Reaching For The Sky
Allison Williams, Architect
Williams's criteria for what makes great architecture can be summed up in one word: "timelessness." Only by having a building reflect current society and life, she says, will it retain its meaning in the future. Williams regards many of the new buildings today as faddish--a self-conscious layering of historical styles, from neoclassical to neo-Gothic to neo-everything that may be fashionable now but won't be for long.
People friendly. That's not to say that Williams is an iconoclastic artist who doesn't care what her clients think. Quite the contrary. Her fans say all of her buildings are designed with the needs of future occupants in mind. She's a self-described collaborator who doesn't claim sole credit for her designs. Instead, she says, she pulls the process together among architects and engineers--a rare admission in an industry dominated by substantial egos.
Williams plans to spend the new year working on the African-American Cultural Center, which is scheduled to be completed in 2006. She's also at work on a design for the International Women's Museum in San Francisco and, of all things, a Border Patrol station in San Diego. After that, she'd like to find a client interested in a smaller-scale project: a house. For all the grandiose buildings she has designed, that's the one structure she has yet to tackle.
KEEP AN EYE ON: JON STEWART When nobody else has the spine to say it, this smartly irreverent comedian/host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart undoubtedly will. He'll have plenty to say during the political campaigns.
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