91社区福利

By Invitation: David Rau and the Sustainability of Tradition

A conversation about sustainable architecture on the 91社区福利's podcast

By Invitation features discussions by architects, designers, garden professionals, urbanists, craftspeople, and luminaries in the classical design field about the relevance of the classical tradition in today's modern world.

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David Rau and the Sustainability of Tradition

In this episode of By Invitation, host Caroline Slaten sits down with architect David Rau to explore how classical architecture may be one of our greatest models for sustainable design. What does it truly mean for a building to be "green"? David addresses common assumptions about sustainability and highlights how environmentally responsible buildings are often those designed to endure for generations. We also explore craftsmanship, materials, adaptability, and the evolution of classical architecture along with its future. Along the way, David reflects on his journey from acting, singing, writing plays, and designing Off-Broadway theater sets to becoming an architect.

David Rau is a Principal at Hart Howerton and member of the Board of Directors at the 91社区福利, where he also serves on the Classicist committee, helping to plan the annual peer-reviewed journal. David has worked on luxury hospitality brands such as Miraval, Canyon Ranch, and The Breakers in Palm Beach and is a frequent lecturer on the subject of sustainability.

Join us for a thoughtful conversation that reexamines sustainability through the lens of classical architecture and explores building with permanence, beauty, and purpose.

Episode Transcript

David Rau: 00:02

I think that classicism is not one thing. There have been waves of classical theories in architecture since the Parthenon and before, in every decade and century since, and I think that there are new levels of classicism out there for us to uncrack. I think that the current world we're in is actually an opportunity to open a window to a new way of seeing classicism that's really about sustainability. It is, to me, inherently sustainable.

Caroline Slaten: 00:31

Welcome to "By Invitation," a podcast of the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, where we're dedicated to advancing the understanding, appreciation, and practice of classical design. I'm your host, Caroline Slaten, and in each episode, we'll explore the people, places, and ideas shaping the world of classical design. We sat down with David Rau, principal at Hart Howerton, to explore the intersection of sustainability and classical architecture. Along the way, we learned about his early days acting, singing, writing plays, and designing theater sets off Broadway, why the future of architecture does not look like "The Jetsons," and we even planned the most interesting architectural dinner party. And by invitation, here is today's guest. David Rau. David Rau is a principal at Hart Howerton and member of the board of directors at the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, where he also serves on the Classicist Committee, helping to plan the annual peer review journal. David has worked on luxury hospitality brands such as Miraval, Canyon Ranch, and The Breakers in Palm Beach, and is a frequent lecturer on the subject of sustainability.

David Rau: 02:05

As early as I can remember, I wanted to be an architect. I have vivid memories of being in my mother's car, being driven into downtown Cincinnati, where I grew up. And at the time, Petula Clark's "Downtown," the song, would be playing on the radio, and just driving into the city and seeing the buildings, and then getting there and seeing the people on the street. From the very beginning, that's just where I wanted to be, like the song says. So yeah, it's always been in my brain to become an architect. I always had a parallel love with theater, and pursued that all through high school. And then even during college, I would slip out of the design studio and go over to the theater department and build sets and work on other production things. So when I got to New York, I started to do that off off Broadway and wrote plays, and produced things, and got into set design and that type of thing, and had briefly thought that I would go into theater design. It's a lot quicker, and you get to see your results. Although on the other hand, it's much more fleeting after it happens. But fortunately, my architecture career picked up around that time, and I started to get really focused on just architecture.

Caroline Slaten: 03:16

I never knew you had that theater background. Were you ever on the stage or just toiling away on the sets?

David Rau: 03:21

Oh, I did it all. I acted, I produced, I wrote musicals. I did everything that you could do. I think that helped with my career, where I'm working with large teams doing big projects, and it's about persuading everybody to do things in a joint creative effort. So there's a lot of parallels. And then also the look and feel of things, and making spaces that are compelling and tell stories and all of that are still in my DNA. And I think it sort of sets aside some of the more academic approaches to architecture that get to be very serious and very stiff. And I have a lot of fun, especially with people coming out of school and trying to make it much more theatrical and much more alive and based on human stories and that type of thing.

