Robert AM Stern, founder of his eponymous company and dean of the Yale School of Architecture, remembers his friend and colleague Charles Moore in this article first published by Metropolis Magazine. Stern wrote about the most would never know details - including what it was to be a guest in the home of Moore and his eating habits. Read on to learn more about and their relationship over the years and admiration of Stern for Moore.
As an architecture student at Yale edition Perspecta 9/10 , I met Charles Moore by phone and mail. I met his first amazing projects in the Italian magazine Casabella , and was intrigued by what I read about him and his partners - particularly in a provocative essay by Donlyn Lyndon. I came into contact with Charles and he volunteered that he was interested in writing about Disneyland for the newspaper, leading to the publication of his justly famous article, "you must pay for public life" and a project portfolio with its firm Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull Whitaker.
I liked the work of Charles early on, particularly his home in Orinda, California, with her two shrines that were like two of Kahn Trenton reinterpreted bathroom to within a third larger volume. But the project that Moore may have had the most lasting impact on me was his unrealized design for a condominium in Coronado, California; instead of being either a turn point or a slab - like almost all high-density multi-family residential was in those days - it was a hybrid, with a wonderful domesticity about it: it was not like a building offices with people sleeping in it. Instead, it looked like what it was -.! A building
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I do not remember exactly when I met Charles face-to-face, but it may have been when he came to New Haven to be interviewed for the chairmanship of the department of architecture. It was the spring of 1965, which was about the time when Perspecta 9/10 was released. Charles was one of three architects interviewed for the position; the others were Robert Venturi and Romaldo Giurgola. Of the three, Charles was certainly the least well known, at least on the East Coast.
Once Charles settled at Yale, I knew better. As a graduate, I was invited to jury comments, and join a committee that organized a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the School of Fine Arts, which became the School of Art and Architecture. (The celebration never took place because of the disastrous fire in the A & A Construction and general agitation on the Yale campus.)
Curiously, when Charles left Yale for California, I saw more than a few more him - at that time California was a welcome destination for my conference and a fascinating new place for me to explore. I remember being in the home of Charles on Gayley Avenue while we were on a jury of AIA. I remember the cabin as a guest in the room of a ship at the foot of a dramatic staircase that led to his top floor room filled with sunlight. While traveling, I have to spend a wonderful day with him and others at Disneyland. When he moved to Texas, on one or two occasions I visited him at his home in Austin with his stunning curved wall lined with shelves of toys.
My closest working Charles was part of a team of architects - Stanley Tigerman and Tom Beeby among them - directed by Bruce Graham of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill ( SOM). We were responsible for the planning of what should have been the Universal Exhibition of 1992 in Chicago. Charles created a plan for an area of what was then Meigs Field - he drew an astonishing mesh grille long winding streets that gave dramatically different intersections. Charles produced a magnificent drawing (below) of his plan; I can still see in my mind's eye. Meanwhile, we out-of-town architects usually stayed at a club downtown where we meet for breakfast before embarking on the work today in the SOM offices. I remember the breakfasts with him strongly: Charles was not a person who looked at her face, and it is placed in the dining room cavernous and dive into a huge breakfast, taking generous beef chipped on toast and all kinds of other calorie laden goodies. Faced with the pleasures of the table, he could not say no.
Charles had a great ability to describe things he had seen, to paint amazing word-images; that quality only comes in part thanks to his many books which, unfortunately, are not as widely read today as they should. As Charles describes a place, it was almost as good as being there - it will guide you through the streets, smell the smells, the taste of food. Charles believed in travel, and he passed that love to his Yale students, he instructed about the eccentric beauty of the American scene.
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