June 12, Chicago -- Saturday at dusk, after three+ long Chicago summer days among 20+K of our closest AIA colleagues from around the nation and the world, a wearier but wiser group of AIA Seattle presidential types initiated this report, at a round table in Iron Mike's bar -- here adjacent to the funky Tremont Hotel and the oasic Fourth Presbyterian Church on Michigan Avenue, in the very shadow of the John Hancock Tower. Around the table: President Kristen M. Scott AIA, President-elect Peter David Greaves AIA, past President Rena M. Klein AIA, and EVP Marga Rose Hancock Hon. AIA; and further out about the town perhaps a hundred of our AIA Seattle colleagues (see partial list at right, subject to correction) and perhaps 20 thousand more attendees at AIA Convention 2004.

Karen Braitmayer FAIA with AIA Seattle Medallist L. Jane Hastings FAIA and 1st VP Peter Greaves AIA

Monorailery at AIA Seattle dinner (see below): Jon Magnusson Hon. AIA and Peter Steinbrueck AIA

Learn | Celebrate | Dream
These thematic words pretty accurately describe the intention of an immense gathering, in both formal and informal aspects. The city itself offered much material: observing the heritage and future of this intensely ionized manifestion of 'no little plans' provided rich lessons, expanded also in keynotes and tributes hosted by AIA national President Eugene Hopkins FAIA, McGraw-Hill, AIA Chicago, and colonies of workers and volunteers from throughout the AIA system. In addition to hosting the AIA Convention, the windy city also welcomed thousands of attendees at the annual Chicago Blues Festival, with the dearly and recently departed Ray Charles mourned, as the media also focused on the life and legacy of Ronald Reagan - with flags everywhere at half mast.

AIA Seattle Medallist Norman J. Johnston FAIA and David Erskine

Conventional doings got under way Wednesday, when some arrived, with tons of tours of wonderful urban places, glowingly reported - e.g. by Kristen and also Dorm, who joined others who had worked in Mies van der Rohe's office 40 years ago.

Thursday started off for several thousand attendees at the opening sessions in what seemed like "the world's largest building," McCormick Place. Getting there took some doing - rarely on foot, sometimes by taxi, and perhaps most often on shuttle buses that took an intriguing route under and around the urban core - with architects and other colleagues from around the AIA nation. President Hopkins welcomed all and conducted the session – which included remarks by Seattle resident Dr. Erik Larson, author of The Devil and the White City, and a special presentation to Nathaniel Kahn, creator of the widely acclaimed "My Architect," a film documenting a son's discovery of his father - in this case Louis Kahn.

Following these keynotes, the vast majority of the crowd departed, while a few hundred remained to hear speeches by candidates for national office and take more or less silent part in caucuses where candidates answered written questions from the audience, and the rituals of delegate accreditation and voting. The results, announced Saturday evening, included the election of Kate Schwennsen FAIA as 2005 President-elect, thus to become the second woman to hold the office in the AIA's history of nearly 150 years.

Speaking of learning, hundreds of expert presenters on a variety of topics included these AIA Seattleites: Peter Bohlin FAIA ("The Wood Design Awards: A Review of Details of Design"), Richard W. Hobbs FAIA ("Evolution of Project and Construction Management in Development"), Carolyn Jones AIA ("Profession, Community, Family: Keeping the Juggling Act in the Air"), Rena M. Klein AIA ("Making Differences Matter: Beyond Command and Control"), Tom Kundig FAIA ("2004 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture"), David Miller FAIA ("Out There: Architects Discuss America's New Regionalism"), and Peter Pran FAIA ("2004 Institute Honor Awards for Architecture").

On Friday evening June 11 some 50 'home folks' gathered joyfully at 312 Chicago in the Theatre District for the AIA Seattle Dinner, to celebrate some special high points for Northwest design: with four of five freshly-anointed Fellows (Karen Braitmayer FAIA, Bill Karst FAIA, Tom Kundig FAIA, Norman Strong FAIA; Sheri Olson FAIA in absentia) and their families and friends, immediately following a majestic Investiture, as well as colleagues from three firms receiving AIA national Honor Awards for Architecture (Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, NBBJ, Olson Sundberg Kundig Allen), Miller|Hull, recipient of a Top Ten Green Award, and AIA Emerging Professionals 2004 Mentorship Award recipient Grace Kim AIA. To help bring these honors home – and also to honor the intention and cause advanced by the AIA Seattle Diversity Roundtable in the Summer Solstice Sequence, AIA national President-elect Douglas Steidl FAIA and Susan have planned a Seattle visit for June 25-26. Perhaps you'll join the crowd to celebrate further with at least the majority of these honored friends, along with recipients of AIA Seattle 2004 Honors, at the Honors Gala June 26.