Caroline Slaten: 04:08

People must love that. So are you kind of a mentor for emerging professionals coming into your office?

David Rau: 04:14

Definitely at this stage in my life, I start to see mentorship. I think all along I've been mentoring people, but less consciously, just assuming they were learning by osmosis and that type of thing. But I'd say in the last five years or so, I've become more focused on consciously trying to be a mentor and leave behind people that share the passion that I have for architecture, and particular initiatives within that.

Caroline Slaten: 04:38

Did you have a mentor yourself, or who kind of guided your design philosophy?

David Rau: 04:43

I came to New York and I went to work at a firm called Hardy, Holtzman, Pfeiffer, which in the day was a major mover in New York. They were one of the preeminent firms internationally. They did a show at the Biennale. They did major museums all over the country. They did performing art centers. They did Broadway theaters. They did tangential projects that were in the arts and theater. And Hugh Hardy, in particular, was an amazing mentor to me. Really almost a father figure in terms of picking me out of the crowd in the beginning, and then really developing my place in the firm and giving me space to sort of show what I could do. And it was really a wonderful period of my life. And to this day, I find myself thinking, what would Hugh do? How would he present something? What would his choice be in this question that I'm wrestling with? And it's usually a good reference point for how I move forward.

Caroline Slaten: 05:41

What about classicism? Was that always something you were drawn in by?

David Rau: 05:46

Yes. I went to school during the height of postmodernism, which was an exciting period. Not because of postmodernism, but because there was a lot of upheaval in academia. And there were the hardcore modernists, and I was in a modernist curriculum. And then there were the renegade few that were espousing this sort of new way of seeing things, which eventually gave way to traditionalism in general, and less so Postmodernism but that cracked open a view of the world for me that it was okay to feel some of the things I was feeling about the modern approach to things. And I got very interested in history and started reading Ruskin and, of course, Venturi and others that were sort of pulling away from mainstream modernist thinking. And then back to Hugh Hardy. In that office where I was, every year, they would send one of us, one of the employees, to the Victorian Society. And America had an annual summer school in London, England, and I got the prize, I guess, to go and attend. And it's a group of about 50 people, a lot of young architects and architectural historians, people in the decorative arts, people who are just enthusiasts, a lot like the people that you see coming to 91社区福利 events. But it was for a three-week stint, and we had classes with all the great historians writing books at that period. It was led by Gavin Stamp, Clive Aslet, a lot of the greats who were unearthing all of the great early 20th-century traditional architects, so Lutyens and Vasey and Shaw and all of those. And then we would go see the buildings, many of which were not open to the public, but there was a sister organization in England, the Victorian Society in England, and a lot of those members would open up their homes and got to see amazing things. And that was it for me. Just wanted to pursue that for the rest of my career.

Caroline Slaten: 07:51

David, you've given a TED Talk about the future of architecture and classicism playing a central role in the expression of human values. I would love to dig a little bit more into that. You've also given a really great talk here at the 91社区福利, a lecture, you've spoken to our board, and believe you've gone to a few chapters and spoke as well at the Bulfinch Awards.

David Rau: 08:10

That's right. So I was asked to give this TED Talk on the topic of the future of architecture, and I think that they expected to get a talk about futurism and modernism and how it was an ever-expanding linear path into the future where we would all end up like the Jetsons zooming around between skyscrapers or something. And what they got was really my view of a future of architecture that really would look more like the past than it does to this idea of the future, and that this idea of the future was this elusive thing that never really got here. And it hasn't ever gotten here in my life, this perfect, clean, shiny, monolithic sort of future. But it was always going to be this much more organic thing that was full of all sorts of artifacts and recurring themes and things like that. And that even modernism is already a vintage style. It's already a historic style. Modern buildings are being landmarked. So I tried to just dispel this idea that there was some inevitable path leading us to an ever more modern future, but that we would really be more at home somewhere that looked more like the past.

