Newsletter No. 12

CUHK N e w s l e t t e r Prof. Tunney Lee Talks about the New Department of Architecture The1991-92academicyearwill marktheinaugurationofThe ChineseUniversity'seagerlyawaitedArchitectureStudy Programme. Heading thatprogramme isProf. TunneyF. Lee,whoassumedhis dutiesat CUHK in September1990, A nativeof Taishanin GuangdongProvince Prof.Lee emigrated with his family to the UnitedStatesat theageof seven.Upon completionofhisB.Arch. degreeat theUniversityofMichigan, he launchedadistinguishedcareerasan architect,critic, teacher,and administrator specializing in urbanstudiesandplanning.His career has includedworkasa designerwith thearchitecturalfirms of such giants in the field asR.BuckminsterFuller andI.M. Pei,aswell as academicappointments atHarvard Universityandthe Massachusetts Institute ofTechnology.Amongvariousadministrative appointments, hewasDeputyCommissioneroftheDivision ofCapital Planningand Operationsin thestateof Massachusetts. Currently occupyinga temporaryofficein thequiet confinesof theChungChi CollegeChapel,Prof.Leeis immersed in the rigours of establishinga newprogrammeofstudy from theground up. Expecting aninitial intakeof 42 students for nextyear, heis simultaneously focusinguponcreatingguidelines for acceptingthose students,recruiting staff,drafting a viable curriculum, and securing suitablepremises for theearlyphaseof theprogrammebefore they moveinto theirpermanenthomeat ChungChi. A gracious,energetic,articulateman,Prof. Leekindly agreed to beinterviewedbythe CUHK Newsletter. What follows arehis responses toseveralquestions posedbythe Newsletter. • One of the things you seem to emphasizeverystrongly in the setting up of theDepartment of Architecture is theprocess ofarchitectural design. Can you tell ussomething about how this will figure in the programme? • The designing of abuilding is one act in the middle of aprocess that began long before with resources and then ends long after with people actually occupying and using the building you've designed. What we will try to do is to get across that we must keep this process always in mind. That is, even as you take out a piece of the process for learning, you show that understanding the process is a very essential skill for an architect. This means to be able to visualize in ideal terms people's needs, desires, and aspirations and to be able to put that vision down on paper and in models, then communicate it to builders and have it built. What do you have to know in order to be able to do that? That's the thing we're concerned with. • In training architectural students, will you make a distinction between working in thepublic sector,i.e. the government, and the private sector , and will you then try to prepare studentsfor either typeof career? • An architect should be able to do both, because there are fundamental skills which apply in both cases. Whatever their situation, people make decisions about their environment all the time. It involves always a process, starting with considering your resources. Then you proceed to thinking of 'What is it you do ?' This process is true of all buildings; any set of decisions involves the sameprocess in very broad terms. One of our aims will be to try to imprint in some way a 6