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The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work
This book traces the development of John Hejduk’s architectural career,

using the idea of “exorcism” to uncover his thought process when examining
architectural designs. His work encouraged profound questioning on what,
why and how we build, which allowed for more open discourse to enhance
the phenomenology found in architectural experiences.
Three distinct eras in his architectural career are applied to analogies of
outlines, apparitions and angels throughout the book across seven chapters.
Using these thematic examples, the author investigates the progression of
thought and depth inside the architect’s imagination by studying key projects
such as the Texas houses, Wall House, Architectural Masques and his final
works.
Featuring comments by Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk, Stanley Tigerman,
Steven Holl, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Phyllis Lambert, Juhani Pallasmaa,
Toshiko Mori and others, this book brings to life the intricacies in the mind
of John Hejduk, and would be beneficial for those interested in architecture
and design in the 20th century.
J. Kevin Story, AIA is an architect in Houston, Texas. He has served as part

of the Adjunct Faculty at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and
Design since 1996. Kevin teaches Intermediate and Advanced design studios
and architectural construction detailing. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture
and Master of Architecture degree from the University of Houston.
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The Architect as Magician

Albert C. Smith and Kendra Schank Smith
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A Modern Architect’s Sense of Place
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The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work

Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions and Angels
J. Kevin Story
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The Complexities of John
Hejduk’s Work
Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions and
Angels
J. Kevin Story
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 J. Kevin Story
The right of J. Kevin Story to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Story, J. Kevin, author.
Title: The complexities of Hohn Hejduk’s work: exorcising outlines,
apparitions and angels / J. Kevin Story.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2020. | Series:
Routledge research in architecture | Includes bibliographical references
and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020006835 (print) | LCCN 2020006836 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781138476493 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351105897 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Hejduk, John, 1929-2000—Criticism and interpretation.
Classification: LCC NA737.H36 S76 2020 (print) | LCC NA737.H36
(ebook) | DDC 720.92—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006835
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020006836
ISBN: 978-1-1384-7649-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-3511-0589-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Foreword xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction1
1 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy:

exorcising outlines, Part 1 10
2 Pedagogy of the Texas Houses:

exorcising outlines, Part 2 29
3 Pedagogy of the Wall House:

exorcising apparitions, Part 1 45
4 Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque:

exorcising apparitions, Part 2 66
5 Pedagogy of the Last Works: exorcising angels 120
6 Pedagogy of the Cigar Box:

experiencing the otherness of John Hejduk 167
7 A serendipitous life: the end of the beginning 176
Epilogue: The otherness of John Hejduk:

a collection of thought 181
Bibliography225
Index231
Illustrations
All images, figures and illustrations depicting John Hejduk and his works
listed below are included in this publication with permission granted by the
Estate of John Q. Hejduk.
Cover The Fox and the Crow, Aesop’s Fables, John Hejduk, 1947,
courtesy of the Estate of John Q. Hejduk, digital image by
J. Kevin Story
0.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1990s, image courtesy of Steven Hillyer,
Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The
Cooper Union, New York 1
1.1 Hoeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil
on canvas, H: 40” x W: 60¼” (101.60 × 153.04 cm), courtesy
of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: Patrons Art Fund,
44.2 and © Estate of Robert Gwathmey/Licensed by VAGA,
New York, NY 11
2.1 Plan with notes for Texas House 5, John Hejduk,
1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 56 × 79 cm,
DR1998:0051:002, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for
Architecture © CCA 31
2.2 Plan for Texas House 1, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite
on translucent paper, 80 × 84 cm, DR1998:0047:003:002,
John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 32
2.3 Plan for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954–1963,
graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm,
DR1998:0053:006, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian
Centre for Architecture © CCA 33
2.4 Plan for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite
on translucent paper, 77 × 92 cm, DR1998:0053:003, John
Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 34
2.5 Plan, axonometric, and elevations for Texas House 6, John
Hejduk, 1954–1963, graphite on translucent paper, 77 × 107
cm, DR1998:0052:027, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre
for Architecture © CCA 37
Illustrations vii
2.6 Axonometric for Texas House 7, John Hejduk, 1954–
1963, graphite on translucent paper, 81 × 92 cm,
DR1998:0053:009, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre
2.7 Conceptual drawings with notes for The Nine Square Prob-
lem between 1963 and 1985, John Hejduk, Detail, ink on
ruled paper affixed to typescript on paper, 28.1 × 21.8 cm,
DR1998:0044:003, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre
3.1 Comtesse d’Haussonville, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,
1845, Copyright The Frick Collection, New York, 51 7/8 in.
× 36 ¼ in. (131.8 × 92.1 cm). Oil on canvas 47
3.2 Plan for Bye House, John Hejduk, 1974, yellow and blue
colored pencil and graphite over diazotype on paper, 45.9
× 98 cm, DR2005:0001:068, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian
3.3 Wall House, John Hejduk, original design 1973, constructed
in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Liao
Yusheng, Photographer, liao@yusheng.ca 49
in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène
Binet, Photographer 50
in 2001, Groningen, Netherlands, image courtesy of © Hélène
Binet, Photographer 51
3.6 Nelson Atkins Museum Addition, Kansas City, MO, Steven
Holl Architects, 2007, image courtesy of © Timothy Hursley,
Photographer62
4.1 The Ant and the Grasshopper, from Aesop’s Fables illustra-
tions, John Hejduk, 1947, courtesy of the Estate of John Q.
Hejduk, digital image by J. Kevin Story 72
4.2 Guy Debord, Guide Psychogeographique de Paris, Discours
Sur Les Passions de l’amor, 1957, Lithograph, 595 × 735 mm,
digital image courtesy of © Drawing Matter Collections 84
4.3 Sketches of structures for Victims, John Hejduk, 1984,
pen and ink on yellow ruled paper, 27.7 × 21.4cm,
DR1998:0109:002:001, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre
4.4 Site Plan for Berlin Masque, John Hejduk, 1981,
graphite on translucent paper, 118.3 × 107.5 cm,
viii Illustrations
4.5 New England Masque, Sketches, John Hejduk, 1979, digital
image by J. Kevin Story 97
4.6 New England Masque, Site Plan Perspective Sketch, John
Hejduk, 1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story 98
4.7 New England Masque, Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979,
digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 101
4.8 New England Masque, Floor Plan, John Hejduk, 1979, digital
image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 102
4.9 New England Masque, Building Section, John Hejduk, 1979,
digital image and geometric overlay by J. Kevin Story 102
4.12 Diamond Museum C, Concept Diagram Sketch detail, John
Hejduk, 1963–1967, digital image by J. Kevin Story 108
4.13 Sketches and notes for The Thirteen Watchtowers of Cannar-
egio, John Hejduk, 1974–1979, ink with pastel on paper, 23 ×
31 cm, DR1998:0093:001:006, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian
4.14 Knut Hamsun Museum, Concept Watercolor Sketch,
“Concept: Building = A Body – Battleground of Invisible
Forces”, Steven Holl, 1994, image courtesy of © Steven Holl
Architects111
4.15 Blur Building, Swiss Expo 2002, Yverdon-Les-Bains, Switzer-
land, Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, image courtesy of
Diller Scofidio + Renfro Architects, NYC 115
5.1 Crucified Angels: Emergency Service and First Aid, from
Bovisa, John Hejduk, 1986, Detail, painting with ink on
paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR1988:0436:009, John Hejduk fonds,
Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 121
5.2 The Tortoise and the Birds, from Aesop’s Fables illustrations,
John Hejduk, 1947, digital image by J. Kevin Story 123
5.3 New England Masque, Site Plan Sketches, John Hejduk,
1979, digital image by J. Kevin Story 124
5.4 Model for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden
Horns, Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood,
Illustrations ix
61 × 121.9 × 43.2 cm, DR1998:0134:014, John Hejduk
fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 124
5.5 Beatus Facundus, Illustration, from the Beatus Manuscripts,
ca. 1047, 250 × 205 mm, title: “en:” The sixth Trumpet. The
Angels trapped on the banks of the Euphrates. Rev. Ix, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Beatus_de_Facun-
dus#/media/File:B_Facundus_173.jpg127
5.6 Enclosures (E-13), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Ink,
gouache, and metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery,
11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The
Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester,
Photographer127
5.7 Beatus illustration, Angel Detail, Facundus for Ferdinand,
ca.1047, title: “The Angel spreads the first Cup. Apoc. XVI”,
Illumination on parchment, 110 x 200mm, courtesy of Wiki-
media.org, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/
wiki/File:B_Facundus_216a.jpg129
5.8 Angel Detail, From John Quentin Hejduk, Enclosures (E-07),
1999–2000, Black ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk
office stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image cour-
tesy of The Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul
Hester, Photographer 129
5.9 The Pedler, Hans Holbein, from Dance of Death, 1522–1526,
woodcut, paper, h 65mm × w 50mm, compiled by Dr. F.
Lipman, 1986, “the Pedler” by Ephemeral Scraps is licensed
under CC BY 2.0, public domain. https://search.creativecom-
mons.org/photos/418ecfe1-a052-4169-9459-21f7886c9399131
5.10 Hospital Towers: Prison/Normal; Via of Crucified Angels,
from Bovisa 1986, Detail, John Hejduk, painting with ink on
paper, 100 × 65 cm, DR:1988:0436:008, John Hejduk fonds,
Canadian Centre for Architecture, © Estate of John Hejduk 133
5.11 Artist’s proof for The Flight, from Zenobia, John Hejduk,
1990, 66 × 47 cm, DR1998:0128:311, John Hejduk fonds,
Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 135
5.12 Enclosures (E-07), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Black
ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery, 11
× 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The Menil
Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester,
Photographer136
5.13 Christ Carrying Cross, Botticelli, ca. 1490, 132.5 × 106.7 cm,
courtesy of Wikiart.org, public domain, Mark 1.0, no
copyright. www.wikiart.org/en/sandro-botticelli/christ-carry-
ing-the-cross138
5.14 Manila Folder, Enclosures layout sketch,1999–2000, John
Quentin Hejduk, Ink on paper, 9 ½ × 11 3/4 in. (24.1 × 29.8 cm)
x Illustrations
(folded), image courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil
Collection, Houston. Paul Hester, Photographer 141
5.15 Enclosures (E-10), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk, Black
ink, gouache, metallic paint on Hejduk office stationery,
11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy of The
Menil Collection, Houston, Anonymous gift. Paul Hester
Photographer143
5.16 Sanctuary 1 (1–12), 1999–2000, John Quentin Hejduk,
Ink, gouache, metallic paints, and crayon on Hejduk office
stationery, 11 × 8 1/2 in. (27.9 × 21.6 cm), image courtesy
of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston, Gift
of the artist in memory of Dominique de Menil. Paul Hester,
Photographer147
5.17 The Collapse of Time: 90° Flat Time, 45° Isometric Time,
0° Horizontal Time, 1986, John Hejduk, painted wood
and metal, models (range): 9.5 × 5 × 19 to 19 × 5 × 19 cm,
5.18 Model for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns,
Stone Veils, 1996, John Hejduk, painted wood, 35 × 76.5 ×
102.3 cm, DR1998:0134:016, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian
5.19 Model for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns,
5.20 Section and details for Christ Chapel, from Pewter Wings,
Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk,
pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 21.5 cm,
5.21 Interior perspective for Christ Chapel, from Pewter
Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John
Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 28 × 28 cm,
5.22 Notes and perspective sketches for Christ Chapel, from
Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John
Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 26 × 20.5 cm,
DR1998:0134:016:011, John Hejduk fonds, Canadian
5.23 Exterior perspective for Christ Chapel, from Pewter
Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John
Hejduk, pen and black ink on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm,
Illustrations xi
5.24 Model for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns,
5.25 St. Ignatius Chapel, Seattle, WA, Watercolor Sketch, “Bottles
of Light in a Stone Box”, Steven Holl, 1994, digital sketch
image courtesy of Steven Holl Architects 162
5.26 Perspective for Cathedral, from Pewter Wings, Golden Horns,
Stone Veils, 1994–1996, John Hejduk, pen and black ink
on wove paper, 21.5 × 28 cm, DR1998:0134:014:012, John
Hejduk fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © CCA 163
6.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1980, image courtesy of Steven Hillyer,
Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The
Cooper Union, New York and the Estate of John Q. Hejduk 169
6.2 Cigar Box Interior, J. Kevin Story, 1979, 8 × 10 in. b/w
photograph, J. Kevin Story, Photographer digital image by J.
Kevin Story 172
Every effort has been made to contact and acknowledge copyright owners,
but the author and publisher would be pleased to have any errors or omis-
sions brought to their attention so that corrections may be published at a
later printing.
Foreword
Kevin Story has produced a remarkably thoughtful treatise on the enigmatic

