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"But I don’t understand. Why do you want me to think that this is great

architecture?" He pointed to the picture of the Parthenon.

"That," said the Dean, "is the Parthenon."

"So it is."

"I haven’t the time to waste on silly questions."

"All right, then." Roark got up, he took a long ruler from the desk, he walked

to the picture. "Shall I tell you what’s rotten about it?"

"It’s the Parthenon!" said the Dean.

"Yes, God damn it, the Parthenon!"

The ruler struck the glass over the picture.

"Look," said Roark. "The famous flutings on the famous columns--what are they

there for? To hide the joints in wood--when columns were made of wood, only

these aren’t, they’re marble. The triglyphs, what are they? Wood. Wooden beams,

the way they had to be laid when people began to build wooden shacks. Your

Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it,

because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came

along and made copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Now here

we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in

marble of copies in wood. Why?"

The Dean sat watching him curiously. Something puzzled him, not in the words,

but in Roark’s manner of saying them.

"Rules?" said Roark. "Here are my rules: what can be done with one substance

must never be done with another. No two materials are alike. No two sites on

earth are alike. No two buildings have the same purpose. The purpose, the site,

the material determine the shape. Nothing can be reasonable or beautiful unless

it’s made by one central idea, and the idea sets every detail. A building is

alive, like a man. Its integrity is to follow its own truth, its one single

theme, and to serve its own single purpose. A man doesn’t borrow pieces of his

body. A building doesn’t borrow hunks of its soul. Its maker gives it the soul

and every wall, window and stairway to express it."

"But all the proper forms of expression have been discovered long ago."

"Expression--of what? The Parthenon did not serve the same purpose as its wooden

ancestor. An airline terminal does not serve the same purpose as the Parthenon.

Every form has its own meaning. Every man creates his meaning and form and goal.

Why is it so important--what others have done? Why does it become sacred by the

mere fact of not being your own? Why is anyone and everyone right--so long as

it’s not yourself? Why does the number of those others take the place of truth?

Why is truth made a mere matter of arithmetic--and only of addition at that? Why

is everything twisted out of all sense to fit everything else? There must be

some reason. I don’t know. I’ve never known it. I’d like to understand."

"For heaven’s sake," said the Dean. "Sit down....That’s better....Would you mind

very much putting that ruler down?...Thank you....Now listen to me. No one has

ever denied the importance of modern technique to an architect. We must learn to

adapt the beauty of the past to the needs of the present. The voice of the past

is the voice of the people. Nothing has ever been invented by one man in

architecture. The proper creative process is a slow, gradual, anonymous,

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collective one, in which each man collaborates with all the others and

subordinates himself to the standards of the majority."

"But you see," said Roark quietly, "I have, let’s say, sixty years to live. Most

of that time will be spent working. I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find

no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I

can find the joy only if I do my work in the best way possible to me. But the

best is a matter of standards--and I set my own standards. I inherit nothing. I

stand at the end of no tradition. I may, perhaps, stand at the beginning of

one."

"How old are you?" asked the Dean.

"Twenty-two," said Roark.

"Quite excusable," said the Dean; he seemed relieved. "You’ll outgrow all that."

He smiled. "The old standards have lived for thousands of years and nobody has

been able to improve upon them. What are your modernists? A transient mode,

exhibitionists trying to attract attention. Have you observed the course of

their careers? Can you name one who has achieved any permanent distinction? Look

at Henry Cameron. A great man, a leading architect twenty years ago. What is he

today? Lucky if he gets--once a year--a garage to remodel. A bum and a drunkard,

who..."

"We won’t discuss Henry Cameron."

"Oh? Is he a friend of yours?"

"No. But I’ve seen his buildings."

"And you found them..."

"I said we won’t discuss Henry Cameron."

"Very well. You must realize that I am allowing you a great deal of...shall we

say, latitude? I am not accustomed to hold a discussion with a student who

behaves in your manner. However, I am anxious to forestall, if possible, what

appears to be a tragedy, the spectacle of a young man of your obvious mental

gifts setting out deliberately to make a mess of his life."

The Dean wondered why he had promised the professor of mathematics to do all he

could for this boy. Merely because the professor had said: "This," and pointed

to Roark’s project, "is a great man." A great man, thought the Dean, or a

criminal. The Dean winced. He did not approve of either.

He thought of what he had heard about Roark’s past. Roark’s father had been a

steel puddler somewhere in Ohio and had died long ago. The boy’s entrance papers

showed no record of nearest relatives. When asked about it, Roark had said

indifferently: "I don’t think I have any relatives. I may have. I don’t know."

He had seemed astonished that he should be expected to have any interest in the

matter. He had not made or sought a single friend on the campus. He had refused

to join a fraternity. He had worked his way through high school and through the

three years here at the Institute. He had worked as a common laborer in the

building trades since childhood. He had done plastering, plumbing, steel work,

anything he could get, going from one small town to another, working his way

east, to the great cities. The Dean had seen him, last summer, on his vacation,

catching rivets on a skyscraper in construction in Boston; his long body relaxed

under greasy overalls, only his eyes intent, and his right arm swinging forward,

once in a while, expertly, without effort, to catch the flying ball of fire at

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the last moment, when it seemed that the hot rivet would miss the bucket and

strike him in the face.

"Look here, Roark," said the Dean gently. "You have worked hard for your

education. You had only one year left to go. There is something important to

consider, particularly for a boy in your position. There’s the practical side of

an architect’s career to think about. An architect is not an end in himself. He

is only a small part of a great social whole. Co-operation is the key word to

our modern world and to the profession of architecture in particular. Have you

thought of your potential clients?"

