Features
The 25 – David Pearson
An architectural designer at his own eponymous firm, David Pearson has spent his career promulgating classical architecture and the orders by schooling his clients, colleagues, and students in its beauty.
“I teach the classical elements because it is all about language,” he says. “If we speak the same language, we can communicate better. Once you have learned the ‘rules’ you can then ‘write/draw’ a sentence … and with courage and talent you might be able to ‘write/ design’ poetry. The classical language of architecture is a language of constant rejuvenation.”
Pearson, who won a 2019 Bulfinch Award for his sketch of the Forum Romanum, sees teaching as telling the story of what you have learned.
“Telling a story relies on the performance of the storyteller,” he says. “Think of Homer, or better yet, Scheherazade; the material must be rich and varied to keep an audience enthralled. Hopefully, in telling my story to students, they will learn not only the fundamentals of design but also to be passionate about their chosen profession.”
For Pearson, that passion is “to engage with all the fine arts when designing architecture. I do not think you can separate architecture from art.”
And he adds, “Traditional architecture, whether it is high Classicism or low vernacular, is fundamentally sustainable. The paradox is that the study of tradition sets the course of our future.”
Pearson, who believes “in the continuum of architecture, the classical world filtered and transformed over the centuries into our world,” didn’t pursue a degree in architecture in college because in the 1970s the traditional style, which he loved, was not in vogue. Instead, he earned a degree in art and scenic design and began designing theater sets.
When he was in his mid-50s, Pearson earned a master’s degree in architecture from Georgia Tech and was immediately hired by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, where, for seven years, he taught his associates the theory of classical architecture and its practical application, trained them in drawing and worked on drafting award-winning projects. Later, he worked for Fairfax & Sammons.
In 2015, he led the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art’s Rome Tour, and in 2023 he held a sketching tour of Historic New England.
“It is amazing to me that while leading the Rome sketching tour that younger participants asked me about where they could study, what I have studied, and where to go to school,” he says. “That is where my legacy lies–with their future.”