ideas of the architect, artist and teacher John Hejduk. His study is driven by
genuine appreciation for Hejduk’s work and how, in a world dominated by
pragmatism, it illuminates the poetic dimension in architecture. Kevin who
is himself an accomplished (and busy) practicing architect and teacher has
rediscovered Hejduk at a point where age has become a mature context; a
time when people are often jaded or disillusioned by life in the real world.
Kevin is still able to find fascination in a perennial question: “Why do archi-
tects draw angels?”
Kevin came by his interest in Hejduk existentially. He was one of the for-
tunate students in Professor John Perry’s famous U of H Honors Studio in
the fall of 1979 when Hejduk visited the college as a critic. His visit had a
deep effect on the students: he brought a different voice to the school: gen-
tle, persistent, affecting. He challenged the students to forget the formal and
functional recipes they were using with reliable success and to trust their
imaginations, to be poets, dreamers, architects and artists, all at one time.
He challenged them with projects of radical indeterminacy, in the ultimate
kind of studio environment where no one knew the answers. It was all about
discovery, even without questions. As Kevin shows in his thesis, John’s artistic
life was a magical mystery tour. And unlike many architects who teach, John
was a teacher first who was devoted to questions of architectural pedagogy.
As a teacher he first devised a set of modernist space making exercises using
the nine-square grid as a provocateur for various syntactical variations and
accommodations. The exercises blossomed into narrations in which architec-
tural elements became characters in various quasi-theatrical ensembles. John
saw the building program becoming allegorical, interpreting architecture as
situational and symbolic. Kevin’s interpretations of John’s spiritual, “sanc-
tuary” projects, a preoccupation during his latter career, are particularly
insightful and original in ferreting out the meanings of these stark, existential
encounters with angels captured in bounded space that John drew with pas-
sionate expressiveness. Kevin’s research, including extensive interviews with
the architect’s wife, shaped a view of Hejduk as a deeply religious man work-
ing out his faith in powerful architectural schemes and visions.
Foreword xiii
Hejduk visited U of H back in 1979 and not everyone was convinced that
what he was doing had much to do with being an architect. Maybe even less
so when John sent his former student, Daniel Libeskind (then head of archi-
tecture at Cranbrook Academy and at that time the quintessential “paper
architect”) and others who were a part of Hejduk’s mystery circle that fol-
lowed. And for a period of ten years or so the ideas hatched by Hejduk and
fueled by fellow travelers were a big part of the creative dynamics of the
College. It was at a time when there wasn’t much professional work and jobs
for students in architecture offices were hard to find. The computer was just
entering the scene and the old defining skills of hand drawing and sketching,
model-making and drafting were highly respected though at the same time
on the verge of being displaced in many architectural practices. The school
was everything. It seemed like a sanctuary – almost monastic – protecting
and practicing a deserted art against a time when it might be needed again.
In an age of cynicism Hejduk’s visions may seem hopelessly innocent. But
they helped to make it possible for students and architects to dream. And to
the extent that dreaming is still a part of architecture, they continue to do so.
Kevin’s work on this project was a bit like a flaneur’s walk with new sub-
jects of interest, insights and new interpretive directions appearing regularly
as Kevin’s research unfolded. A primary source of these openings was the
extensive, original interviews Kevin conducted with many notable collabo-
rators, friends and critics of his subject. These include several handwritten
letters and telephone interviews with Gloria Hejduk, John’s wife, in which
she shared personal insights and experiences. The collection of interviews is
a valuable, archival appendix to the study.
Bruce C. Webb
Professor Emeritus
Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design
University of Houston
A Carnegie-designated Tier One research university
Acknowledgements
Along the journey to the completion of this project I have had support and
encouragement from my family, friends and colleagues. Foremost among my
supporters is my wife Nancy. She has been a proofreader providing insightful
critiques of the form and content of my writing and she has always been an
encourager. I can never thank her enough for her sacrifices.
If not for Professor Emeritus Bruce Webb this book would not be what it
has become. Bruce has been a stalwart advisor, encourager, thoughtful critic,
a deep well of knowledge and without his input and criticism my work would
not be as comprehensive and thoughtful as I hope it has become. I share any
credit I may receive for this work with Professor Webb.
This book would not be possible without the support of Patricia Oliver
F.A.I.A., Dean of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design.
Thank you Patricia for your encouragement and very generous support! I
would like to extend my sincere thanks to Professors Rafael Longoria, Diet-
mar Froehlich and the U of H Architectural Graduate Study Program for
their support during the course of this project.
The depth of this work would not be possible without the ever present
support of Mrs. Gloria Fiorentino Hejduk. Her kindness, availability and
sincere hospitality are cherished by me and my wife Nancy. I offer my sincere
thanks to Renata Hejduk for her help with this project and for opening the
door to Gloria’s vivid memory. I feel privileged that I can now count Gloria
and Renata as friends.
Special thanks are extended to Dr. Weiling He from Texas A&M for her
insightful critiques of my early writing and to Steven Hillyer, Director of the
Cooper Union Archives, for his generous help with this project.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the following persons for
their willingness to provide me permission to use their insights into John
Hejduk’s life, work, pedagogy and legacy that are included in the epilogue of
this book. The names listed below are in order as they appear in the epilogue:
Stanley Tigerman, Juhani Pallasmaa, Zaha Hadid, Charles Jencks, Steven
Holl (courtesy of Steven Holl), Jesse Reiser, Toshiko Mori, Diane Lewis, Jim
Williamson, Phyllis Lambert (Founding Director Emeritus Canadian Cen-
tre for Architecture), Joan Ockman, Dr. Alberto Perez-Gomez (Bronfman
Acknowledgements xv
Professor of the History of Architecture at McGill University), Rafael Moneo,
Bruce Webb, Carlos Jimenez, Donald Bates, Chris Petrash and Mrs. Gloria
Fiorentino Hejduk.
Very special thanks are extended to whom John Hejduk described as: “that
great teacher, that grand man, that special heart, that Texan, John Perry.”1
Without Professor Perry’s persistence beginning 40 years ago this current
work would not be possible. Thank you John for your generosity, friendship
and encouragement!
I would like to acknowledge and offer my sincere thanks to my teaching
mentor for 20 years, Professor Robert Griffin for his generosity, friendship
and encouragement. Additionally, I would like to thank my teaching col-
leagues at U of H; Professors Tom Diehl, Sharon Chapman, Nora Laos, Geof-
frey Brune, Peter Zweig, Duke Fleshman, Jesse Hager and Gary Eades for
their support and encouragement. I would like to extend my thanks to Anita
Parker and Zerik Kendrick for their generous time in helping me edit parts of
the text and images for publication. I would like to thank Michael Thomas
and Theresa Ward for their generosity during the production of this work
and a special thanks is extended to the Routlledge staff for their support
along the journey to publication!
Lastly, I would like to thank John Hejduk for his enigmatic complexities.
In my research I have come to appreciate the depth of Hejduk’s search for the
connectivity between the undertones found in architectural constructs with
the metaphysics and phenomenology of human perception. I offer my sincere
thanks to John Hejduk for the depth of his spirit, the vastness of his imagina-
tion and his lifetime of soulful exorcisms. He poetically delineated the com-
plex ambiguities within the phenomenology of spatial perception and he has
taught me the importance of uncovering that which is unrevealed in spatial
design to expose the vastness of a mineable field of self-discovery.
J. Kevin Story, AIA

Adjunct Faculty
Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design
University of Houston
A Carnegie-designated Tier One research university
April 30, 2020
Note
1 Quote by John Hejduk is taken from a telegram sent by Hejduk to Juhani Pallasmaa to
be included as the Introduction to an exhibit catalog titled: Explorations, Exhibition 1982,
Museum of Finnish Architecture. The exhibit featured student work from the University of
Houston Honors Studio. The telegram was reproduced in its entirety and the quoted text
appears on page 9 of the catalog.
Introduction
… architectural tracings are apparitions, outlines, figments. They are not

diagrams but ghosts … X-rays of thoughts. Meditations on the sense of era-
sures. To fabricate a construction of time. To draw out by compacting in …
John Hejduk1
Figure 0.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1990s.

Image courtesy of Steven Hillyer, Director, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture Archive, The
Cooper Union, New York.
ex·or·cise [ek-sawr-sahyz]
verb (used with object), ex·or·cised, ex·or·cis·ing2
• free person or place from evil: to use prayers and religious rituals with
the intention of ridding a person or place of the supposed presence or
influence of evil spirits
• get rid of oppressive feeling: to clear the mind of a painful or oppressive
feeling or memory
2 Introduction
John Hejduk was a 20th-century American architect, educator and artist
noted for his use of narrative, allegory, metaphor and poetics in architec-
tural design. Hejduk was influential with his thought-provoking, theoretical,
polemical projects developed over the span of his 50-year career. He was the
Dean of the Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture at the Cooper Union
in NYC beginning in 1975 for 25 years. Hejduk was a respected educator
throughout architectural academia in the USA and abroad. His pedagogical
positions and methods have continued to be studied and critiqued within
academic programs. His relentless pursuit of the otherness engendered by his
thought-provoking investigations offers us the opportunity to explore and
discover the complexities attributed to his pedagogical work and the poetics
of form and space he sought to unearth. He was an architect that saw very
few of his building designs constructed. Wall House 2, “The Bye House”, is
arguably his most publicly recognized work and was constructed in 2001
after his death on July 3, 2000. During the course of Hejduk’s life journey
he would fully absorb the tenets found in great works of art, architecture
and literature. He contemplated the imagery he observed in the work and
through these absorptions he created his own world of spatial dimensions.
Hejduk spent a lifetime exorcising the depth found in the work of others to
define his architectural journey.
The interpretative work in the following chapters analyzes John Hejduk’s
pedagogical propositions. Hejduk was an academic and theorist, but his
teaching methods extended beyond the walls of the studio environment. His
world revolved around his pedagogical investigations. Hejduk’s work was
synonymous with his pedagogy. He used his work as a language to commu-
nicate his ideas to others. He sought to teach by exorcising the thoughts in
his work for others to contemplate and learn from. His teaching laboratory
was as vast as one’s imagination and as deep as one’s soulful introspections
would allow.
The organizational theme to the narrative of this book identifies three
primary phases evident within Hejduk’s oeuvre, providing a chronological
referential backdrop to analyze his pedagogical underpinnings. The three
primary thematic phases attributed to Hejduk in the following chapters are
comprised of: “Outlines”, “Apparitions” and “Angels”. These metaphorical
themes define the experimental path along Hejduk’s architectural journey.
It is hoped that the interpretive analysis using these themes provides a fresh
insight to the polemical importance of John Hejduk’s work.
The topical themes or phases of Hejduk’s work defined in this book will
be referenced using several recurring terms that Hejduk used to describe his
investigative design process. The recurring terms posited throughout the text
are: “exorcising” and “exorcism” and/or their derivatives. Hejduk’s term,
“exorcising”, is used in this book to define his design process. He viewed the
term “exorcising” as a means to fully absorb a particular work of architecture,
Introduction 3
architectural concept, artist, architect, work of literature or art movement,
such as, “exorcising Le Corbusier” or “exorcising Cubism”. His process of
“exorcising” would “work-out” and “feel-out” the underpinning of his ideas.
His exorcisms would result in new paradigms of thought engendering the
otherness that is commonly associated with John Hejduk’s work. He would
use his exorcising process to rid himself of preconceptions that could influ-
ence the outcome of his investigations. One could say, through “exorcising
his architectural demons”, he set himself on a course of self-discovery to
redefine the nature of art and architectural representation.
The term exorcising or exorcism is complex and it is used extensively in
the interpretive analyses in the following chapters of this book. The Webster
definition(s) at the outset of this Introduction defines the term as an act that
carries a sense of fear and foreboding, but in the context of this book it also
has a definition devoid of the fear typically conjured by thoughts of exor-
cism. The term exorcising in the chapters to follow is used to define Hejduk’s
methodology of ridding himself of demons, but the term demon is not meant
to be something evil. His demons were typically preconceptions that would
influence his thinking. Exorcising was Hejduk’s way of discovering the first
principles found in his work.
When Hejduk was interviewed by Don Wall in the mid 1980s for the book
Mask of Medusa, Wall discussed a time when Hejduk was recovering from an
illness and he (Hejduk) was trying to write down his thoughts for a preface
he was contributing for an upcoming book release. An excerpt of this inter-
view discussion is recounted below and provides the basis of intent of how
the tenets of the term exorcising is used in the context of this book.
Wall: Getting rid of the germs through and in writing?