"Yes," said Roark.

"The Client," said the Dean. "The Client. Think of that above all. He’s the one

to live in the house you build. Your only purpose is to serve him. You must

aspire to give the proper artistic expression to his wishes. Isn’t that all one

can say on the subject?"

"Well, I could say that I must aspire to build for my client the most

comfortable, the most logical, the most beautiful house that can be built. I

could say that I must try to sell him the best I have and also teach him to know

the best. I could say it, but I won’t. Because I don’t intend to build in order

to serve or help anyone. I don’t intend to build in order to have clients. I

intend to have clients in order to build."

"How do you propose to force your ideas on them?"

"I don’t propose to force or be forced. Those who want me will come to me."

Then the Dean understood what had puzzled him in Roark’s manner.

"You know," he said, "you would sound much more convincing if you spoke as if

you cared whether I agreed with you or not."

"That’s true," said Roark. "I don’t care whether you agree with me or not." He

said it so simply that it did not sound offensive, it sounded like the statement

of a fact which he noticed, puzzled, for the first time.

"You don’t care what others think--which might be understandable. But you don’t

care even to make them think as you do?"

"No."

"But that’s...that’s monstrous."

"Is it? Probably. I couldn’t say."

"I’m glad of this interview," said the Dean, suddenly, too loudly. "It has

relieved my conscience. I believe, as others stated at the meeting, that the

profession of architecture is not for you. I have tried to help you. Now I agree

with the Board. You are a man not to be encouraged. You are dangerous."

"To whom?" asked Roark.

But the Dean rose, indicating that the interview was over.

Roark left the room. He walked slowly through the long halls, down the stairs,

out to the lawn below. He had met many men such as the Dean; he had never

understood them. He knew only that there was some important difference between

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his actions and theirs. It had ceased to disturb him long ago. But he always

looked for a central theme in buildings and he looked for a central impulse in

men. He knew the source of his actions; he could not discover theirs. He did not

care. He had never learned the process of thinking about other people. But he

wondered, at times, what made them such as they were. He wondered again,

thinking of the Dean. There was an important secret involved somewhere in that

question, he thought. There was a principle which he must discover.

But he stopped. He saw the sunlight of late afternoon, held still in the moment

before it was to fade, on the gray limestone of a stringcourse running along the

brick wall of the Institute building. He forgot men, the Dean and the principle

behind the Dean, which he wanted to discover. He thought only of how lovely the

stone looked in the fragile light and of what he could have done with that

stone.

He thought of a broad sheet of paper, and he saw, rising on the paper, bare

walls of gray limestone with long bands of glass, admitting the glow of the sky

into the classrooms. In the comer of the sheet stood a sharp, angular

signature--HOWARD ROARK.

2.

"...ARCHITECTURE, my friends, is a great Art based on two cosmic principles:

Beauty and Utility. In a broader sense, these are but part of the three eternal

entities: Truth, Love and Beauty. Truth--to the traditions of our Art, Love--for

our fellow men whom we are to serve, Beauty--ah, Beauty is a compelling goddess

to all artists, be it in the shape of a lovely woman or a

building....Hm....Yes....In conclusion, I should like to say to you, who are

about to embark upon your careers in architecture, that you are now the

custodians of a sacred heritage....Hm....Yes....So, go forth into the world,

armed with the three eternal entities--armed with courage and vision, loyal to

the standards this great school has represented for many years. May you all

serve faithfully, neither as slaves to the past nor as those parvenus who preach

originality for its own sake, which attitude is only ignorant vanity. May you

all have many rich, active years before you and leave, as you depart from this

world, your mark on the sands of time!"

Guy Francon ended with a flourish, raising his right arm in a sweeping salute;

informal, but with an air, that gay, swaggering air which Guy Francon could

always permit himself. The huge hall before him came to life in applause and

approval.

A sea of faces, young, perspiring and eager, had been raised solemnly--for

forty-five minutes--to the platform where Guy Francon had held forth as the

speaker at the commencement exercises of the Stanton Institute of Technology,

Guy Francon who had brought his own person from New York for the occasion; Guy

Francon, of the illustrious firm of Francon & Heyer, vice-president of the

Architects’ Guild of America, member of the American Academy of Arts and

Letters, member of the National Fine Arts Commission, Secretary of the Arts and

Crafts League of New York, chairman of the Society for Architectural

Enlightenment of the U.S.A.; Guy Francon, knight of the Legion of Honor of

France, decorated by the governments of Great Britain, Belgium, Monaco and Siam;

Guy Francon, Stanton’s greatest alumnus, who had designed the famous Frink

National Bank Building of New York City, on the top of which, twenty-five floors

above the pavements, there burned in a miniature replica of the Hadrian

Mausoleum a wind-blown torch made of glass and the best General Electric bulbs.

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Guy Francon descended from the platform, fully conscious of his timing and

movements. He was of medium height and not too heavy, with just an unfortunate

tendency to stoutness. Nobody, he knew, would give him his real age, which was

fifty-one. His face bore not a wrinkle nor a single straight line; it was an

artful composition in globes, circles, arcs and ellipses, with bright little

eyes twinkling wittily. His clothes displayed an artist’s infinite attention to

details. He wished, as he descended the steps, that this were a co-educational

school.

The hall before him, he thought, was a splendid specimen of architecture, made a

bit stuffy today by the crowd and by the neglected problem of ventilation. But

it boasted green marble dadoes, Corinthian columns of cast iron painted gold,

and garlands of gilded fruit on the walls; the pineapples particularly, thought