Caroline Slaten: 09:39

It's interesting to talk a little bit about viewing things from a holistic lens, where movements like slow food, handicrafts, local production, and indigenous building techniques are all integrated with classicism and architecture. Can you elaborate a little bit on how those kind of weave together?

David Rau: 09:43

Sure. This TED Talk got me to put together my thoughts and organize myself to make this talk, and I knew I would be speaking to a general audience. It wasn't going to be a group of architects, and I tried to think of parallels in culture, in the zeitgeist. One of the things that sort of came together for me was this idea of architecture and food and thinking about architecture, not unlike food, in that when we think about food today, there's this movement towards whole foods and how food can make us well or it can make us unwell. And thinking about the food movement, like in Italy, you mentioned slow food, this idea of artisanal, handmade, natural, organic, local, fair, and just trade, those types of things that have become really important almost universally to people. And why don't we think about our buildings like that? Because it is not dissimilar that things that we put in our body can make us more healthy or less healthy, but buildings can also make us healthy or less healthy. And if you start to look at traditional architecture, they follow the same sort of guidelines, natural, local, organic, handmade, fair, just, those types of things. High classicism expresses those same fundamental values. Some of the greatest buildings are like they came out of the ground, timber and stone and those types of materials. And one other aspect of all of this is just how buildings express themselves to us and starting to think about what constitutes a green building. And there are a lot of buildings, especially in New York. You walk around, and you see buildings with a plaque on the wall that says it's a green building. But you look at it, and it's steel and glass. It's machine-made. It's machine-fabricated. It's synthetic materials. It's caustic materials. But yet they're overcoming those inherent un-green things by doing other things with machinery, meaning mechanical systems and coatings and things like that that somehow make it green. Versus other buildings in the city that you walk by, and they're festooned with hand-carved images of oak leaves and flowers and fruit. And that's a culture that really loves nature. So much so that they were displaying their love for nature on the face of the buildings that they were building out of natural materials. And so I guess I've become passionate with that whole idea that if what we build is really going to be green, it needs to be expressing it in the materials, in the look, in the graphic presentation of handmade things. Those are the real, truly green buildings.

Caroline Slaten: 12:32

I guess that would also apply to products and materials used within the buildings that you hear about, things that are green carpets, low VOC, and things that are meant to be more healthy for you. How do you feel about that kind of product versus a natural material?

David Rau: 12:48

Yeah. I think that the building industry is industrialized, and there's a huge mechanism to sell new invented materials that are usually synthetic or oil-based or petroleum-based plastics, those types of products. But I think that the best materials are just like food, the things that are more pure, less processed, more directly from the region around us. And you look at things like linoleum, which was a flooring material. It's linseed oil. It's totally renewable. It doesn't have anything caustic about it. It's a beautiful material. You can use it for desktops. You can use it for flooring. Terracotta is a traditional building material that should have a major renaissance. It's a very natural material, essentially a fired clay like porcelain with a glaze on it, easily produced and shipped around. It's very weathertight. It's an excellent material. The revival of some of these traditional materials that can also help bring about the traditional look to things makes it one and the same. It's not like you're doing something for stylistic purposes, but you're letting the materials express themselves.

Caroline Slaten: 14:12

What does it mean to you to approach green design from a humanistic perspective?