Yes. That was a heavy one, I got rid of it and I’m so glad. That
Hejduk:
preface was in there a long time, was building up for a long time.
Had to get rid of it. Now it’s out. It’s exorcising. Architectural
exorcising.
Hejduk’s process of “exorcising” allowed him to pull thoughts and images

from the depths of his soulful ponderings and bring them into the light for
him to analyze and absorb and for others to see, experience and contemplate.
In a sense, his process of exorcising is akin to providing a visual and physi-
cal clarity to the fleeting imagery we may experience in our daydreams. His
methods were thoughtful, introspective and analytical, but he always main-
tained a childlike innocence of spirit and an uninhibited exploration of his
imagination. He was a wanderer searching for the unexpected.
“Exorcising” for Hejduk, is similar to the design process used by many
architects, in that, most architects generate their work through iterations of
sketches, drawings, modeling and other methods to refine their thoughts in
4 Introduction
order to discover the underpinning and resolution of an idea. This is a com-
mon practice performed by all thoughtful architects and designers. The dif-
ference in Hejduk’s method, in my view, was not to use the iterative design
process to only find a resolution and clarity in the work; Hejduk used his
work as an experiential language to ask questions of what, why and how we
build. He saw himself as an interrogator and a questionnaire of architectural
solutions. Therefore, his works were not produced as final resolutions to
architectural problems, they were meant to be questions pointing towards
a deeper understanding of investigations into the connectivity we desire to
have with form and spatial experience.
The content of this book is divided into seven chapters interpreting the
work of John Hejduk. Chapter 1 provides the reader with an overview of
the formative years of Hejduk’s education, his early years as an educator and
friendships made along the way. These experiences would be very influential
in the development of his future work and would inform many, if not all, of
his future pedagogical underpinnings.
Chapters 2 through 6 provide an interpretative analysis of the major
themes found in Hejduk’s work including: the Pedagogy of the Texas Houses,
the Pedagogy of the Wall House, the Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque,
the Pedagogy of the Last Works and the Pedagogy of the Cigar Box.
Chapter 6, the “Pedagogy of the Cigar Box”, is a recounting of a personal
encounter this author experienced as a student, in the Honors Studio, under
the tutelage of visiting critic John Hejduk at the University of Houston Col-
lege of Architecture in the fall of 1979. Hejduk was the first of four visiting
critics the students worked with during the 1979–1980 school year. Chapter
6 is included as homage to the remembrances of the Honors Studio and the
influences John Hejduk and the studio creator, Professor John Perry have
given to the students of the U of H College of Architecture.
Chapter 7 is provided as a summation to the life of John Hejduk and offers
a look into the serendipitous importance Hejduk’s early Texas experiences
had in the development of his pedagogical probing. An epilogue is offered as
a closure to this book by providing the thoughts and remembrances of John
Hejduk by others that knew and/or admired him and his work. When direct
quotes by Hejduk are used in the chapters to follow, they are highlighted
using text that is bold and italicized. Quotes provided in the text by other
sources are italicized but not highlighted in bold.
Organizational themes: Outlines, Apparitions and Angels
Theme 1: Outlines
out·line [ówt l`in]3
• line that shows shape: the outer edge or edges of something thought of
as a line defining its shape
Introduction 5
• line depicting shape of something: a line drawn around or depicting the
outside edges of something to show its shape
“Outlines” in this book is interpreted in two parts as follows: Chapter 1

provides an “outline” of the primary influences Hejduk absorbed in his
early years as a student, a young architect and a member of the infamous
“Texas Rangers” faculty at the University of Texas. Hejduk would refer
back to these experiences throughout his career as a referential backdrop to
many of his pedagogical probings. Chapter 2 uses Hejduk’s “Texas Houses”
investigations to analyze his search for the refinements of geometric formal
relationships, spatial expression, structural systems, constructability and the
conceptual nature of architectural detailing to provide tangible evidence
of the importance Hejduk placed on the exactness of geometric constructs
within the canon of his work.
Theme 2: Apparitions
ap·pa·ri·tion [àppə rísh’n]4
• appearance of something ghostly: an appearance of a supposed ghost or

something ghostly
• appearance of something unlikely: an appearance of something or some-
body unexpected or strange
Chapters 3 and 4 interpret Hejduk’s exorcism of “Apparitions” evident in his

pedagogical investigations of the “Wall House” archetype and the “Archi-
tectural Masque”. These two archetypes define a pivotal shift in the allegori-
cal, philosophical and poetic nature of Hejduk’s architectural polemics. This
phase exposed Hejduk’s use of the allegorical and metaphorical narrative in
his work to deepen his poetic sensibilities.
Theme 3: Angels
an·gel [áynjəl]5
• heavenly being: in some religions, a divine being who acts as a messenger

of God
• picture of heavenly being: a depiction of an angel as a human figure with
wings
The interpretations of “Angels” in Chapter 5 uses Hejduk’s “Enclosures”,

“Christ Chapel” and “Cathedral” projects to analyze his faith in architecture
to lift the spirit, to show evidence of his deeply guarded spiritual faith and
6 Introduction
provide an insight into his lifelong appreciation of Renaissance art providing
a summation and homage to his life’s work.
Builder of worlds: setting the stage

John Hejduk searched for meanings between the lines, spaces, objects and
subjects found in works of art and architecture. He explored the essences of
poetic expressions and the underlying relationships that occur between spa-
tially organized elements. The poetics attributed to Hejduk’s work was the
result of a lifetime of exploration to deepen his understanding of form and
spatial context, whether it was written, drawn, built, physical or metaphysical.
All of which defines a unique multidimensional language. Hejduk appreciated
the rigor and exactness of geometry as evidenced in his “Texas Houses” based
on the “nine-square” student design exercise which was created by Hejduk
and Robert Slutzky as part of the “Texas Rangers” faculty at the University of
Texas. Hejduk used the nine-square problem to investigate the depth of spatial
and metaphorical relationships created between form, object, space and time.
The nine-square investigations led to a deeper, more personal architectural
exorcising in his “Wall Houses” from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s and
beyond. As his work progressed, Hejduk’s straightforward pragmatic approach
to the resolution of architectural problems become powerful symbolic prop-
ositions in his last works as documented in his “Enclosures” in 1999–2000.
Hejduk’s architectural journey was one that represented a life full of rev-
elations and new beginnings, but his journey came full circle in the end. We
will see as this book unfolds, where Hejduk began his journey is where he
ended. The transitional depth of architectural investigation in Hejduk’s work
can be seen by tracing the lineage beginning with his 1947 Aesop’s Fables
drawings as a visual tour de force of storytelling, to the compression of time
and space found in his discoveries of the Diamond Houses and Wall Houses,
to the representations of his Lockhart discoveries in his Masque projects, to
the summation of his explorations as represented in his Cathedral project of
1996 and finally to Hejduk’s last works, the personal spiritual imagery of his
Enclosures from 1999/2000.
Hejduk developed specific imagery in the presentation of his work. His
exorcisms were not always meant to be resolutions to his probing, rather
the imagery was provided by him as thought-provoking questions to con-
template. The playfulness and innocence of his imagination represented in
his 1947 Aesop’s Fables drawings ultimately translated into a deep soulful
search that was exorcised in his 1999/2000 Enclosures drawings at the end
of his career. The Aesop’s Fables drawings explored a childlike imaginary
world through the creative eye of an artist and the Enclosures plates were
“felt-out” through the mature mind of a master poet exploring the depths
of his soulful search, but presented in a manner evoking the inhibitions and
innocence of a child.
Introduction 7
The “second phase”6 of John Hejduk’s architectural journey began with
the “Texas Houses”, 1954–1962, which were investigated through a quan-
tifiable analysis of formal ordering systems and spatial contexts. Hejduk’s
Texas experience marked a profound departure of self-discovery that would
expand his tactile senses and deepen his resolve to exorcise his thoughts to
derive personal expressions of spatial experience.
Other pivotal events during the second phase of Hejduk’s journey include
his associations with Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky. The 1957 essay titled
“Lockhart, Texas” by Rowe and Hejduk, written in 1955–1956, would
become very influential in Hejduk’s future architectural investigations.
Through his Texas experiences he began to ponder questions of allegorical,
metaphorical and metaphysical proportions that would later become evident
in the Berlin Masque and other Masque investigations. The pedagogy of
John Hejduk’s poetic architectural work represents a synthesis of a lifetime
of investigation as evidenced through his teaching, writing, poetry, drawings,
paintings and architecture. In a sense, his legacy to architectural discourse
was his recognition of the labyrinthine depths of self-discovery that can be
achieved through the orchestrations that connect an object, viewer, spatial
context and time. Through his experiences over time and place his work pro-
vides a freshness and innocence of spirit that engenders a pursuit towards the
phenomenological depths revealed within spatial constructs.
John Hejduk is remembered today as an educator, architect, poet, artist
and theorist. He loved teaching young students. He was a lover of art, music
and literature and he viewed the representations in these art forms as closely
aligned with the ontological nature of architecture. Hejduk was considered
by those who knew him as a mystic, poet, architect and outlier. He was a
“larger than life figure” and a “force of nature” to those who crossed his
path. He was a man that lived in his own world of soulful introspections, but
he was not reclusive. He did not consciously explore philosophical questions
in his work, but he would recognize and acknowledge the philosophical pon-
derings observed by others, after a work was completed. He would absorb
the discoveries he found to inform additional explorations in his future work.
There was also an ambiguity in Hejduk’s pedagogy. On one hand, his work
was additive by building on lessons and discoveries he intuited from his
previous investigations. On the other hand, he searched for the reductive
quality in his work to create a simple clarity towards the “first principles”
of his ideas. His work evolved over a lifetime of exploration to clarify the
underpinning of his propositions. He built very few buildings and will not be
remembered for his built constructions, but rather as a poet and a composer
of paradigms in the theoretical worlds of allegory, narrative, metaphor and
poetics. He was a “Builder of Worlds”.7
Hejduk would say: “To draw out by compacting in” as a method to
express his own introspective nature. It is hoped that the interpretive analysis
of John Hejduk offered in the chapters to follow becomes a primer to inspire
others to look deeper into the underpinning of their own work. It is hoped
8 Introduction
readers of this book will take time to contemplate the polemics of the poet-
ics of form and space to gain a deeper appreciation for phenomenological
and metaphysical attributes embedded in architectural works. During the
course of his 50-year career, Hejduk asked questions about how we perceive
spatial experience through the exorcisms exhibited in his work. To under-
stand the pedagogical tenets of John Hejduk is a thoughtful step towards an
understanding of how we experience and perceive the propositions of our
own investigations, whether it is “written”, “drawn”, “painted” or “built”.
To ponder the questions contemplated by John Hejduk better equips us to
find purpose and refinement in the constructs of our built environment.
A purposeful architecture designed to inform and expand the depth offered
by architectural form and space and to open the imaginations of those that
occupy spatial constructs to engender connectivity with the world around us.
The chapters to follow will reveal the depth of the complex language devel-
oped by Hejduk over his lifetime. Through the interpretations, speculations,
analyses and discussion points presented in the following chapters a complex
otherness in Hejduk’s work emerges. Hejduk sought, through the absorp-
tions of his pedagogical self-discovery, a means to express human experience
through the phenomenological depth of spatial connectivity to exorcise the
angels existing in the marble of his mind and soul. In a sense we are all trying
to “carve the marble to set our own version of the angel free”.8 It is hoped
that Hejduk’s pedagogical propositions “felt-out” and posited within the
body of this book will provide the reader with a deeper sensitivity towards
what lies beneath the surface of what we think we see.
The following chapters will provide an unraveling of a labyrinthine fabric
of space, time, method, metaphor, phenomenology and metaphysics. These
concepts will be excavated from the depths of Hejduk’s words and his archi-
tecture presented to the reader afresh with clarity and purpose. This is an
exercise in “exorcising”.
A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is architecture,

music is … it’s all structure. Essential. I use it as language. Architects
are organically responsible today to have their language run parallel
with their structure. You know what I am getting at? The new edge in
architecture. I cannot do a building without building a new repertoire
of characters of stories of language and it’s all parallel. It’s not just
building per se. It’s building worlds.
( John Hejduk, January 1991)
Notes
1 1986 quotes by John Hejduk taken from the book Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary
Architecture, 2006, Second Edition, p. 285.
2 Merriam-Webster.com, Merriam-Webster, 2011.
Introduction 9
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Hejduk referred to the “second phase” of his architectural investigations starting when he
arrived in Texas to begin teaching at the University of Texas in 1954.
7 John Hejduk stated in a 1991 interview with David Shapiro that his architecture was not
building per se. It’s building worlds. The term “Builder of Worlds” is a reference coined by
poet David Shapiro for a 1992 interview with John Hejduk during the production of a video
produced by Blackwoods Productions. The title of the 1992 video is: John Hejduk: Builder of
Worlds.
8 This phrase is a reference to a quote attributed to Michelangelo.
1 Formations of John Hejduk’s
pedagogy
Exorcising outlines, Part 1
It is necessary to keep one’s compass in one’s eyes and not in the hand, for
hands execute, but the eye judges.
Michelangelo
Early artistic influences

