A Dialogue: Jacques Herzog and Peter Eisenman

and tonight and thank you very much for every day for coming and for me it's been quite a long time to try to plan this debate and dialogue between Jacques Herzog and Peter Eisenman and and ideally moderated by Jeff to place and it it became a realities I'm very happy for me dealing with yes we is like having chats as I say holding city cats better tighten our time for many architects and architects from New York I taught with him at Cooper Union and many years and a great dedicated teacher he's going to be a professor at Yale and a prominent practitioner in a New York City again he came from a theory he's basically building what he prophesized will be the world of architecture today and Jacques Herzog I've also known since 70s happen to be in Basel as a student with John hey Doc and he happened to be a TA for a de Rossi and known him for a long time and luckily we at the GSD Jacques is conducting again Basel ETH collaborative thesis right now so I'm very glad to have Jack who's been here and for teaching for nearly 15 years on and off and tonight our discussion is moderated or agitated or provoked by Jack Kipnis who is the professor of Ohio State and he's been visiting us and teaching a theory course so to make this event happen I like to welcome you all thank you and I on microphone over to Jeff's thank you well I'm gonna thank you all for coming good night I do have a couple of announcements first of all the name of the university is the Ohio State University it's do ios8 yours second of all I did and some of you noticed mr. Gorbachev who was really hoping to join us tonight but he's second some kind of thing at the told me the Kennedy School is not very important so he'll try to make it but they can't be here to mother this is the person I've been really nervous and architectural audience in long time I'm nervous because it's so exciting for these are two friends of mine and two people I very much admire I've spoken to each of them about the other behind their back would gray never in a million years I actually thought this would happen not because I thought was it possible I just never thought so it's actually tells you to always understand that this is not a natural event it's a wonderful event and Toshiko really has to be celebrating and the school has to be celebrated for but in order to get the best part I think a really good idea is not to make it a debate because the difference is I think between the two of them are obviously natural it's really interesting to see to what extent they can the work can be brought to enter into a conversation and that's what I'm going to try to do tonight so in that sense I hope that we'll have questions and answers but if there's any burning moment where you want to jump up and you know say something I want to ask the question and okay go right anytime you want to jump up I'm jumping up I want you to tell them because you said this is if everybody knows what are the differences I'm going to I was going to get to that oh okay didn't seem like you had passed it okay one thing I think is in the sense of I think is really important is that these are two architects I think among three in the world who really have fought a lifelong battle to rescue Architecture from its banality and mediocrity which it can lapse into Anna kind of any kind of professionalism and both of them have made careers of challenging received wisdoms of what constitutes good buildings and I don't think there's any doubt about her second term Iran is probably the single most influential firm in the world today on the other hand look you don't may not remember is the degree to which their work was treated with such suspicion and scorn when it first came out of course Peter is one of the most influential thinkers in the world and his work maybe continues to be treated with some suspicion as one is not clear but but I did think maybe I'll put puzzles is a kind of initial question because Jacque has said I think a number of times that he and his partner however interesting post humanism is whatever that might mean they want to be the last humanist architects and what that means to me is that in that there's a primacy of the sensory pleasures of the building that that you take to be a given condition and I think Peter on the other hand believes that the role of architecture is perhaps to cast suspicion on the degree to which the pleasures of the experiences and in the building might be the prime primary role of the architecture to think about the building might be its primary cultural project no cater diet the I was going to ask job what do you mean by wanting to be the last human is orchid very heavy this this is a very heavy question to start with I do not even remember whether I really said that I just probably yes but I what I wanted to say is not that we would be the last ones but that we would probably always insist on that part on that side and that the way we conceived our architecture which is seeing architecture basically as an archaic saying a archaic in a way that it appeals to all the senses of the human being and human being means that we can perceive the world we can perceive our own existence not only with the brains but with all the five senses we have and it's clear that we live in a time where the visual has become more dominant than other senses and this has of course an impact on on architecture and on other medium other cultural phenomena and I don't put the value label on this but I'm saying that architecture survives as long as we are able and willing to appeal to all these senses in a similar way and not give priority to this one Wharton than to another one in that sense in that let's say intention we see ourselves as in the tradition of humanism that's more or less what I wanted to say I'm not saying that others are not that and ultimately all the architects are being measured with this by this you know whether they give more or less focus on that that's a different story but architecture ultimately still now works based on this kind of full scope of senses we can put on the table and maybe you seemed not quite comfortable with my characterization of your position but you certainly don't produce a sensuous architecture