In Conversation with Alex Krieger

This transcript is an excerpt of an informal conversation between Adam Mekies (MLAUD '21) and Alex Krieger on September 11, 2020. Edited by Natasha Harkison (MLAUD '21) + Adam Mekies.

Alex Krieger has combined a career of teaching and practice, dedicating himself in both to improving the quality of place and life in our major urban areas. Alex is the founding Principal of Chan Krieger Sieniewicz which merged with NBBJ in 2009.

He is a Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he has taught since 1977. During his tenure he has served as Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning and Design, Director of the Urban Design Program, and Associate Chairman of the Department of Architecture.

Adam Mekies (AM):  Why was the UD at 50 lecture you recently delivered such a special moment in the urban design program at GSD, what does this represent for the future?

Alex Krieger (AK):  Perhaps the reason that I’ve been asked to deliver the lecture is in a sense an honor.  I have been on faculty for about two-thirds of the length of the urban design program. If it began in ’60 -’61 and I arrived in ’75 as a student I’ve been there for the majority (45) of its now, 60 years. I suppose that’s of interest to some. I think the other reason is that the lecture itself emerged during a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the program. This was a fairly large event, I organized, out of it emerged the idea to raise some money for an endowed lectureship like the Olmsted or Gropius lectures.  It’s sort of an awkward title, and behind the scenes there are discussions about whether to name it after somebody. Do we name it after a former faculty member, or after a distinguished urban designer over the decades, or do we find a donor who would further endow it?

I think one of the things behind this discussion is to try to increase the visibility of the urban design program again, in both the school but also amongst its alums. One amazing thing to me about the urban design program earlier on in the late ‘70s early ‘80s is that it was a small program, there were maybe only 20, 25 people. There was a stronger sense of collegiality among those years, and that would extend not just throughout the program but it would extend beyond the program. A number of the groups wound up meeting annually, not coming to the GSD for an alumni event, but actually meeting somewhere at one of the locations of the graduates. As is true about the GSD overall, there is a sense we are not engaging alums sufficiently. They continue to be involved with the school, they continue to become ambassadors for the school. They continue to contribute to the school, of course. I would say similarly there is a of need to restore a sense collegiality amongst many, many people that have graduated from the program have gone on to all kinds of important positions. About 200 people showed up for this 50th anniversary, and it’s exciting they were from across the decades. Maybe there should be a few more events like this or programs like this, the network is incredible!

AM:  Your ties to Boston are an incredible network that the program has been a part of in your time there. Can you talk a little bit about your role in Boston as architect, planner, program chair, stakeholder in the community, and how this might continue for the program?

AK:   Well, I’m not going away quite entirely, so presumable I would continue to play a role or be involved the Boston area. This has been the case since the 1970s, where the majority of any urban design class is international. We’ve often been criticized as a school, by comparison for example MIT where they seem to be more commonly engaged either in studios or faculty involvement or research projects in the local area. There have been long periods of time where the all the studios were about important cities globally – very little course work or research revolve around Boston. In that sense, I’ve always played a role as somebody who has been involved professionally and also as an activist. I was involved for many years in the Boston Civic Design Commission, which is a design review body for the BPBA (formerly known as the BRA). It was almost as if, ‘Ok, as long as Krieger is around, we don’t have to worry anymore about local involvement, he represents that.’ So, you are asking a good question, and again, increasingly over the last couple of years I think there is more attention devoted to thinking globally and acting locally. For example, in the Elements studio, which used to be in New York or Shanghai, have been about Boston in the last few years. The whole issue of environmental climate change is easier to start to think about in terms of a very precarious situation in Boston given that it is so close. I would think that in the next couple of years there will be even more of an interest in becoming much more engaged in local affairs – I hope so!

AM:  When you look back at how your career was shaped by both practice and academia, and in watching the full trajectory of a practice go through ownership transition, how do you see that to continue to play out for the next generation?

 AK:  Upon graduation, I was immediately hired as an instructor, so in a way my interest in practice was delayed because I started teaching immediately.  Actually, other than a couple years here and there I worked for Moshe Safdie’s office and SOM when it had a Boston office, I was essentially an academician for about 10 years or so outside of my graduation.  It was actually through the fact that I was interested in cities - that provided me the very first opportunities to practice, because very early on, as an academic, I produced research on Boston’s evolution, which started a long range of interest in those issues.

I was contacted by the BRA (Boston Redevelopment Authority) at the time, and they said, ‘Gee, you seem to know something about Boston, how would you like to help us think through something’?  One of my first professional commissions, other than the occasional kitchen renovation or house addition, came from the fact that my interest in education regarding urbanization led me to the BRA and to the first couple of projects with them. Once that began, I realized how powerful it could be, to maintain one leg in academia and one leg in practice.  

