The Invisible Architect

In this thoroughly engaging memoir, Marvin Mass, a mechanical engineer and the chairman of Cosentini Associates, shares an insider’s view into some of the most important buildings and architects of the last half century. Citing examples from his distinguished body of work, richly colored by illuminating and often hilarious personal anecdotes, Mr. Mass shows how buildings and our expectations of them have changed with the contemporary development of environmental controls. Marvin...
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In this thoroughly engaging memoir, Marvin Mass, a mechanical engineer and the chairman of Cosentini Associates, shares an insider’s view into some of the most important buildings and architects of the last half century. Citing examples from his distinguished body of work, richly colored by illuminating and often hilarious personal anecdotes, Mr. Mass shows how buildings and our expectations of them have changed with the contemporary development of environmental controls. Marvin Mass began his career in the heady days after World War II when architects met the building boom with imaginative designs that defined the course of Modernism. At age 22 he became the project manager for Lever House and from there went on to a 60-year trajectory of large and prominent buildings executed with a veritable Who’s Who of the A&E industry. In the beginning, commercially available air-conditioning did not exist. People opened windows or put on a sweater if they were hot or cold. There was no notion that machines could regulate temperature, humidity, air flow, or other factors now considered essential for comfortable and productive environments. Along the way, mechanical engineering was totally transformed from the practice of adding hidden equipment to buildings in isolated response to individual needs to becoming a more global discipline of interrelated building systems, indispensable, fully integrated, and frequently awarded significant architectural expression. Mr. Mass himself was responsible for many notable technological and procedural innovations, but among his greatest contributions was his sensitivity to design. Unlike most other MEPs, who furnish mechanical solutions without regard to what the architect is trying to accomplish, Mr. Mass collaborated on projects from their early stages in order to understand and accommodate design intent. The many successful buildings that resulted and the warm friendships these projects engendered are the subject of this delightful book.