William B. Bricken, architectural educator and practicing architect, beloved husband to Ida Siegfried, friend, colleague, and mentor to many, died on September 16, 2015. He was 78.

Over the course of a half century Bill alternated between teaching and practice, achieving distinction in both. His personal and professional convictions were strong and his values deep and steady, but geographically he was free-wheeling. Disregarding his mother’s concern that “a rolling stone gathers no moss,” he chose to avoid the stationary encrusted life. Born in Oklahoma, the son of a union pipe-fitter who travelled according to job opportunity, “moving along” became a feature of his formative years. By the time Bill was nine or so the family settled in Beaumont, Texas, where his parents turned their itinerant experience to profit as Beaumont Trailer Sales. By then they lived on their showroom lot. Years later, Bill would mention having won a student architectural competition sponsored by Alcoa, for the design of an aluminum trailer.

Early on Bill dreamed of a baseball career. By his own admission an erratic student at David Crocker High School, he joined a minor league team in Beaumont upon graduation. A year later Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby, visiting on a recruiting trip, deflated Bill’s ambitions by pronouncing “Son, you’ll never make it to the Big Show.” The next day Bill resigned the team, and shortly afterward enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Completing his commitment, he left the army and took an intuitive leap by enrolling in the Bachelor of Architecture program at the University of Houston. The decision introduced him to an exhilarating but wholly unfamiliar world. Struggling early on, he immersed himself in his studies and began to display talent. Among his early influences were teachers Howard Barnstone and Donald Barthelme Sr., who were also leading exponents of modern architecture in Texas. Shortly before completing his architectural degree, however, Bill found work in the office of Kenneth Bentsen, brother of U.S. Senator Lloyd Bentsen, where he was drawn to the opportunity to contribute to the design of real buildings (and to receiving a paycheck). Beginning a lifelong tendency to dodge the acquisition of credentials, he chose not to return to the University of Houston.

After four years in Houston, the end of a first marriage, and on the basis of a memorable college field trip, Bill moved to Boston. Over the decade he lived and worked there his infatuation with Boston, Cambridge, and New England deepened, never to diminish. He assumed increasing responsibility in architectural offices, including E. Verner Johnson and Associates, Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott, and Sert, Jackson and Associates. Josep Lluis Sert, the leading Spanish modern architect and then Harvard dean, would remain an important influence throughout Bill’s career.

TEACHING
As Bill gained recognition for his exceptional delineation skills, he was recruited to teach graphics and visual studies courses, first at the Boston Architectural College and then at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD). Harvard’s curriculum so impressed him that Bill made the unconventional decision to lobby for admission as a student himself, to the Master in Architecture program. He was accepted, despite his incomplete undergraduate degree, and graduated in 1977 along with his drawing students.

In subsequent years Bill accepted positions as design critic at a number of schools of architecture, including those at Iowa State University, Washington University in Saint Louis, University of Michigan, Drury University, the University of Texas at Arlington, and again at Harvard’s GSD. Suspicious of the notion of lifetime job security, he chose never to pursue tenure, preferring the freedom to relocate according to his evolving interests and opportunities.

Over his career Bill taught and led graduate and undergraduate design studios, drawing and graphics courses, and courses in introductory and advanced construction. His course at Michigan on the processes of building and its shaping of design was particularly innovative. He was a frequent advisor to advanced independent study students. In addition he initiated summer design studios in Barcelona and in Prague, began a popular student internship program, and helped establish student award programs.

Bill encouraged his students to pursue excellence; one colleague recalls him telling his class to “Fill the room with ideas!” His drawing and design courses could be punishing but often led to outstanding work, and Bill became a loyal advocate, especially to the promising students. Many recall that Bill secured their internships and first jobs, often with prominent architects throughout the country. The letters of recommendation he was often asked to write used the phrase “best student I ever had” with suspicious frequency.

