Transcript

And John always wanted to do something about Morgan Hall, but he was very reluctant to do anything about Morgan Hall because he had to move the faculty out of there, and many faculty members had decorated their own offices there. So he finally felt confident enough when he had me as the project manager to do it.

We also wanted to bring the faculty together in two buildings, rather than to spread all over, over the campus. And we wanted to create a work environment for the staff where we, because of university rules, couldn't pay what we should be paying the secretarial staff. So at least we wanted to create a work environment that would be a pleasant one for the staff, and also that would force the faculty to get together. That's why we wanted to force secretarial things together, so Professor A and Professor B would run into each other and, hopefully, start a discussion. And again, we wanted to make it first rate. . . .

And so we engaged Safdie. Then Safdie had the idea of the atrium. Then Safdie and I got into a big fight, because Safdie wanted two atria, one on each side. I said, you know, "You're giving up too much useful space." We have this envelope. We want to pack as much into this envelope as we can." And we were at a stalemate for a long time, and Safdie wanted John to overrule me, and John refused to overrule, and said, "You guys work it out."

And so in December of '88, we finally got Moshe to go to the Codex building off 128, where they had the lightwells. And so out of that, on the way back Moshe and I drove. I drove him back to the School. On that car ride we designed, basically, Morgan Hall the way it is today, with the atrium in the middle, and the two lightwells on the side.