eCREATIVE
One of Barbara’s recent and most
innovative projects was working with the
gallery ceiling structure steel of the
Whitney Museum ceilings - 168 tons of
steel! To realize architect Renzo Piano’s
vision, she worked on the Whitney’s
gallery ceilings to make them
constructible at a large scale. “The steps
to weaving one small basket in free air
aren’t the same steps when translated
into a building that is exponentially
l a rger a nd requi res preci s e
repeatability,” she explains. “Material
tolerances as well as standard industry
and union practices must be creatively
drilled down to achieve success.”
know how to do this because the
cutting edge is really out there with
the people doing it daily.”
Pook grew up building things
Growing up helped to shape the
young Barbara’s view of the world
and her knowledge about materials.
Her dad “knew how things got put
together,” she says. “That is just how
his brain worked. Of course, my sister
and I grew up building things or being
very involved in how things got built.
And he was a great lover of art and
[he] painted too.”
Barbara Pook and her sister grew up
building things, not learning to cook or
babysitting like their other girlfriends.
So how did Barbara Pook get involved in
this highly technical and demanding
profession? Gerrard Pook, her father, an
architect, was a senior partner at the
prestigious firm of Holabird and Root in
Chicago taught his daughter a lot about
buildings. “You can do things today with
concrete with steel or glass that you
couldn’t do in the 1950s,” says Pook.
“You have to partner with a great
engineering and contracting group who
Though never allowed near her
father’s office, Gerrard Pook had a
drafting table at the end of the
hallway at home so Barbara and her
sister always saw him drawing. “As
children, we were cutting bricks and
laying sidewalks. We were not
allowed to do things like learn to
cook or babysit or work in a store,
like all my little girlfriends did,” she
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