Following the first installment of AIA Seattle Design Committee’s Millennium Talks, Gordon Walker and Bill Hook discuss the past, present, and future of the city.  Both share a rich involvement with the history and modernization of the downtown and surrounding environs – one as a designer and one as an illustrator.  Their brief presentations of work, influences, and anecdotes will be followed by a discussion with the audience moderated by Peter Miller on the future of living in our city.

Gordon Walker wanted to be an architect from the time he was 11 years old in rural Idaho.  After graduating from the University of Idaho in 1962, he was drawn by the energy of the World’s Fair to Seattle, where he worked for Ralph Anderson, and eventually teamed with Jim Olson.  He was and still is part of a group of passionate designers seeking a better civic vision for design in the city and region in general.  He has contributed a number of significant urban buildings, residences, and ideas to our metropolitan area, and will share his ideas of how the city can become a better place.

Bill Hook received his architectural degree at the University of Illinois in 1970 and practiced architecture in Chicago for five years until he moved to Seattle.   He joined the architectural firm of Olson Walker in 1980 and started his own firm providing architectural illustrations in 1986.  His role as an illustrator for the next 25 years placed him in a unique position to observe and participate in a vast range of projects of all scales from residences to entire cities and to work with developers, architects, planners and institutions locally and nationally.   The world he has presented has typically been one of transition and imagination in an attempt to give a glimpse of the future.

While he still actively works as an illustrator, his interests have shifted to the realm of fine art, where he continues to explore the urban environment but with more awareness and understanding of mood and quality of light in a changing world. He is currently working on paintings of construction sites, maintenance workers and the industrial complex that is required to make the realization of our dreams possible.

Peter Miller, born 1946 in Hartford, took the BA from Williams College in 1968 and the MA from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 1970. After migrating to Seattle, he worked in construction and as a chef before opening his first bookstore, Miller & Mungo, in then-renascent Pioneer Square. He opened Peter Miller Books in 1982, and as the Pike Place Market area began to burgeon, moved the store to the First Avenue space adjacent to AIA Seattle. Peter Miller Books has operated in its current location since 1988.

Peter holds a unique position in the design community, a counselor to many on matters of “design conscience” as well as literary taste, and a thoughtful purveyor of cultural and critical observations as well as texts. More formally, he has served on the UW Department of Architecture Advisory Board since 1993; and in 1994 moderated the AIA Seattle Honor Awards jury. In 1998, he accepted Mayor Schell’s appointment to the Seattle Design Commission, and has helped inform the selection of design teams for the City’s current projects. AIA Seattle inducted Peter as an Honorary Member in 1993, in recognition of his commitments and achievements in the service of design.

Please join us Wednesday, October 24 at henrybuilt at 997 Western Avenue at 5:30p