sanc·tu·ar·y
(noun)
Sanctuaries - The Last Works of John Hejduk, an exhibit at the Whitney museum of American art, illuminated the final years of architect John Hejduk's work and life. Curated by K. Michael Hays, the exhibit offered an extensive final look at, and a loving farewell to, the iconoclastic work of an architect largely ignored by anyone outside of academia. This work, though finished in this world, still resonates with themes ever present in today's world.
During my years in graduate school at the Georgia Tech College of Architecture, I was fortunate enough to study Hejduk's work extensively. Though my thesis there centered on the work Daniel Libeskind executed before any significant building commissions, it was Hejduk's work that arose my passions as an architect. While I could analyze and appreciate Libeskind's work (admittedly through much effort and esoteric research), it was Hejduk's that moved me. His poetry, made manifest in built forms that sometimes bore little resemblance to "buildings", never ceased to inspire me, and to evoke a deep and quiet awe within me.
My first exposure to the work of a man once described "the last architect of the twentieth century and the first architect of the twenty-first," came in the form of The House of the Suicide and The House of the Mother of the Suicide, a full-scale architectural installation at the College of Architecture. This installation, shepherded by then tech educator Jim Williamson, was John Hejduk's moving tribute to Jan Palach, a Czech student who committed a very public suicide by self-immolation as protest against the Soviet occupation of his country.
The Houses, constructed by a team of students under Williamson's management, took over four years to come to fruition, and their unveiling culminated in a lecture by John Hejduk himself. I still remember meeting this giant of a man, a giant who spoke with a gentle, centered eloquence on themes that consumed much of my thoughts in my graduate school years. Memory. Conviction. Loss. Love.
I also had the great fortune of taking a class under Anthony Vidler, whose work The Architectural Uncanny, includes a study of Hejduk's work In his book, Vidler speaks of Hejduk's role as outsider, an architect who refused to bow to contemporary fashions. His work, likewise, struck its viewers as compositions of oddly quasi-anthropomorphic constructions, outsiders wherever they went.
And go they did. In addition to jumping between projects, Hejduk's vagabond visitors showed up in places across the world. In Argentina, his Shelter Mask turned the city of Buenos Aires into a stage. Friend Peter Eisenman helped realize the haunting Tribute Towers in Spain. His housing projects in Berlin offer a stark contrast to their surrounding buildings. And the House of the Suicide and the House of the Mother of the Suicide have shown up in three different cities across two different continents.
Hejduk was an architect's architect. He was artist and poet. His work was never compromised by trends. His ideas were never watered down. His vision was never clouded. Of all my career accomplishments, my involvement with the House of the Suicide will always rank s one of my favorites, although the work was accomplished before I entered the field full-time. I will always wonder what could have been, had Hejduk's life lasted longer.