John Hejduk was born July 19, 1929 and grew up in the Bronx in New York
City. As a high school student he attended the High School of Music and Art
in Manhattan just across the Bronx River from the borough of the Bronx.
It is interesting to note that the acclaimed film director Stanley Kubrick was
one year older than Hejduk and grew up in the same Bronx neighborhood.
Additionally, Hejduk’s friend and fellow “New York Five” member Charles
Gwathmey attended the same high school. By Hejduk’s own admission, he
did not excel academically in his high school years and after completing high
school he was accepted to Cooper Union on a probationary basis due to
his poor grade point average.1 At the time Cooper Union was a three-year
institution that provided a certificate upon graduation. The intent of the edu-
cation at Cooper Union during Hejduk’s years of attendance from 1947 to
1950 was to prepare students to move on after graduation to another insti-
tution of higher learning (a university) for a more in-depth study of their
interests. John Hejduk’s educational experience at Cooper Union would
prove to have a profound effect on the foundations of his future pedagogical
underpinnings.
Looking back I can see the influences on me. I know where I come from,
and I want to pay homage to those influences.2
Hejduk credited three of his Cooper Union teachers as influential in his

education, modern artist Robert Gwathmey (architect Charles Gwathmey’s
father), sculptor George Kratina and artist Henrietta Schutz. These teachers
provided Hejduk with the analytical tools and skills that would inform his
artistic work for the remainder of his life.3
Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy 11
Robert Gwathmey
Hejduk credits Robert Gwathmey with teaching him the importance and
ability of “extracting the abstracted essence of form through the figure”.4
While Gwathmey’s style of art was not minimalist or abstract in the strict
sense, Hejduk was able to see the abstracted realities represented in Gwath-
mey’s work. This is especially evident in the geometric ordering found in
Gwathmey’s “Hoeing” painting from 1943.
The painting is a complex study of the plane. The arrangement of the

figures and field are distorted into a flat, cubist plane … As Hejduk says
… “the people are abstracted themselves.” Their relationship to the land
turns it into a field of color … the six smaller human figures in the back-
ground are composed in triangles, acting like a wall.5
Gwathmey’s artwork reflects a sophisticated use of figure and plane. His

subjects were figural and thematically recognizable, but his representations
had a distinct quality of perspectival flatness. Gwathmey’s “Hoeing” is an
example of the compression of spatial context through the juxtapositions
of objects and figures common to many of Gwathmey’s paintings. This spa-
tial device would be redefined by Hejduk in his own work in the decades
oeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil on canvas,

Figure 1.1 H
H: 40” × W: 60¼” (101.60 × 153.04 cm)
Courtesy of the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: Patrons Art Fund, 44.2 and © Estate of
Robert Gwathmey/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.
12 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy
after his experiences with Robert Gwathmey’s teaching. We can look back at
the evolution of Hejduk’s body of work and clearly see architectural themes
including; compression, flatness, allegory, sociopolitical commentary and use
of color as direct influences from Gwathmey’s work. Indeed, the palette of
colors used in Gwathmey’s 1943 “Hoeing” painting is strikingly similar to
the subdued color palette used by Hejduk in his “Enclosures” drawings from
1999.6
George Kratina
George Kratina’s influence on Hejduk is multidimensional, although seem-
ingly less straightforward than that of Gwathmey. Kratina taught sculpture
and Hejduk remembers Kratina as follows:
He was a Catholic, and he was a Catholic sculptor. Basically a very re-

ligious man, religious in the sense of his Catholicism and a passionate
teacher who never saw anything bad in your work, he always pulled out
whatever was good in it.7
Sculpture class with Kratina was Hejduk’s first experience with three-dimen-
sional design. In his recollections of his classroom days with Kratina, Hejduk
stated:
I was a very bad sculpture student. I didn’t know how to transform an

idea into three dimensions (my work) always looked static and uptight.
That’s how it was. That was my experience of three dimensions. It just
didn’t work.8
Hejduk never directly stated how Kratina’s teaching influenced his think-
ing. But, based on comments by Hejduk’s wife Gloria, observations seen in
John Hejduk’s work and statements made by Hejduk himself, Kratina must
have influenced the teaching style eventually adopted by Hejduk, as well as,
influencing Hejduk’s lifelong exploration of the relationship between form
and space. Hejduk’s admission as a failure as a sculpture student at Cooper
Union must have contributed to his motivation to see beyond the physical
nature of an object in deference to the underlying essence of the spatial nature
found within the object. For Hejduk, the cutting away of a block of wood to
express an idea in sculpture as an end product of artistic expression was not
as important to him as the discoveries that are made during the process of
trying to re-present the idea expressed through various artistic media, includ-
ing sculpture. In 1985 Hejduk stated:
There are many kinds of architectural realities and interpretations

of those realities, which included the major issue of representation of
re-presentation. Whatever the medium used – be it pencil on paper, a
small-scale model, the building, a film of the built building, or a photo-
graph of the above realities – a process is taking place.9
Hejduk disliked the exteriority posed by sculpture. He viewed sculpture as

inanimate objects without the duality of interior and exterior spatial expe-
rience. This position by Hejduk points to the limitations of sculpture as a
spatial medium. Form for forms sake, for Hejduk, equated to form absent
of spatial experience. The investigation of architectural transitions through
time and space would become one of the pivotal milestones in the evolution
of Hejduk’s pedagogical underpinning.
While you can mentally “go into” a painting – your mind gets “caught”
in it and you mentally proceed through – you cannot physically go into
it. Sculpture is similar, it’s external to you; very seldom can you go into
it. That’s why I have an objection to the sculptors who pretend to be deal-
ing with architecture; their interiors are empty … I walk in, I walk out,
nothing. Architecture has the double aspect of making one an o bserver
or voyeur externally, and then completely “ingesting” one internally.
One becomes an element of the internal system of the organism.10
Hejduk’s view of the spatial limitations of sculpture and his view of the var-
ied processes used to create many types of architectural realities may have
been born out of frustration at his first attempts at three-dimensional design
under George Kratina. While this influence on Hejduk speaks to his personal
search for architectural clarity, in hindsight we can also see Kratina’s influ-
ence on Hejduk as an educator. Hejduk discussed his view of how to teach
architecture with his colleague David Shapiro by saying:
Osmosistically, by osmosis. I never draw for the student or draw over

their work and I never tell them what to do. I try to, in fact, draw them
out. In other words draw what’s inside them out and just hit a certain
key point and then they can develop their idea … and that should be
gently, really gently handled. I teach with gentleness.11
This teaching methodology seems to be a lesson Hejduk learned from his

experiences with Kratina. Even through failure in Hejduk’s student attempts
at sculpture, the encouragement of his teacher motivated him to see beyond
the “static”, “uptight” qualities of his sculptural attempts. The process
revealed a new dimension of form and space that Hejduk would produce
in the years to come in projects like “Christ Chapel” and “Cathedral” from
1996, which reveal an expressive spiritual content and his Catholicism being
reflected in the work. Hejduk’s recollections of Kratina’s strong Catholic
beliefs exhibited in his sculptures must have been such a strong influence on
Hejduk that he would, like Kratina before him, desire to embody his deep
spirituality within his own work.
Hejduk continually pondered questions of transformation and renewal,
but he also was cognizant of his previous experiences. He described his work
as additive and he would search for new meanings as it progressed. Hejduk
would discard that which seemed redundant or superfluous, but retain the
essences of the work that came before. His work and his life are like the Bibli-
cal account in Proverbs 22:6 which states: “Train a child in the way he should
go, even when he is old he will not depart from it”. Hejduk was soul search-
ing (exorcising) constantly during his life and especially during his last few
years. His search in his final years, on one hand, was exorcising his deeply
guarded spiritual faith, but he also was exploring the depth of his appreci-
ation of Renaissance art. It is ironic that the construction of his last project
designs, which exhibited Hejduk’s deep faith, exists only in drawings and
wood sculptural models of Christ Chapel and Cathedral. These wood mod-
els embody Hejduk’s Catholicism just as Kratina’s sculptures embodied his.
Through all of Hejduk’s early academic influences, Kratina had the deepest
philosophical impact. Kratina’s instructions and influence provided Hejduk
with pedagogical tools that would ultimately help define his own work as an
educator and artist. Hejduk’s early failures in three-dimensional sculptural
explorations challenged him to search deeper into the nature of form. He
would remember years later that Kratina always had a word of encourage-
ment to the students which influenced his own teaching methodology. And
to remember Kratina and his work as deeply religious reminded Hejduk of
his own need to feel-out and express the depths of his soulful introspections.
Henrietta Schutz
Henrietta Schutz taught two-dimensional design at Cooper Union. Hejduk
would describe Schutz as the third major influence on him while he was a
student. Hejduk stated:
She taught me, I think, the very essence of my architecture. I look back
at her, and I see what she taught, and I can recall now in pieces what I
did at that time, and relate them to my very recent work.12
Under Schutz’s tutelage, Hejduk learned the importance of composition and

craft. He spent a whole semester refining the essence of the relationships that
can be found through the juxtaposition of various black and white painted
shapes organizationally placed on a piece of paper. He learned through these
compositional exercises the importance of formal geometric balance and spa-
tial equilibrium.13
It is clear that Hejduk was reflective over the reasoning’s of how and why
his work comes into being. Hejduk’s contemplative nature would be emblem-
atic in his work over the years to come. Hejduk did not see his work as a
series of unrelated investigations, but rather he saw it as a continual explo-
ration; an exorcism of spatial discovery. In an interview conducted by Peter
Eisenman in 1977, Hejduk, when discussing the relationship of his student
work to his architectural projects 30 years later, stated:
What I am getting at is that for me work has always been additive.

I take one project, use what I received from it and go on to the next –
reject what I don’t want and then add, you know – so each is a progres-
sive condition of going from one thing to the next. In the process you
discard heritage because you have become so sophisticated, but some-
how or another your essential early thrust begins to creep back again.14
It is interesting that Hejduk would recall later in his interview with Eisen-
man that during his time as a student at Cooper Union his first design pro-
jects were a small church and a footbridge. It is ironic that among Hejduk’s
last works would be a chapel, a cathedral and a series of drawings/paintings
(“Enclosures” series) depicting apocalyptic scenes inside and outside a spa-
tial enclosure, presumably a worship space. Indeed, the Enclosures could be
interpreted as a footbridge to visions of an afterlife. In a sense, Hejduk’s
last projects would exhibit the depth and sophistication of a master at work
only achievable after a lifetime of exploration. The work would be presented
to the observer in a manner that is not unlike the inhibitions of the crea-
tive imagination of a child set within a sophisticated spatial compositional
framework produced by a master. The creative artwork of a child expresses
a world of wonder, promise and dreams of things to come. Pablo Picasso
stated: “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint
like a child”.15 John Hejduk embodied the essence of Picasso’s reflection.
Henrietta Schutz opened up the childlike inhibition in John Hejduk with her
black and white compositional exercises and through her tutelage Hejduk
grasped the power of spatial equilibrium.
Gone to Texas
The nine-square is metaphysical. It always was, it still is for me … It is
one of the classical open-ended problems given in the last thirty years.
The nine-square has nothing to do with style. It is detached; the nine-
square is unending in its voidness.16
After his 1953 graduation from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design John
Hejduk was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Italy. He spent the 1953–
1954 school year in Rome primarily making “decorative drawings, but no
architectural drawings”.17 He spent his days touring Palladian villas and
absorbing the clarity of the work bathed in the rich Italian sunlight. After
returning from Rome, Hejduk worked on a cathedral project during the
summer months of 1954 prior to moving to Texas for the fall school semes-
ter. While it was Harwell Harris, Dean at the University of Texas School
of Architecture in Austin that offered Hejduk a teaching position at UT, it
was his friend from Cincinnati; Bernhard Hoesli that first contacted Hejduk
about teaching in Texas. Hoesli had arrived in Texas in 1953 and had been
teaching at UT that school year. During the 1950s Dean Harris hired a young
faculty in order to breathe new life into the primarily old guard pragmatic
American Regionalism approach to architectural design that permeated
through the design curriculum at the University of Texas.18 The list of new
1950’s faculty included Colin Rowe, Bernhard Hoesli, John Hejduk, Rob-
ert Slutzky, Werner Seligman, Lee Hirsche and others. They became known
as “The Texas Rangers”. The 1954 teaching position at UT was Hejduk’s
first time to teach architecture. Hejduk would later reflect that this year in
his career marked a beginning of his second phase of architecture.19 Hejduk
became influential with the introduction of the “nine-square” design problem
he co-authored along with fellow faculty members Robert Slutzky and Lee
Hirsche in 1954.20 This problem began a lifelong pursuit of architectural dis-
covery for John Hejduk that would solidify his reputation as a major voice in
modern architectural education.
The nine-square grid

The nine-square problem was put in place by Hejduk in 1954, but there
was historical influence to the origin of the geometric ordering of the prob-
lem as evidenced by Rudolf Wittkower’s essays discussing the role of geom-
etry in the work of Alberti and Palladio. These essays were included in the
1949 book Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. In the book
Wittkower documents the Palladian Villa Foscari (La Malcontenta), estab-
lishing that there “are variations of a three-bay by three-bay diagram – a
nine-square grid”.21 It is likely that Hejduk was aware of Wittkower’s work
because Hejduk’s teaching colleague at UT, Colin Rowe, had been a student
of Wittkower at the Warburg Institute in London from 1945 to 1947 and
Rowe himself postulated on the analysis of the Palladian diagram in his now
classic 1947 essay “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa”.22
At Malcontenta, as already noticed, the facades are divided vertically

into three principal fields … and horizontally the same situation prevails
in the sequence.23
While Wittkower and Rowe’s analysis abstracts the geometric ordering of

