amazing artisans and artists, you know, literally all over the world in different ways, from hardware to verre églomisé to plaster work to bas relief to wood Islamic screens that are carved in Kabul. It's a matter of designing, researching, and then engaging people who can do beautiful things.

Caroline Slaten: 31:49

A lot of people are talking lately about how craft is a dying art and it's hard to find the next generation of craftspeople, and how do you get them trained? How do you feel about that?

Peter Pennoyer: 32:01

Oh, I don't agree. I think there are more and more sources for craft. You know, so I, I think craft has become a luxury, which may be okay, but I also think that computer-driven craft is kind of feels wrong to us, but at the end of the day, you can do many things that you couldn't have done before, and many things are now affordable that would not have been. So if I see as I did a beautiful pattern on an iron grill, we can now redraft that and put it into the computer, and the manufacturer can use laser cutting driven by computer numeric control to produce five of them for a house. Would I not touch that because it's made by a computer? Probably I'd still say it's okay. I prefer to know that it's made by hand, but I think it will make more things affordable, which is good.

Caroline Slaten: 33:01

So it's making it more accessible to people that wouldn't otherwise be able to go out and buy the handmade object?

Peter Pennoyer: 33:07

Absolutely.

Caroline Slaten: 33:11

Peter, you've been involved with the 51黑料网 for so long. You were on the board of directors, you're on the president's council, you've lectured, you've done videos for us. How did you get involved here and what keeps you inspired in this mission?

Peter Pennoyer: 33:25

I had friends who were involved. Richard Cameron, the brilliant Richard Cameron, was involved in the early days. And then the architects who were practicing classicism, and there were very few of us knew about the Institute and saw it as a place where we could come together and think about architecture and uh enjoy each other's company in a more interesting setting than, let's say, the AIA.

Caroline Slaten: 33:51

And your firm is also very involved, and we see your younger emerging practitioners at our events, and it's really great. What would you say is the benefit to a young person in getting involved here at the 51黑料网?

Peter Pennoyer: 34:08

I mean, architecture is a collaboration, and being here as a young person proves to you you're not alone, and there are many other aspiring practitioners who are trying to learn, and that you're also in a space of the architectural world where learning is a common, is a common quest among you and your colleagues and friends, and you're not, as some people who do more avant-garde architecture are, simply going off, closing your door, and coming up with a unique and peculiar vision of what you think the world needs. It is a shared endeavor. And I think the 51黑料网 proves that in all this programming. And then you get to learn, you get to meet the craftsmen and the architects, and you get to go to the cast hall and see the Ghiberti doors.

Caroline Slaten: 35:04

Now, who were some of your top influences and what did having mentors, how did that shape the way you feel about mentoring the next generation?

Peter Pennoyer: 35:17

Without a doubt, Bob Stern was my top mentor. I met him when I was a freshman in college, and he urged me to join his course, and he was hard on me as he was on all his students and employees. But we enjoyed being bullied a bit and being forced to work harder, you know, look more carefully and care more. But the extraordinary thing about Bob as a mentor was that he was not looking to have young employees come and learn exactly the way he did things or had he had done things. He did not want people to simply crib or cannibalize projects that had been published five years before. He wanted people to come and bring something that was important for themselves that could contribute to extending the range of the office. And this was uh just an amazing thing to watch when I first started there, that he would allow younger people to design, you know, in a, in styles and ways that he might not have thought about. You have an obligation to move architecture forward to make it proper expression of his time and and relevant and and serve human needs and beauty. And so if you think of all those things, it means that you are not making a portrait of your own genius when you design something. You're making something that bridges your artistic essay to to humanism in general. I don't mean to get too overblown about it, but that's what it's about. That is what it's about. It's about humanism.

Caroline Slaten: 36:55

It really is. And how do you feel is your role to now mentor the next generation?

Peter Pennoyer: 37:02

I mean, it's just the greatest joy of having an office like mine where I see young people doing extraordinarily beautiful things. The best part is that I can't predict who's going to be good at it and in what ways. I encourage people to express themselves and to confer with others and to look at the books. The fact is, 80% of our job is getting things built and doing construction drawings and doing all that. Not one person in my office can do any of this successfully unless they have a design gene at the center of everything. You can't simply take some rough sketch by the principal of a firm and turn it into a building in a mechanical way. You have to have some visceral connection to it or understand it. Otherwise, it just comes out stillborn. It doesn't have any vitality.

