Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Tombrello–233
down to the late stages of the building, and I’m having to make compromises. And the
compromises are all basically aesthetic: I’m not going to cut a single square inch off the inside
of the building, but I am going to take the decoration off the outside. But we weren’t fighting
with one another. I said, “You know, I really sympathize. I know. I appreciate what you feel.
I’m using your architectural touches on the outside as the bank account from which I’m funding
this building.” He says, “Yeah, you’re just like all my other clients.” And laughs. [Laughter]
We would go off and get a drink afterward. He’s a delightful person. He charged less than the
plain-vanilla architects. He was a genius. He came up with innovative solutions. He can think.
He can talk. He can inspire his people. I just had so much fun. Mr. Cahill hates the building—
thinks it’s ugly. I love it!
ASPATURIAN: Was that a problem?
TOMBRELLO: For me?
ASPATURIAN: Well, I mean, had the money already been signed over?
TOMBRELLO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Cahill was unhappy, but then I meet this guy Richard
Koshalek who now runs the Hirshhorn Museum, but he used to run Art Center [Pasadena Art
Center College of Design]. I was at a meeting with some people from the Smithsonian—there
was something I was doing with a little company I consult for. Koshalek walks up to me at this
meeting, puts his arms around me, and says, “You have done a wonderful thing.” I say, “You
like the building?” He says, “I love it! It’s like nothing else at Caltech.” “Yeah!” I say, “Some
people don’t like that.” He says, “You’ve done a wonderful thing.” I said, “No, Thom Mayne
has done a wonderful thing. But I agree with you. I love that building; I think it’s great. I think
it’s unusual. It works.” I read a book about buildings and how they evolve. A good building
evolves; it doesn’t stay the way it was. It grows in different and interesting ways as it gets older.
I wanted to do a sort of post-completion, post-occupation, survey of the building—a survey to
see where we are. What did we get right? What did we get wrong? Where might we go in the
future? But no one’s ever risen to that occasion. People don’t do that. But I think it’s sort of a
lessons-learned thing that you do with projects often. What did we learn? What would we do
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