David Rau: 14:17

I think that connecting the buildings, obviously to the scale of a person, but really to their health and their wellbeing, and thinking holistically about how a building is planned and organized, how it's positioned in the city to make the whole experience a healthful one of New York. I think it's a bad rap for being sort of a big, bustling city, but I think it's also one of the healthiest places to live in terms of being walkable and public transportation and the buildings facing the street, they encourage you to walk. So the urban fabric is humanistic but also healthy. It's also a traditional urban plan. Like this building that we're in today has an incredible, beautiful stair. Every time I come to visit the 91社区福利 on the third floor, I want to take the stair. To design a building that encourages healthful outcomes is one of the main things that we're focused on today. And then, of course, there's the natural materials that we were talking about. It almost seems simple to say and obvious, but it does make a difference. I think there's this whole thing with recycled materials, and I've talked a lot about sort of the myth of recycling, and people mean well, and I think companies mean well when they produce materials out of recycled plastics. But in the end, all it does is sort of validate further production of petroleum plastics by saying, "Oh, it's okay because we can always recycle it," versus just saying, "Well, maybe we shouldn't." Maybe wool, which is grown on sheep, is as green or greener than perpetuating this sort of myth of recycling.

Caroline Slaten: 15:58

I love that you mention the staircase in this building because I never take it for granted how beautiful this building is, and coming in and getting to work here every day is really inspiring. So I think there's something about the way you interact within the building and within the space that can really change people's outlooks.

David Rau: 16:17

Absolutely. I think in addition to just the stair, there's all sorts of other things that you can do inside of buildings and planning them out, how people circulate within the floors, having building floor plates that aren't overly deep so that people are close to natural light and air, having operable windows definitely whenever possible. None of these things are huge. They're all incremental, small things. If you can turn enough of the dials, you start to make a difference. And I think as we're talking along, I wouldn't want anybody to get the idea that I am some sort of Luddite and think that everything has to go back to the caveman period. It's more about incremental changes, doing what you can along the way, having small influences that start to add up to something consistent, and also start to get you to think about things a little bit differently so that they start to look a little bit different and arriving at new ways of seeing things rather than some big dramatic change invention.

Caroline Slaten: 17:21

And at what point in the project do you start thinking about how can we make this sustainable? I'm assuming this is from the very first stages when you're siting a building, you have to start thinking in that direction.

David Rau: 17:32

Because I work with lots of engineers and consultant groups and other consultants, and sometimes we're collaborating with other architects or interior designers. It's the art of persuasion, and sometimes it's a very subtle persuasion. It's getting a civil engineer to see things differently from what they're used to doing because they've been trained in a modernist or standardized methodology. It's working with code officials to try to get them to sort of interpreting the code or the regulation or the guideline in a way that still meets its intent, but isn't maybe the perfunctory standard response to it. So a lot of design these days is doing just that, going back to what I was talking about, orchestrating or directing a whole group of people to think creatively. Sometimes people need a little encouragement to do that or need to be talking to each other a little differently. So yes, it starts at the beginning, but it's a constant conversation.

Caroline Slaten: 18:50

Would you say classicism is inherently sustainable?

David Rau: 18:54

Absolutely. I think that that's one of the things that keeps me passionate about the 91社区福利. I think that classicism is not one thing. There have been waves of classical theories and architecture since the Parthenon and before, and every decade and century since. And I think that there are new levels of classicism out there for us to uncrack. I think that the current world we're in is actually an opportunity to open a window to a new way of seeing classicism that's really about sustainability. It is, to me, inherently sustainable. I think the way it looks is expressing its sustainability. When you do it with an emphasis on local materials and craftsmanship and the local context and the local environment, it's inherently green and sustainable. That's what keeps me excited about it. It's not to keep studying the ancient models. They're important places to learn, but those cultures were expressing themselves in their time. One of the things that modernists like to say is that architecture should be of its time, and therefore, it shouldn't look like classicism. But I think classicism, as I said, has changed through the ages. And because it can constantly be expressing its own time.

Caroline Slaten: 20:10

That's right. And once you kind of know the fundamentals of it and proportion and scale and balance, you can translate that and and play with it a little bit from there.

David Rau: 20:18

Right, right.

Caroline Slaten: 20:21

So tell me, how did you get involved with the 91社区福利? Now you're a board member, you're a leader here. As I mentioned, you've spoken with the organization. Tell me about how you came to find us.

