The architect never studied with the masters, but his work was a radical reaction to the Colorado environment, and an expression of futuristic ideals.
Joel Haertling, son and de facto archivist of the late architect Charles A. Haertling, faxed over a single page written by his father. Titled “Thoughts on Architecture,” it’s a blurry, typewritten list. Charles Haertling succumbed to a brain tumor in 1984, but the text is immediate and cuts across the years: 21 enumerated glimpses into a creative mind. Someone has circled point number 14: “Design is always a tortuous, grueling, almost maddening, though heavenly sweet, task.” The line is as familiar as it is revealing. Look at Haertling’s houses with their radically pitched roofs, daring cantilevers, and mushrooming facades—products of a career spent building in the Boulder, Colorado, area—and you can see both his pleasure and his pain.
