Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm. Patrick MacLeamy

Louis, Missouri.

      Source: Photo by Robert Pettus. Photo Courtesy of HOK.

Bill Voelker, one of my friends from my undergraduate days at Illinois, was working at HOK as a designer under Obata, and I called him for advice. “How did you get to HOK?” I asked Bill. “What's it like?” “HOK is a great place, like a big family, and we're doing dynamic work,” said Bill. “I can get you an interview with Obata.” By now it was May, and I was on the verge of graduating. I got back in the VW and this time drove the short distance to the HOK office in St. Louis.

The Interview

      The receptionist took me to meet Gyo Obata for my interview. He was in his mid-40s, slight of build, with a graying crewcut and dressed in a white shirt with a narrow black tie. Obata was filled with energy. His first question was “What are your ambitions?”

      “I love architecture and feel I may have some gifts. I want to do great work,” I said.

      Although he looked through my portfolio, Obata seemed more interested in who I was as a person. After some conversation, he looked me in the eye and said, “This firm is going places. We just won the largest high school project in the country to design five new high schools in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to replace all the high schools in the city. It's a big, challenging project and you can get in at the beginning. I will oversee that project and want you to work directly with me. How about $650 per month?”

      My father had schooled me in how to handle this question. “Always say you were hoping to get more,” he had told me. “I was hoping for more,” I said. “Okay, we'll make it $700,” said Obata. I was immensely impressed with my dad's advice: I'd been hired one minute and the next had successfully negotiated my first raise—$700 a month would be … $8,400 a year! “If I can get up to $10,000 a year, I'll be rolling in clover,” I thought.

      “When can you start?” asked Obata. I explained that my last class was in 10 days, then I would attend graduation and come to St. Louis. “Forget that,” he said. “No one remembers their graduation. You start the Monday after your last class.” And it was settled.

Big Dreams

      St. Louis still was not my first choice as the city to begin my career, but I had a plan. I would work at HOK for a few years, then leverage that experience to land a position in a more exotic locale, maybe San Francisco. In just a few years I could be opening my own firm on the West Coast. But first, I needed to work under a licensed architect for three years, then sit for two days of grueling licensing exams at the state capital in Jefferson City. After those three years, I'd have a good portfolio to show. Then I could go west and really do something, I thought.

      Why did I dream about the West Coast? Maybe because it seemed like the greatest possible contrast to industrial Alton, where I'd grown up. The surrounding area is open prairie and farmland, but Alton is situated where farmland gives way to the Mississippi floodplain, a flat area where steel mills, oil refineries, glassworks, and other heavy industries sprang up to utilize the river for shipping.

I found a place to rent at the Plaza Square Apartments directly across the street from the HOK office. The day of my last class came. I loaded up my Volkswagen in Champaign-Urbana, tied my mattress on the roof with binder twine, and drove three hours down to St. Louis. When I got there, the front of the mattress was covered with bugs. It was an inauspicious beginning to what would turn out to be a 50-year journey.

Impressions of HOK

      It was June 1967. The HOK office occupied the second floor of a six-story building at the intersection of Olive and 14th Streets, 14 blocks from the Mississippi River. It was a bustling, exciting place. Two receptionists were busy answering the phones and receiving a steady stream of visitors. In those days, no one had telephones at their desks. Instead, there was a central switchboard with six or eight lines and a few phones scattered at stations around the office. Staff members were constantly being paged for calls: “Jerry Sincoff, you have a call on line two.” It looked vibrant and impressive to someone just getting out of college.

      Obata's corner office had glass walls, which allowed him to see his design team— but also allowed them to see him. It struck me as very democratic. HOK's offices were flooded with natural light from south-facing windows. Every project had a design leader and these leaders occupied semi-enclosed spaces in the center of the room, up against the elevator core. Their design teams worked at drafting tables on the perimeter of the room, closer to the windows. Yes, the grunts got the best light! So many companies place their executives' offices around the perimeter of the building, and as a result, lower-level employees never see the sun. HOK was different.

      The department contained multiple design teams working on different projects. A small team was drawing up Obata's first concepts for a new graduate library for Stanford University. Another team was at work designing a new academic building for the University of Wisconsin. Not long after I started, Obata reassigned my old friend Bill Voelker to a team designing a new airport located midway between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. This just reinforced my impression that HOK was a young firm on the move.

      Obata's department hummed with energy and purpose. Designers discussed their projects constantly, so the department was filled with conversation. Teams held more formal meetings with clients or engineering consultants in one of the busy conference rooms. The youngest, least experienced team members—like me—made lots of models and did drawing revisions as requested by the design leader or by Obata.

      The design department was made up of almost all men, and everyone wore a white or blue dress shirt with a tie. Many of the designers took their cue from Obata and wore slacks and sport coats.

      George Hellmuth was HOK's marketing principal. When I joined HOK in 1967, it was growing rapidly, all because Hellmuth had figured out you could use an airplane to expand your marketing, even if you only had one office in St. Louis. At the time, the average architecture firm was made up of eight people. That is still the case today. There's been no movement. Not every firm wants to grow, but HOK wanted to—and was—thanks to Hellmuth.

The first time I met Hellmuth, he was wearing a conservative dark suit with a white shirt and red tie. He tilted his head up and down to view me through the different lenses in his bifocals. He seemed to have a good sense of humor, and his assessment of me was, “Well, you look like you belong in Obata's department.” He was referring to the tiny length of hair that covered the tops of my ears at a time when older men wore a short hairstyle. This was a sign to Hellmuth that I might best belong among the designers.

      Hellmuth's office—like his haircut—was more traditional, with wood paneling, elegant drapes, and a heavy desk with a blotter. His secretary and his marketing team sat nearby. Just the fact that he had a full-time marketing team was revolutionary. Clients often came to Hellmuth's area for meetings in a well-appointed conference room. The trappings were intentional. Hellmuth was sort of the “grown up in the room,” the respectable, second-generation St. Louis architect, who put prospective clients at ease, then reeled them in.

      George Kassabaum led production, the largest department in the firm, with more people than marketing and design combined. Bustling teams of production architects made sure HOK's designs would work in the real world, keeping the rain out and the heat in. The versatile Kassabaum really held two jobs, because he was also responsible for firm-wide administration, with a team of accountants on hand to help.

      My first meeting with Kassabaum did not take place immediately, as he was soon to become the national American Institute of Architects (AIA) president and was often away fulfilling this role. I learned that Hellmuth and Obata supported his AIA work since it helped the profession and enhanced HOK's reputation. Kassabaum was president of the American Institute of Architects from 1968 to 1969. This was another positive HOK characteristic I came to admire as time passed. The founders and the firm encouraged and supported people who had the desire to be involved with outside academic, professional, civic, or charitable activities.