Architect Scott Jackson

Scott Jackson is a project designer with Bruce Jackson Architecture, and also the owner/director of Cedar Gallery in Milwaukee’s Third Ward. It’s a steep climb up the stairs adjacent to Starbucks, 326 N. Water St., but it’s worth it to get to his sparsely beautiful gallery.

I first met Scott earlier this year when photographer Francis Ford exhibited big images of local celebs. Turns out Scott and I had lived in homes designed by Michael Johnson, a ’60s renegade designer from Madison who went on to international fame.

I heard local architect David Kahler gripe once about designing a beautiful building and then having to watch it junked up with what the owners deemed to be swell taste. I understand why Frank Lloyd Wright was so tyrannical when it came to every detail, both exterior and interior. Why did you choose architecture as a career?

I really didn’t choose architecture. I was born into it. My father has been an architect in Milwaukee for forty years. In fact, he worked for Kahler in the ’60s. He quit the corporate architecture world in 1978 and has since been designing mainly single-family residences. In our practice, I work as a collaborator with him and design the interiors. I am also a working artist, run the gallery, and am a part-time Mr. Mom to my-one-year-old daughter.

I studied art and graphic design at UW-LaCrosse for a bit, before dropping out to live in Colorado and snowboard. After that, I moved into architecture, initially attending Arizona State University to study graphic design. The art building was a horrible, oppressive place but the architecture building was brand new and had a great workshop and a design library (and windows!). I was always a Wright and Aalto freak and began reading architecture books and taking some architecture classes, then was persuaded by two architecture professors to switch my major. One was Max Underwood, who had worked for The Office of Charles and Ray Eames (heroes of mine). The other was Gerald McSheffery; a Wright expert and the former Dean of IIT in Chicago (succeeded Mies van der Rohe). I received my Bachelors in Architecture in 1993 from Arizona State University.

Back to your question, yes, architecture can be terribly disappointing at times. You learn to live with it. Although I enjoy working with my father and we have been fortunate to work with many great clients. I try to spend as little time as possible with architects. Most of them are boring and pretentious.

Where do you currently reside? Is your home designed by an architect? If yes, who? If you were single, what would your ideal living space be? I’m talking square feet.

It really depends upon what day it is and what I am working on. We have a full living space in the Water Street gallery/office building. My wife and I have an old house in a small town outside Madison. It is a work in progress in the build-it-as-you-go, run-down-cottage vernacular! It is a slowly evolving project, but is a great laboratory for ideas (in the Aalto tradition). It is great to escape the city and the surrounding suburban sprawl. We enjoy the proximity to Madison, the lake and the pristine farmland of Jefferson County. Milwaukee will always remain the home base. Now we need that high-speed rail to Madison.

If I was single, I would live in an old building or the Shorecrest Hotel (or some similar haven for creatives/bohemians). Five hundred square feet is all I really need.

I lived for five years at the Shorecrest Hotel and my kitchen had the original white steel ’40s cabinets. Yeah, 500 square feet is about right for me too. Do you have a favorite building in the world?

Well, that depends on the period. Recently, the Milwaukee Indian Community School [in Franklin] by Antoine Predock is a brilliant building. There is a total integration with the site, a great understanding of the program and the culture of the building inhabitants. The Charter Wire building was one of my favorites before they ruined it. I love the Bradford Beach pavilion building… admire the Saarinen, Tullgren buildings, Bogk House, Pabst Theater, Eschweilers, corner taverns, bowling alleys, puddler’s cottages, and many obscure, underappreciated, residential, industrial and agricultural buildings.

Global favorites? I would have to limit it to buildings that I have visited. I’ll say a three-way  tie between the Gamble House (1908), in Pasadena by Greene and Greene, Inland Steel Building (1956) in Chicago by SOM/Bruce Graham (which Gehry and SOM are now renovating), and Fallingwater (I know-cliché).

Have you been up to take a look at the almost-empty condos on LaFayette Hill? What’s your take on the design of the building?

I don’t like looking at many new condo buildings…  It is mainly the enormous scale of these projects. They often destroy the fabric of the neighborhood. They freak me out.

Give me more about Cedar Gallery.

The gallery has evolved organically. It was my wife Leila’s idea. While attending college, I worked in galleries in Phoenix and Scottsdale and was familiar with hanging and lighting shows. Cedar started because we have artist friends, we had the space in the right area. We did not set out to be gallerists, though it has been an adventure (not profitable) requiring a great deal of work. We consider it our community service. A city of our size and with our wealth of talent should have more than a handful of decent galleries.