Pioneering architect Frances Halsband got her start on Woodstock’s Village Green

When you started your firm in New York City, you also opened an office in Woodstock. Why?

I graduated from Columbia University in 1968, which was an interesting time. Robert Kliment and I decided to get married because it was easier to run a firm that way. Being a two-to-three-person firm in New York City was really painful, so we started what in essence was a country doctor practice in Woodstock. It did save our sanity. We did wonderful projects and felt we were doing good and useful work. We did a master plan for the Village Green, and would run into the town supervisor at Grand Union and talk about how it was going. In New York City, you’d never run into the mayor!

Tell us more about the Village Green project.

The formal title of the project was The Woodstock Sidewalk District Plan. It was created by two visionary town supervisors, Vern May and Val Cadden. The town, in the early 1970s, was mostly dirt track and some random sidewalks that died out just west of the Tinker Street Bridge. To get to the post office, you had to walk along the side of the road. They hired us to extend and widen the sidewalks, and the two of us got on our bikes and talked to every shopkeeper and property-owner along the main streets who had to buy into the notion of sidewalks. We also enlarged the Village Green, which had no curbs and was half the size it is now.

The Ashokan Reservoir road system was being rebuilt, and they were replacing beautiful, giant pieces of bluestone with steel fencing, so the town got all those enormous stones and we used them in our plan: as steps where Tinker Street and Mill Hill Road meet the Green. The shopkeepers had to pay extra for bluestone instead of concrete in front of their own properties. We asked people to remember that bluestone was a Woodstock tradition. Maybe 25 percent went for bluestone.

I always thought the Village Green was the way it is now.

That’s the best gauge of success! However, at the time we were much attacked. There were intense battles about putting in the sidewalks, which people said was a threat to the rural character of the town. But once it was built, it was a success. The Village Green had been just a little patch of weedy grass, and it has become a central meeting place. The town is more connected.

You also did a project in Kingston.

An early project was the Kingston YWCA. The woman who ran it lived in Woodstock, and the Y wanted to expand. We added on a new building to tie the old buildings together. It was a time of radical feminism: There was a sign on the Y that read, “The hand that rocks the cradle rocks the boat.”

What were the challenges of being a woman in your profession? Was it unusual to be a husband-and-wife team?

We never told anybody we were married because we didn’t want people to think that we’d go home and talk about them, that we’d be a united front against them.

It wouldn’t have been possible for me to run the firm myself back then, because there were people who thought it was weird to have a woman architect, and that still continues. On the other side is the fact that by the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of people were anxious to hire a woman. The federal government had a program to hire women architects, and colleges and universities, who were our major clients, wanted that diversity. In some ways, it was easier. Our practice grew. Today we have 25 to 30 people in the firm.

How has your professional partnership affected your marriage?

We met at architecture school and worked together for a long time before we got married. We’d both been married before. When you’re working with somebody, you have to have a civilized and mature way to work out problems. You can’t throw pots and pans in the office. We began to think maybe that kind of grownup way of behaving would carry over to our home life, and it did. We have a son, who complained when he was little, “Please don’t make me go to another construction site.”

What was it like serving as a commissioner of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission?

Many people used the Landmarks Commission to complain about everything in their lives and resist change. The common thread in Landmarks and other advisory panels I have been involved in is getting out of the office and sitting with the general public so that you see architecture from their point of view. You begin to learn how to be a better translator.

Some of the most interesting roles were working with Smith College and Brown University as an architectural advisor to the Board of Trustees, helping them hire architects. I had the same role at the Federal Reserve Bank: to help them design new banks. You’d see architects marketing themselves to try to get the job and try to figure which architect is hearing what the client is saying, which one can deliver a successful project. Or you’d see that the architect understood, but it wasn’t evident to the client. I became a better architect from seeing both sides.

Architects obviously have a huge impact on our environment and society.

You just better get it right. Once you get it right, you can do something inspiring. I’m not automatically in favor of something simply because it’s new.

Are you a fan of the new? Is there any style that transcends the current trend?

Everything looks bizarre when it’s new. Things come and go; there was a period where everybody hated Victorian architecture, and then it was “in,” and maybe now it’s fading out again. Everything comes and goes.

Some things I used to love now seem terrible. My son thinks everything that happened in the 1970s was brilliant. He came back from Brazil and thought Brasilia was terrific. For me, that was a new idea. One morning you put on the same skirt you always wear and the hem is too long. Styles are like that: Something happens and everything looks funny.

Are you a fan of the Freedom Tower?

It was originally designed to have elaborate architecture on top, which got cut off due to budget considerations. Now you have a giant building with a silly little tower sticking up. It got beheaded. On the other hand, I was in the new Fulton Street subway station, and the giant oculus is pretty terrific. There’s an amazing huge space and a sense of openness. I’m sorry it cost way too much, but as a piece of architecture it made my life better.

Are you optimistic for the future?

We’re in a fantastic time right now. My generation went to Cleveland and maybe Paris and thought we were really adventurous. The new generation really sees their lives in the context of the entire world. They think nothing of jumping on a plane to go to Ghana, hopping over to Sweden or visiting a friend on the beach in Brazil. Universities are bringing people here from all over the world, so there’s much more of a cross-cultural exchange. We really do live on the globe.

How did your project with Gail Godwin come about?

Gail and I have been friends for 20 years. Twice we’ve collaborated on books: She writes the text and I make the drawings. It is a wonderful exchange of ideas. Last summer Gail contributed an essay for the catalogue for the Friends of Historic Kingston’s show on IBM, and I made the drawings. Our second book, Publishing: A Writer’s Memoir, has just come out. I think of our process as creating illuminated manuscripts, or picture books for grownups.

How do you spend your free time?

I do a lot of drawing. I also play the piano. That’s the good thing about being in Woodstock: I can play all night.

Any plans for the future?

I don’t plan things. I take advantage of things as they come along, see what happens next and how I can be a part of that, whether it’s a drawing, a building, a book or meeting different people.