do you think no I was hoping that you were going to explain what the differences were and since you didn't I will because I will use your categorization that there Jeff has very brilliantly said that there are three met equivocal attitudes in architecture that are very important one is the conceptual the second is the phenomenological the third is the performative I won't recite Jeff's lines for him but but I know them very well he would argue probably that I am in the conceptual and as Yaak is in the logical I probably would agree with him I'm certain that the people in the conceptual category treat the phenomenological with suspicion as the people who are interested in the phenomenological treat the conceptual so there is that suspicion in the world and when one can't change that what I thought was interesting about what Jacque said was where we would agree on something is he says there's too much of the visual in the world which I would agree with the question is where I might question Jacque is I think his work especially some of the more recent work is is importantly visual and I would also say that my work in a funny way is also importantly late work is importantly visual no matter how much both of us might agree that this that the visual is is too dominant the real interesting question I think would be is the subtle difference between his use of the visual and my use of the visual which would I think some point in in the discussion we should talk about let's start go ahead our work was always very much about the vigilant and and everybody knows how much we started our work and our career and rather from the side of the art than from the side of the architecture and logically all these issues of perception are you know theoretically it's much strong much more strongly rooted in the world of art and in architecture much more people in the world of art have analyzed the sexual issues in art than in architecture and art in the philosophy than in architect and so the very early even the very simple shapes were very much perception driven our collaboration with lemmy's alga search leases and more let's go back to pre structuralist French philosophy which means that ultimately the deep routing our work is more conceptual and phenomenological you know it's conceptual because it it's it's it's hold held together with thinking with concepts of thinking it's highly theoretical and conceptual but the result is very sensual I think that's very important and I agree with Pierre that his work is very visual but his work as well as our work is when it's really successful is more than just visual I I wrote you a few lines with when I visited your your your piece in Berlin which i think is a fantastic work of architecture and art and public sculpture and is really I think your best piece and this is far more than just something visual the good thing is the great thing is that it's very physical it's very sensual it's very everything it has everything that that you need you know it's an indoor space it's an outdoor space it's something we insist very much lately especially working on the Beijing stadium that structure ornaments space is one thing this piece in Berlin is also exactly that you know so I think ultimately we all agree once we really reach a certain quality level then the visual is always transcended into other issues like the thinking the concept were there so it's meaningless to lose too many words about that we all know what we're talking about but the the difference is the conceptual in art in a conceptual organizer is an art the artist felt responsible to physicalize in some sense the conceptual presence of the work in the immediate experience of the object you had to be with the object and then it had a conceptual ambition like Mel Bakker whereas in architecture there is a lot of work particularly the paper or adentro seventies where simply knowing the project and was sufficient and in some sense the building itself was there in a sense as part of the project or to instantiate the project and in most extreme cases in some of Peters cases you had to know the process you had to know the drawings you had to know the entire intellectual operation that you could not in any sense gain access to by the immediacy of the building so you had to be removed from the project in order to get the architecture and I think that was an important intellectual ambition in the work that you couldn't go to the project unlike an artwork because you know if you think about your gloria museum it's a conceptual project does the museum he's done for Goya there's very few glory of paintings I forgive me if I have described it badly so they've essentially recreated some of the studio moments of Goya's studio in the museum so but you'd have to know about Gouy you'd have to know that but then you go there and you see that Peter do you think for example in Berlin and last year away from the Stehly and see that ground either in a photograph or up and see it from a completely different position and unless you're removed from the project you really will never understand the architectural argument of the work you won't see the new ground in his memorial right but that's but I think that that was the project I mean if if you talk to Richard Serra and when he wants to talk to architects and he would argue that his work is about the inability to understand the physical experience in a conceptual framework that is the the physical experience the time of the subject moving through the object is purposely detached from the physical experience in other words you can't draw the diagram right and that's true about Berlin in a sense you can't draw the diagram to know what caused this to be like this it seems to be a certain way and I think that was the objective whether that's a reasonable objective or not is I think an issue I want to go back to the conceptual and art though because I would have thought that those conceptual people were about a I would have put them in the performative category because all of those people Bob Morris and Sarah and Heiser and all those people were about bringing the subject Michael snow in his film work were about bringing the subject into the spatial discourse with the suss sculptural pieces so you had