Oculus Book Talk: The Creative Architect

Join us at the Center for Architecture to hear Pierluigi Serraino discuss his latest book, The Creative Architect: Inside the Great Midcentury Personality Study. 

 

From 1958 to 1959, forty of the most renowned architects of the time, including such luminaries as Eero Saarinen, Louis Kahn, and Philip Johnson, came together at the University of California, Berkeley, for three days of intensive solitary and group testing of their creative abilities. They had been carefully selected and invited by the directors at Berkeley’s Institute of Personality Assessment and Research to participate in an unprecedented and idealistic attempt to map their minds. Deploying an array of tests reflecting then-current psychological theories, the study sought to answer questions that still apply to creative practice today: What makes a person creative? What are the biographical conditions and personality traits necessary to actualize that creativity? The Creative Architect uses questionnaires, aptitude tests, and interview transcripts that show how some of the greatest American architects evaluated their own creativity and, controversially, that of their peers.

 

Following an introduction of the Berkeley creativity study and the book, Serraino will be joined by Suzanne Stephens, executive editor at Architectural Record, to discuss the overarching themes of the book and take questions from the audience.

 

Pierluigi Serraino, AIA, architect, author, and educator

Suzanne Stephens, Deputy Editor, Architectural Record