Dialogue

News
Pedro E. Guerrero passed away on September 13 at the age of 95. Guerrero spent 20 years as Frank Lloyd Wright’s exclusive photographer, and also shot the work of the architects Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Edward Durrell Stone, and Philip Johnson, and the sculptors Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson.

Seeing with the Senses
FROM LYNN DUNNING-VAUGHN:
I’m surprised and sorry that your designer friend didn’t get the point of your message (“Visual Fixation,” by Susan S. Szenasy, September 2012, p. 14). We’re not trained to consider “taste” and “smell” but typically appreciate “touch.” And we should understand the more ephemeral attributes: atmosphere (including sound) and comfort—as well as micro-functionality. Architects? Not so much. And I get that smell can bring you back to a time and place that you loved, as well as those places you didn’t.

FROM BRAD SMITH:
I too lament the non-humanistic, object-oriented nature of the applied arts. Too often I see glory attributed to architects who should really be described as sculptors. I do consider my profession to be a design profession and I’m proud that it is rare in its systems-oriented focus. I feel that a conscientious landscape architect is trained to never lose sight of both the broader and smaller contexts, the interactions, and the humans that move through them.

Discovering Design
FROM RICHARD DIETZEL:
I was always fascinated by design, I just didn’t know there was such a thing (“I Have Seen the Future,” by Shannon Sharpe, September 2012, p. 64) until I studied Bel Geddes with Lee Simonson. Then I made the connection with the real world. I was happily hooked.

CORRECTIONS
There were two misquotes in the October 2012 issue. In “Brave New City” (p. 62), the quote from the design studio OPEN read, “The thing is, cities are full of human beings. Human beings who know things.” The proper statement is, “The thing is, cities are full of human beings. Human beings know about things.” In “Hail to the Chiefs” (p. 78), the LBJ bumper sticker entry includes the quote, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill yoday?” It should have read, “Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?”