the frame of the of the work you had the pieces and you had the the performer which was was the subject and I would have thought those were the very conceptual guys who thought that through and I think Richards new work is about saying well we've been there and if you look at the the tork ellipsis or the Tauruses or any of those things you realizes he's on to something else beyond where Morris and Heiser and Judd most people were and I think that some architecture has always come after as it were these guys and and that has been really important for me especially in the late project no but I can I can I out of this I I think it's very interesting that you mention Heiser Sarah and all this generation because I have two issues first of all I totally agree what you said about Berlin and also that Sarah and I think that once you are there in front of the sculpture in the building whatever you don't need all these informations I don't care or even in the case of Zaragoza Goya if you once the building will be there and you are in one of these rebuild or reconstructed or simulated whatever spaces and it doesn't work as a space and it just works with the building with the new artworks there then we have failed that's one thing that so the ambition is always at the end of the day you go you go away from this concept or the idea the concept is driving is we're and there are a few artists where the concept remains the concept in a very dry way and those are the words those are the ones that give you a headache like for instance this Austrian guy I always forget his name plant where you know the concept the concept and the materialization of the concept is a very sharp line on cavora is one of these but he makes a jump where the work has animated tremendous mental power you know for the other the boxes I mean he pages with it and and the great work of Judd and so are both very intellectually driven but also very physical and the let me just finish when I think you're not the body we but we sit here now and when I first came to America to teach that was even before Harvard that was in 82 83 I read in the newspaper I of course knew Peter he didn't know me at that time he there was an interview in one of these at that time fancy magazines between you and Richard Serra right and I was furious about you because I thought you were fighting exactly about these issues actually that's one thing I wanted to talk about because you have you know you have had this fight with the artist and the conceptual issue and then there was another thing and a person not a person who is even more important to me in this kind of conceptual roots and you mentioned once in the dinner you have we had together in my house in Basel guarding my gorram Erica Gordon matta-clark where you had the fight with him yeah and you we did not agree and I read about that or Katherine told me about that and he was a real revolutionary guy and you had a serious problem with this kind of very conceptual very very aggressively conceptual way to body shout out the windows in our Institute right you know if you know that if you know the start do not another story sorry you know once a week because community to sell but let me let me let me tell you why I agree that at you can't go over the consent once you go over the conceptual line you've lost the the the physicality that doesn't mean visual by the way so you said disand is I'm so shocked at you no no I want to there's no idea is actually you two are the same and we just confused I mean oh that's why I'm asking you all these years with others this is ultimately what you want to do Peter what this going to do yeah what either let me say why for an answer one quick just want to ask your question I want to go back misunderstood this right yes again you can ask the question Richard Serra said and you know I've written this text called after Jacques Derrida there are no corners right and Richard said that the importance of the corner to him was very important that is space with corners and he said that Bilbao doesn't work for him because Bilbao is the same as the torqued ellipses that is the space and this is what he said but he got the toward ellipses from but we don't know he got him from Bora meanie no no he got him from Fred and Ginger he was literally not well he doesn't say that but you you can say that Bo can't remember that architects name what's that guy's name Franco gear no no but that was not an 83 that if I was far later or later glance you forget there's a body of work you have is you know the way she was in other place is a centenary where you see lots of indexical registrations of a process that basically the operation is to frustrate anybody there from grasping the building as an architectural proposition and demanding that they either take the frustration as the point of the architecture or go find out something about it would that be fair to say that's one of the things okay so that's very different from what he's talking I want to put let's let's get to the thing if we were to say what are the differences one is I can't make a facade and he makes facade right that's number one I believe I've ever been able to make a facade okay no no I mean I so that's a big difference the facade on his buildings are really important that is the skin and the material of that surface that is you know I look at the winery and I say God what a brilliant thing to have conceded that they wouldn't know how to think that all right in other words I'm not saying he's not thinking I'm saying is I don't think like that Cynthia was saying you know God could you be more more successful if you think more about material and surface right and it doesn't interest me okay now that doesn't mean it's not of interest because you know there are surfaces the interesting thing for me is I'm more interested in the interior corner than the exterior corner the interior corner for me is that really and I get really crazy when I go to see Bramante's soundin pana I have got to show you this incredible interior corner of Rafa manao right around there Street you're not going to believe it after this they were to walk around and I say the most okay well anyway you didn't answer my question let me see if I can rephrase it quick what Jacques