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Make the Impossible Possible, by Bill Strickland

He had me at the title.

Make the Impossible Possible is the amazing story of Bill Strickland, an African-American born in a poor section of Pittsburgh called Manchester. One day well into his senior year of an unremarkable high-school career, Strickland wandered into the art room to watch his former art teacher throw a pot on a potter’s wheel. This began a passionate love affair with ceramics and art and jazz, and introduced Strickland to a world of hope and dreams. As a 19 year old college student Strickland wanted to pass on the hope he’d received, so he began teaching neighborhood kids how to make pots, calling his fledgling center the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild. I could go on and on telling you the amazing path this leader took: his students have a 90% college attendance rate; he has trained impoverished men and women for high-placed jobs in the community; he operates a world-class greenhouse, and runs a grammy-winning recording label. These are just the things I could highlight quickly. The twists and turns leading to Bill Strickland’s achievements are great reading in and of themselves.

But the magic in this book is  not in the sequence of events: it is in the mind of the creator of the events. Bill Strickland sees things that are not as though they were. He dreams big. And this book taught me to take a risk at a big dream.

There is one guiding principle to Bill Strickland’s center, the Manchester Bidwell Center, that seems part of the general conversation I’ve been having lately. He designed the center to the most exacting standards. It is filled with sunlight, decorated with priceless at objects, and houses a state-of-the-art jazz hall. His poverty-blighted students can eat gourmet meals (prepared by students studying to become sous chefs). His welfare mothers can sit on hand-made, one-of-a-kind benches made by famous artists. He believes that his students will live up to their environment, and in all the years he has been operating he has never had to call the police to handle an incident. This is a remarkable claim considering his location.

So once more we are led back to the idea of our surroundings inspiring our behavior. Bill Strickland’s students walk through the door of the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and feel hope pulsing in the air around them. For many of them this is literally the first time they have been exposed to the life-changing power of a dream. The implications for designing our own spaces are obvious. In his case, Bill Strickland was adamant in providing the best for his students. When asked why he would put so much effort and money into a poverty center, he gently instructed the questioner that he was building a success center, not a poverty center. What are we building?