Handmade T-Squares - about 1974

After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design, Ellen and I moved to New York City. We found an apartment that was in bad shape and decided to renovate. Loft living was in vogue and we removed all the interior walls of the apartment. I stored the lumber from the demolition on the roof top extension behind the apartment so that we could use it for firewood. We were paying for heat and we had two fireplaces. I didn’t have a job. Architecture firms were not interested in hiring a recent graduate who had no building design experience, so I made things out of the lumber stored on the rooftop.

In addition to Handmade T-Squares, I built folding T-Squares and collaged images of Christ crucified on a T-Square. I established my own firm known as NYSA, New York Space Administration. Beyond my initial frustration with the profession of architecture, constructions using building materials from demolition sites sparked my interest in building for the first time. I experimented with the dialectics of handcraft and mass production and with the precise and the spontaneous.