Genius Loci, Beethoven's 7th and Love
Professor Steven Semes
Home is a strong archetype. Home is a space in a building or in oneself. It is a place in which one belongs. For Steven Semes, Professor of Architecture, University of Notre Dame, who spent years as a residential designer, space and place are paramount.
Since childhood, Steve has been a ‘“Flow” junkie’. While constructing Erector sets, Steve was once caught spellbound by Beethoven’s seventh symphony and his interests were fused together. He was fascinated at the concept of visualizing a structure and realizing it. On Saturdays, he would cycle to the local architects’ offices and pull designs out of their garbage bins. With firm interest in the field, he undertook the study of architecture at the University of Virginia and graduate studies at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
In the halls of the universities, Steve felt at home. As a student, Steve aimed his attention at clarity in design, in music and in writing. Inspired by his mentors, Steve sought to pare ideas to their most elegant form and to find commonalities in seemingly disparate concepts. Though Steve started his working life as a designer, a part of him would always be an academic.
While he was mastering the craft of being an architect, Steve was faced with an important lesson. At the renowned studio of Jaquelin T. Robertson, Steve learned that a central construct of architecture is people. Prior to this point, Steve favored clarity and logic in his work. With this new perspective, he began to shift toward interpersonal understanding, seeking a balance between people and task, human dynamics and design principles. This ongoing process of development enabled Steve’s professional success as a designer, project manager, business leader and educator.
As he was building homes for clients, Steve longed to feel at home himself. Teaching, writing and sharing design in the university setting beckoned him. He had been writing and making presentations to quench this desire when something magical happened. After many years living in NYC and San Francisco, he visited Rome and decided to find a way back there. Not long after that, Notre Dame called with an invitation to teach architecture. As the school has a academic program in Rome, Steve’s plan to return to the Eternal City came to life.
Here is the magical part. In the the jasmine-perfumed air, amongst the curvaceous Baroque style buildings, Steve became smitten with a beautiful soprano, a kindred spirit who shares his love of music. Today Steve can often be found in Rome among the building style of his childhood with his Luisa.
““Place holds even more importance for me now. When I first went to Rome as a student, that changed my life. I went again and fell in love with it, found the love of my life, married her and made a life there. I spend my time between Rome and South Bend in a complete integration of task, place and people. Sometimes I’ll be walking down the street in Rome and I’ll say to myself, I am happy now. It’s a great thing.” - Steven Semes”
Home is central to our lives. Two enduring characteristics, curiosity and enthusiasm, propelled Steve to find his place teaching architecture. Three driving forces in Steve's work and life, music, design and writing, are his space. Please read on as Steve provides direct insight to his kaleidoscope of gifts.
1. What is your contribution to the world?
As a youngster, I was completely smitten with the prospect of visualizing something that didn’t exist, and then bringing it into being. The effect never wore off. One of the most pleasing things is when a student writes in a course evaluation Prof Semes’ enthusiasm is infectious and has prompted me to be embrace architecture with enthusiasm too. And three, four, ten years later when they come back and tell me “you changed my life”, what more can you ask?
2. What role has place had in your life and in your work?
Culture operates in two dimensions, place and time. Academics tend to prioritize time, but, although there is a significance to time, what is really forming the culture is the place. For instance, it’s more important to know that Titian is a Venetian than that he was a 16th century artist. That also shapes the type of architecture that I do. Andrés Duany said, ‘the objective of architecture is to make a place more itself'. So, the question is, where am I? And, what is this place? Place is the physical container for people and the people who are at home there make the culture of the time. The ancient Romans were polytheists and used the term genius loci literally, they meant there was a spirit in each place. We still imagine that there is a character of each place.
In 2008 or so, ICOMOS, the international conservation body formed by UNESCO, issued The Quebec Charter about spirit of place. The point of conservation is to preserve the spirit of the place, the character-defining elements of the place, which means that it can change and grow, rather than be preserved in amber. My whole approach to conservation is that. It is the power of place to form us and we have the obligation to nurture that so it isn’t destroyed. My second book, The Future of the Past, is all about this.
3. What competencies, characteristics and choices have been key to your success?
Most of my professional design opportunities were in private residences. Designing houses and then, when completed, opening the kitchen cabinets that I had drawn and seeing them filled with cornflakes and the clients living their lives, that was a big payoff for me. Being able to make contributions across a range of disciplines is my key to success.
4. Have you gotten advice that you continue to follow?
Architecture is about people who will inhabit the structures and design. Simply not complaining makes me happier. All of us are unique in the way we think. Get to know your mind and how it works, learn how you think. Develop yourself from your unique blend of talents, learning style, attributes. Follow your nature to your own success.
5. How do you define success? Has the definition changed over the course of your career?
As Goethe wrote, human beings are quite good at identifying greatness, but we are usually not so good at recognizing different kinds of greatness. I see success as either being a master of something or highly effective at more than one thing. I have very successful friends who are so uniformly focused in one area, that they have mastered it and they own that field. I however, have a need to move from one field to another. Isaiah Berlin (The Fox and the Hedgehog) thought there are two types of intelligence: very focused and free-range. I am more free-range. It’s not in my nature to concentrate on one thing for too long, and, given my nature, I have learned a key to my success is to be true to myself. So, I am inevitably interdisciplinary in my outlook and activities.
6. What other forms of art do you practice?
I listen to and make music; read, write and speak; draw and design. I see a physical correlative of music in Architecture. Music and Architecture are analogous, one in time and the other in space. The qualities are the same. The thing that pleases me most is when the craft is well executed. Even if you don’t agree with it or don’t like it, if you find that the writing is clear, and cogent, those are the marks of good writing. Clarity is the optimum value of aesthetics for me. Clarity of expression, of intention, of means. It is diversity within unity. Drawing is an abstraction, a selection that records the essence of the subject. It is visual clarity. People are more mysterious for me. However, when we share and connect, we come up with something together. Like on an architectural design team, there can be a communion in this connection that brings about magic.
7. What do you most appreciate about the people with whom you have worked?
I most appreciate competence and a focus on others rather than on self.
8. What advice would you give your 25 year old self?
Pay more attention to people. Get out of your own head and relate to others, and you can only do that if you are paying attention to them.
9. Is there a shortlist of books that you recommend?
Italian,Journey Goethe
Genius Loci, Christian Norberg-Schulz
Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, R. Venturi
The Architecture of Humanism, G. Scott
Thinking, Hannah Arendt
What’s Bred in the Bone, Robertson Davies v