Today is November 18 and the Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you do your best work even if the project is small?”
People like Canadian-born American architect Frank Owen Gehry know the value of putting his heart and soul into a project, no matter how small. Gehry noted “In my fourth year at the University of Southern California, the teacher from my professional practice class came up to me in the courtyard one day and said, ‘Frank, I've been watching you, and I think you're a talented guy who's going to go somewhere. I just want to give you one word of advice: No matter how small a project you work on, and no matter what it is, put your heart and soul and sense of responsibility into it, and don't dismiss anything.’ He said it very clearly and lovingly, and I never forgot it and I've lived by it.”
A number of his buildings, including his private residence, have become world-renowned attractions. His works are cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, which led Vanity Fair to label him as "the most important architect of our age". But his start in architecture took a while.
According to Gehry, "I was a truck driver in L.A., going to City College, and I tried radio announcing, which I wasn't very good at. I tried chemical engineering, which I wasn't very good at and didn't like, and then I remembered. You know, somehow I just started wracking my brain about, 'What do I like?' Where was I? What made me excited? And I remembered art, that I loved going to museums and I loved looking at paintings, loved listening to music. Those things came from my mother, who took me to concerts and museums. I remembered Grandma and the blocks, and just on a hunch, I tried some architecture classes."
Gehry graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from USC in 1954.
Gehry put his heart and soul into each project no matter how small. Do you?