It is a Saturday afternoon and Professor Lawrence Speck is sitting in his office at Goldsmith Hall meeting with students for extra office hours. The previous day, he was standing on a job site of a home he designed in Santa Fe along with a team of contractors, superintendents and consultants.
A seasoned professor, Speck first started teaching as a teaching assistant and subsequently as an adjunct faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he completed three degrees – a bachelor’s degree in art and design, a bachelor’s degree in management and a master’s degree in architecture. In 1975, he moved to Austin and began teaching at the University of Texas. Less than twenty years later, Speck became the dean of the School of Architecture, a position he held until 2001.
Still, despite his expansive resume of impressive accomplishments, Speck sits in his office on this Saturday afternoon wearing a casual t-shirt and blue jeans and chatting with students in a relaxed and approachable manner. This native Texan has certainly come a long way from his hometown in the Gulf Coast of Texas, where the total population was 900.
Speck has always had both a teaching career and a practicing career and, in his opinion, it is because of this that both professions have excelled and complemented each other. “I’m a way better teacher because I practice it. I do it. I know what it’s like. And, I think I’m a way better practitioner because the University is always pushing the edges, provoking new ideas and stimulating you in a way that practice doesn’t actually do. So it’s been a great combination for me,” he said.
Perhaps the most prevalent aspect of Speck’s demeanor is the pride he exudes in everything he says and does. He beams with pride as he discusses his son’s successful career as a lawyer in Chicago, his affinity for travel, his aspirations for the future, his kindred bond with architecture and his connection to UT.
“I just love what I do everyday. I mean there is no external motivation I have to apply. It’s just, why would you not want to do fun things? I mean honestly, I can’t imagine a better job than interacting with all these college students, who are smart and interesting and ambitious and fun to be with. Who would not want to get up in the morning and go interact with a bunch of college students? I love that.”
Though Speck admits that his schedule is “nuts” and every week he is traveling, teaching, building, and giving public speeches on behalf of professional organizations, he does not feel exhausted. Instead, he feels energized and focused on his goals of writing two more books, in addition to the three he already has published, and his aspirations to continue to build better buildings.
The former dean, who headed the School of Architecture before Speck adopted the position, gave him the best advice in his life thus far. He said to him, “Larry, you’ve got a really promising future, but what you’ve got to do is learn to let other people help you because you’re going to limit yourself if you feel like you have to do it all yourself. So, in whatever you’re doing, you need to enlist other people to help you do what you have to do.” While he still admits to being a little bit of a “control freak,” Speck has resolved that collaborating with talented people stimulates you and makes all your work more productive.
While architecture and teaching energize his spirit, it is traveling the world that feeds his soul. His love of travel spawned from a family trip he took to Mexico City when he was 12. It was the first time Speck had been out of the country, and he rode across the border to Mexico’s capital with his parents, his older brother and his two younger sisters.
“I just loved that trip. I could tell you specific days, what we did, what we had for lunch, everything. I still remember it,” he thought to himself retrospectively. “We went out to Teotihuacan, which is this pre-Columbian site and it had just been an amazing day seeing these pyramids, these great pre-Columbian pyramids. Then, we stayed so long. We stayed way too long and I can remember there were people selling serapes and things like that around.”
On their drive back to the city, his family was looking for a restaurant to eat dinner, but it was so late that nothing was open. Finally, his dad stopped at a place, which they thought was a restaurant, but in fact was somebody’s house that was lit up. The owner of the home invited Speck and his family in and made them dinner. “And you know, wow, just as a 12-year old kid, I was like ‘Woah! We’re not in Texas anymore!” he recalls.
He later lived in Paris for four weeks in college and has been traveling the globe ever since. India, Asia and Paris are his favorite destinations at the moment, but the Sydney Opera House is his favorite piece of architecture in the world. “That one just, it moves my soul for sure. That’s really special.”
In his mind, traveling is the biggest learning experience you can ever have. There is no routine or boredom, just so many opportunities to learn, especially about architecture. “It’s just new stimulation and your brain is working faster, harder, more vigorously in these new situations. I totally feel that when I travel. I never feel more alive than when I’m traveling. It’s just like everyday is full and rich. It’s just amazing,” he said as he exuded excitement just talking about it.
It is this excitement and attention to the beauty in the world that is translated into his teaching on campus. The lessons, which he learns so well when traveling, he relays in his lectures to better benefit the students and their understanding of the world. He acknowledges that architecture is an interdisciplinary field, with parallels in multiple fields and interests, but this is what he loves most about it. “It’s just…it is the world. What my discipline is, is just looking at the whole world and I love that.”
To view pictures of Larry Speck's work and to learn more about him, please visit his website.
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