June 24, 2022

Vince Gammino – The Brightest Light In Life

Saturday on Easter weekend Vince Gammino spent the day and evening with us.

It was the first time since the pandemic that we got to hang out together for almost the whole day. We just goofed off, watched the movie Dune, talked about projects, business and life, and made our summer plans about the cottage Don and I had hoped to rent for the summer in Wisconsin.

With the possibility of spending summer on a lake he and I had decided to learn about classic outboard motor boats and study for our Wisconsin boating licenses. I hoped to eventually buy one for use at the cottage.

We laughed about my plan to make Vince pilot the boat fast, past the dock while smoking a cigarette so I could make a video of him in some mid-century speedboat, flying by.

It was a really good day.  Nothing special other than being back together as friends without just short social distanced visits, seeing each other and friends on zoom or texting and calls thru the day.

We were joined later by other friends and Don made a big easter dinner of which Vince ate the most of, of course. We sent him off that night with a huge bag of leftovers.  I walked him out to his ride, and told him I didn’t want the evening to end.

And that was the last time I spoke to Vince.

That night after he got home and into bed, Vince passed away. The unanswered calls and texts the next day led me to go and discover him resting his head in his hand and his spirit gone.

The coroner said his heart stopped. When I told my friend Fiona Turkseven that, she wryerly said as she does “Everyone’s heart stops when they die.” which of course I could hear Vince immediately laugh in that snicker he would spontaneously spew out when Fiona made such quips.

His leaving us was sudden and unexpected as we all expected Vince to outlive us all.

Vince was a survivor like no one I knew. He would often quote this Chicago Tribune headline about Buckingham Fountain after he yet again recovered from some life threatening scenario saying “I am An Eternal Fountain Restored To It’s Classic Beauty”.

So now, instead of a summer cottage with speedboats and videos, here I am finishing up the final plans and preparing to host people from around the country as the weekend of the IIDA memorial celebration approaches.

Jim Wild and I have always told Vince we wanted to do a retrospective of his work and he was not to throw out any more drawings.Vince had been going thru and throwing out so much of his renderings and drawings since he moved into his small 20th floor apartment in the sky with the unobstructed views of Lake Michigan and the city.

So I am now more determined than ever to honor him as I never did in life. Like most longtime friends we took each others friendship and time together for granted.

And thus I have been heads down planning this memorial celebration like it is a design project…both proactively and to keep busy as most of us do after such an unexpected loss and large void this has left in my heart and my everyday life.

Honoring Vince at the epicenter of our design industry and the center of the city he loved.

The event is being hosted by Cheryl Durst and IIDA (International Interior Design Association) at their national headquarters who texted me upon hearing about Vince, and generously offered to do this as a way to help, and recognize his life and career.

It will be a private event in a place that Vince loved for its design and its proximity to views of the Chicago River, Michigan Avenue bridge, the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower.

You see Vince was born, raised and lived his whole life within the City of Chicago. He was a true home boy and loved his city and the architecture and design legacy that is Chicago and that he was a part of for most of his life. At one time or another he designed in almost every building in that view from IIDA.

The IIDA headquarters is also where we attended our last design industry event together in 2020 before everything shut down due to the pandemic. And it is also where we designed a custom podium together for IIDA that I now have to stand at to give my speech about Vince and his life.

Irony and synergy at its best…and so very Vince.

Gathering the Remnants. 

I have scanned much of his remaining drawings, renderings, photos and writings. Yes writings. Not only was he an exceptionally talented designer, detailer, project manager, mentor, and master renderer in the vein of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marion Mahony, but he was also a prolific poetry writer. We found stacks of poetry from all thru his life, some in his signature lettering, in a box under his drafting table.

For many years Vince would burst out reciting one particular poem from memory, out of the blue and without warning. Yet it was not until we went thru the huge box of writing that we discovered that he had also copyrighted and published this poem along with one other in two small academic poetry presses in 1993.

No one knew and he never told us.

The marquardt+ website is filled with his designs and dozens of realized projects. There were few projects in our studio that he was not a part of in some way. And not many people know that he had been in practice since his first architectural apprenticeship at age of 14.

The last design he sketched was a quick pencil/ink plan study for a sustainable tiny house with walls of encapsulated hay bales and post and beam construction that I found scanned his laptop computer dated April 4th 2022. I could not locate the original sketch. This file was dated the day after we had a zoom discussion while looking at examples of tiny houses.

I didn’t know he went ahead and started drawing one up.  It was in his signature prairie style planning of course and with way more functionality, efficiency and comfort than those compressed tiny homes being touted as efficient today on cable programs and in the design press.