Villa Foscari and draws insightful organizational comparisons between the
Villa and Le Corbusier’s Villa Garche, Hejduk’s interests in the nine-square
grid ordering system issued at UT was quite different. The design exercise
was never envisioned by Hejduk to be used to compare and contrast the
analytical depths of historical geometries within a modern architectural
idiom. Rather, Hejduk initially used the exercise purely as a syntactical sys-
tem as a plan ordering device to introduce the students to a methodology of
architectural planning. It should be pointed out that Rowe exposed Hejduk
to the depth of the structural organizations of Le Corbusier’s diagrammatic
architecture in his “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa” essay. Rowe’s essay
along with their discussions of order and space during 1954–1955 was also
pivotal in Hejduk’s “conversion” to the merits of Le Corbusier’s work. Colin
Rowe’s influence was deep and led to Rowe and Hejduk collaborating on
their essay “Lockhart, Texas” in 1955–1956. Their essay was first published
in the March 1957 issue of Architectural Record magazine. This collab-
oration between Hejduk and Rowe would profoundly influence Hejduk’s
work beginning with his Texas Houses and remain influential and referen-
tial throughout the remainder of Hejduk’s life. We will see that the discov-
eries Hejduk found in Lockhart embodies many, if not all, of the primary
pedagogical positions of otherness, space-time, sociopolitical commentary,
poetics, metaphor and allegory that much of Hejduk’s later work is known
to exhibit.
The nine-square grid problem allowed Hejduk to organize his methods to
teach simple architectural problems of order and organization. Hejduk was
also eager to please his teaching colleague Bernhard Hoesli. During this time
Bernhard Hoesli, Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky were important influences
on John Hejduk. Hejduk had first met Bernhard Hoesli in 1950 when they
both worked in Cincinnati for Fellheimer and Wagner Architects. Hoesli had
worked in Le Corbusier’s office in Europe for two years and had come to
America to visit Frank Lloyd Wright. Hoesli had a passion for Wright’s work
as did Hejduk at that time and they became good friends. Hejduk despised Le
Corbusier during the early 1950s, but he would come to appreciate the depth
of Le Corbusier’s work in the years ahead.24 Due to Hejduk’s friendship and
shared enthusiasm for Frank Lloyd Wright’s work with Bernhard Hoesli, as
well as, Colin Rowe’s dominant intellectual influence Hejduk became intro-
duced to the merits of Le Corbusier’s work.25
I was a rabid Wright fan. I visited all his work while I was a student
at Cooper Union … I had a hatred for Le Corbusier … I jumped up
and down about the horror of the Marseilles block and the Mickey-
Mouseness of its architect. I was ready for conversion. You get converted
very rapidly when you hate somebody that much.26
Hejduk was impressed that Hoesli had worked on the drawings for Le
Corbusier’s Unite d’Habitation in Marseille, France (1947–1952) and the
Curutchet House (1949–1953) in La Plata, Argentina. These buildings exem-
plified the proposition of the five points of a new architecture espoused by
Le Corbusier beginning in the early 1920s, but the Curutchet project also
underscored a seamless synthesis between Le Corbusier’s modernism within
a historical and cultural context.27 The synergy that the Curutchet building
achieved within its cultural context resonated with Hejduk. During these
early years in Texas Hejduk was influenced by his Lockhart experience,
Colin Rowe’s analytical nature and his discussions about the significance of
Le Corbusier’s work with Hoesli and Rowe. As a result the cultural integra-
tion he observed in Le Corbusier’s abstract European modernism resonated
with him. Whether it was just the complexity found in the interrelationships
of site, program and architecture or the in-depth knowledge required to pro-
duce drawings of a complex spatial design, Hejduk’s friendship and respect
for Hoesli and Rowe provided him with a mindset to embrace the merits of
European Modernism beginning in the mid 1950s.
Along with his friendship with Bernhard Hoesli, as well as, new friend-
ships made in Texas with Robert Slutzky, Colin Rowe, Lee Hirsche and
others, Hejduk was ripe to embrace the notion of discovering spatial mean-
ing from the elemental propositions found in the abstract language of
geometry. The simultaneity of Hejduk’s appreciation and coupling of the
exploratory depths presented by abstract spatial geometry with the prag-
matics of functional resolutions provided the possibility of architectural
solutions devoid of stylistic overtones. Hejduk was transforming his world-
view of architecture and therefore it was natural for him to devise peda-
gogy to explore new avenues of design within a neutral framework. Thus,
the nine-square grid design exercise was issued to the UT students and to
the instructors to explore new methodologies to create formal architectural
design solutions.
It might be argued that the invention of the nine-square grid exercise was
in some way more fortuitous, perhaps even inevitable, for Hejduk’s de-
velopment as an architect, affording the opportunity for an intuitive and
emotional side (always in evidence) to emerge more distinctly.28
Referential typologies of the grid problem

The nine-square grid problem was not issued to the students with a pre-
determined set of learning outcomes, although, certain programmatic issues
regarding organizational concepts were defined and became departure points.
Hejduk introduced his students to simple organizational concepts includ-
ing: symmetrical planning, circulation and stair placement. It is not known
if original written programs remain of the original nine-square grid exercise
from 1954–1955 and it must be deducted that the evolution of the problem
was primarily driven by discussion, experimentation and self-discovery of
meanings fostered by the exercise.29 This experimental problem in simple
geometric planning relationships evolved into a “kit-of-parts” problem type
that became the predominant introductory design studio problem issued
throughout architectural schools across the USA from the 1970s until the
early 1990s.30 The problem was (is) comprised of parts, including points,
lines, planes and massing to be assembled in two- and three-dimensional
constructs to discover spatial hierarchy without a recognizable outcome. The
abstract exercise eliminated preconceptions to the solutions and engendered
creative self-discovery. The exercise was typically introduced in two phases.
First, drawing exercises were executed to develop methods of providing
geometric planning order and to discover hierarchical relationships created
by the ordering systems being implemented. And second, a physical three-
dimensional modeling of the two-dimensional investigations were introduced
to develop spatial hierarchies in the use and scale of points, lines, planes
and masses. The three-dimensional exercises became an abstract problem
to explore the primary and secondary interrelationships discovered within
hierarchical spatial constructs. This kit-of-parts exercise is used in modified
versions at some design schools even today. The widespread appeal of this
problem type lies in the variety of interpretations that can be generated from
the exercise. It is the abstract open-ended nature of the problem that provides
the possibility to derive solutions absent of external context and style. It is a
problem type that promotes an architectural investigation into the pure idea
of spatial order. The exercise provided the students with an experimentation
of an abstract language. The experiment opened the possibilities of studying
order through a constructed language of points, lines, planes, volumes and
enclosures.
After leaving UT and joining the Cooper Union faculty in 1964, Hejduk
reintroduced the nine-square exercise to the beginning architecture students
a decade after his days at UT. In the 1971 publication of Education of an
Architect: A Point of View – The Cooper Union School of Art & Architecture,
1964–1971, there are insightful statements from John Hejduk and Robert
Slutzky regarding the pedagogical lessons of the nine-square grid problem.
Hejduk stated:
Working within this problem the student begins to discover and un-
derstand the elements of architecture. Grid, frame, post, beam, panel,
center, periphery, field, edge, line, plane, volume, extension, compres-
sion, tension, shear, etc. The student begins to probe the meaning of
plan, elevation, section and details. He learns to draw. He begins to
comprehend the relationships between two-dimensional drawings,
axonometric projections and three-dimensional (model) form … An
understanding of the elements is revealed – an idea of fabrication
emerges.31
Robert Slutzky discussed the merits of the problem as follows:
The Nine-Square problem enables an in-depth investigation of binary

architectonic relationships – although by no means is it an end in it-
self … Special emphasis is put upon structure(s) – site interactions with
their externalized and internalized pressures defined through program-
matic and physical parameters … the notion that “concept” and “per-
cept” not only coexist but become in fact inseparable within any given
solution … concurrently demanding reevaluation and modification of
previously held architectural prejudices.32
Hejduk’s 1971 description defines the problem from an objective point of
view that provides a learning outcome that is architecturally quantifiable
that can be critically evaluated. This methodology provides a geometric foun-
dation for future spatial explorations by the student. Slutzky’s description
defines the problem from a less formal, quantifiable outcome with the inclu-
sion of integrating the nature of perception to the problem solution. This
approach can lead to a more philosophical and metaphysical evaluation of
the student solution.
In subsequent years Hejduk expanded his definition to include a subjec-
tive, less formally quantifiable aspect to the problem. In the 1980s Hejduk
described the exercise as “metaphysical”, “open-ended” and “unending
in its voidness”. This seemingly contradictory view of the nature of the
nine-square grid exercise by Hejduk from his earlier definition provides an
insight to the depth and foresight of Hejduk’s understanding of the nature
of architectural education. I postulate that Hejduk recognized the suc-
cess of a student’s architectural work was reciprocally dependent on the
depth of knowledge and experience the student had absorbed during his/
her education. In other words, while a beginning student can excel within
a prescribed set of fixed, quantifiable parameters (the intent of the original
nine-square exercise), an advanced student can find metaphysical percep-
tual meaning and an understanding of spatial depth the beginning student
is not typically equipped to control and/or exhibit in his or her work. On
the one hand, the beginning student can grasp the geometric syntax of spa-
tial constructs through the use and placement of physical elements, such
as, column, beam and wall to define enclosure, entry, circulation, etc. He/
she can also grasp the importance and hierarchical use of point, line, plane,
mass and transparency as an abstract syntax to define spatial structure, spa-
tial order, edge condition, spatial boundary and spatial joint. On the other
hand, the advanced student can use his/her knowledge of the spatial con-
structs of geometric syntax to explore metaphysical conditions of structure
and space, such as, the spatial condition of the hypotenuse as a representa-
tion of the most neutral condition found between spaces. The hypotenuse,
if determined to be neutral, can be interpreted as the most present condition
of space and can be used to hierarchically define transitions between space
and time.
The hypotenuse of the diamond-perspective is what I call the moment of

the present … the hypotenuse of the perspective is constantly in motion
and flattening as you approach any building from the exterior. It flat-
tens out right on top of you at the moment of entry – the moment of the
present … it’s at once the most extended, the most heightened and at the
same time the most neutral and the most at repose.33
In retrospect we can trace the evolution of the depth and importance of the
nine-square grid exercise in John Hejduk’s work as follows. 1) The initial
nine-square problem fostered the nine-square Texas House investigations, 2)
the Texas Houses initiated the nine-square Diamond Museums and Houses,
3) the Diamond exorcisms revealed the spatial power of the hypotenuse to
Hejduk which opened the door to the investigation of the Wall Houses. The
lineage is direct and occurs over the period from 1954 through 1974. By the
time the Wall Houses appear in 1968 the grid of the nine square is removed
from the investigation. Hejduk’s explorations transitioned from a Cartesian
syntax to express spatial order to investigating the poetics of form and space
using conditions of neutrality, compression and expansion of space-time and
the use of metaphor as his spatial ordering devices. Hejduk refers to this tran-
sition within the “second phase” of his architectural investigation as moving
from a work of “Optimism” to work exploring the condition of architectural
“Pessimism”.
We are no longer in an age of optimism. We went through a period

where there were only programs of optimism … this was very utopian,
light filled, optimistic view of the future … Now we are entering into
an architecture of pessimism. I don’t take this as a negative condition at
all … there has to be an equilibrium … where a simultaneity of condi-
tions will provoke certain arguments not presently possible.34
The geometric properties of the “square” and its extended proportion iden-
tified in the “golden section” used by Le Corbusier as syntax for structural
order found at Villa Savoye in 1929 is juxtaposed against the metaphorical
and metaphysical geometric propositions found in Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp
Chapel in 1950. The planning grid is gone from obvious view at Ronchamp,
but its spatial depth would not be possible without Le Corbusier’s previ-
ous mastery of Cartesian spatial composition. Likewise, the polemics of the
expressions of spatial tension, compression, expansion and metaphorical
poetics posed by Hejduk’s Wall House investigations would not be possible
without the geometric spatial discoveries absorbed by Hejduk in the nine-
square grid exercise. Hejduk discussed the need to “exorcise” qualities of his
work that he perceived were holding him back from a deeper self-discovery
of the essences of his understanding of form and space. This is the primary
reason why Hejduk moved from the reliance of the grid as a spatial ordering
syntax in deference to the exploration of the notion of space–time as the
primer for formal architectural discoveries. Chapter 3 to follow will provide
an analysis of Hejduk’s space-time pedagogical discoveries.
There was another education taking place beginning in 1954. I had

finished my formal education and started another. Then I exorcised Le
Corbusier in the Diamond Houses. The Diamond Houses, outside their
conceptual basis, always annoyed me … There were the Italian over-
tones. Then there were the Corb overtones. I didn’t like that … So I had
to get rid of that, by working it out, by exorcising the images.35
The syntax of the grid
As a poet, John Hejduk used his poetry to communicate architectural,
spatial and metaphorical imagery through the syntactical positioning of
words and phrases. His words became infused with a metaphorical other-
ness that paints mental pictures as vivid as those found on a canvas. The
words define an architectural presence as dense as a physical structure and
as expansive as a panoramic view from the top of a tower. In his introduc-
tion to John Hejduk’s book of poetry titled Such Places as Memory, David
Shapiro stated:
John Hejduk is a builder of worlds … truth-telling architecture which

