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    "ocrText": "George E. Thomas Associates, Inc.\n9515 Germantown Ave.\nPhiladelphia, PA 19118\n(215) 247-6787 fax (215) 247-6970\nFor: Bill Clinton, President of the United States\nVia: Josh Gottheimer\nSubject: Architecture of the Future\nWe attended the speech that the President gave at Penn's Irvine Auditorium and were\ndelighted to lip-read his comments to the University president as well as his body language as he\nwalked on the stage. His body language communicated surprise and delight and his mouth could\nbe seen to say \"Wow! Its Beautiful!\" By training, I'm an historian\nI've been working on architects such as Frank Furness (Frank Furness: The Complete Works)\nand William Price (WLP: Arts and Crafts to Modern Design) who have been left out of the canon\nbecause they incorporated new materials and ignored historical forms. In the process, they\nbridged the gap to the broader culture rather than seeking elite recognition. They were neo-\nNobrow to borrow the title of John Seabrook's recent analysis of the link between modern\nculture and marketing. Nobrow is probably the wave of the future, though there must be a better\nterm. Worth reading for the President to get a read on how culture has been changed and will\ncontinue to change with the commercialization and globalization of society.\nFor two centuries, as architects have worked their way though the modern era, their craft\nhas been stretched between expressing ideas that are challenging but do not necessarily produce\nconventional beauty, and the desire to make something wonderful, elegant, pleasing -- that is\noften seen as being conventional. Like other modern artists, architects hope to be profound, i.e.\nbe recognized by their peers and the critics, while also being successful, i.e. receiving enough\nwork. But unlike painters and sculptors and other visual artists who can develop their own idiom\nwithout much outside interference, architects need clients to spend vast amounts of money to\nrealize their ideas. This puts architects more in the realm of performers who need both a venue\nand an audience. Thus architects often become performance artists themselves to attract\nnotoriety that brings them work -- Frank Lloyd Wright was a master of this, while their buildings\nare performances that are experienced by the public as is the case of Frank Gehry's new Bilboa\nmuseum. Obviously, Irvine Auditorium has a similar \"Wow\" character. The \"Wow\" quality is\none key to architecture. New materials and new formal possibilities will be incorporated to\ncreate spaces that elicit the wow that goes back to the Pantheon and Chartres Cathedral. For the\nforeseeable future, these effects will be realized with real materials to shape and enclose real\nspaces that can be climate controlled for comfort and made to serve real needs. Architecture\nwon't change from these purposes for a long time to come.\nArchitects will continue to work in domestic and commercial zones, areas that are\nbroadly familiar. Architects will employ ever wider varieties of materials -- and will look at\nhistorical forms and outside the envelope depending on client interests. I am confident that\narchitecture will continue to incorporate changes of culture, technology. The best days lie ahead\nas architects move beyond the limits of the old elite to embrace the democracy of the future."
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