ORAL HISTORY OF JOHN LUND KRIKEN Interviewed by Suzanne ...

Kriken: Yes, that’s right. And of course, Vernon DeMars was a professor there. And my
most favorite professor, the one who had the most impact on me, was Don
Olsen.
Riess: Don Olsen is still around, isn’t he?
Kriken: He is. He’s still around. He was a Modernist; I loved his architecture, it is a
very International style, to be sure. He came from Harvard; he loved to talk
about architecture.
Riess: Did you say because he came from Harvard that was special?
Kriken: I remember that Don Olsen would often talk about Walter Gropius, and others
from the Bauhaus. Gropius also was a dean at Harvard’s Graduate School of
Design. Jose Luis Sert was dean when I was there in ‘68. I liked Don Olsen’s
buildings because they were very ship-like. There was an enthusiasm about his
teaching that everybody liked. He would come to look at students' projects, sit
down by your desk, and would talk for an hour, non-stop. He would talk
endlessly on his student’s ideas. And I definitely came away with a feeling for
the power of ideas, and thinking about solutions--architectural solutions. And
it was about creating an intellectual framework. Architecture wasn’t a
spontaneous, intuitive, artistic activity, but it came out of carefully constructed
rational decisions. And I really loved this process.
Riess: This is a huge dichotomy, isn’t it?
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