I hope that we all find within us the passion, dedication and friendship that Lindsay shares with everyone he meets. I am honored I get to learn with him and look forward to our next "first six sips". Chris McAdams
HAPPY BIRTHDAY LINDSAY! Sending love from New York City and Los Angeles.
We miss you!!
Love, Taylor & Susanna
To Lindsay Falck Your friendly, smiling face, welcoming our summer preparatory studio students A great wall, the last wall, that always stood beside me. Happy 80th Birthday! Larry Mitnick “Will anyone believe that there are such houses? No, they will say I am misrepresenting. This time it is the truth, nothing omitted, and naturally nothing added. Where should I get it from? Everyone knows I am poor. Everyone knows it. Houses? But, to be precise, they were houses that were no longer there. Houses that had been pulled down from top to bottom. What was there was the other houses, those that had stood alongside of them, tall neighboring houses. Apparently these were in danger of falling down, since everything alongside had been taken away; for a whole scaffolding of long, tarred timbers had been rammed slantwise between the rubbish-strewn ground and the bared wall. I don’t know whether I have already said that it is this wall I mean. But it was, so to speak, not the first wall of the existing houses(as one would have supposed), but the last of those that had been there. One saw its inner side. One saw at the different storeys the walls of rooms to which the paper still clung, and here and there the join of floor or ceiling. Beside these room-walls there still remained, along the whole length of the wall, a dirty-white area, and through this crept in unspeakably disgusting motions, worm-soft and as if digesting, the open, rust-spotted channel of the water-closet pipe. Grey, dusty traces of the paths the lighting-gas had taken remained at the ceiling edges, and here and there, quite unexpectedly, they bent sharp around and came running into the colored wall and into a hole that had been torn out black and ruthless. But most unforgettable of all were the walls themselves. The stubborn life of these rooms had not let itself be trampled out. It was still there; it clung to the nails that had been left, it stood on the remaining handsbreadth of flooring, it crouched under the corner joints where there was still a little bit of interior. One could see that it was in the paint, which, year after year, it had slowly altered: blue into moldy green, green into grey, and yellow into an old, stale, rotting white. But it was also in the spots that had kept fresher, behind mirrors, pictures, and wardrobes; for it had drawn and redrawn their contours, and had been with spiders and dust even in these hidden places that now lay bared. It was in every flayed strip, it was in the damp blisters at the lower edges of the wallpapers; it wavered in the torn-off shreds, and sweated out of the foul patches that had come into being long ago. And from these walls once blue and green and yellow, which were framed by the fracture-tracks of the demolished partitions, the breadth of these lives stood out – the clammy, sluggish, musty breath, which no wind had yet scattered. There stood the middays and the sicknesses and the exhaled breath and the smoke of years, and the sweat that breaks out under armpits and makes clothes heavy, and the stale breath of mouths, and the fusel odor of sweltering feet. There stood the tang of urine and the burn of soot and the grey reek of potatoes, and the heavy, smooth stench of ageing grease. The sweet, lingering smell of neglected infants was there, and the fear-smell of children who go to school, and the sultriness out of the beds of nubile youths. To these was added much that had come from below, from the abyss of the street, which reeked, and more that had oozed down from above with the rain, which over cities is not clean. And much the feeble, tamed domestic winds, that always stay in the same street, had brought along; and much more was there, the source of which one did not know. I said, did I not, that all the walls had been demolished except the last--? It is of this wall I have been speaking all along. One would think I had stood a long time before it; but I’m willing to swear that I began to run as soon as I had recognized that wall. For that is the terrible thing, that I did recognize it. I recognize everything here, and that is why it goes right into me: it is a home in me.” From The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge Rainer Maria Rilke
Lindsay Falck I believe Lindsay has been a dean at Cape school of Architecture. Lindsay. He does not like to talk about himself but a South African friend who was a former student of his considered him one of his best teachers. I am sure Lindsay’s’s Penn students would endorse the comment fully. For my share I have fond memories of teaching 500 level studios together with Lindsay when I was visiting Penn years ago. He was always keen to talk buildings, techniques, ideas while both of us would be running after class to the nursery to pick up our kids. To say Lindsay loves his work is an understatement. He lives it whole heartedly every moment of every day. All of us faculty, students and staff are lucky to have his full attention at the school all the time. Lindsay you are our treasure and I can attest to that. Happy Birthday, With affection, Homa Farjadi