There is no substitute for the energy, creativity and the exchange of ideas and speculation– that does not always happen in practice because you’re more applied to projects and a particular team.  I think it’s important to keep your creative interest alive, which is much easier to maintain in academia.  At the same time, keeping your creative or intellectual interests more present because you’re involved in school only helps you in practice.  I would urge everyone to try to maintain one foot in academia, or at least have an interest in academia.  The only problem is you also have to give up something because you’re trying to do two very consuming things at once, and you might not do both as well as you had anticipated.  For example, I might have been a better scholar, or I could have produced more literature if I was not practicing. I think that my opportunities in practice could have led me into areas that I could not quite achieve because of course, half of my commitment was always teaching, so even when we were leading the firm, there was always a little bit of tension about, ‘Okay, but I’ve got to go to studio this afternoon and therefore I might upset a client, potentially.’ The benefits outweigh the constraints in my mind, but no one should think it is easy to concurrently combine teaching and practice almost equally.

In terms of the trajectory of a practice - in my case with Chan Krieger, Chan and I met at orientation week and became close friend, and he was also my “butt-mate” [the student directly adjacent your studio desk] at the GSD.  We were partners in professional practice for 30 years, and the firm emerged partially because we were both interested in urban design, and partially because our first exposures to practice was through the city.

 AM:  Can you describe how your work in Boston relates to your international work, and how do you relate local projects to projects abroad?

 AK:  The most extraordinary and beneficial, for me, I would say, consequence of being active in Boston and having that lead an incredible opportunity internationally, was of course that we were involved for many years with the Big Dig, the kind of the demolition of the central artery and its replacement of the larger vision, the below grade roadway and upper park system. We did the first master plan area on behalf of the city of Boston; some still regret that original plan has not been pursued, but no need to get into that … But because of that, because many people thought that that was a pretty good plan, we remained, and I personally remained, quite active in the discussions about the project for years, you could even say for a decade and a half, the duration of the project. So of course, that made us, and me, sort of highway replacement experts’, or highway reconceptualization experts. Through that process we did some work in Cincinnati and Dallas and … none of that was quite so transformative as literally as burying a highway and creating a parks system on the roof of it… it was often more advising work and consulting work. But because of the Big Dig, and our involvement with the Big Dig, and especially as the Big Dig began to emerge as a finished project, we were invited to compete for the reconstruction of the Bund in Shanghai.

In some ways, we had no business being there because the other nine participants, you know, were all international firms of much larger stature than we were. But we prevailed, against all odds we prevailed. And partially I think it was because of our good design ideas, and partially because there was a sense that we knew something about the difficulties of maximizing both the means of mobility and transportation as well as to gain substantial public benefit of transformation of a road project. So we did it. We were known in China as ‘the designers’ even though at some point we did not remain in charge of the projects, at some point they were taken over by some of the local firms.

I feel very proud of the work, and still feel somewhat proprietary about that project, and the results, there were of course also many disappointments along the way. That, I think is what you’re asking for… an important project in an important city, and in China, Boston, is considered much more important than even in the united states… So an important project in an important [American] city led to an important project in an international city. So that of course led to … the context of roadway reconsiderations…  there are other engagements as well, for example a major project in Seoul, Korea where a creek was restored where a highway was built. We were in no way designers, but I served on several competition juries for selecting of firms and served as an advisor. I spent some time in Israel advising them on a major highway redevelopment project that has not actually happened yet. Among all of the ways in which a project in a particular context leads you to become involved in equally important projects internationally I would say that’s been the most influential for us.

 AM:  Let’s perhaps circle back to where we started, four decades at GSD, what would you change, what legacy do you hope to carry on specifically, or more broadly?

 AK: The majority of the people who come through the program, and rightly so, I’m not even criticizing that, continue their professional career as architects, and as architects who, of course, have a new urban perspective. What has not happened to my satisfaction is, especially in our department right now, a greater overlap between the interests, expertise, knowledge basis, of the planners, the urban designers, and landscape architects, and how they become even a stronger kind of kindred spirits.

In other words, I wish that the urban design program would train you to become better planners without losing your focus on physical design issues. And I wish even more that the planners who come out of GSD think of themselves as being quite knowledgeable about the importance of the design actions as opposed to being sometimes feeling a little dubious about how important that is.

So I would say that one of my regrets was, and one of the things that perhaps might come back, as a result in our greater interest in social issues, and environmental issues – is that the kind of overlap between design and planning might be strengthened again. Starting with our department (urban design), rather than shifting away from each other, which has been the characteristic over the last decade or so.

While regretting the separation, in my more optimistic notions, the discussions now, partially as a result of the pandemic and partially as a result of obviously the racial injustice discussions of our time, partially out of a greater social awareness among students – this has been really very different than you know when I was a student here, people do seem to be much more conscious of social issues. Out of those concerns, a greater amount of interaction must happen, and does happen occasionally, between planning and design.