is utterly entwined with a poetics at once severe and musical … Poetry
and architecture are not just contingent analogues for Hejduk … They
are ontologically the same art, as he has proposed a drawing strong as a
building and vice versa.36
This sense of structure found in Hejduk’s writing and poetry is also clearly
evident in the structural syntax used by Hejduk in the nine-square grid prob-
lem. The exercise embodies a system of order that on one hand provides
apparent constraint and limitation to the expression and logic of two- and
three-dimensional planning resolutions. On the other hand, the syntax of
the grid is only provided by Hejduk as an infrastructure to be manipulated
in order to derive spatial order through the absorption and iteration found
between the interrelationships of point, line, plane, object and space. Hejduk
saw the volumetric possibilities, as well as, the poetic power provided within
the open-endedness of the grid. Within the unending void of the grid Hejduk
created his multiplicity of architectural worlds.
The structure of Hejduk’s grid is similar to that of a musical composi-
tion. From seemingly simple rhythms and orchestrations, music is composed
around a musical notation of order. Musical notes, chords and arpeggiations
become lines, points and planes in linear order represented on the musical
staff as abstract compositions to non-musicians. But, when these seemingly
innocuous abstract symbols are pulled from silent existence into audible pres-
ence the result can fill the senses with emotion. Music is a universal language
of structure. The structural notations on paper become supplanted by the
emotional connectivity one feels when the music is played. Within a rhyth-
mic structure of order, music creates a world of emotive power that can truly
touch one’s soul. Music defines spatial depth through structures, rhythms and
hierarchies. Such is the possibility of Hejduk’s grid. To the casual observer
the grid is neither non-hierarchical nor spatial, but in the trained hands and
mind of an inventor of spatial constructs, “an inventor of worlds”, the grid
can fill the senses with depth and meaning. The architectural compositions
can tell stories, provide poetic repose and ask questions of and resolutions
to the perception of spatial propositions. The physical presence of the grid
is ultimately less important than the spatial compositions it proposes. The
success of the grid propositions lay in the connectivity the work has with
the viewer-occupant. There is a three-dimensional dynamic fluidity akin to
a complex musical composition that exists in the spatial constructs of John
Hejduk’s work. The work at its finest suggests within its organic make-up a
“liquid densification” of space and time.
… A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is archi-

tecture, music is … it’s all structure. Essential. I use it as a language.
I cannot do a building without a new repertoire of characters, of stories,
of language and it’s all parallel. It’s not just building per se. It’s building
worlds. It’s building worlds.37
Lockhart, Texas
During the pivotal year of teaching at UT in 1954, Colin Rowe made
numerous visits to Hejduk and his wife Gloria’s home in Austin. Mrs.
Hejduk recalled the “hours of deep conversations that John and Colin Rowe
would have until the scotch was gone”.38 The two made several trips, via
bus (Hejduk nor Rowe owned a car during this time), to Lockhart, Texas.
Their notes and observations taken on these trips were recounted in their
essay “Lockhart, Texas”. Gloria Hejduk recalled that “the Lockhart, Texas
essay was very influential on John’s thinking”.39 The classical simplicity of
the organizational layout of the town square combined with the centroidal
metaphysical power of the “town center” reinforced the abstracted qual-
ities of the compression and expansion of space, clarity of order, density,
edge, plane, center, quadrant, axis, periphery and extension that Hejduk and
Rowe found so powerful in the typology of small Texas towns such as Lock-
hart, Lampasas, Llano, Gainesville, Belton and Georgetown. The town of
Lockhart became emblematic of the “symbol of urbanity” that Hejduk and
Rowe envisioned in the constructs of the small town square of Lockhart.
Colin Rowe’s Lockhart essay embodies a curious premonition of spatial
and metaphorical qualities in the future work Hejduk would produce in the
years that followed his Lockhart experience. Due to the important influence
the Lockhart essay had on Hejduk, Chapter 4 will continue the discussion
analyzing the essay’s influence as a precursor to Hejduk’s future Architec-
tural Masque projects.
For purposes of this chapter’s discussion regarding the formations of
Hejduk’s pedagogical influences, spatial adjacency will be discussed as one of
the primary strategic themes used in the Lockhart essay defining a geometric
ordering device to give an architectural hierarchy to the urban plan of Lock-
hart. Hejduk’s use of architectural spatial adjacencies in site layout, floor
plan, building elevation and section would be redefined and applied in many
of his future projects to spatially activate his propositions.
Spatial adjacency
The town of Lockhart, Texas is organized around an orthogonal street grid,
emanating from a nine-square block of streets, with the “town square” at its
core. This geometric model has reference to qualities of center, axes, quad-
rant, perimeter and Cartesian subdivision. The Lockhart essay describes this
geometric condition found in small Texas towns and references the “four-
square, geometrical, concentric little towns … They have, all of them, the
diagrammatic coherence of architectural models” but the essay does not
analyze Lockhart in strict geometric terms. The town is described by Rowe
initially as a distant mirage in the landscape. The mirage is seemingly only
the illusion of a place caught within the void of an imaginary idealized land-
scape reminiscent of a time and place from the past. A ruin of sorts absent
of human presence, but populated by the edifices created in the image of the
past inhabitants.
the first indication of arrival … which appears, from a distance of several

miles, as the slightest eruption upon the horizon … the landscape has
unrolled itself for mile after mile with an almost complete negation of
picturesque effect.40
This otherworldly quality describing the approach to Lockhart from a dis-

tance provides an insight to Hejduk’s view of the landscape as an abstract
referential horizontal plane. A horizon of flatness that reveals an apparition
that embodies the tactile qualities of surface, form and volume, but does
not reveal the permanence of materiality. The abstraction of place allowed
Hejduk to create his own architectural world absent of historical context.
This methodology becomes evident in the Texas Houses designed by Hejduk
in the same year he first visited Lockhart, Texas.
There are a lot of things you let go of in Texas. You let go of old visions
and old romances; you let go of city-states and northern broodings.
But, in letting go, other things and other moods are captured, such as
the meaning of isolated objects, of void spaces. You capture a flatness, a
flatness which impregnates your thoughts and fills you with an antici-
pation – an anticipation of the solemnity of detail and of construction.41
While the courthouse at Lockhart’s town center is clearly defined in the

essay as: “exuberant, more than usually brilliant courthouse is apt to sug-
gest that some provincial disciple of Richard Morris Hunt had discovered
the irresistible fascination of Leonardo’s studies for domical buildings”,42
the other buildings that emanate from the background around the central
square become the focus of the essay. The buildings are described from a
seemingly tangential adjacency and not simply as buildings contained within
city blocks ordered by the Cartesian scale of the town grid. The reference to
other buildings as objects in view beyond the town center is an important
spatial characteristic Hejduk uses in the organizational planning diagrams
in his future work beginning with the Texas Houses and most apparent in
his urban masques, such as the Berlin Masque and Victims projects 25 years
after the Lockhart essay.
as one recovers from the shock of the square’s central ornament, it be-
comes apparent that some of these minor buildings are not in themselves
undemonstrative, and the presence of … distinctly assertive structures
imposed upon the generally recessive background gradually becomes
evident.43
The spatial adjacency relationships that are delineated in Lockhart refer to

the characters of the town buildings from a physical proximity, but they are
also discussed as modern buildings caught in a time warp of antiquity.
It is a shock that one discovers St. Mary’s to have been erected in 1918.
The common sense of metropolitan time is severely jolted by this im-
probable fact. That this unassuming piety should be nine years younger
than the Robie House, should postdate Gropius’s Werkbund Building by
four years, imposes a sober curiosity which leads one to examine with
deference the buildings already passed by.44
There is an interesting syntactic relationship that exists between the notion

of the horizontal spatial context of Hejduk’s Texas House’s plan ordering
system and the vertical spatial context of their sectional order. There is a
similarity to the Lockhart buildings in spatial context to the extent that the
Texas Houses attempt to mediate their spatial positioning to find a synthesis
between space and time defining a bridge to a universal architectural lan-
guage. Peter Eisenman when discussing the inherent qualities of Hejduk’s
Texas Houses stated:
first, the manner in which he uses horizontal elements – the site, the
plan and the roof – to imply concepts of space … second, how he uses
vertical elements – the columnar grid and the vertical surface – to reveal
concepts of time. Unlike Colin Rowe’s conception of space or Siegfried
Gideon’s concept of time, in Hejduk’s work space and time reveal intrin-
sic conditions of architectural content – perhaps aspects of the nature of
architecture itself.45
Out of formations into fabrications

John Hejduk’s work in the years that followed his Texas experiences would
change from an exorcism of stylistic representations in his work in defer-
ence towards the discovery of a new eclectic language of form and spatial
representation engendering metaphor, allegory and narrative as his primary
focus. Hejduk would leave critics baffled with how to place the stylistic nature
of his work. Initially, Hejduk was grouped with the “New York Five” due
to a heritage of work originating from a Corbusian architectural language.
Kenneth Frampton has written critiques of Hejduk’s work. In Frampton’s
classic book Modern Architecture: A Critical History, Frampton categorizes
Hejduk’s work as “Neo-Avant-Gardism” and states that Hejduk:
abandoned his early formalism to devote his energies to the creation of

mythical settings such as his Berlin Masques of 1981.46
In Steven W. Hurtt’s 1992 publication Five Architects: Twenty Years Later,