David Rau: 20:32

For a long period of my life, I lived in Richmond, Virginia, for about 25 years, during which I had my own firm. And as I said, I've always had this passion for traditional architecture since school and my early days in New York before moving to Richmond. And when I got there, I was looking for an outlet for that. The American Institute of Architects is a great organization, but it's a professional organization, and there are other organizations like the USGBC that handles LEED. But that's a trade organization. Those are people looking to sell products to professionals. So I came across the 91社区福利 and got more and more interested, involved, and there was the Mid-Atlantic chapter, which was great. But I will say that was headquartered in Washington, D.C., which is a two-hour drive. So for me to be involved in the 91社区福利 was a challenge. Although I did participate and we hosted events in Richmond, had a lot of fun going on various tours that the Mid-Atlantic chapter organizes. Met a lot of like-minded people through that, which has led to more and more connections over the time. And then when we moved to New York, I could really be involved and started to come very frequently to the many offerings that this organization presents. And then through that, started to raise my hand and how can I get involved? What can I do? I'm passionate, especially about the educational program here, and wanting to press the boundaries on what classicism was, but to make it really a vital, important, progressive organization, which is happily what I see happening.

Caroline Slaten: 22:11

We're advancing in so many different ways, and our education has evolved even in the time I've been here. Why would you suggest people should become involved with the 91社区福利 and become part of this community?

David Rau: 22:22

It's pretty easy because first of all, there's something for everyone. If you're just a young architect or even in architecture school, there are programs here that'll help you be a better student. And this is not to say you'll go back to school and design classical buildings, but you'll learn, as you said, more about proportion and about how buildings go together and how to represent buildings and drawings, and you will become a better designer. If you're mid-career, it's a way to really sort of advance your career, to meet other people, to make connections, to network. I think when you get later in your career, it's a great place to celebrate your peers. There's a great sort of social aspect to this, being with a group of people that share your same values, and you can continue to learn even later in life. So, I just think that there's so much going on here. The travel programs, the sketching programs. It's a wonderful organization.

Caroline Slaten: 23:28

Let's talk a little bit about your work at Hart Howerton. So you've worked on so many notable projects, historic landmarks, a lot of resort properties. Can you share a little bit about what projects excite you and some of the work you've been doing of late?

David Rau: 23:42

So since I came to Hart Howerton, my main focus has really been on working within hospitality. It goes really well with my background, going back to theater and the dramatic arts and stage sets and things like that, and making places for people to act out their fantasies to some extent. But really more importantly, the daily drama of family life and being together in places. And I think it all fits together nicely with this line of work I have now designing for hospitality, and that's hotels, resorts, clubs, restaurants, and retail and spas and fitness centers and all the things that come with it. And even resort villages with retail and residential. So it allows me to sort of exercise a lot of these ideas with a clientele that's always looking for ways to build and expand on their work. And my particular niche has been with historic properties, either properties that have fallen into disrepair and need saving, or some great properties that have always been first in class and need to continue to make themselves relevant and current and stay ahead of their own competition. My current project is at The Breakers, the amazing landmark grand hotel that sits on the beach in Palm Beach, Florida. I like to tell people that I've worked my entire career to have the opportunity to actually work on a place as amazing as The Breakers. It's a 1929 palazzo-styled hotel, eight stories tall, about 600 guest rooms, right there on the beach with a huge tropical landscape set around it. And we've been given the opportunity to work on really four significant assignments in and around the property there. And that's been a really amazing challenge, but also a very rewarding one.

Caroline Slaten: 25:34

When you're working in hospitality, I expect that a big part of it is playing into the spirit of a place. So how do you think about the local context when you're designing?

