NDSU Guides

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on the cover

As the son of a North Dakota farmer, JIM FALCK put aside his impulse to major in art. Instead, the Air Force ROTC scholarship student signed up to study architecture, although he did take an art class here and there when his schedule allowed. A tour of duty with the USAF followed his 1953 graduation. From there, he practiced with a number of prominent architectural firms in Denver, Houston, Flagstaff, and then Phoenix, Arizona.

Falck was drawn back to Denver by the opportunity to work for Victor Hornbein, considered the most significant architect in the region — a Usonian-style modernist in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright. Throughout this time, he took classes in drawing and painting whenever he could. His artwork attracted interest. He had exhibitions mounted at the Denver Art Museum, The Dallas Fine Arts Museum, several Colorado galleries, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In 1966, Falck relocated to Boston to work in the lead office of Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius. But after five years, Falck made an unexpected shift in his career, becoming chief landscape architect for Boston’s Metropolitan Park System, a position he held for 17 years until his retirement in 1988, shortly before he turned 60. What followed for the next 25 years was not so much retirement as personal renaissance, the long-delayed but buoyant career as an artist.

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