Finding Scandinavian yin & yang

Heard the one about the extroverted Finn? He would look at your feet rather than his own.

David Salmela, arguably Minnesota's most celebrated living architect, tells that wry joke while discussing Finnish reserve and cultural insecurity, a topic that introduces a new book about his work.

"Maybe Minnesota is like that," he mused. "We doubt our place in the world. We think other people are smarter than we are." Yet we also tend to have an assurance born of resourcefulness and self-reliance, he noted. "I have that same combination of confidence and insecurity."

Both qualities were on display during a wide-ranging phone interview with the Duluth architect, subject of "The Invisible Element of Place: The Architecture of David Salmela" ($39.95, University of Minnesota Press). It's the second book about Salmela, following "Salmela Architect" in 2005. (Both were written by Thomas Fisher, architecture professor at the U and dean of its College of Design).

Salmela still seems surprised by the attention.

"That someone would actually do a book is hard for me to understand," he said. "I try not to think about it too much. My mother and dad wouldn't believe it."

Salmela has dozens of local and national awards to his credit, for projects ranging from the small (a sauna) to the large (the Jackson Meadow community in Marine on St. Croix) and for his entire body of work. Yet he doubts himself "all the time," he said. "I go through a process. If I make five tries and come to the same conclusion, I won't question myself anymore."

Still, he has confidence in the final outcome. Asked which project he's proudest of, he said, "Just about everything I do. They're all important, although some achieve higher degrees of acclaim."

And asked which architect, living or dead, he'd choose to design a home for him, Salmela said, "That's not a good question. It's not realistic. ... I would have to design my own."

He did design his own home several years ago, a compact live/work space with "a wonderful view" of Lake Superior, in a cluster with two other Salmela-designed homes on a steep, boulder-strewn site in Duluth.

Designing structures that harmonize with their settings is a hallmark of Salmela's work, as well as the theme of the new book.

"I think I was always site-sensitive," Salmela said. But as he's matured, his work has become more about finding "the invisible element of place and bringing it out, rather than attempting to build sensational things" for their own sake.

Salmela has grown professionally and gained confidence in recent years, Fisher noted. "The first book was about an architect trying to find himself. He's at his peak right now."

And the architectural world is taking notice. "When I say I'm from Minnesota, people ask, 'Can you tell me about David Salmela?'" Fisher said.

Self-taught

Salmela's stature in the industry is all the more noteworthy because he's self-taught, licensed at a time when work experience could substitute for a formal education in architecture.

"I wasn't in the mood to go to school when I should have," Salmela said. Instead, he took a short course in drafting, worked for an engineering firm and entered the design/construction field. "It wasn't that I did a stupid thing. I did an odd thing ... a very practical thing. I never wasted time doing fill-in jobs."

Salmela has heard that before. "Some people in the profession tell me all the time, that was the key," he said. But he's aware of the things he missed out on. "There are subtle things you don't learn when you don't have a formal education," he said. His writing and formal-presentation skills could be better, he admitted. "I don't compete for work. I rely on people coming to me."

Fisher said Salmela spends an unusual amount of time with his clients. "The first meeting is typically three hours or more," Fisher said. And after the project, "David stays in touch with all his clients. I have yet to find a disgruntled client."

Understanding clients well enough to "extract their hidden goals" while staying within their budget is what being a good architect is all about, according to Salmela. "Too often it's perceived that the architect is the guy. But the reality is that the architect taps into the clients' intelligence to create something memorable that they can enjoy every day of the year."

It's a complex process, he said. "You have to be a sociologist, a psychologist. You don't know where it's going to lead you, but you kind of know when you've arrived at the solution. It's unexplainable, kind of a mystery."