Tigerman honored
Architect Stanley Tigerman, an outspoken force in Chicago’s architectural scene for more than 50 years, is receiving the top honor from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects, much to his surprise.
Stanley Tigerman has been an outspoken force in Chicago’s architectural scene for more than 50 years. The Chicago native has designed over 175 built works, including Skokie’s Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, the light-filled Pacific Garden Mission homeless shelter on the Near West Side and the modernist Boardwalk Apartments highrise in Uptown.
Much to his surprise, Tigerman is receiving the top honor from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “I’m sure it wasn’t easy for them. To swallow hard and say, ‘OK, let’s give this son of a [gun] a lifetime achievement award.’ And I’m very appreciative of it,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop challenging them, for sure.” Tigerman, who turns 83 on Friday, will be honored at AIA’s DesigNight in October.
MEG GRAHAM
What’s changed since you began your firm in 1962?
The most significant thing that has happened to me has been growing over some 50-odd years [in] consciousness, awareness, about the importance of ethics. I wish I could say that has been the most significant thing for society. But I can’t say that. The most significant thing for architecture, but not for me particularly, is technology has changed.
Has the way you’ve run the business part of your firm changed?
In a way, it hasn’t. If I’ve had any success at all, it’s been keeping a small office. I never had great ambitions to do every building, to have a giant office. The way architects do business today is a problem. Because they have marketing directors. They’re interested in this [rubs fingers together] — they’re interested in money. They have to make a payroll.
Marketing and branding are the undoing of architecture. They’re the commodification of architecture. I always thought it was an ethical pursuit and an aesthetic pursuit. I still do.
What about mistakes? Any buildings you would have done differently?
Do you know what Wabi-sabi is? It’s a Buddhist philosophy that says nothing is finished, nothing is perfect, nothing is ideal. Everything is in the process of becoming. In the West, we’ve been trained to complete things to make them perfect. But we’re going to die. The world is imperfect, we’re imperfect. Why are we concerned with making things so beautifully perfect if they can’t be?
Somebody once said that buildings, like bodies, begin to die at birth. Because of gravity. I’m now 5-foot-4. I used to be 5-7. You shrink. The cartilage between the bones in your spine — because of gravity, the pull toward the Earth — they shrink. Buildings do, too. They move inexorably.
Has your age changed the way you work?
In a way, I’m smarter. And I’m trying to put that to use in my work. And in my writing. And in my drawings. But the challenge is — I was always, as a young man, known for my spontaneity. Young people are quick. They do things pronto. Old people become more sophisticated. The idea is to retain your spontaneity.
What does winning AIA Chicago’s lifetime achievement award mean to you?
That they voted to give this to me, I do not take that lightly. I’m very appreciative. I’ve done some damage to them and I’m aware of it. I’ve challenged them: Why aren’t they more ethically inclined? Why do they support marketing and branding and all those things? So that they then turn around in a way and turn the other cheek and give me this award does not go unnoticed by me. And I’m thrilled by it.
While I’m appreciative of this lifetime achievement award, life goes on. What is the achievement today? And what will it be tomorrow? And how can you be better?