Caroline Slaten: 37:52

And how important is hand drawing these days?

Peter Pennoyer: 37:56

I mean, I think it's disappearing, from what I understand. I think my office is very unusual. We still have people who come to work every day and draw, and not just here or there, but draw all day. That's how your mind is connected to the page and the design. It's how you - as a, as a person - connect to human scale. I think the screen is terrific for many things, but I think it divorces you from a sense of scale, and I think it encourages cut and paste. So I think hand drawing is incredibly important. Someone joined the office fairly recently, and his drawings of projects, his sketches, his perspectives have just been an astounding success with clients. And these are clients who see on various projects who perfectly rendered digital 3D space. And something about these drawings excites them more than the perfect rendering.

Caroline Slaten: 38:53

Why do you think it's disappearing? Are schools not teaching hand drawing?

Peter Pennoyer: 38:56

They're not teaching it. And I mean Columbia for some years has been a paperless studio.

Caroline Slaten: 39:03

How do you feel about that?

Peter Pennoyer: 39:05

I think it's a tragedy. But maybe they know something I don't.

Caroline Slaten: 39:17

If you could add any one item to the curricula of architecture school, what would it be?

Peter Pennoyer: 39:23

I think travel is incredibly important. And we know that some of the schools send students to Rome. I think travel and sketching and observing. And I think we all are obliged from the moment we are committed to this career to train our brains to think about architecture, which is something you can't do in class. I think you do it on your own time, or you do it when you're daydreaming. Literally, this is a matter of not just looking at a building and moving on, but thinking about it and being able to remember the building, which you could do by sketching or just visualizing it. I wish I'd thought about this when I was young because I I could have intentionally trained my brain better than it is, but there we go. Imagine yourself walking down the street that you just passed, 44th Street, and then try to remember each building you passed and some basic forms. Where was the base? Where were the windows like? Where is the cornice? What are the materials? Build your facility for visual imagination and base it on your memory. That's that's a different thing than going coming back from a trip to Rome and doing a PowerPoint.

Caroline Slaten: 40:42

Now you're opening a Palm Beach office, is that right?

Peter Pennoyer: 40:45

Yes, we have a small office in Palm Beach, and we are starting projects there, and it's a good place to be. And it seems like there's so many New Yorkers down there now, and so many people I know that I would never leave New York myself. But it's not bad to have a foot on the island.

Caroline Slaten: 41:04

And what else is next for the firm?

Peter Pennoyer: 41:06

Well, we have a building, a new 22-story building coming up on 72nd Street and 2nd Avenue, and also a 10-story building on 71st Street off 2nd Avenue that are connected and have a courtyard in between. That's an interesting project. And we are also restoring the last great Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue, which has been completely derelict, and in fact, it had a fire, the cornice fell off. So we're having to have to re-carve the cornice of this building. The front doors are missing. We designed new doors in that style. And that has terrific historic rooms. There was a Vanderbilt who lived there 1925 to 1946, and she brought in some French decorators who built three extraordinary rooms. And she took a room from her father's mansion on 52nd, which is Marie Antoinette's boudoir, in gold, and put it in there. All those rooms are intact, but then the Yugoslavians took it ever from '46 to when things unraveled in 1992. So from '92 to now it's been sort of partially occupied. But the tapestries that were hanging there in 1906 are still on the wall.

Caroline Slaten: 42:18

And they're still in good shape?

Peter Pennoyer: 42:19

Yeah. Well, they need a little love and care, but it's all going to be brought back. It's a phenomenal project.

Caroline Slaten: 42:25

Wow, that sounds really incredible.

Peter Pennoyer: 42:27

That's really fun.

Caroline Slaten: 42:29

You were fascinating. You gave us so many great anecdotes. Thank you. This was really a treat.

Peter Pennoyer: 42:34

Great. Well, thank you, Caroline.

Caroline Slaten: 42:35

Well, thank you.

Caroline Slaten: 42:42

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