Putting together the pieces of the puzzle.

We have assembled some of his most recognizable objects among which are his oldest accordion, that indestructible aqua blue dress shirt we have determined thru photos he had worn for approximately 38 years (and it still looks new), his signature neon orange reading glasses Barb Westfield and Don Kimpling got him from a market in Provence, and his last pack of Camel straights and a plastic Bic lighter I found next to him, when I found him. These were the two things he was seldom without nearby for most of his life.

Our photographer and videographer colleagues Jeremy Witteveen and Tina Serafini put together a looping slideshow of photos and work: Vince Gammino Memorial Slide Show and scored the slideshow with music from a French architectural competition video Vince particularly loved.

He and I would watch it periodically in the studio and drive everyone nuts. Hearing it loop again over and over during the ceremony will be like an old memory and I am sure I will hear him laughing about it!

It never failed to bring tears to his eyes and motivated him to join me on a trip to Maison in Paris in 2014 just so he could see the actual project in construction (and finally visit Notre Dame which he studied in detail in high school).

He of course cried when we approached Notre Dame then immediately started telling me how they built it.

Hopefully these remnants will help put together a picture of Vince Gammino in the way I knew him. I haven’t determined yet if I am going to be a mess or just go into autopilot when speaking at his celebration.

The thing is I am determined to capture his complex character; that of a man many people admired and felt kinship to yet few knew well beyond his work, quiet yet sociable nature and playful demeanor.

Vince was an enigma.

He was a true individualist, a science and architecture nerd and a silly social being yet also a recluse. He lived on his own terms and yet provided an inclusive bright light of guidance to so many others.

Despite his more everyday almost conservative appearance Vince did not guide his life by convention, peer pressure nor the everyday norms and expectations like most of us.

He had notated copies of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which in many ways clearly speaks to his way of being in the world. He also meditated daily and and still chanted his Buddhist mantra from time to time, sometimes in the studio out loud to freak us out.

Our French friend Mathilde once said that “Vince was very special and rare person, one of a few I have ever met. He is an alien who has found himself on a foreign planet living everyday life in ways many could not see or understand.”

Vince lived in the moment and sometimes to a fault despite the frustration this sometimes caused others around him.

As such for example, money didn’t concern him outside of providing him access to cigarettes, groceries, the CTA, time with friends or paying the rent, probably in that order. Thinking about the future as an upward trajectory with financial savings and investment was foreign to him.

When I think of him financially I am reminded of that famous line in the old Popeye cartoons when the character Wimpy would say: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”.

The irony here is that he was so skilled at managing clients budgets, projects and schedules. And at numerous times in his life Vince made a good income.

Vince just didn’t care about conventional things.

He preferred spending time and exploring his interests in design, the world, the metaphysical, and with select people who were kind, honest, creative and idiosyncratic. Even during our largest parties and events one could find Vince in a corner with someone deep in a conversation. That is not to say he didn’t enjoy a good party or being silly among a larger group, but when it came to human interactions he preferred engaging people individually.

He also spent a great deal of time alone. He was conscience of this and though adept at living alone and said he preferred it, also didn’t always like being alone.

I found notes Vince made for himself reminding him to not isolate too much and reach out to people as a way to remain engaged. And yet he could get lost for hours in weather reports and science updates, all kinds of maps and information about different places in the world, and even the McMaster-Carr supply catalog, which by his knowledge I swear he read it like a novel.

Yet he wasn’t shy about expressing his feelings when he felt strongly about something or someone. That night he last visited me he asked for a hug before leaving.

I can tell you first hand that when Vince cared about you he was the most faithful friend one could ever have and unafraid to express it.

In the end, Vince never compromised his view of life and I know he left this world prepared, comfortable with himself and with few regrets.

Vince rarely lost his cool.

From a professional point of view this was magic.

If clients had a project issue or were freaking out about a process or deadline Vince was the calming voice who could pragmatically ground them with patience, reason, explanations and reassurance; a skill I have always admired in him and have yet to fully mastered. And it just came natural to him.

Combine this with his obsessive attention to the organization of information, note taking and a consistent methodical design process and he was an unequalled creative design lead, master at construction drawing sets, details, notations and project management.

Unexpected problems and construction site issue never phased him. If someone needed a drawing or specification he could sketch up a detail in minutes or quote hardware from one of a dozen catalogs off the top of his head and provide his recommendation.

He would think everything through and always had a solution, and if needed sketched it out on a wall for the contractors to explain it, he would.

There are few people in practice yet today who have this rare combination of skill sets.