Kenneth Frampton discussed the primary differences between the original
five architects and offered the following retrospective of Hejduk’s work:
John Hejduk was then and remains even now the most idiosyncratic of
the Five … it seems to me that architecture has always been something
of a catalyst or even an alibi for an individual creativity that has been
intensely personal, even private and deeply concerned with the imaginis-
tic and with plastic and painterly representations of architecture rather
than with tectonic form or phenomenologically spatial qualities of built
work … none of the other members of the group will produce a work of
such experiential force and conviction.47
Hejduk’s work is categorized in many ways and from many points of view
and at times is difficult to engage. His inspirations were deeply personal, but
did include foundational influences ranging from the work of Le Corbusier,
Mies van der Rohe, Juan Gris, Mondrian, Dutch Neoplasticism (De Stijl), El
Lissitzky, Jacques Lacan, Jay Fellows, Edward Hopper and others. The work
produced by Hejduk over the years after his time in Texas would become
more personal and self-referential as seen in his last works titled “Enclo-
sures”. Any individual work by Hejduk could be classified through the archi-
tectural dogma typically associated with architectural critiques, but when
Hejduk’s work is viewed as a complete compositional repertoire, it is more
elusive. The work embodies an otherness. A work set apart from the typi-
cal notions of acceptable architectural solutions. Hejduk’s work searches to
envision form and space anew. He exorcised the intrinsic meanings of spatial
constructs. There is a metaphysical nature to Hejduk’s work that bridges the
reality of constructability with the phenomenological representations infused
within propositions of space and time. John Hejduk painted pictures with his
words and was a builder of metaphysical worlds. He liked to restate words so
they carried an otherness when audibly spoken, such as, the word represent
would be stated by Hejduk as re-present. His sentences were full of depth and
meaning, such as, “To flood (liquid densification) the place-site with missing
letters and disappeared signatures, to gelatinize forgetfulness”.48
Hejduk’s work was multidimensional and investigated form, space and
structure in a variety of media. Over the course of his journey he sought
to heighten the sense of separation, compression, extension and of passage.
Hejduk’s early influences discussed in this chapter provide the departure for
all of his future exorcisms. It seems fitting to end this discussion of the for-
mations surrounding John Hejduk’s pedagogical ponderings by recounting
the words of Rod Serling:
You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another
dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of
mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things
and ideas.49
The following chapters will attempt to open the door into John Hejduk’s
imagination in search of “both shadow and substance and of things and
ideas”.
Notes
1 John Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 4. The
interview was transcribed and edited from a taped interview conducted by Peter Eisenman in
the fall of 1977 and published by the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in Catalog
12, January 22 to February 16, 1980, John Hejduk, 7 Houses, pp. 4–7.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Amy Bragdon Gilley, Doctoral dissertation. “Drawing, Writing, Embodying: John Hejduk’s
Masques of Architecture” (Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2005), pp. 38–39.
6 Personal observations of comparison between Gwathmey’s paintings and Hejduk’s drawings.
7 Hejduk, “Armadillos” Interview with Hejduk by Peter Eisenman in 1977, p. 4.
8 Ibid., p. 5.
9 Hejduk quote from the 2005 Doctoral dissertation by Weiling He, “Flatness Transformed
and Otherness Embodied” (Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005), p. 113.
10 John Hejduk, Mask of Medusa (New York, Rizzoli, 1985), Interview with Don Wall, p. 90.
11 Hejduk quoted in Alexander Caragonne, The Texas Rangers (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press,
1995), p. 376.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 7.
15 Picasso is also quoted as saying, "When I was their age I could draw like Raphael, but it took
me a lifetime to learn to draw like them". Picasso was discussing the artwork of children
with Roland Penrose. This quote is found in Roland Penrose’s 1958 book Picasso: His Life
and Work (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press), p. 275. The quote provided in the
text here is commonly attributed to Pablo Picasso, but this author is unable to locate the
source of the exact wording of the quotation provided. The quote from the Roland Penrose
book is used here to support the displayed quote used.
16 Hejduk quote from Mask of Medusa, p. 129.
18 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, the Narrative Chapter.
20 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, pp. 190–199.
21 Timothy Love, “Kit-of-Parts Conceptualization”, Harvard Design Magazine, fall 2003/
winter 2004, p. 2.
22 Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT
Press, Fourth Printing, 1979).
23 Colin Rowe, “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa”, in Colin Rowe, The Mathematics of the
Ideal Villa and Other Essays (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing,
1979), p. 11.
25 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7,
2012.
27 Comments derived from a Wikipedia critical analysis of Le Corbusier’s Curutchet House,
available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curutchet_House, accessed March 3, 2020.
28 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, p. 365.
29 Caragonne, The Texas Rangers, comments derived and taken from p. 192.
30 Love, “Kit-of-Parts Conceptualization”, Harvard Design Magazine, fall 2003/winter 2004,
p. 2.
31 John Hejduk, Education of an Architect: A Point of View – The Cooper Union School of Art
& Architecture, 1964–1971 (New York, Monacelli Press, 2000), p. 23.
32 Ibid., p. 39.
33 Hejduk, Mask of Medusa, Interview with Don Wall, p. 63.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., p. 36.
36 Quote by David Shapiro from his introduction to Hejduk’s book Such Places as Memory,
Poems 1953–1996 (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1998), p. xvii.
37 Hejduk quote from David Shapiro, 1991 article “A Poem for John Hejduk: After a Lost
Original”, A+U Magazine, 1991, Issue No.1(244).
38 Comments provided by Gloria Hejduk in a conversation with this author on September 7,
2012.
39 This quote by Gloria Hejduk was provided to this author during telephone interview about
her life with John Hejduk and their experiences in Texas. The interview was conducted on
September 7, 2012.
40 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” essay as reprinted in Colin Rowe, As I Was Saying, Volume
One (Cambridge, MA and London, UK, MIT Press, Fourth Printing, 1996), p. 59.
41 Hejduk quote taken from “Statement 1979” from the book “John Hejduk 7 Houses”, p.
116.
42 Colin Rowe quote from the Rowe and Hejduk essay “Lockhart, Texas”, first printed in the
March 1957 issue of Architectural Record Magazine, p. 203.
43 Quote from “Lockhart, Texas” essay as reprinted in Colin Rowe, As I Was Saying, Volume
One, p. 61.
44 Ibid., p. 65.
45 Eisenman quote from “In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions” from John Hejduk, John
Hejduk 7 Houses (New York, Institute of Urban Studies, Catalog 12, 1980), p. 10.
46 Frampton quote from his book Modern Architecture: A Critical History (New York, Thames
& Hudson, Fourth Edition, 2007), p. 311.
47 Frampton quote from his article titled “The Five after Twenty Five: An Assessment”, in
Steven W. Hurtt, Five Architects: Twenty Years Later (University of Maryland School of
Architecture, 1992), p. 6.
48 Hejduk quote from the “Victims” project, 1986. This quote was reprinted in Charles Jencks,
editor, Theories and Manifestos of Contemporary Architecture (West Sussex, UK, Wiley
Academy, Second Edition, 2006), p. 285.
49 Quote by Rod Serling for his television series, The Twilight Zone: Complete Series.
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gentleman whose estate may be pretty well covered with timber,
already, or long since, arrived at maturity, to make as near an
estimate as he can of its present value, or procure it to be made; and
having calculated the amount which would be exhibited of the gross
sum at compound interest, for any given term of years, then let him
“try back,” and endeavour to ascertain what, according to this mode
of calculation, may have been his individual loss. But when a
gentleman coolly makes up his mind to allow his Timber Trees to go
to decay without ever intending, or wishing, to make any thing of
them, why then, in that case, nothing can be advanced, but to
suggest the means of protracting their existence to the longest
possible period.
It is impossible not to do homage to the feeling which prompts a
gentleman to make so large a sacrifice to taste, as to suffer the
greater part of his Hedge-row and detached Timber to perish by slow
decay; but if it can be proved that he acts upon mistaken views, and
that, by a better system of management, his object might be gained
without the very serious pecuniary loss which, on the other plan, he
must necessarily suffer, it cannot be doubted that such a suggestion
ought to command his instant attention. It will hardly be denied, I
think, by any one who fully understands the subject, that such a
regular succession of Timber Trees in the Fields and Hedge-rows
might be secured by a proper system of management, as would
sustain and perpetuate the beauties of the landscape, while, at the
same time, nearly every tree should be taken in its turn as it arrived
at maturity. It would, of course, require an entire change of system,
or rather of practice, and the change would necessarily involve a
considerable outlay, inasmuch as a constant supervision would be
required from the time of planting, but whatever might be the
expense, it would be amply returned; and whatever might be the
apparent difficulty, it would not be such but that skill and
perseverance would be sure to surmount it.
If then the objection which would be made by the man of taste, to
the felling of Hedge-row and detached Timber, could be effectually
obviated, by providing a regular succession to take the place of such
as might be cut down—for the difference of a few yards in the site
need hardly be taken into the account—one great difficulty, at least,
would be overcome; and instead of wasting, as is done under the
present practice, a quantity of Timber, the aggregate value of which
makes it an object of national importance, the growers might take
down their trees when they arrived at maturity, and thus produce a
constant supply of the best sort for home consumption: and it will not
surely be argued by the most determined advocate for free trade,
that it would be for the interest of the English Gentleman to give a
higher price for Foreign Pine than he would be able to make of
home-grown Oak! No! emphatically No!! When the navy requires it,
by all means let it be so appropriated, and if the demand be sufficient
from that quarter, the relative price will be kept up, but let not English
heart of Oak be reduced in our home market below the value of an
inferior article, with all the costs of transit added to the original price.
This were indeed to show a most extravagant and unaccountable
preference of a crotchet over the obvious dictates of reason, and the
suggestions of prudence. It would indeed be to drop the substance,
and grasp at the shadow.
I trust I may now conclude that I have satisfactorily proved, not
only that the “magnitude of the sacrifice which the present practice
involves is disproportionate to the good resulting,” but that “the
embellishment of a landscape does not necessarily include the
perpetuity of any one race of Trees.” In handling the remaining
proposition, and in endeavouring to prove that the present treatment
of Hedge-row Timber is “a perpetual offence against good taste,” I
shall at the same time, be accumulating evidence in support of the
other two.
It is proper to remark before I proceed any further, that when I
speak of Timber being allowed to stand too long, and of the
consequent heavy loss upon it to the proprietors, I refer to such as
belongs to the Nobility and Gentry, for, although their example has in
this, as well as in every thing else, some effect upon those below
them, it does happen that, in this respect at least, the middle classes
are wiser in their day and generation than their superiors, the Timber
upon small estates being generally taken down at an earlier period
than on large ones. There is indeed among the higher orders—of
course with a few exceptions—a prejudice against felling Timber,
older than the oldest Timber Tree in existence; and as strong as the
most enthusiastic admirer of the beauties of landscape scenery can
desire it to be: and so far is this feeling carried, that, by many, Timber
of the most unsightly character, and in situations where it can be
associated with no idea connected with the scenery, is religiously
spared, and spared long after it has ceased to be either useful or
ornamental where it stands.
Having ventured thus strongly to point out the loss to proprietors, I
will now show, by an example, how the community is affected by the
disinclination to fell one particular kind of timber; viz., the Ash. This
tree is hardly ever cut down before it becomes exceedingly tender;
and as almost every agricultural implement is either wholly, or partly
composed of it, the consumers—those who wear out the wagons
and carts, the ploughs and harrows—are proportionate sufferers; for
it cannot for a moment be supposed, that timber which is in the last
stage of decay, or indeed, approaching to that stage, will wear half
so long as that which is cut down as soon as it has arrived at full
maturity. The period when it has done so, will be indicated to a
practiced eye, at a single glance, even with that class of trees which
has had fair play; or in other words, where premature decay has not
been brought on by mal-treatment. But the latter class is by far the
most numerous, and it requires very little either of science, or of
knowledge of a practical kind, to teach a man how to deal with them.
It is of no use to let them stand. If they are not wanted for ornament,
the sooner they are felled the better, for the process of decay is very
rapid in this particular tree. Their early removal is further necessary,
because they injuriously affect the Farmer in another way, as I will
show.
The roots, &c. of one single Ash Tree are said to amount to a
million in number, and to extend themselves as far all round the bole
as the branches. I do not profess to be able to form a very decided
opinion as to the number of the roots, rootlets, fibres, &c., but I have
seen quite enough of the habits of the tree to convince me, that the
roots extend themselves much farther than is here supposed; and it
is well known to all farmers, that to a distance far beyond this,
vegetation is almost totally destroyed; and that, near a Hedge-row
(dividing two arable fields) which is filled with filthy, scabbed, stunted
Ash Trees, which, from “mismanagement,” have been brought into
such a condition as positively to be making no progress at all, sow
what he may, the farmer can never reap any thing: and yet these
unsightly things, which are the latest of all other of our common
deciduous trees, in getting their foliage, and almost the earliest out
again, are suffered to linger out their feeble, but blighting existence,
until by slow decay they become so unsound, that the wind blows
them down, and they are fit for nothing but the fire! or, if they do not
actually reach this stage, they are only cut down because the owner
has the fear of such a result before his eyes! A volume might be
written with reference to this particular tree, were it necessary to take
up every one of the points which present themselves, as
condemning the present practice in its management, but that is not
needed, for the Ash Tree is so generally met with in a diseased
state, that it may be considered as the subject of grosser “mis-
management” than any other of our domestic trees. If any one still
deny this, let him look round him and say, why Hedge-rows so
abound every where, in puny, sickly, Ash Timber, which cannot
possibly attain to a useful size: and when he has confessed the fact,
that they really do exist in that state, I will reiterate the assertion, that
the cause is bad management! If the present condition of Hedge-row
Ash, generally, does not prove “mis-management,” I am at a loss to
know what does, for when the different kinds are planted upon a
congenial soil, if they be properly treated, they will continue to grow,
more or less rapidly, according to circumstances, and for a longer or
shorter period, as the natural term of their existence may rule: but as
they are now treated, they are never healthy, for the principle of
decay is introduced at a very early stage of their existence, and in
consequence, premature old age is brought on. To the absence of
early training, may be attributed much of what is seen to be wrong in
the present condition and quality of Hedge-row Timber, but much
more to the vile practice of mutilating the trees, which almost every
where obtains. There is, indeed, in some quarters, such perfect
indifference manifested about the well-being of the trees, that free
licence is allowed to the tenants of the land to do as they will with
them: and free use they make of it, as may well be supposed, and as
is abundantly evident in all such places. And why should it be
otherwise? It has so long been the practice, and it is so far out of
their way to really understand the matter, that farmers may well be
excused. They cut off the roots, and reduce the extent of the
branches, of their enemy, in self defence; and without having the
remotest idea that they are doing so serious an injury to the property
of their landlords. This is fully proved by the fact, that they treat their
own trees in precisely the same way. It is, then, to the indifference
that has hitherto been manifested by the proprietors of Hedge-row
Timber, and the consequent prevalence of mistaken views on the
subject, that the present state of things is to be attributed. Some
gentlemen do indeed introduce into their Agreements, clauses
affecting to provide against the mischievous pruning which is here
condemned, but, except in the neighbourhood of a mansion, where a
strict look out is generally kept, they are quite inoperative—they are
a dead letter, for not only does the pruning go on, but, as I have just
hinted, the trees are often attacked below too, and deprived of their
roots, as well as their branches, thus cutting off their supply of
nutriment from the atmosphere above, and from their legitimate
sources of supply from the soil. Both these practices ought to be
most strictly interdicted.
My indignation and regret have a thousand times been excited, on
seeing the noblest of all our Hedge-row Trees, the Oak, clipped of its
beautiful proportions, and reduced by repeated snaring, as it is most
aptly called, to the capacity and shape of a huge besom! and by this
truly infamous treatment, deprived not only of all its scenic beauty,
but actually of its specific character! and, if not altogether stopped in
its growth, rendered utterly worthless for application to the chief end
and purpose for which it is adapted and intended. I need not say,
that I mean—the building of ships.
Upon this subject there ought not to be two opinions: neither will
there, among those who really understand it; but it is much to be
lamented, that a very large portion of the Hedge-row Timber of this
country is in the hands of persons who either do not understand the
management of it, or who are indifferent about it. It very frequently
happens, that there is no person but the Land Steward, who can
make any pretensions to a correct judgment in the matter, and he
has often quite enough to attend to, without so responsible a duty as
this is—being added to his department. He therefore, very naturally,
attends to those duties which are indispensable; and as for the
Timber, &c. &c. he only thinks about it seriously, when he wishes to
ascertain how much of it he can turn to profit.
Every considerable estate ought to have a person upon it, whose
attention shall exclusively be devoted to the supervision of the
Woods, Plantations and Hedge Rows, &c. He should be a well-
educated and an intelligent man; and should be so well-paid for his
services, as to feel that his employer has a moral claim upon him, for
the entire devotion of his mind, as well as his physical powers, to the
efficient discharge of his duties.
An inquiry into the natural history of Hedge-row Timber, if I may so
speak of it, would furnish a field for highly interesting remark, and it
would assuredly remove any doubts that might remain in the minds
of those who have gone no farther than to suspect that the
management of it has been bad. When it is considered that the
Timber of our Hedges is the product of chance, or even worse than
that, that it has grown to what it is, notwithstanding that it has been
subjected to the most barbarous treatment; it is impossible not to
perceive, that if it had been watched and tended as it ought to have
been, it would have equalled any thing that could have been
conceived of it.
The classes of trees which may be met with in our Hedge-rows are
various, and are so situated in many places, as to really give rise to
the idea just now referred to—that they are found there, more as a
matter of chance, than of design: and this may be assigned, partly at
least, as the reason why they have been so neglected, or so
shamefully used. If they had been planted, and if any calculation at
all were made before planting, it might be imagined that a gentleman
would wish to ascertain what would be the surest mode of raising a
class of fine unblemished trees, whether they were Oaks, or Elms, or
Ash, or any other kind; and having carefully, and at some expense,
introduced them into his hedges, it is difficult to suppose, that he
would either leave them to shift for themselves, or to the tender
mercies of their natural enemies, the occupiers of the land on which
they might be growing: it is therefore more than probable, that a
considerable proportion of them are in the hedges more by accident
than any thing else. But however that may be, the fact remains the
same: they are, very generally, standing memorials of the ignorance
of the men in whose care they have been placed, and a triumphant
vindication of the propriety of my title.
If Hedge-row Trees have length of bole, they have it—not because
they were properly trained and assisted when they were young, and
therefore needed it, but—in consequence, most likely, of
indiscriminate lopping and pruning at some former period of their
growth, the fruits of which, although now invisible to the unpracticed
eye, will appear hereafter, to the dismay, and serious loss, of the
person who may have to saw them up.
I have elsewhere given my opinion very freely on the subject of
pruning, but as it will be necessary just to glance at it, in connection
with Hedge-row Timber, I will again take the Oak, which is almost the
only tree that I would recommend for hedges. As this noble tree will
naturally grow of a bush-like shape, when standing alone, it is
absolutely necessary that it be pruned, or it will not acquire sufficient
length of stem. I am not, therefore, the wholesale condemner of
pruning, even of Hedge-row Trees, but I would have no pruning done
after they had arrived at a certain age—say, twenty years: all work of
this kind should be done during the infancy of the tree, or not at all. I
would much sooner cut down a tree, if it had not sufficient length of
bole, and trust to the chance of raising a better from its stool, than
take off large branches, particularly if it was not over thirty years of
age. Indeed the former method of repairing the mischief of long
neglect, appears to me as one peculiarly adapted to the
circumstances in which some estates are placed, as to the timber;
and I should not hesitate to adopt it upon an extensive scale. I have,
in fact, seen many estates where I should cut down Oaks very freely,
which have not length of bole, or which, from some cause or other,
are not healthy; even though they might not produce timber enough
to pay for the cost of cutting. There are estates within less than two
hours ride of my residence, which are apparently well stocked with
timber, but it is of such quality that, were it under my own
management, I should instantly cut it down; and from a large
proportion of the stools I should train up a new race of trees. These
would, if well attended to, grow into a class and quality of timber,
very little, if at all, inferior to maiden trees; while, on the other hand,
from those which are standing, whatever length of time they may
remain, nothing can be expected, but a small quantity of timber, and
that of middling quality. But to return to pruning. In a Wood, or a
Plantation, trees will draw up each other to a certain length, and
many of the lateral branches, from the exclusion of light and air, will
die, and some of them will fall off; this is, of course, natural pruning:
but in a Hedge-row, they have no such help, they will, therefore,
require artificial pruning; which should commence at the time of
planting, and continue until it can be seen that they will assuredly
acquire ample length of bole. The kind of pruning which is here
advocated cannot possibly do any harm, if it be well done, and done
at a proper season. The soundness of an Oak will in no degree be
impaired by it; and consequently, it will be, on all accounts, more
serviceable for naval purposes, than if it were not pruned; for it will
not surely be contended, that clearness of grain, and length of stem,
are not likely to recommend it to the ship-builder. So far from having
a doubt upon this point, I am of opinion that timber thus carefully
trained, will be, on every account, incomparably superior to that
which is at present obtained from our Hedge-rows;—it will exhibit a
healthy developement, from the pith to the alburnum; so that
wherever there is a bend, a crook, or a knee, in it, the purchaser will
be sure that it is sound—whereas the very opposite is the case with
by far the greater part of that which now comes into the market. The
reckless extent to which the abominable practice of pruning, lopping,
or snaring—whichever it may be called—is carried, renders the
conversion of timber a very hazardous speculation, and should long
since have taught the growers of it, to avoid the commission of such
an error themselves, and to impose a heavy penalty on all those
belonging to them, who should be found guilty of it.
To illustrate a little further the statement here made, and the
opinion here given, it may be remarked, that the effect of such a vile
mutilation of Hedge-row Timber as is, in almost every quarter,
permitted, is seen and felt most in those very parts where strength is
most wanted, and which, if sound, would render the timber so much
the more valuable. It is on the outsides of bends or knees, that
blemishes are so frequently found, and which are often so
considerable, as to reduce the value of a valuable crook to almost
nothing.
These defects in timber are sometimes so far within the body of
the tree, as to elude the scrutiny of the keenest eye, proving, in
some very old trees, that pruning is not an evil of modern date. In a
still greater proportion, as to the whole quantity, however, the eye of
Ship-builders, or Timber Merchants—all of whom have frequently
been bitten—will detect, from external appearances, the snag-
pruning, covered over both with wood and bark; and consequently,
they protect themselves as well as they can in their purchases,
against the contingency of unsound timber, by shaping their offers
accordingly. This, of course, affects the seller in no inconsiderable
degree, and is one other reason why he should put a stop to the
practice of pruning altogether, except when it could be done under
the eye of his own Wood Manager.
The last point connected with Hedge-row Trees which I shall
mention, is the planting of them; but upon this part of the subject, I
shall not say much. I might, indeed, have passed it over in silence,
and still have fulfilled the requirements of my Title-page; but
inasmuch as the planting of Hedge-row Timber, must form a part of
an improved system of management, however it may be left out of
the present practice, it does not seem quite right to overlook it
altogether.
If Hedge-row Trees are to succeed at all, they must have a good
start; and if they are to have a good start, there must, of necessity,
be some trouble bestowed in the preparation of the site on which
they are to be planted. In the fences of new inclosures there will be
no difficulty at all. If the border, as it is often called, be well prepared
for the quick, it will be in a right state for an Oak Tree; and it would
really appear to be a piece of unaccountable neglect—an
inexplainable circumstance, as the act of a man of business—if a
tract of land were to be enclosed, and new fences put down, without
the opportunity being seized to plant a suitable number of Oak
Trees. I say, of Oak Trees, because I am persuaded that it would be
very difficult indeed to find a locality where any other kind of timber,
other circumstances being equal, would be likely to pay so well. In
the line of every Quick fence, then, I should certainly recommend
that healthy Oak Plants, of four years old, which have been at least
twice transplanted in the nursery, should be inserted, at a distance
from each other—say, of twenty yards—and if they are properly
guarded and nursed, nothing is more certain, than that they will
become a fine race of trees. But planting young Oaks, or young trees
of any kind, in an old Hedge-row, is quite a different affair. It is
indeed an undertaking involving real difficulty, and requiring a very
considerable degree of skill on the part of the workman, and of
firmness and determination on the part of his employer.
It would be found all but impossible to rear a young Oak in the
exact line of an old and vigorous thorn hedge; but there are many
situations which present much less difficulty. For example: In the
year when a hedge is plashed or laid, where there is a moderate
space on the bank which has been raised when the quick was first
planted—say, of a foot or more—there will be room for a tree; and in
all cases, where the bank has not been pared down, there will be
more room than is here supposed. Many other places, such as the
sides of the banks of large ditches, the gaps of hedges, &c. &c. may
be met with, on almost every estate, which ought to be filled with
Oaks, after the ground has been prepared in a suitable manner.
But, a previous preparation of the plant is necessary. Planting in
Hedge-rows, where planting has been done at all, has been
performed in the same ill-adapted way as every thing else relating to
timber. The plants have been taken out of the nursery,
indiscriminately with others, which have been intended for close
planting; instead of having such, and such only, as have been twice
or thrice shifted, and each time into a more exposed situation, and
wider apart, in order that they might acquire more fibrous roots, and
induration of bark, and thus be enabled to cope with, and surmount,
the disadvantages of their new position. Another point, which has
previously been hinted at, is the guarding of the trees. No matter
what the expense may be, if a gentleman determines to have
Hedge-row Timber, he must guard it well. It stands more in need of
the watchful eye of the Wood Manager than almost any thing else: in
fact, it is of little or no use planting at all, if a good and sufficient
guard fence be not immediately put down: but, having put in good
plants, and effectually protected them, I say again, I know of no
reason why Hedge-row Timber should not thrive and prosper, and,
ultimately, turn out as sound, as any other. That it is not so with the
race of Timber Trees now growing, except to a very limited extent, I
assert without fear of contradiction; and, with the same confidence, I
plead this fact as my justification, when I re-assert, that their
treatment, from first to last, is neither more nor less, than a course of
gross “mismanagement.”
THE END.
Printed by J. Perfect, Cartergate, Newark.

