5 Things We Learned... Marti Gottsch
MARTI GOTTSCH, SENIOR DESIGNER AT SKIDMORE, OWINGS, AND MERRILL (SOM)
BROOKLYN, NY
Marti Gottsch is a merrymaker. It would be cliché to say she’s got that Midwestern charm, but…well, she does and she gathers friends and allies with little resistance. I met Marti at a mutual friend’s wedding in Croatia where we bonded over flower arrangements (she practices floral design, while I try to keep the vase upright), Serbian marriage crowns (don’t ask), and open water swimming in the Adriatic sea. We also talked about art and design…naturally.
Marti is a Senior Architectural Designer at Skidmore Owings & Merrill (SOM), whose alumni include legends like Fazlur Khan, Gordon Bunshaft, and Natalie de Blois. Her career at SOM and earlier at MOS Architects has been built on a variety of architectural interventions across Asia and the US, including exhibition design for MOMA, a drive-through movie theatre in Marfa, and the Guiyang World Trade Center in China.
Here are 5 Things We Learned about Marti.
What made you...you?
I grew up in a vast landscape in Nebraska surrounded by acres of terraced farmland. I realized at a young age that there was nothing natural about the nature that I saw every day. It is the most incredible and immense earthwork! My view was 25 percent ground and 75 percent sky and I spent my days dreaming, drawing, and filling in those gaps in the sky.
There have been four major chapters in my life. The first was being in Nebraska with formative introductions to conceptual art, land art, and architecture history, the second was being an academic in West Texas and writing about the social engagement of architecture, then a researcher and editor in Houston, and now a designer in New York City. My relationships with the people I met along the way continue to shape and influence me. I am in my fifth chapter as a mom. Hopefully, this one lasts the longest and continues to unfold in NYC.
When are you happiest?
My day to day happiness involves watching the narrative of a project come together. The most amazing buildings are the ones with the simplest most powerful narrative. The very best ones are those that stay true to it from concept to physical form. I am the happiest when visiting a great project that I have only seen in image and drawing. I love exploring every part of it and experiencing what a book will never reveal.
Would you rather have a muse or be a muse?
I love that we continue to flip the “contemporary woman inspires and male as maker” association of this term. Regardless I have muses in multiples: great buildings, impressionable spaces, and certain cinematic moments when sitting in darkness. There is too much to learn to be a muse myself.
Who do you admire?
I admire the fearless. Those that pursue their passions against all odds. Lately, I am in awe of the activists and leaders that are braving an unjust society in untrusting streets while we are nine months into a pandemic. A few brave women on my list include Natalie de Blois, an architect that navigated a male-dominated SOM to transform Park Avenue with the PepsiCo Building, Lever House, and the Union Carbide Corporation HQ. Also, Agnes Varda, a cinematic firehouse that pioneered new genres of film (and one of the many reasons I named my baby Agnes). She was not afraid to take risks and invent through her art.
What is important?
Our ground is shifting and as an architect it is important to step back and address the appropriate scale of a project with inclusiveness and greenness in mind. But perhaps the most important thing is human connection, relationships are paramount to my existence!
Connect with Marti on Linkedin and follow SOM’s incredible work here.
Images from left to right: Marti in front of The Met Breuer, image credit Maja Paklar; Amarillo Ramp, copyright Holt/Smithson Foundation; Pepsi-Co Building, image credit Ezra Stoller via SOM; Eames House / Case Study House No. 8, image credit Marti; SESC Pompéia by Lino Bo Bardi, image by Paulisson Miura; Michael Heizer at The Menil, image credit Marti