The few times I did seen him lose it he knew to walk away. I could probably count the times on one hand that I witnessed it, and let’s just say everyone should be glad he recognized his threshold and knew to walk away. He was Sicilian after all.

The Stapler Incident 

One time many years ago Vince was project managing a job and had completed and assembled the drawing sets and details for review and issue. A former colleague who led the design, reviewed the set and demanded he add additional drawings and details after Vince had clearly explained why it was unnecessary.

When this person talked past him and continued to push him to do it anyway, he calmly explained again in detail why the specific drawings they were requesting would be redundant. He said that by doing so would in fact cause confusion for the construction team pricing and building the project.

He also clarified that it would create additional unnecessary billable hours against the job that he was tasked with managing, and reminded the individual that the architect of record who would be reviewing, red marking and stamping the set would mark them up to be taken out anyway.

Instead of accepting his explanation the person became more unnerved at his refusal to do as they asked.

They then demanded that he do what they asked or leave. Everyone in the studio went uncomfortably silent.

Vince calmly said that he would then leave and told the person that when the concern could be discussed with civility he would be more than happy to return.

Infuriated at his pragmatic response and decision to leave the individual literally shook with anger and suddenly picked up his prized chrome Swingline stapler he used on drawing sets and threw it across the room where it stuck into the drywall wall just above his desk.

Without a flinch Vince picked up his briefcase and left.  Of course the rest of us got out of there fast making excuses…except for our poor business manager at the time, who was left alone with our seething colleague and trying to finish her own work.

The next day that former colleague came to me saying they refused to work with Vince any longer.  I said that this was fine but that Vince will not be told to leave our practice and as he set the drawing standards for the studio, will continue to work with the rest of us, regardless.

I trusted and supported his decisions (and so did my liability insurance carrier). Of course there were the times when Vince just couldn’t hear you, or so he said.

He told us early on that he could not hear well out of one ear. I also believe he chose when wanted hear.

At one point a few years ago this prompted a dear friend and colleague Barb Westfield and I to offer to buy him a hearing aid, though honestly I think he would just have turned it off to tune out when he didn’t want to listen anyway.

 

Vince was my best of friends, my cohort, my cheerleader and my unyielding protector.

There was so much Vince did for me, as a friend, a colleague and as a close member of my work and life family. He certainly wasn’t perfect and definitely had his blind spots, but then, so do all of us in the end.

He validated my creative thinking, strategies and design approach and on this we were extremely in sync. I could sit down with Vince and brainstorm an idea and start to sketch it out with him. Within an hour he could develop the idea like he read my mind and worked it forward with me in the most validating and positive way like few others I have ever worked with over my lifetime and career.

I can’t tell you how many times I have said to people I need to run this by Vince and get his input before proceeding.

He helped me keep my business going when I was ready to quit many times over and always took the time when I was flailing to sit me down, listen and help me sort out a solution.

And he kept me sane during the many life events that occur when you are close friends and colleagues for almost four decades.

And my favorite thing about our friendship is that he would completely go along with me down any rabbit hole when I expressed my interest, joy and the beauty in even the most mundane or stupid of things that most people would never see or appreciate. He always got it.

Unconditional friendship and love.

Many years ago a former friend of mine went with me to visit my parents.

When my father asked me how Vince was doing the guy went off to my dad before I could answer, about Vince’s unconventional behavior and fiscal shortcomings and so forth. (This guy was the antithesis of Vince, really).

My father, who was becoming visibly agitated by his rant finally interrupted him and said: “Stop. Vince is our friend and we consider him a well loved member of this family. His personal financial issues are none of my business or yours. No one is perfect that comes into this home so let it go”.

If you knew my father you knew why my friend immediately shut up and now is a former friend.

There are hundreds of Vince stories and anecdotes; too many to share here, both good and some not so good I am sure. Yet, in the end it was his essence, his spirit, his being a bright light for others, unconditionally, that made him so special to all the people he shined on and were fortunate enough to know him.

And that is what Vince was, and will always be, for me.

marquardt+ and myself have established the Vince Gammino Memorial Fund for Howard Brown Health

Howard Brown Health provides quality medical care for those who would not otherwise have access.

If you have the means, please honor Vince by  contributing to this great organization; one  that was instrumental in helping Vince and thousands like him live longer, healthy lives.

This link is for people donating here in the US: The Vince Gammino Memorial Fund for Howard Brown Health

This link is for people donating from outside the US: International Donations and check the memorial box and write “Vince” or leave a comment sharing this is in Vince’s memory and we will attribute directly to his fund.

THANK YOU!