Transcriber’s Notes
pg 47 Changed: in the agregate, a comparatively valueless property

to: in the aggregate, a comparatively valueless property
pg 119 Changed: having carefully, and at some expence
to: having carefully, and at some expense
pg 122 Changed: are not likely to recommed it
to: are not likely to recommend it
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The Complexities of John Hejduks Work Exorcising Outlines Apparitions and Angels J Kevin Story Full Chapter

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The Complexities of John Hejduk’s

Work: Exorcising Outlines, Apparitions

This book traces the development of John Hejduk’s architectural career,

J. Kevin Story, AIA is an architect in Houston, Texas. He has served as part

The Multi-Skilled Designer

Ethical Design Intelligence

The Architect as Magician

Puerto Rico’s Henry Klumb

The Complexities of John Hejduk’s Work

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.

ISBN: 978-1-1384-7649-3 (hbk)

1 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy:

2 Pedagogy of the Texas Houses:

3 Pedagogy of the Wall House:

4 Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque:

5 Pedagogy of the Last Works: exorcising angels 120

6 Pedagogy of the Cigar Box:

7 A serendipitous life: the end of the beginning 176

Epilogue: The otherness of John Hejduk:

Kevin Story has produced a remarkably thoughtful treatise on the enigmatic

J. Kevin Story, AIA

… architectural tracings are apparitions, outlines, figments. They are not

Figure 0.1 John Hejduk, ca. 1990s.

Wall: Getting rid of the germs through and in writing?

Hejduk’s process of “exorcising” allowed him to pull thoughts and images

Organizational themes: Outlines, Apparitions and Angels

“Outlines” in this book is interpreted in two parts as follows: Chapter 1

• appearance of something ghostly: an appearance of a supposed ghost or

Chapters 3 and 4 interpret Hejduk’s exorcism of “Apparitions” evident in his

• heavenly being: in some religions, a divine being who acts as a messenger

The interpretations of “Angels” in Chapter 5 uses Hejduk’s “Enclosures”,

Builder of worlds: setting the stage

A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is architecture,

Early artistic influences

Hejduk credited three of his Cooper Union teachers as influential in his

The painting is a complex study of the plane. The arrangement of the

Gwathmey’s artwork reflects a sophisticated use of figure and plane. His

 oeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil on canvas,

He was a Catholic, and he was a Catholic sculptor. Basically a very re-

I was a very bad sculpture student. I didn’t know how to transform an

There are many kinds of architectural realities and interpretations

Hejduk disliked the exteriority posed by sculpture. He viewed sculpture as

Osmosistically, by osmosis. I never draw for the student or draw over

This teaching methodology seems to be a lesson Hejduk learned from his

Under Schutz’s tutelage, Hejduk learned the importance of composition and

What I am getting at is that for me work has always been additive.

The nine-square grid

At Malcontenta, as already noticed, the facades are divided vertically

While Wittkower and Rowe’s analysis abstracts the geometric ordering of

Referential typologies of the grid problem

Robert Slutzky discussed the merits of the problem as follows:

The Nine-Square problem enables an in-depth investigation of binary

The hypotenuse of the diamond-perspective is what I call the moment of

We are no longer in an age of optimism. We went through a period

There was another education taking place beginning in 1954. I had

John Hejduk is a builder of worlds … truth-telling architecture which

… A poem is a poem, a building is a building, architecture is archi-

the first indication of arrival … which appears, from a distance of several

This otherworldly quality describing the approach to Lockhart from a dis-

While the courthouse at Lockhart’s town center is clearly defined in the

The spatial adjacency relationships that are delineated in Lockhart refer to

There is an interesting syntactic relationship that exists between the notion

Out of formations into fabrications

1 Formations of John Hejduk’s pedagogy:

2 Pedagogy of the Texas Houses:

3 Pedagogy of the Wall House:

4 Pedagogy of the Architectural Masque:

5 Pedagogy of the Last Works: exorcising angels 120

6 Pedagogy of the Cigar Box:

7 A serendipitous life: the end of the beginning 176

oeing, 1943, Robert Gwathmey, American, 1903–1988, oil on canvas,