PRACTICE
One of the partners at Sert Jackson and Associates said of Bill, “He has an energizing, catalytic effect on people with whom he is working, while thoroughly enjoying himself.” At that Cambridge office Bill served as project designer on both housing and educational work including the Harvard Science Center, an important building linking Harvard Yard and the science and law complexes to the north. While teaching at Washington University during the early 1980s Bill served as Director of Design in the Saint Louis office of Powers and Associates, where he designed civic buildings including the Saint Charles Criminal Justice Center. In 1985 he relocated from Saint Louis to New York, taking a position as designer in the office of Lee Harris Pomeroy, where he led the transformation of Compton & Goethals Hall at City College. Later that decade Bill joined the firm of James Stewart Polshek and Partners; there he was project designer for the master plan, classroom building, and student center for Nassau County Community College.

COMPETITIONS
Throughout his career Bill entered major national and international architectural competitions, generally in collaboration with colleagues. More often than not his entries won top prizes and appeared in publication or exhibition. Memorable examples were: a First Prize, with David Stivers and Jeff Stewart, for Japan Architect magazine’s 1979 Shikenchiku Design Competition, juried by James Stirling; a First Prize award, with Edward Baum, Fred Powers, and Ida Siegfried, for the 1982 Lafayette Square (Saint Louis) Design Competition; the First Prize, with Sert Jackson & Associates, for the 1989 Clemson University Performing Arts Center Competition; and a Second Prize award, with Robert Levit and Ida Siegfried, for the 1996 Williamsburg Virginia Courthouse Competition.

Since 1982 Bill has collaborated with Ida Siegfried in both life and work. They had met in 1980 while she was his student at Washington University. By 2005, now back in Saint Louis, they set up formal practice as MetropolitanWorks Architecture. The firm focuses on residential and small commercial projects, gaining a reputation for elegant, meticulous work. Competitions punctuated the practice, giving the opportunity to speculate in a wide variety of settings. In 2007 they married.

Bill always sought opportunities for architectural pilgrimage, domestic and foreign. He sometimes declared himself a frustrated travel agent. As an outlet, he carefully researched each destination for each trip, and prepared detailed typed, annotated, and illustrated itineraries, complete with travel arrangements, hotel and restaurant choices, and marathon lists of architectural and historical destinations. He did this for his own vacations, for student field trips, but on many occasions for friends or clients as well. Bill was a giver of gifts, including his time, but also including many, many architectural books, books on current events, John Pawson bowls and frames, Alvar Aalto vases, Red Sox hats and infant wear, fox ear muffs, carefully selected holiday cards, and to the dismay of some recipients—gourmet fruitcake.

Friends remember Bill’s big laugh and his sense of humor, including a sometimes exasperating penchant for silly nicknames. In the mid 80s, he was memorably persuaded to don a wig and lip synch to “Material Girl” for an all-school talent show, to rave reviews.

Mostly, he loved elegant design solutions and beautifully crafted buildings and objects, and the work of diverse contemporary artists including favorites Donald Judd and Anselm Kiefer. But he also loved Waylon Jennings and Janice Joplin and morning sausage biscuits at McDonald’s, where he read the The New York Times and the local paper, beginning with the sports page and concluding with the comics. Bill’s deteriorating health in recent years took a toll on his stamina, but not on his engagement with ideas. He remained devoted to architecture through his ongoing design work, committed to the notion that ‘Creation is a Patient Search.’ As for politics, he chose Bernie Sanders early on, and flaunted his endorsement via two new ‘Bernie for President’ T-shirts.

Bill enjoyed conversation and was an outstanding critic, but drawing was his great strength. He kept blue Flair markers at hand for spontaneous sketching on white bond or yellow tracing paper. The great modern architect Le Corbusier, as proficient verbally as visually, once proclaimed “I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies.” Bill would have agreed.

In lieu of a memorial reception, Bill’s birthday will be celebrated on Saturday, February 20, 2016, above the Pat Connolly Tavern. Those wishing to remember Bill are encouraged to donate to the Chinati Foundation, Big Bend National Park, the ASPCA, the University of Texas at Arlington Architecture and Art Library (for commemorative book awards), or a charity of choice.