#200: THE MYTH OF THE MULTI-HYPHENATE

January 31, 2025

(photo by Anthony Poon)

For my 200th essay (I congratulate myself for this achievement), I look inward: What does it mean to be accomplished, if one ever is?

J. Lo (as in Jennifer Lopez) is often called a “triple threat” or a more popular label, the “multi-hyphenate”—as in singer-dancer-actress, as in singer hyphen dancer hyphen actress. But I question her multi-use of hyphens.

left: J. Lo’s album cover, On the Floor, 2011; right: Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, 2006

Yes, she is successful as a pop singer, a “threat” to her colleagues and competitors. But as a dancer, is she a threat to other dancers? Is J. Lo taking away ticket purchases from Alvin Ailey and Martha Graham. Or for acting, does Meryl Streep feel threatened by J. Lo because she might steal away Streep’s next Oscar? The point is that J. Lo is more of a single threat, and the hyphens aren’t authentic.

Leonardo da Vinci (art by Aristal Branson on Pixabay)

A colleague once published a tiny article for a magazine. From that point on, she called herself an “author,” though she never wrote another article, let alone any books. But her supportive friends graced her with the descriptor, “Renaissance Woman,” in reference to the Renaissance legends like da Vinci, who hyphens identify him accurately as an architect-artist-scientist-sculptor-mathematician-engineer-inventor, and so on.

My LinkedIn handle states, “Architect-Author-Musician-Artist.” I don’t consider myself a quadruple threat, but I do consider my hyphens earned.

My 2022 FAIA Awards Ceremony, Chicago, Illinois (photo by Poon Design)

I aim to be an above-average architect. I have won many national awards and have been written about in hundreds of articles. I have the distinct honor of being deemed FAIA, the highest membership honor in the AIA, for “exceptional contributions to architecture and society nationally . . . awarded to the top 3% of the country’s industry.” I believe I am an above-average architect, but I don’t have the Pritzker.

My published books: Sticks and Stones | Steel and Glass: One Architect’s Journey, published by Unbridled Books, 2017; Death by Design at Alcatraz, published by Goff Books, 2022: Live Learn Eat: Architecture by Anthony Poon, published by ORO Editions, 2020 (photo by Anthony Poon)

I aim to be an above-average writer. I have published three books (here, here and here), with a fourth in the works. I have written over 200 industry articles. And I even wrote a screenplay about architects being murdered as they compete for a career-making project. I believe I am an above-average writer, but I don’t have the Pulitzer.

Playing Intermezzo in A Major, Opus 118, No. 2, by Johannes Brahms, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Rancho Palos Verdes, California (photo by Grant Bozigian)

I aim to be an above-average musician. I have trained in all the classics, from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms. I have performed in regional recitals and engaged piano competitions, winning a few. I have taught my two daughters piano, and I have even attempted to learn Thelonious Monk’s, Round Midnight—a challenge for a classical pianist, like asking a ballerina to dance hip hop or an opera singer to rap. I believe I am an above-average musician, but I don’t have a Grammy.

I aim to be an above-average artist. I paint all the time. My work has been exhibited from California to Cambridge, from cafes to galleries. I have sold a number of my works, and recently won a prized ribbon at the annual Beverly Hills Arts Show for my mixed-media paintings. Drawing was my first creative endeavor as a child, placing a large piece of plywood on the carpet and using it as a makeshift drafting board. I believe I am an above-average artist, but I am not exhibited in the Louvre.

Me in Rome, Italy, 1985 (photo by Erik Chu)

What does it mean try to be above-average, to be accomplished? Perhaps if I didn’t fiddle so much, I could focus on one field and excel from above-average to truly great. But as I consider limiting my creative pursuits, I only think of more. What’s next? Car design? Writing a musical? Being a chef? Knitting?

I view all my explorations as one, that there is little difference between each of them. Joy comes whether I am designing a university building or writing a novel, learning a Mozart sonata or painting a portrait. It is all a singular force of needing to make something, tell a story, and leave behind something worthwhile. This might mean the common link is that all my exercises appear to involve an audience—one attendee, dozens or thousand—a visitor to a temple I designed, a reader of my essays, a listener of my music compositions, or an observer of one of my paintings.

We all have ambitions, and more often than not, we don’t reach them. Maybe it comes down to finding happiness.

And happiness is based on defining what makes you happy. How have you crafted your life? Where have you chosen to live? What is your work? Who is your partner? Who are your colleagues? What interests you? Is being accomplished the goal?

El Capitan State Beach, Santa Barbara, California (photo by Anthony Poon)

#30: JAZZ-LIKE: THE CURIOUS THING ABOUT STYLE, PART 2 OF 2

March 3, 2016

Kit-O-Parts concept model for Chaya Downtown, Los Angeles, by Poon Design

What can architecture learn from jazz? Specifically, what can architects designing buildings learn from musicians creating jazz?

I recently posted my design approach as two parts: Product and Process. In that post, I discussed the ‘Product’ being works of juxtaposition. In today’s post, I explore my ‘Process’ being jazz-like.

Conference room pin-up wall for a chapel for an Air Force retirement community, San Antonio, Texas, by Poon Design

Many things bog an architect down, such as calculations that ensure a structure won’t collapse. Budgets, city codes, and construction surprises also burden us. The nature of our day to day design work is slow and tedious. From start to finish, a completed building requires years or decades. Even generations. Whether Rome’s St. Peter’s Basilica or a local wine store, the architectural process is sluggish and overwrought. At times, painfully so.

With graphic design, on the other hand, a logo can be designed and implemented efficiently. In less than a month, boom, the logo appears on a website. (Sorry, my graphic artists’ friends, I know it is much more complicated than this, but in comparison . . .)

Process for “Sexy Conversation,” 40” x 40”, mixed media, by Anthony Poon

In jazz, musicians sit at their instruments, glance at each other, perhaps a wink, then a smile. And boom: music. A jam session begins, and the audience immediately enjoys the sounds and rhythms.

Spontaneity and improvisation are words that describe jazz. In contrast, as a classically-trained pianist, I was taught a mindset akin to architecture, where at great lengths and with agony, each and every move is carefully conditioned and rigorously rational.

When performing Liszt, I wouldn’t just discard the sheet music and riff on an Etude. Or maybe I would, but then it becomes something other than Liszt—and that might not be good. With architecture, I wouldn’t just discard the structural calculations for a hillside foundation and doodle my own geotechnical assumptions. A well-built castle isn’t constructed on sand.

Study models for a chapel for an Air Force retirement community, San Antonio, Texas, by Poon Design

Is there room for speed in architecture? How about intuition? Social psychologist David Sudnow comments on jazz as moving “. . . from no one place in particular to no one place in particular . . .” I wish architecture had this kind of freedom.

Though I can’t actually be like a jazz pianist playing impromptu, I still try. Every day, I attempt to hand draw ideas freely without the constraints of either a T-square or the laptop. Rather than picking the appropriate shade of olive from the Pantone color book, I use my color markers and pencils. Swiftly and even blindly, I grab at colors, blending in a mad flurry seeking hues of discovery and spontaneity.

Jazz and juxtaposition—two words I might use to describe my work. Very likely, I will replace these two words with different words the next time an interviewer asks me, “What is your style?” In the end, I leave the labeling of the work to the historians, intellectuals, critics, and fans. When I am long gone, I hope my design legacy is given a provocative designation of style.

(For more, see a feature on my process at The Art Issue of LA Home magazine.)

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