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Biographical Summary
John F. "Jack" Hartray, Jr. was born in 1930 in Evanston, Illinois, and studied architecture at Cornell University, where he received his bachelor's degree in architecture in 1954. After serving in the military, Hartray joined the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in 1956 and later worked for Holabird and Root and Naess and Murphy in Chicago. In 1961, Hartray joined the office of Harry Weese Associates, serving as chief project manager on commercial and institutional commissions across the United States. In 1977, Hartray entered a partnership with Chicago architects Larry Booth and Jim Nagle, which continues today as Nagle, Hartray, Danker, Kagan, McKay, Penney. Highly regarded for his expertise in structural systems, working drawing production, and office organization, Hartray is also respected for his teaching and writing about the contemporary practice of architecture. Hartray was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in 1991.
Interview Highlights
Hartray speaks about his family, especially his father; studying architecture at Cornell; military service; observations in Korea and Japan; work on the United States Air Force Academy for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill; travel in Europe; work for Harry Weese Associates; about Dan Kiley; joining Booth, Nagle & Hartray; new technology; teaching at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT); the new Campus Center competition at IIT; on becoming a writer; reflections.
Harry Weese Associates, architect. Metro Subway System, Washington, D.C., 1966. Photograph courtesy of Harry Weese Associates.
Harry Weese Associates, architect. Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center, Chicago, IL, 1975. Photograph by Annemarie van Roessel.
Interview Excerpt
"Bucky Fuller also came to [Cornell University] before he had any clients. It took about a week to get accustomed to his vocabulary because he was great at neologisms. Bucky would start a lecture at two o'clock in the afternoon and then we would break at about six-thirty and go downtown and get a pizza and the lecture would continue during the dinner, and then we would go from there to the apartment that he was given to live in and the lecture would end at about two in the morning.... We started out with the dome, but then there were lectures on geometry and how the geometry related to the universe and physics and life. In the meantime, in the studios we would be doing the trig that allowed us to break the sphere up into triangles.... I think he always had [our class] project in mind, and he sort of led you to believe you had thought of it, but I think he had it pretty much figured out before he came to Ithaca.... At that time, you know, there were no calculators, so we were doing this all with an adding machine and trig tables. The idea that you could actually organize a group of people to do this and check the numbers and everything was liberating.... I remember when we were screwing the dome together and Al Hartell said, "My God, it's coming out round!" He was just amazed that we had done it. And then Fuller said, "Of course, you ass, it's coming out round. We designed it that way." It was a globe twenty feet in diameter. It was covered with a kind of wide screen that represented oceans. All the landforms, the continents and islands, were covered in copper screen that was attached to it. It was designed on top of Rand Hall. The North Pole faced the North Star on the dome, and Ithaca was directly up above. So, our dome, as the earth rotated, being attached to the earth, was rotating in formation with the earth. There was a little platform in the middle of the sphere and you could get about six students to lie there with their heads in the middle of this thing. You could look out and see the horizon and stars and you could actually sit there for about five minutes and you see the stars moving and feel the earth rotating." (pp. 25-26) |
