I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that

Host:
The evening light filtered through the lattice of steel and bamboo scaffolding, striking the half-finished courtyard in soft, golden fragments. The air smelled faintly of wet concrete and dust, and somewhere in the distance, a jackhammer echoed against the hum of the city. Beyond the construction site, the mountains rose faintly in the mist — steady, ancient, patient — watching over a place still becoming.

In the open courtyard, Jack stood beside a drafting table propped on uneven ground, rolled blueprints fanned out like petals in the breeze. His hands were streaked with graphite, and his white shirt was wrinkled from hours of design and debate.

Across from him, Jeeny stood near the newly erected stone column, sketchbook in hand, her face illuminated by the dying light. The sound of workers shouting in Mandarin drifted between them — a rhythm of creation, universal and human.

Jeeny: softly, reading from her notes “Michael Graves once said — ‘I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that an architect gets to design a school of architecture, and here I get to do it. I'm so pleased that they asked me.’”

Jack: grinning faintly, running his hand along the blueprint “That’s a dream, isn’t it? To build the very place that teaches others how to build. It’s like a composer designing a conservatory.”

Jeeny: smiling “Or a poet designing a library. It’s poetic symmetry — creation teaching creation.”

Host:
The wind shifted, carrying the scent of sawdust and fresh mortar. Workers began to pack up for the night, their laughter fading into the sound of cicadas. The courtyard fell into a quiet filled with purpose — the kind of silence that belongs only to unfinished things.

Jack leaned against the drafting table, gazing at the outline of the rising structure.

Jack: softly “I wonder what that feels like — to design the architecture of learning itself. To shape the place where imagination will one day draw its first lines.”

Jeeny: nodding “It’s more than just design. It’s legacy — architecture that gives birth to architects.”

Jack: thoughtfully “Graves must have felt the weight of that. Every wall he drew wasn’t just for beauty, but for instruction. Every column a metaphor for principle.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “And yet, he said he was pleased — not proud, not burdened. Pleased. That’s humility in its purest form. Joy in service to the craft.”

Host:
The light dimmed further, the world turning bronze. A few lamps flickered to life around the courtyard, casting long, elegant shadows across the skeletal frame of what would one day be a great hall.

Jeeny walked toward one of the partially built arches, her fingers brushing the cool stone.

Jeeny: softly “It’s rare, isn’t it? To love what you do enough that even teaching it feels sacred. Graves saw that chance as a blessing, not an obligation.”

Jack: quietly “That’s what separates architects from builders — the ability to see time as a material. He wasn’t designing walls; he was designing years.”

Jeeny: smiling “Years and minds.”

Jack: nodding “Exactly. When you design a school, you’re building a temple to curiosity.”

Host:
The night deepened, and the sound of distant traffic softened into something like rhythm. Jack spread one of the drawings on the table — the elevation of the east façade, annotated in both English and Chinese. He traced a finger along the outline.

Jack: softly “See this? The symmetry here — it’s deliberate, but not rigid. Graves always played with that tension between order and human scale. A school needs discipline, but also invitation.”

Jeeny: leaning in “So the building teaches before the teachers do.”

Jack: smiling faintly “Exactly. You walk through its halls, and the proportions themselves explain harmony.”

Host:
A faint breeze rustled through the papers, lifting one into the air. It fluttered across the courtyard and landed softly at Jeeny’s feet. She picked it up and studied it — a cross-section of the lecture hall, sunlight lines drawn across the page to show how the morning light would filter through angled louvers.

Jeeny: quietly “He even designed for the way light teaches.”

Jack: after a pause “Light has always been the first teacher. Architecture just gives it form.”

Jeeny: smiling “Then maybe every building is a dialogue — between light and shadow, structure and space, reason and wonder.”

Jack: softly “And in a school of architecture, that dialogue becomes language.”

Host:
The lamps flickered again, and the first stars appeared above the ridgeline. The sound of a hammer striking metal echoed faintly — the last worker finishing for the night. The half-built walls seemed to hum with quiet pride, as if aware of what they were becoming.

Jeeny closed her sketchbook, watching Jack as he rolled up the blueprints with care.

Jeeny: softly “Graves didn’t just build spaces — he built conversations. This school will carry his voice long after he’s gone.”

Jack: nodding slowly “That’s the mark of real architecture — permanence of spirit, not just structure. A building that keeps speaking when its maker can’t.”

Jeeny: quietly “And what it says depends on how deeply you listen.”

Jack: smiling faintly “Maybe that’s what he meant by being pleased. Not because he was being honored, but because he was being trusted — trusted to shape the silence where future voices would rise.”

Host:
The camera would drift upward now, framing the unfinished structure against the night sky — scaffolds, cranes, beams, and stars. In its incompleteness, it looked almost alive, like an idea in the process of being born.

The wind carried the faint echo of work still to be done, the promise of design continuing beyond the hand of its creator.

And as the scene faded to dark, Michael Graves’ words would remain — humble, joyous, profoundly human:

“I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that an architect gets to design a school of architecture, and here I get to do it. I'm so pleased that they asked me.”

Because creation
is not ownership —
it is continuity.

The architect does not build monuments;
he builds invitations —
spaces that say, “Come, learn, imagine, and surpass me.”

To design a school of architecture
is to draw a blueprint for the future
in the language of light,
discipline,
and wonder.

And in that humble joy —
that quiet pleasure of being asked to build
not for glory,
but for learning itself —
lies the purest form of legacy:
not walls that endure,
but minds that do.