said was that if when you're in the building if the building doesn't deliver its architecture to you there and in that sense it's the worst possible board and I don't say that and you doubt you at do not say that it's not that you disagree course you disagree but there's there's a reason you want to remove the architectural the connoisseur or the subject of your architecture from that I mean there's a either political reason our cultural reason I mean I think that the real issue is what is the role of architecture in the world you know and if the road if it turns out to be located in the whether the building delivers delivers its architectural proposition in the immediacy of the building or not that's the thing we should really unfold let's ask a question of Jacques on you I'm not sure about reading a book from that can I just answer what the hell good is reading a book for the story you know you passed 10 hours reading the damn thing you put it away and you forget about it the whole idea of reading a book is that it informs the environment it informs how you live it informs it opens up so many vistas that I think it's really architecture is the same thing you know there's nothing more boring than going into a dumb spectacular building so this is great and you know if you walk away I think what you're supposed to do with literature with film with architecture with any art is to go away and and have a thought about it whether it's a sensual thought whether it's a conceptual thought but to think about the thing and I think he obviously agrees with that he can't say that the thing is just there and that's it because when you go away from his shop building look I was content I was preparing to come up here I was looking at the things it's important if they weren't important to look at and think about then he wouldn't publish them right it's not just being there because how many people can be there you know you imagine what those spaces are about you know and I've been fortunate to see some of them but I think you know that I can if you look at the at the stadium right we're going to look at the two stadiums yeah the two whoa yeah the stadium in Beijing I think is an amazing work right you know to conceive that I think wow you know why didn't I think of that one right I'm not as as convinced the Munich stadium because I lost the competition to him but I liked my stadium better but I think his stadium is better than the one that I built so I I think it's in a minute but I can think about it I can think about being there shot I didn't say being there isn't going to be great but it's something more than being but III hate misunderstandings I wanted you to say two things I didn't say that's it you know it's like art or anything you look at even a tree a tree you know it's not made to make you think is but it's also not made to make you enjoy nobody made the tree is that you have only religious for any purpose it's just there but because we are here and we look at the tree we may enjoy it because it's shading you know from the Sun eventually has a fruit if we since we've eaten that fruit we are not in paradise anymore unfortunately that's why we have these differences before there were no differences so we start to have differences and to think and ultimately always and only exclusively the thinking the mental the conceptual interests Lee but it's like you conceive it and then it becomes physical it's like the tree a work of art art or artists like the tree it has no stupid purpose just there but if it's really a great piece it makes you think and the longer you think the more you can get from it from a marble advertisement you have seen the information that's it if if Warhol makes a painting it's more it's different has many more layers but the advertising is just a stupid advertising but the tree and the stadium or another great piece of architecture if it is it is a great piece of art has many more things but it also have been okay well how did that be okay guys perhaps it let's go about to be talk about the high deck of stuff later but okay but I would like to add a laughing because our buildings very often are seductive and beautiful and not deny that this was always something that attracted me in life being attracted and the track pip is the ultimate thing it's about you know you don't need to explain that but intellectually physically essentially whatever but because we do buildings like that many people believe and this is the cliche almost close to racism a beautiful girl is stupid you know so the the buildings you know look good have a facade and that's it they forget to look at the interior and I think that the structural component and the space in their work is as important otherwise it wouldn't work when you're going there actually I know if you have seen the state if you're in the stadium I can promise everyone you have never seen something like that I don't say this out of arrogance but this is is really a something that that shocks you when you see it physically so it's far beyond the beauty as a surface as the beauty of a human being is far more than just the picture in the magazine hopefully it's the smell is the movement is everything I mean do we want the reacted by that sorry we now agree again yeah we're obviously if we were not just seeing that we would just be attracted by porn movies and well and not buy the real job let me ask you how did I see you did me I tell you I didn't email what is important is to try and define the difference in what thinking what kind of thinking you're talking about because I think there's a difference when you go to one of your projects that's saying when you go to I didn't say better I said different and I think that we ought to try and tease out that difference okay ladies can I make a suggestion but I often thought and I even read a text that I was trying to understand how you work when I saw the birthing piece I think that your Jewish background is very important we go I knew this would come no no but that but I think but I think it's very important and and I'm glad there are cultural differences in the way people are educated or trained and think differently and I think you mentioned the book before Peter and it's not for how good is Drew its