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| Steve Von Tungeln, AIA |
| Steve was one of the founding partners of ADG. He was the only other person of German Ancestry in the office, but he was a "white" German. i was, however, a "black" German. (i will try to explain the difference to you shortly...) i'm not really sure if he could speak German himself, but if he could, i'm sure he never would have around the office... ...and probably NOT anywhere in PUBLIC in the state of Oklahoma. He was a very"private" family man, and mostly kept to himself in his office. His work (and i can only refer to his drawings, because that is all i ever got to see) was always "frameable"... ...and this stirred up one of the greatest debates in Architecture in the days before the widespread use of CAD Computers. The debate seemed to overshadow any of the "philosophical" or "ideological" discussions about architecture. (we had an 'open-partition' drafting room, so there was constant discussion occurring thru the workday... ...some of it work related, some of it about the profession of architecture, some of it "frivolous", and entertaining. in the first few years of working in the office i was often left 'scratching-my-head' with wonder... ...at the number of times that i was the only one in the room who was not laughing!!! i never took offense at it tho. i never even noticed... ...that one of the primary objectives of the conversation was to communicate "selectively".) in any case, i had studied so little architectural "theory", that the "quality" verses "quantity" debate concerning the production of drawings was the only discussion about architecture that i could comprehend. Steve was firmly dug in on the "Quality" side of the Trench! many people would often say that the workmen could build the projects from the 'sketches' that we were given by Steve, and they complained in very bitter emotions that this took ALL the creativity out of thier work! no matter what the drawings looked like, WE (...the "draftsmen") still had to 'redraw' the sketches into a "formal-drawing" and re-submit them to Steve for inspection. some people hated this process, and preferred to work with the designers who used the "quick-sketch" method. you would be amazed at some of the "sketches" that would come into the drafting room for interpretation into 'final-drawings'! much of the time with no access to the clients or discussion with the "Design-Architect"! if our "interpretation" of the sketch seemed to be 'different' than what the Architect had in his mind, well, then it was certainly going to have to change... ...but this sort of news could come down at any time... ...even just before a meeting with the client. i thought the whole debate was over the first time i saw the whole office rushing around trying to make some changes to some rather vague and absurd sketches in time for a meeting. Steve always knew what he wanted before he ever gave us any of his sketches and i seldom was asked to make any changes after that... ...so the argument that he was 'losing-the-company's money' by being too much of an "artist" seemed not to hold any water with me, but it was a serious debate, and almost no-one tried to take a position of 'middle-ground'!!! you were either firmly in the "Quality" camp... ...or you were trying to prove your professionalism by turning out as many drawings as you could, as fast as possible. Once CAD became pervasive in the architectural offices, i was already "outside" of the profession, so i have no idea what became of the debate. One thing i do know, however... ...the people on the "Quantity" side of the debate could sure churn out a lot of drawings in a short amount of time... ...man they could work up a filing nightmare!!! |