Dinner festivities included serious but good-natured 'Monorailery,' with several activists in Seattle's current controversies over the Green Line Monorail in full voice: Jon Magnusson Hon. AIA and Seattle City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck AIA prominently among them here as at home. The jollity didn't stop with dinner, as several continued their celebrations onward. We can probably believe some if perhaps not all of the stories about Jon and the Mardi Gras beads, about Peter Steinbrueck partying all the way to closing time, Steve Arai's comprehensive views of transit politics, or Roger Williams's ability to spell "Chicago" - and all that jazz.

Back to Business:
On Saturday morning, business-minded delegates – in numbers again reduced since the Thursday election-focused gathering, which played havoc with the new electronic voting procedures - gathered for the Annual Business Meeting, to consider resolutions and measures announced in advance via the Delegate Handbook (AKA "the yellow book"). These included Bylaws revisions having to do with the composition of the national Board of Directors and ExCom, term limits and numbers, etc. as well as resolutions summarized below (see report of the meeting in AIArchitect 6/18/04):
04-1 Passed as amended: "Dues Increase in Support of the Institute's Annual Advertising Campaign"
04-2 Passed as amended: "To Strengthen the Demographic Diversity of the Design Profession"
04-3 Passed as submitted: "Evolving the Intern Development Program"
04-5 Passed as amended: "Appreciation of retiring members of the Council of Architectural Component Executives" – including AIA Washington Council Executive Director Mary Mauerman, retiring effective June 15, 2004 after some 17 years, and AIA Spokane Executive Director Evelyn Creager, now counting more than 41 years of service.

Other highlights and lowlights of our gathering here:
* Enthusiastic buzz about "Becoming Knowledgeable" in Seattle 9/22/04, and the Knowledge by Design Case Study Conference August 4-6, 2005. Gordon Chong FAIA expressed enthusiastic anticipation of his involvement as the official Wrapper-Up at the 2005 Conference.
* The Women in Architecture dinner on the 96th floor of Hancock Tower ("The High and The Unmighty," see figures following), where Rena and Karen, along with guest speaker and AIA Seattle favorite Sarah Susanka AIA among others shared stories and proud moments for women in architecture - now comprising 42% of students in accrdited architecture schools, 16% of tenured faculty at schools of architecture, 20% of US licensed architects, 21% of US firm principals and partners, 33% of AIA Associate Members, 11% of AIA Members, 6% of AIA national Board members and 0% of Regional Directors on the Board, and 3% of the AIA College of Fellows, according to a WIA handout.
* Gathering with Big Sibling colleagues at the Reliant Building - now the Hotel Burnham - to discuss common issues and concerns - including permitting processes, the subject of an AIA initiative instigated by the Big Sibs with the advice and encourage of AIA Government Affairs/Advocacy; and also issues relating to the role and responsibility of architectural criticism in public and professional media, a subject of recent relevance in several cities, in AIA and other media.
* Meeting with AIA Knowledge Community leaders to consider possibilities for a 2006 meeting in Seattle focusing on issues of urban sustainability - encompassing AIA's national Center for Livable Communities, Regional and Urban Design, COTE, and Housing Knowledge Communities.
* Again this year, the business of AIA - which many perceive as more procedural than substantive, and conducted in ways that tend to elude, divide, confuse and wear out the electorate – attracts relatively little interest and a tiny percentage of AIA's national membership of some 77,000. The perhaps time-honored but also little-understood and unevenly applied procedures for delegate qualification, the often-faceless AIA governance, and the generally participation-unfriendly conduct of AIA business tend to discourage participation. As the membership approved at the 2003 Convention (via approval of a measure which we in the AIA NW+Pacific Region refer to as 'the Sue Lani Madsen amendment'), this year's voting took place using electronic voting - which unfortunately suffered from some technical difficulties, making it all a little worse – best written off as a learning experience.
* Later in August, many of us will join our regional colleagues at "Architects as Explorers"/AIA NW+Pacific Region Conference at Big Sky August 18-22. You'll find this an outstanding opportunity to learn with and from our colleagues from around the Region. AIA Seattle will host the 2005 Region Conference, Knowledge by Design August 4-6 (also the occasion of the 111th Birthday of AIA in Seattle and Washington), uniting partners in education and practice in a case study approach to the World Architecture we create. And in the year following, we'll ally with our partners at AIA Hong Kong to hold a Westward Ho! send-off to launch attendees on their way across the great Pacific to the 2006 AIA NW+Pacific Conference, to HK and other Asian venues. Wow!

AIA Poet Laureate Marga offers 'With 20K+ Architects on the Miracle Mile,' reproduced at right, a one-word tribute to the urbane experience (which also encompassed the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale) of this gathering.

With regards to all!
from Kristen, Peter, Rena, Marga