Interview: Lee H. Skolnick

It's not every day that a New Yorker waxes poetic on great architecture, the importance of libraries and the insatiable curiosity of kids, especially while on a cell phone in a museum in Minnesota, en route to Iowa. But that's just what architect Lee H. Skolnick, principal of the firm Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership, decided to do. The acclaimed architect, whose long list of kid-friendly projects includes the Sony Wonder Technology Lab and the New York Hall of Science Rocket Park Mini Golf Course, just finished work on the brand-new Children’s Library Discovery Center at Queens Central Library, in Jamaica, and is putting the finishing touches on a new children's museum inside the stately New-York Historical Society, to open in November. Skolnick recently chatted with Time Out Kids about his latest creations, the satisfaction of always working on a new project and the one thing aspiring architects must do.

It seems you have a knack for tapping into kids' imagination when it comes to your design work. How did you find this niche?

Well, I think it was totally unintentional. Right from the beginning of my career I started doing design work for children’s museums in particular, and then for museums in general. And what I found out was the “ah-ha” moment for me: the realization that for every new exhibit, particularly for kids, came the opportunity to learn entirely new subject matter. And so it is a constantly renewing experience, which is wonderful. With each project you need to learn a completely new subject and then think like a kid. If I know nothing about this, how do I start to understand it? How do I start to get interested or curious about it? That’s our goal in these exhibits—not for kids to become experts in anything, but to get them curious about a particular subject and use that as a bridge or entry point to things they're not familiar with.

What did the Queens Library people have in mind for the library, and what did you want to accomplish the most after hearing what they had to say? 

They were interested in creating something new and unique that appealed to their target audience in a very visceral way—rethinking what a children’s library could be. Their motivation was to serve their community better, because aspiring, striving immigrant families were making great use of the library, to the point where their kids would go to the library after school. It’s been a long time since libraries have been that key a part of children’s lives. And I think they thought there was something going on in what I call “informal education venues,” like discovery centers and children’s museums, that was very compelling. So I told them, we can tap into the appeal that those sorts of places have and use that to keep the library relevant.  Our motivation was to see how what we were doing at these other venues, very successfully, could translate to new venues like the library.

What sort of challenges did you encounter on the project?

There are always preconceived notions of what you can and can’t do. Of course, with a library, you have to keep quiet, and that’s not what we were after here. We were after an active, vibrant place. Initially, we saw that as a challenge. Another one was that the Queens library felt that it was very important for kids to understand—at the earliest age as possible—how information is organized. And of course, in libraries, the traditional system is the Dewey Decimal system. So we had this notion that we had to decode it and make it much more intuitive, because as any librarian would tell you, the numbers don’t make any sense at all. What we tried to do is develop the idea of a map. We chose the map of Queens as a sort of centerpiece of the entire space, and made icons of significant places in the borough and then used that to direct you toward information. We tried to ease that interpretation of information into something that would be very evident, particularly for young kids.

Obviously using a visual language would attract them as well. It’s playful, it’s colorful, but sophisticated too. We didn’t want it to look like Disneyland or Chuck E. Cheese. We can do both: quality design that is, at the same time, really attractive to kids. And the building was a high-design building. It would have been terrible to come in with fantasyland and cutesy stuff that would have been an insult to the building and an insult to kids. It would have been a deterrant in terms of people’s understanding of the space, like hearing a different language through each ear.

Exactly. And have you been there since it opened?

I haven’t seen it in full swing— I don’t think it’s in full swing yet—but I certainly saw kids reacting and responding and kind of, you know, operating it in ways that we hoped. They don’t seem at all intimated by it. Or confused by it. Or that thing we were worried about it: that they feel they would have to keep their hands to themselves. The space doesn’t give them that message. It makes them feel liberated to act like kids.

I have to ask what the inspiration behind that wave in the preschool area was.

Well, we had a lot of brainstorming on how we could differentiate that area for really young kids. And this came directly out of our experience with children’s museums. We had done an extensive early childhood area in the Miami children’s museum, and we had themed the whole thing—because it was Miami, frankly—on the ocean, the beach, and underwater creatures and stuff like that, and we found that it was extremely effective for that age group because they love turtles and fish and octopus. [The Queens Library planners] responded very favorably to what we suggested, and before we came on board they had the idea of having a large aquarium somewhere in the facility, and that was also an inspiration. We thought, Why don’t we expand on that theme of the water and underwater and create a whole environment? I have seen young kids respond immediately to that. They play in these various fantasy worlds, and they have no problem diving into it.

What was it like working with the firm 1100 Architect, who did the macro design?

It’s really an interesting phenomenon, architects working with architects. It can be really difficult—they can be very competitive, strong-willed and single-minded at times. When you have a concept, you kind of want it to be pure and not sort of messed with. I think the advantage we had here was that we were colleagues and friends beforehand, even though it was a total shock marriage. Not that either one of us didn’t want it, but we were brought together by a third party. It could have been…frankly I’ve been in a situation where it was just hell, and usually the project suffered because of that.

In this case, I have to say, we had none of that. Right from the beginning we both admired each other’s work. 1100 was extremely respectful, and just seemed to understand and appreciate that the project needed another layer and that we were here to provide that layer. But we had no desire—I told them this in the first meeting: I don’t want to screw up your building. I wouldn’t want you to screw up one of mine, and we want to work together, and we want you to be happy with what we do. I think it worked out great. Juergen [Riehm, principal of 1100 Architect] is a really gracious person. He’s talented and gifted, but some people are talented and gifted and impossible to deal with.

Do you think designing things for kids lets you be more imaginative than you might otherwise be?

I think it requires you to be more open than you might otherwise be. In my case, my career path is very different because it's all about the next experience: about what can I learn next time. And I think that forces you to be open and not rely on preconceived notions or develop a signature style that you use over and over again. ’Cause you can’t. That would be death to what you are doing. You have to say, This project is not going to be like any other project because the situation, the subject matter, the location is unlike any other. So it’s exciting. I think the short answer to your question is, it makes you more imaginative but it’s for a reason. Because you are in the position of having to change your intellectual context and say, How can I communicate this?

Exactly. Because it’s not about engaging adults, it’s about engaging someone you no longer are: a kid.

Or someone I only partially am.

What advice would you give to a child who thinks he or she wants to be an architect?

Well, I am very much against early career paths. I think what young kids should do is experience as much as possible. And hopefully, by the work other people do or I do, they might get excited about a lot of things. But what I do tell a lot of young adults, high-school students or early college students that think they might want to go into architecture is that you’ve got to travel. You absolutely must understand how people live in many different cultures and see what are the commonalities, what are the things that everyone shares, and what are the things that make different cultures different. And see the great buildings and see the indigenous dwellings as well, and try to…it’s a very complicated thing, and you can’t do it out of a textbook.

Is there one trip that inspired you more than others?

Well, in between Hamilton College and going to Cooper Union, I did the grand backpacking tour of Europe. I had studied architecture theory and history. It was extremely inspirational and informative, but the surprise was just to go to those places, those countries, and see how cities developed and how people lived. And the combination of great architecture with a capital A and everyday culture was a great education.

Are there any more kid-centric NYC projects on the horizon for you?

Well, we just finished an education center for the Rubin Museum of Art. It’s brand-new. It’s all about Himalayan art appreciation, but it also has lots of activity centers and workshops. We are very excited. It’s on the ground floor in an adjacent building. And now we are doing a really wonderful project for the New-York Historical Society, a children’s history museum that will open in November. It will be a children’s museum in a history museum. It’s opening 11/11/11. At 11am. That’s going to be major. I think the quality will be good, but the location, on Central Park West, is insanely perfect.