know that not for good reason because the right the importance of the text in the way you conceive things is more important than it is for me that's correct and that doesn't that doesn't mean it is it's less good oh no that's a different Barnett Newman in 1940 refused to appear in a Jewish art show I refuse to be in a Jewish architect Eero thank you recently you're right because I do not agree that having to do a right but that's nothing that's not the same thing that's I wouldn't say that you are Jewish argument you should be compared with this but it has an impact just is because my Protestant roots have an impact on the way also of course but well let maybe that will help pieces out Peter wait a minute I want to go back let's go back say Frank Gehry Richard Meier I can name many Jewish architects that happen to clue about text not a clue all right they can't even know not a clue and you if you said text to them they I don't say I don't say that it has to be like this I must say that in the case of Libas kittens yes I see the others oh yes and libras can you see it yeah but I don't I died but here appear no no I am not married anyways I'm not saying that I don't want to reduce you to this that's very different I know you don't I I would never accept let's say shows where let's make a show on female art or let's show make a show on on Swiss architecture but I hate these kind of thing that let's explore the tradition of constantly criticizing the received wisdom because if my in other words there is a tradition of constantly interrogating the context your work you are careful to pose your work is critical critical of what and by what means of criticism Peter you have to answer that because I don't think that it would be it would not be a good app or the jagged ears were to call it critical let me let me go I want to go to something that that brings you and I was like the fact I've been trying to get in for like 20 minutes Jeff you never know when you're in the problem go ahead when you've silenced everybody and bludgeoned us all then you feel that you've walked in but let me ask a question today I'm working on a project in Italy with an architect or an authority Ricci has written a book he's a he's a really Catholic fundamentalist written a book called mystical Nuala which it's only been translated into German and an Italian Italian and he says that the real fundamental is an ontological difference in a Greco Christian mind and a in a break mind right and he says that the only way you can approach your work critically is to understand that basic difference in other words all right and then he says no that's I was saying but then he says and you see people like Kipnis don't do that and therefore don't understand your work critically how do you respond to that there is a reason Renato is here and then my back he was trying to make it in the big leagues then he went back that's not fair why is I think he's wrong I mean I can put Israel he's wrong then Jacques is wrong now I think that's what we need to liam basically argued here before we talk about ontological categories I would rather say that let's be more careful and let's say that we are in all our work and all our thinking in all our behavior there are patterns mostly the patterns are getting worse and worse the older we get the way we move and the way we sort of talk but some of these patterns are based on education some are based on other things and before we put it into a science category where you cannot escape we should just say that I guess that there are things that might have a reason in let's say a Jewish traditional Protestant or a Catholic tradition but it doesn't mean that they don't appear in other people's work on other people's behavior and the older I get the more I see the more people I meet or so let's say China was an important experience for us I cannot say so easily anymore that these people are like this or like that or like that so I would be much more careful I just say that this reminds me let's say the Torah the idea of the tour and the kind of continues writing and the kind of idea of palimpsest is something I find in your work I don't say that this is something you cannot escape and that this defines you as a Jewish architect and that's what it is that I would never ever would like to reduce anybody to something like that no what I'm saying is let's accept that I'm willing to accept that what I'm saying is that I have no knowledge in other words that may be cultural it may be whatever but but the thing is that I reject it from Ricci in other words Ricci keeps trying to say Peter you cannot understand what you're doing unless you understand these roots in the kind of continual writing the kind of continual critique in the Talmud etc rather the exegesis of of constant argumentation and I've rejected that so that's why when you bring it I understand why you bring it up but the thing is and I point to Jeff Kipnis because he has rejected that you don't base your critique of anyone's work on anything like that at all you don't it doesn't mean I don't think it's there I for example I think it would be really hard it's really hard to understand REMS work in a certain sense without understanding the Calvinist tradition I think in a certain sense to understand that view of the world as shaping that kind of thinking it's also then you got the following problem that there's also 80 other or 100 other architects working in the Calvinist tradition they aren't doing what REM does that's the problem you were talking about but I'm much more interested in a suspicion that you bring to work that there was the received wisdom of the work because the quality of the material construction the significance of the of the a perceptive president's you know you're suspicious of that so you build that and drive it I mean when you when people visit the Wexner Center when particularly Germans visit the Grayson Center they knock on the walls they knock on those hanging columns it's very funny Germans like not ear and and they're kind of interested in the organizer they think this is very interesting I you know then they knock on those walls and then as soon as it's hollow they go oh you know it's fake man they don't understand that possibly a hanging