“Questions (Architectural)”

Here, Rand wrote out a list of questions about architectural details in the early parts of the novel that she wanted to check, and to the right are her later answers indicating which details were fine as written and which needed adjustment.

Although the book was not about architecture in a fundamental sense, architecture was the background of and very important to the story, so Rand strove to get the architectural aspects of the novel correct. As noted at the beginning of this section, she volunteered in architect Ely Jacques Kahn’s office for six months in order to increase her knowledge of the profession beyond the research she had already done. After the novel was completed, she “called [Kahn] and asked him if he wanted to read it and check for any inaccuracies. He was enormously interested, and he didn’t find anything inaccurate. I remember only one change.”