Lindsay: You inspired my passion for building technology. I knew I had found the right place at Penn when I took your first year fundamentals of building construction class. Thanks for awakening my interest and for your support and encouragement throughout my education. Happy Birthday. Kevin M. Provencher, AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Dear Lindsay, Congratulations! We have taught side by side for thirty years. Each semester has been a delight because of your dedication, humor, zest, and, of course, your delightful South African lilt. The impact that you have on the entire School of Design is tremendous, and, in fact, is so encompassing that it nearly defies words. The trust and admiration from the students and faculty, the care and comfort you offer all of us, and the challenge to be great are evidence of the excellence that you bring to teaching. Most impressive is your burning desire to learn and share knowledge. In this respect, you are the youngest person that I know, and your continuing thirst to learn and teach is inspiring. Speaking of thirst, I will count on you to continue our tradition of "Six Sips" for years to come. Each year at semester' send, I enjoy drinking a beer together, chugging the first six sips. I can not remember when you introduced me to the concept that a great thing in life is the first six sips of beer. All that follows is a less satisfying, a bit more bitter and stale by comparison. Regardless, the best part of our "Six Sips" is sharing friendship with you. Congratulations again!
Richard Farley
TO Lindsay, His passion first was with life, learning and people. This love of life and people evidenced itself in the empathy with all students, a patience in instructing, thoughtfulness in the design of spaces that house humans, sensitivity to environmental and social equity issues, a lithe since of humor, a down to earth and humble presence, a pillar of moral balance, A warm smile, a knowledge of detailing and construction and its essential place in design thinking. Words do no justice to Lindsay as humanity. I didn’t appreciate him enough while I was a student, but my respect for him has grown over the years. Happy Birthday Lindsay and thank you for being you. LAURA BLAU
What Really Makes Buildings Stand Up Lindsay, you taught me that the proper and mindful design and assembly of building materials and components is what keeps a building standing up, and keeps the rain out. You said this a lot to us as 1st year students, and said that it was important that we remember it. You were right; this information has been useful. You also taught me that while properly developed wall-section details were important to the success of the project, they are not really at the heart of what makes architecture successful, and durable. Rather, the establishment and support of trust and relationships is what gets buildings designed, gets them built and occupied, and what makes the next one possible. You did not talk about this as directly as you did about wall sections, but you demonstrated it clearly, and that made it easy to remember. This information has been crucial! The special ingredient that I gradually realized about studying Architecture at Penn was not the City of Philadelphia, the facility, the faculty, the staff or the students. They are all contributors, of course, but I think what made my three years there was that within the GSFA, now PennDesign, there was an extraordinary willingness to help, to provide a better experience. Not an easier experience. I probably took more advantage of this than most, but I found the faculty and staff startlingly willing to do extra if a student asked and had a good reason, or if students would benefit from it, and demonstrated that they would work hard to earn that benefit. Admittedly, some folks within Meyerson Hall were better at this than others in my experience, but NOBODY was better than you. As first year students, we saw how hard you worked on our behalf, so that we might be better prepared for the next task ahead. We did not always hold up our end of the bargain, but many times, we gave an extra, exhausted push, just to not disappoint you. And then we learned what could be accomplished with that last bit of effort, and that we owed it to ourselves as well as to you. And we owed it to the work itself. And we owed it to our studio mates, and our classmates‌and now to our fellow architects and other colleagues, and to our clients, and to the builders on the jobsite, and the occupants who will use our work, with any luck, long after we are gone.
Architecture requires individual effort, but it is also intensely social. More than anybody else at Penn, Lindsay, you showed me how that social compact is supposed to work, by demonstrating it and living it every single day, and I thank you for it. Cheers!!
David C. Anderson MArch ‘95