[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book I)]
[June 17, 1998]
[Pages 980-981]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Pritzker Architecture Prize Dinner
June 17, 1998

    Thank you very much. Mr. Piano, 
congratulations, and thank you for your marvelous remarks. Professor 
Scully, thank you for the almost 
breathtaking education in such a short few moments. I thank J. Carter 
Brown and the prize jury and Jay and Cindy Pritzker and 
indeed the entire Pritzker family for this prize and for their many 
contributions to our Nation.
    Frank Lloyd Wright once said that every great architect is 
necessarily a poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, 
his day, his age. Renzo Piano has certainly done 
that, and we congratulate him and thank him for his many gifts to our 
age.
    Your creations will endure as some of our century's most timeless 
gifts to the future. As Hillary said, we have invited all the American 
people to take part in a national celebration of the coming millennium, 
challenging individuals and communities across our country to think 
about what values and heritage we carry with us into the future, what 
gifts we want to leave to the future, what kind of millennium we want to 
build. I invite all of you to lead us in that celebration.
    Professor Scully once said that architecture is the continuing 
dialog between the generations. Well, tonight I thank all of you who 
have shaped that dialog, and I ask you to help to tell the American 
story in a new century. Our buildings, our monuments embody our frontier 
spirit, our exuberance, our optimism, our determination. In honoring the 
past, you can help us to imagine the future that will continue to be 
full of all those good qualities.
    Let me say, tonight I listened carefully to what everyone else said. 
I couldn't remember--I couldn't believe that Professor Scully remembered 
the story I told him about the Jefferson Monument. I don't believe 
anyone pointed out that while James Hoban as a relatively unknown young 
Irish architect actually built this White House, he did it by defeating 
an anonymous plan presented by Thomas Jefferson. [Laughter] But it is 
just as well, because Mr. Jefferson was the architect of something even 
more important than the White House. He built the American creed.
    I might say parenthetically, in America ever since then, all 
politicians have tried to convince people that they were architects. If 
you listen to them speak long enough, you will be convinced that we were 
all born in log houses that we built ourselves. [Laughter]
    But on a serious note, think of the American creed: We hold these 
truths to be self-evident, that we are all created equal, endowed by God 
with the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. We have 
bounded together ourselves because we cannot fully pursue, protect, or 
enhance these rights alone as individuals. And we dedicate ourselves to 
form a more perfect Union.
    In other words, we dedicate ourselves to an act of creating and 
building that will never be finished. An architect conceived of that.
    And I say that to you tonight on the edge of the millennium because 
Hillary and I and the members of our administration who are here, many 
in the Congress, and others, we've worked very hard these last 5\1/2\ 
years to build a good house for America where everybody has a home, 
where we share the same foundation and the protection of the same roof 
and the same walls, where we respect our differences and value our 
unity.
    And now together we have to build at least the foundations for 
America's home and the world's home in a new century. Yes, it will need 
steel and stone and wood and glass and light and air and trees and 
garden, music and quiet; it also will need a lot of vision and hope.

[[Page 981]]

    The longer I serve in public life, in many ways, the more idealistic 
I become, but I see day-in and day-out that the world is composed of 
builders, wreckers, and idlers. And most people in politics are either 
builders or wreckers. All of you are, by nature, instinct, training, and 
will, builders. The country and the world needs its builders, those with 
imagination and hope and heart who understand that with all the 
differences that exist in the world, our common humanity and our common 
relationship to the eternal and to our earthly home is far, far more 
important.
    In the end, that is what we have honored tonight, and America is in 
your debt. Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 7:55 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Renzo Piano, 1998 Pritzker 
Architecture Prize laureate; Vincent J. Scully, Jr., Sterling professor 
emeritus, Yale University; J. Carter Brown, chairman, Pritzker Prize 
jury; and Jay A. Pritzker, president, Hyatt Foundation, and his wife, 
Cindy.