Comments:
from a 2012 Cornell alum site:
I live in New Hampshire in an old farmhouse on ten acres, popping Flomax and feeding the cat. The house is falling apart faster than I can keep fixing it-- my time and energy going to small contracting jobs. Falls from a roof, and, more recently, a ladder and scaffold (fortunately small residential work) have taken some of the ginger out of the enterprise, but the small stuff keeps coming.
Turns out architecture and sculpture are a good preparation: a degree of confidence, a penchant for quality and aesthetic, a range of skills, the experience of working with a many kinds of tools and materials, all result in a variety of jobs that keep me challenged, and, thankfully busy.
And when it turns out that the guy refurbishing the kitchen counter is a Cornell graduate, well, that’s worth a second cup of coffee.
In 1965, I took a leave from the University of Pennsylvania graduate sculpture program to join a U.S. State Department exhibit on American architecture for a five-month tour of the Soviet Union, part of a cultural exchange. An architect on that tour was developing a small island in the Turks and Caicos chain. Who could resist? An altercation with an investor all but sank that project.
But by then, I had a loft in Manhattan where, for a time, I continued with sculpture, casting a number of pieces at the Modern Art Foundry. There were also projects to cover expenses: I was enthralled by the variety and challenges of these projects that came my way. Making a number of SOHO lofts suitable for habitation, illegal at the time. There was also some more unusual work: constructing a sleeping platform in an actual full size tree, the truncated branches up against a high ceiling, a sort of memorably large tree torso in a loft holding up a bed; securing a plaster ceiling medallion in the press room at City Hall; a scale model of a Mount Rushmore spoof that was enlarged for the Broadway show “Lenny,” crafting the original in Styrofoam, I owe to Jack Squier.
Of far greater consequence was work on a brownstone for Sue Ann Kahn, who needed some cabinets and other work. When it became known that I was a great admirer of her architect father, and was a Cornell graduate—well, that resulted in more than an extra coffee.
Our son, Gregory, was accepted at (graduate) schools of architecture such as the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and Yale, BUT was turned down by Cornell! (Ah, sins of the father…frankly, it’s a heck of a long time for the school to hold a grudge.) Having graduated from Yale, that counts I suppose, Greg is currently working in Genoa for Renzo Piano, so even though I’ve strayed from the straight and narrow, there’s still a MELITONOV IN ARCHITECTURE. Hopefully, that counts as well.
It all goes back to that anxious, innocent, exciting start in the fall of ’58.
(Edited and formatted from two hand-written versions by Maddy Handler)
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Michael Melitonov
