Dean Wolf Architects - Photo by Paul Warchol

Big Time Architect, North Dakota Roots

By Jessica Verdi
Contributing Writer

Imagine the landscape of North Dakota. You are probably picturing rolling grasslands and prairie, open blue sky as far as the eye can see and farmland with striated patches of corn and soybeans. Most people would not find inspiration for urban and residential architecture in an environment like North Dakota, but for Kathryn Dean, it was the perfect place for her young imagination to take the subtleties of the landscape and develop an architectural aesthetic that, over the last 20 years, has brought international attention to this innovative architect.

Kathryn Dean grew up in Hatton, North Dakota, and later moved to Fargo where she attended NDSU and earned a BA in Architectural Studies in 1981 before leaving the Fargo area for the master’s program at the University of Oregon. Since high school, teachers and professors have greatly influenced Dean. From local Fargo homes, to one of the mid-20th century’s most influential architects, Louis Kahn, Dean’s educators exposed her to concepts and styles that would become the building blocks for her approach to designing. Dean not only designs visually stunning spaces, but also creates spaces that have functionality for the inhabitants and seamlessly become a part of the surrounding habitation.

Not only is Dean a founding member of Dean/Wolf Architects with her husband Charles Wolf, she is also the director of the Graduate School of Architecture and & Urban Design at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. It has been said that those who cannot do, teach. This is most certainly not the case with Dean. Splitting her time between teaching in St. Louis and her firm in New York City, Dean has a unique opportunity to instill her knowledge as a working architect in her students as well as gain inspiration from eager and inventive young minds.

North Dakota is not known for its architecture. What structures really sparked your interest and inspired you to go into architecture at NDSU?

“In high school, my home economics teacher, Mrs. Berge, decided that we should be exposed to more for our home decorating section, so she set up a tour of three houses in Fargo, two designed my Mutchler, Twitchell and Lynch and one by Seth Twitchell.  It immediately interested me to think about the different ways that people might structure their lives. To this day, it is still what maintains my interest in architecture ―the relationship between habits and inhabitation.”

You seem to approach design with the physical environment in mind, creating structures that seem to enhance their location and become a part of it. Do you feel that there are any upper Midwest influences in the way you approach materials and space?

“Summers on the farm, I was always outdoors with my sisters. We had a series of real/imaginary places in the landscape, which, of course because it is the landscape of the prairie were very subtle places. The big rock was pulled from the fields and thrown into the shelterbelt…but it was also a place to get above the horizon and see a little farther. The pond was a shallow spot in the land that after summer rains filled with water…but it was cooler in the summer and over time trees grew spontaneously in that place also creating shade…it was a beautiful edge on a summer day. We spent many a day with a friend on her land, which had much shallower water where we made “beauty island” ...a place we cleaned and planted and weeded almost every day. These subtle places developed my eye for particular things that can inform the place of building. It gave me a way to read other landscapes as well, something in which I still take lots of pleasure.” 

Do you believe in the idea that it is the architect’s responsibility to interpret her own time? If so, what are some of the things you focus on to create a contemporary vernacular that represents our time?

“Yes, our time is both a challenging one and an interesting one. We live in a pressured world because of our increased environmental problems and our cultural conflicts. This is supported by our increased digital connections, which make us all global citizens. I think it is our responsibility to address the subtleties of culture with the same sensitivity as the subtleties of landscape. At the same time, our connection to the digital has distanced us from these particular sensitivities. I think we have the responsibility to help people recover them.”

You split your time between teaching in St. Louis and working in NYC. What are some of the benefits these two worlds lend to one another?

“Teaching and practice are wonderful partners. One asks what could be possible in the future and the other what parts of that future can we make in the present. Creating an entire school has an even broader possibility for this investigation, which is why my current job is so interesting.”

Do you feel that working with students keeps your ideas and approach fresh and contemporary?

“Students are wonderful always! I experience the exhilaration of the freefall every time I start a new studio and the students are always willing to trust that the jump will bring great pleasure even though it also, by necessity, contains fear. It is only when you press to the edges of fear that you gain new ground. Of course, these feelings are intensified for me, as I also have no idea where we are going to land but I have the responsibility to serve as their parachutes.”

Would you ever be interested in designing something for your home state?

“It has been a lifelong desire…the landscape of childhood is always the richest part of our imagination!”

A new monograph, “Dean/Wolf Architects: Constructive Continuum from Princeton Architectural Press” brings together the last 20 years of projects by Kathryn Dean and her husband/partner Charles Wolf. This new publication shows how Dean has used her keen eye for subtlety and her ability to develop a sense of space that is much more intense than the square footage would suggest. Many of her spaces, such as lofts and warehouses are transformed into inside-out environments weaving the exterior with the interior. The materials used echo their surroundings. Through her use of glass, steel, copper and wood, spaces become at once industrial and organic, functional and full of visual aesthetic. The Modernist notion of form over function is not the approach Dean takes. In a contemporary world of strip malls, track houses and neglected or abandoned warehouses, Dean has somehow developed a way of achieving stunningly ambitious constructions without compromising the purpose of the space, which ultimately is for people to utilize the space as intended. Perhaps one day we can look forward to having Ms. Dean return to North Dakota and leave her mark on the landscape that undoubtedly left its mark on her.

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