David Rau: 25:45

I think that all great hotels are trying to distinguish themselves, to differentiate themselves, to be unique, to have their own special story. And it goes beyond brand, like a multi-hotel brand that you would see in some places that are trying to be brand consistent wherever they go. Most of the properties that we're working for are individual, unique destinations. For instance, The Breakers is still held in ownership by the family of the founder that built it in 1929. Henry Flagler, who came to Florida when really there was not much in Florida, built the railroad, and along the railroad, he started to build these grand hotels all the way down to Key West with the notion that he could bring people from the Northeast down, charge them the train fare, and then have a place for them to come to. So each of these places have these very unique stories, and their ownership, by and large, are passionate about telling the story. Telling the story of the natural environment, the unique ecosystem that they're in, the history of the construction of the building, how it relates to the development of Florida. To some extent, the story of their own families and how they came to have this property. All of it ties together, and it gets into the culinary experience. It gets into how treatments are handled in the spa. It comes also into the architecture, the interior design, the colors, and that leads to an overall story about the place.

Caroline Slaten: 27:21

When you're telling that story, how do you learn about the vernacular, and how do you pick the design elements that goes into that?

David Rau: 27:30

Well, I'm very lucky in that my wife is an architectural historian and worked together enough over the years and, of course, have traveled together and spent time together, that I have had the best training in terms of how to learn about the place. And as I said, we've on occasion worked together where she's done the research and development of some of those places. And then through that, I've also patterned when I'm not side by side with her, trying to do the same sorts of things. Looking at the past, researching the stories, getting beyond the anecdote about so and so slept here, but really learning about Henry Flagler and how he came to be here, what he was trying to do. And also just with the physical environment and the natural environment, the flora, the fauna, the cuisine, the local people, and it's often amazing what you can discover about a place that can then become a really pivotal element in the story that you want to tell.

Caroline Slaten: 28:36

I'm just a little bit curious, what do you do if you have a day off? I don't know if you ever get one of those, but what can we find you doing on your spare time?

David Rau: 28:44

If I have a couple of days, I slip away to our place in Virginia, which is this great old historic house in town. It's just a beautiful early 20th century wood clapboard house in a streetcar suburb, walkable. You can walk to the shops. But it does have a nice little yard around it, and I'll probably be out in the yard gardening, which is one of my great loves. During COVID, it was sort of this joy, a curse and a joy, as I think we all felt, to have this time at home. And for that, we did leave New York, and we went back to the house, and we hunkered down. But no, I think if I have a few days, we're probably down in Virginia and probably spending time in and around the house.

Caroline Slaten: 29:28

And if you could sit down and collaborate with anyone in history, just sit around the drafting board, who would it be and why?

David Rau: 29:36

If it could be anyone in the world, I think it would be Edwin Lutyens, who's just this amazing, remarkable, transformational person who, just in his own career, traced a path from doing residences in the arts and crafts style that were really grounded to the earth and historic and naturalistic. And then went on through the course of his career to build just an amazing group of buildings that became progressively more classical to the point where he did the capital in New Delhi and just amazing buildings all over London. So everything from these little village-like houses on up to palaces, really, for the government and for businesses and other purposes. And through it all had this sort of consistent thread about what I like to think I'm trying to do, which is grounding everything you're doing within this idea of naturalism and using natural materials and expressing it through the lens of classicism. He's incredibly inventive. He sort of created a new version of classicism. It's his own view of it, which takes the rules and bends them in a really brilliant way. And I think that that's always been kind of a model for me is to know the rules. I want to know the rules, but I want to break them and do something new with it.

Caroline Slaten: 31:02

Well, David, is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

David Rau: 31:04

No, I think I would just say thank you to the 91社区福利 for having me today, but more importantly, for everything that you do. You're a small and hearty band, and I'm constantly impressed by the output and the volume of work and the energy that you all bring to the organization. Proud to be a board member, proud to be a supporter, and encourage everybody, too.

Caroline Slaten: 31:30

Thank you for tuning in to By Invitation, presented by the Institute of Classical Architecture and Art, an educational nonprofit dedicated to advancing the practice, understanding, and appreciation of classical and traditional architecture, art, and design. With 15 chapters across the United States, the 91社区福利 offers programs for students, professionals, and enthusiasts around the world, including continuing education courses, public programs and lectures, travel programs, documentary films, and more. To learn more or to support the 91社区福利, please visit classicist.org.

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