Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm. Patrick MacLeamy

wondered how Kassabaum could afford to be away so much, especially since his responsibilities were large and demanding. After a few months, I finally had the opportunity to meet him between his frequent trips to AIA headquarters. He was distinguished-looking, fit, and impeccably dressed in a well-tailored suit, white shirt, and conservative tie. Handsome, with a full head of hair graying around the temples, he struck me as a true professional, someone to instill confidence in others.

      Kassabaum brought me into his orderly office, offered me a chair, and said, “Tell me about yourself.” He really listened as I began to talk, making me feel like the most important person in the world at that moment. He asked a few questions, then said, “This firm is built on people—talented, dedicated people. If you want to build a career here, it's up to you. If you decide to leave to find opportunity somewhere else, it's up to you. If you leave and discover you made a mistake, you are welcome to return to HOK—one time.” I never forgot his words, and never left HOK. Over the years, other HOK people left to find opportunity elsewhere, but many returned after they were disappointed by what they found.

My First Assignment

      Obata assigned me a space in the section of the design department occupied by the newly formed Pittsburgh Great High Schools team. Why that name? HOK certainly hoped the design would be great, but it was called the Great High Schools project because the city planned to consolidate all of Pittsburgh's existing high schools into five larger campuses.

My team was the largest in the office, with five or six designers. Our team leader, Bill Valentine, was on vacation my first two weeks at HOK, and I asked my teammates what he was like. They said he was enthusiastic, energetic, and smart—and one of Obata's favorite designers. When Bill returned from vacation to take responsibility for our team, it was as if a whirlwind had arrived. He seemed to be everywhere at once, visiting each team member, reviewing design progress, and leading us in new directions.

      Bill was slim, with a head of curly hair and eyes that crinkled when he smiled. Instead of a suit and tie, Bill wore jeans and a white or blue dress shirt open at the neck—no tie. Sometimes he was so absorbed in his work that he did not seem to notice that his shirttail was hanging out. When Bill sat in his chair talking to someone, he had a way of drawing his feet up on the front of the seat so that he was talking over his knees. In later years, Bill gave up on dress shirts and began to wear black collarless shirts—long before Steve Jobs.

      Bill liked to study the Great High Schools in cross-section to see how they fit with the hilly topography of Pittsburgh. I helped him draw the sections, then began to make study models of critical parts of each school. Bill often sent me across the street to the HOK model shop to make even larger study models of foam. He made frequent visits to the model shop to review my progress, and would often say, “Let's try something different.” When Bill was satisfied, we brought the model across the street for Obata's review.

      One day, when I was still basically brand new, as I sat at my drafting table working on another big cross-section, Obata's secretary came by and handed me an envelope. “You're going to Pittsburgh next week with Bill Valentine to meet the local architects,” she told me. “Here's your plane ticket and hotel reservation.” Although it seems quaint now, the idea that someone would pay me to get on an airplane and fly somewhere, then put me up at a hotel so I could go to a meeting, seemed like a dream.

      My overwhelming impression as a young architect was that great things were happening at HOK. It was an exciting time to be there. In 1967, HOK had 150 people, and even though it was only 12 years old, had grown to become the largest firm in the state and one of the largest in the nation. The energy and ambition of the founders and the culture of teamwork and mutual accountability struck me as something very special. I began to wonder how these three brilliant men had come together to create this extraordinary firm.

       My overwhelming impression as a young architect was that great things were happening at HOK.

SECTION ONE THE FOUNDERS, 1955–1982

CHAPTER 1 The Problem with Traditional Firms

      George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata, and George Kassabaum wanted to design a world-class architecture firm. But before they could establish HOK, they needed to come together in the same city. George Kassabaum's family moved around a bit during his childhood, and he ended up going to college in St. Louis, because it was not far from their latest hometown. Gyo Obata was from far away, in Berkeley, California, and also came to St. Louis for college. Both Kassabaum and Obata would leave and come back, before finally meeting Hellmuth in St. Louis. Hellmuth was the only one of the founders to grow up in the River City, where he had the formative experience of watching his father and uncle struggle to keep their own small architecture firm afloat. St. Louis may seem like an improbable place for one of the world's largest design firms to form, yet it has a significant history.

Why St. Louis?

      St. Louis was a bustling French trading settlement that became part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, negotiated between President Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803. During the winter of 1803–1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition assembled men and supplies at Camp Dubois a few miles upstream from St. Louis. That spring, Lewis and Clark crossed the Mississippi and began their epic journey up the Missouri to explore the West. As a boy, I played at Camp Dubois Historic Site just a few miles from my home.

As the nation grew west, the need to move goods and people across the Mississippi, and St. Louis's central geographic position, combined to bring the city to prominence. In late 1874, a team of visionaries, including bridge designer James B. Eads, and a young entrepreneur named Andrew Carnegie, opened a combined roadway and railway bridge across the Mississippi. Named the Eads Bridge for its creator, it was the world's first all-steel arch bridge, the first bridge to exclusively use cantilever support, and one of the first to make use of pneumatic caissons. John A. Roebling, designer of the more-famous Brooklyn Bridge, visited the construction site in St. Louis to learn how Eads managed to sink the caissons so deep. St. Louis had long been a city dependent on the Mississippi river for transport north and south. Now railroads connected St. Louis to the east and west, making it a hub of American commerce.

      By 1903, St. Louis had grown to become the fourth largest city in the country and hosted a World's Fair to celebrate the centennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the city's role in the settlement of the West. Inventors introduced the ice cream cone at that fair, and a firm called Hellmuth & Hellmuth was practicing architecture in St. Louis at that time.

Hellmuth & Hellmuth

      George Hellmuth—father of HOK's George Hellmuth—and his brother, Harry Hellmuth, were partners in the firm. Naturally, they called their company Hellmuth & Hellmuth, and it had its heyday in the early 1900s, when St. Louis was at its peak. The practice was typical of that time, with the two partners and some draftsmen. Hellmuth & Hellmuth specialized in designing commercial buildings, projects for the Catholic Church, and grand mansions for wealthy St. Louis business leaders.

      Hellmuth & Hellmuth's best-known work was the International Fur Exchange Building, completed in 1919, with office spaces for buyers and a large room for fur auctions. At that time, trade in beaver hides and other pelts was still significant and would continue into the 1950s. However, by 1997 the building was vacant and set to be torn down. Hotel developer Charles Drury stepped in to halt demolition and save the building, which he renovated, along with two adjoining properties, to become a hotel and restaurants. The International Fur Exchange Building is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

      When Hellmuth & Hellmuth secured a commission for a project, George and Harry hired draftsmen to help with the work. During the course of the project, the partners trained them to do the work properly, and gradually a more effective operation would emerge. When the project ended, often there was no new work to take its place, so