column that doesn't hold up anything anyway is supposed to be fake that it's supposed to be presented as a pure sign without any material affirmation that it's about sitting there thinking about it and so you you suck like a vampire all of the of the good will of architectural justification out of that so that they have to think about it and at that moment they're then thinking about why they're there in the first place it's a political idea let's say look when I go to Basel or Zurich you know the the notion of Punk lis kite comes to me all the time you know and and it drives me nuts that means means punctual function punctuality let's say being on time no no for everything in other words it kind of awaited and when you go to Italy you don't find any Punk lis kite and so therefore I'm saying to myself if you said a car turistic which i would describe myself would be more Italian than Swiss you know and I think that that may be but that's like Hebraic tradition or Calvinist tradition are not simatai but in the work forget hopeful things are always there but forget why the coastal thing is here what I want to know is why do you feel like the building should cast doubts when someone goes there on affirming the presence of the work in the architecture why should it be drive it why should it be why should I go to a building stop and start thinking about a building why should I go a building and look at this window that goes out sixteenth of an inch and then go back and read a text about to Ronnie and find out that that's completing an ideal square that there's no way I mean it's such a conceit and I think you have to describe it as having a political ambition basically a kind of connection to the idea that the easiest way to rule is the rule of fool I mean the more people are stopping and thinking about their situations you know but there is a difference I you know when I walk in the Wechsler Center and I look at the floor there's notational chaos in the materiality 'he's not pictoral now you realize you're looking at a kind of writing and materiality to show relationships that you cannot comprehend when I'm walking in the arcades in Munich you know you're walking on these concrete pavers and all of a sudden you come across an image and it could be an image about the local condition or it could it be an image about something else completely and I'm curious because they're radically different experiences for me and yet they're both conceptually develop them stopped I have to think about the situation but I'm not distanced from the work the I actually find the paver work in Munich pulls me in closer to the immediacy of the work I know it's not an answer to anything but I definitely think those two experiences are really radically different and have to be understood as a sense of the Lord the city the erotics of the city what it means to be someplace I don't everything that you said I agree with except why is it Orton to you to cast doubt because casting doubt is a hypothesis it's the first principle in all first principles you don't have to explain its what follows from there I totally agree I think that casting that is the ultimate thing but then there is more you cast doubt and you know you really hit your head or you you makes you really go deeper into something or you just get stuck because it's a bad piece of work but this fund is not the fundamental difference the way we cast doubt the way we banded it is different all right and I think I would like to go like a step back I think I very much like that the way you talk and the way you talk through your own physical and mental experience with a building you say this is what I have experienced this is how I see this and this is AHA see this because that's exactly how I think we should look at architecture with also art and I think the great isn't the only actually credible and interesting way to talk about these things is when you go for instance I take art now is an easier example you go to a show and then you look at let's say great pieces of work and you could see a do show or who is much more let's say a conceptual not very physical not very artisanal artists artists and you compared to because of the area the the total opposite of that or some other but also very good people and then you try to just understand by describing your experience and you I think you feel good everywhere because it's just interesting and you can see the difference of how these people saw the world ultimately a piece of architecture greatest piece of architecture or great piece of art is an a tool for you to understand the world this is how this person was himself or herself living since being you know it's about being it's about being in the world it's not about confirming or for affirmation but it's about questioning it's about doubt it's about the ultimate artist for me in this respect is the Renaissance guy that pays Ram Lena although the one at the peridot pansy no no no no no point twenty dollars anyway in order to paint you're not you're not going harder yeah wind my drains yeah but I'm thinner design are you guys the Jewish thing is this is a visit this is the ultimate doubt this is the ultimate doubt but it is about really you try to find out what is the differences with not you know any attempt of classifying this is better this is bad you play this against that and that's what I hate so much of our journalists in the field of architecture the most famous ones especially in this country they like themselves writing stupid articles by saying bad things about you know great things about one thing against another one it's always again another way and that the longest thing you can make it's much more difficult and interesting to really describe the quality of someone and to try to understand what this means and not to play it again something else the interesting thing is if you really experience his peace you know ultimately you understand something about a very interesting concept of understanding the world and that's it that's it you know and someone else may do something else and it's only the quality D the depth you can go into this thing that makes a difference and it's not about this being better or better because otherwise we are against in racism about