On fame and hard work

The cold that I picked up in St.P has developed into an extremely nasty something or other (the doctor is still debating). Every breath feels like a knifeblade pushed into my sinuses, I have a nose that is running the marathon and a cough that would frighten an elephant. Blah.

I was invited to a party on Saturday night, which was still in fine spirits when I left at 4am on Sunday (which surely didn't help my cold). The hosts were people I'd met when I first started coming to Stuttgart twenty years ago; they were then at the top of their professional ladders and are now happily retired with a first grandchild to coddle. The party was a meeting of families: three generations of the hosts met up to three generations of guests. The group was a good mix of ages (the hosts' kids are somewhat younger than I) with not a few toddlers and youngsters weaving among our legs.

There were some very well-known names there, respected professionals at the peak of their ladders, world famous among 50 thousand people as it were. I have to admit to being flattered by being addressed as Du by these people (the friendly, intimate form of "you", as opposed to the formal Sie).

I wonder whether there will be ambitious young professionals standing at the back of my parties in twenty years, looking goggle-eyed around and whispering "OMG do you know who that is?!!" Let us hope so. Some of my college friends have already achieved a measure of fame and glory equivalent to the respected oldsters at the party, but nobody that I associate with has done so. We are all just struggling by, our concerns are the monthly rent payment rather than the judgement of historians and newspaper critics. Certainly nothing that I have so far been involved in, neither as an architect nor as a programmer, has appeared in a national newspaper or on TV.

The fellow-student of mine who has achieved the most fame and glory is Ben van Berkel (who practices together with Caroline Bos as UN Studio. They are building the new Mercedes-Benz Museum here in Stuttgart). It was immediately obvious in college that Ben had got it, people were talking about him within weeks of his arrival in fourth year. He was one of the most modest people in the school—not difficult considering that we were all hysterical prima-donnas elbowing our way to the top. Ben just didn't bother with that, he spent his energies on work.

What is this it that he had so much of? Hard to say. "A different way of thinking about the world" would be the simplest explanation, but I'd have to qualify that by stating that every lunatic has a different view of the world, Ben's was convincing: surprising but not shocking, unusual but not improbable. You would look at his projects and say "Well, yes, he's right, that's how it should be". He has retained and refined this ability to make outlandish ideas seem sensible and desirable.

But having it is by no means the end of the story. There were many others who had it, some of the prima-donnas could really sing. Almost all of them have disappeared without trace. What distinguished Ben in the end was his capacity for hard work and his ability to absorb and benefit from (sometimes quite harsh) criticism, without losing confidence in himself or his work.

I admired him greatly. He has earned his success.