What makes a person creative? What are the biographical conditions and personality traits necessary to actualize that potential? These were driving questions behind a 1958-59 study conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, which attempted to divine the elements of creativity by analyzing and interviewing several prominent architects of the time, including Mies van der Rohe, Charles Eames, Gregory Ain, and Quincy Jones. The architects were also encouraged to rate each other. Bottom line? Richard Neutra "has intellect" while Mies Van Der Rohe was considered to be "a great sculptor" although "human comfort is disregarded." 

The study languished in obscurity until this year when Pierluigi Serraino published The Creative Architect (and spoke about it on Archinect's 1:1 podcast). On reading the book, Steven Holl commented: “We now know that childlike wonder, an absence of fear, and strong intuition are key aspects of creativity. The Creative Architect is a thought-provoking and inspiring documentation, richly illustrated with mosaic constructions and drawings made by some of the twentieth-century’s most important architects.” 

For more on the intersection of psychology and architecture:

• The high psychological cost we pay for boring buildings
• Putting entire cities on the psychiatrist's couch
• Do these buildings turn you on? The psychology of curvy architecture