Good afternoon.

It is my privilege to stand before you this afternoon and make this introduction. It is one that I have truly wanted to make for some time and I do so for three reasons.

First, I remember reading Don Lyndon’s acceptance of the Topaz Award in the ACSA newsletter last year and being struck by the care, insight and compassion for education that he expressed...and besides which, it was well written. I thought then and still believe that some luster had been restored to the Topaz Award and that its true purpose had been reaffirmed. That is, to honor true architectural educators whose commitment over a sustained period of time has indeed made a difference to their students, schools and ultimately to the profession.

Second, I suspect like most deans, I often wake up mornings at 4:00 ready to start cataloguing the disasters of the upcoming day, but instead I had the uncomplicated thought that this was indeed the perfect time to recognize today’s recipient for his contributions and that it would be worth the effort to make the nomination. And indeed it does take a bit of work, involving some of you here today, and I thank you for your willingness to contribute to the process.

I should say parenthetically that being a native Vermonter, I have an unduly high aversion to joining groups, awarding medals, seeking prizes and attaching letters after one’s name...I still believe that my salvation, whatever that may mean, is still only available through what we do, publicly or privately, and not what others may think...very Calvinistic stuff no doubt. Nevertheless this is different. There are only a handful among us that can claim to have altered the course of architectural education and as a result, the profession itself. Not only altered the course of education but done so with a singular focus and passion that has not dimmed even in his 67th year. Werner Seligmann is unique among his peers in that regard. That Duracell battery is still going strong, I assure you!

My third reason for wanting to be here today is perhaps more self serving in that this is the 125th year of the start of the department of architecture at Syracuse. It was started in 1873 by George Fisk Comfort, who also started that other successful enterprise, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and it was part of the first College of Visual Arts in the United States. Like all schools of architecture, particularly ones 125 years old, it has enjoyed good moments and bad. But surely I would not be here today if Werner had not taken over as Dean in 1976 and for the next 14 years developed a first rate pedagogical model, whose graduates have started to come on line as successful professionals and teachers. It was a joy to take over direction of a school that was basically in good shape, although we have had some unique institutional challenges in the last eight years.

As you know it takes a long time to build a school and they are at best fragile creatures. The early 1970’s were difficult everywhere. The events of 1968 held out great promise but like the French Revolution the promise of the moment has turned out rather badly, I suspect. Seligmann brought to the school at a critical moment of great confusion, a sense of purpose and a value system that linked progressive modernist ideals with an understanding of history and its uses in the design process. He also brought a passion for education, the work of Le Corbusier and Wright, and for things European, and in the process attracted a first rate teaching faculty. It was a wonderful legacy to inherit eight years ago and while the agenda changes as it must, the conviction in the belief in what a school must be in order to be a school, does not.

Thus, this is an appropriate moment for the Syracuse School of Architecture in its 125th year, as well.

What more can one say? A great many (some of you in this room) were his students...at Texas, Cornell, Harvard, the ETH and Syracuse. Some of you worked in the office in Cortland, producing some of the most passionately conceived modern architecture in the United States in its time...Ithaca Center, the Biology Building at Cortland, the Synagogue in Binghamton, Elm Street Housing in Ithaca...all worth a detour!

Many of you have been his colleagues over the years. But on the other hand I bet none of you have had the pleasures of being both his student and his boss!!!

Now there is a small price to pay for that pleasure! My weekly lecture on how to improve things, for starters. But one thing I have learned from this, is the unstinting love of the institution, a continuing passion for education and a willingness to be involved in the studio until 11:00 or 12:00 at night trying to make sense of some muddled student projects.

Some famous Seligmann moments:

A half scale sectional model might help design the major space, don’t you think! How about getting it done by tomorrow. Or maybe a twenty foot long section that really shows the context. On mylar and in ink of course and don’t cross the lines at the corners. No rapidographs - use a graphos please (if you can find one). Friends, nothing has changed, I assure you!

Educated at Cornell and the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig, Germany, he taught at Texas, the ETH, Cornell, and Harvard before coming to Syracuse as Dean in 1976. He has been a fellow of the American Academy, Noyes Professor at Harvard, Bishop Professor at Yale, and Jefferson Professor at Virginia, and is currently distinguished professor of architecture at Syracuse, teaching in Florence in our M.Arch. II program.

His accomplishments are many: two PA Awards, three PA covers, distinguished appointments at many universities, and all those buildings, competitions, articles and lectures. Seven current and past Deans of Schools of Architecture and at least the same number of current and former Chairs are part of his legacy.

But when all is said and done, it is the fact that he made for me and countless others the belief that being a teacher of architecture was the highest calling and among the most noble of pursuits that is his greatest legacy. Thank you, Werner.