religions and things like that you may like something better than the other thing that's that's clear you may like before click a so traditional or vice-versa but it's ultimately very interesting attitudes that become clear you don't want to read the same book every day but when yet when I look at you when you publish product for example and you publish your process I mean I think you're generous in the sense if you let people know how you work on things what you saw was 16 models about different material treatments of this shape you know you kind of made a few sketches about the regulating lines of the shapes and you think you got a shape it's not a form and then you try to figure and you showed basically a set of experiments that you looked at and then judge would successfully pursued that so the result of the work is no indication of the process whatsoever there's no evidence of the process in any of your work although there's evidence of process and you show the process Lebon is another one but basically to create that sense of freezing a balletic moment from the building in the with both the interior and the exterior would mean making sure that there's no place no trace of any process everything beat it Peter does is about making sure that there's the evidence and the residue of the process in the building so the process is the justification of building much like it is and Abstract Expressionists work your and your work really withholds that and I think I'm not sure that's not an answer but it's a clue into the different ambitions of the work why is it so why I much more interested in the process to get to the best result than into exposing the process in the finished building because the finished building is there and I'm somewhere else when I'm working on the building I would describe that is like it's like a baby you're very close but as soon as it's finished it's over I don't care anymore it needs to live without me you know and I think it's a whole hello do they tend to really forget I really tend to become aware when I have to write a text on the project that we've done some time ago the text is really boring because it's almost like a bad critic you know that crowd tries to reconstruct things it needs to be fresh and full of really this life this energy I mean that's another topic I want to let you know I'm gonna start looking around for questions and then there's a set of questions it's got you a question because I'm you painted me into a corner which is very nice here with corners I'm interested in corners that's what you you cannot argue that the last project which you liked the Abu Dhabi museum project yeah fantastic is is that kind of work in not in debt oh my gut my final exam now I want you to hear this is to show a Toyo Ito project with exactly the same solid void drugs are in the show yours and basically the answer to the final exam is it is that you have to show how there's an indexical deformation of that condition from the process and the process is derived entirely from the analysis of the site right okay so all you have to do is look at these two pieces of plastic and realize that all the bends and the piece of azov are evidence of the process how can you say that's not what that's about why didn't think it was okay I mean okay Jacque said something to me on the phone the other day and I said whenever an architect says something to you and you don't understand it if your critic is like oh yes yes I got that right away and then you do everything you can to try to figure out what they sit what they meant before you meet him again and you said to me man I haven't figured it out so I'm just going to ask you you said that that Lebon and Xiao logger are totally new ideas about the city he said there's an idea about the city a kind of new prototype for thinking about architectures relationship to the city do you member saying this because you are interested in the city right I do oh the bit their buildings of his oh I think the word Obama jungler or maybe they were a versatile that I said our have a breath that they I said that every project contains this idea of this urbanistic relational though the role it can play and and and both Lebanon and Charlotte are built in places where they were literally was nothing I think they have a very important role in in stimulating a kind of a vanity project so I think one of the most important elements that those projects have is that they anticipate this kind of future cities and they can do it in it this way or in that I thought you mean I thought when you look at shallower you look at labahn they're in isolated places of no particular contextual interest but the pleasures of those are very erotic you know it's art and ballet is essentially about urban productions artisan turbot reduction ballet is an urban production it kind of managed to make the building feel like you know the basically the outside of the shell are is an interior of a museum space and the building floats in labon I mean it's like really quite an extraordinary thing in in particular to take a set of experiences that belong to a different place make them real there and kind of ignore the context you know just not celebrate their the condition of the context so is would you say that that's your relationship to the context I don't have one particular relationship with the context they try to stimulate in encourage a certain context is that is the two builders couldn't be more different or is it totally ephemeral is almost like a kind of a cloud it's a kind of a non facade by the way they're labelled and the other one is extremely earth is almost as you said the turret the inside turned out by the way the corner is it is about the corner and in English corner means corner inside it outside and in German also ek okay but in espanol I got para brink on E if it's gained arena I think this is very interesting that that you have it is like two worlds you know and that sometimes language is some languages are and this is again what we said about the culture and the kind of that remains there you know that culture in that language there is this this difference remains whereas in others they like they gave it liberty is there's no Liberty in German and there's no pride in French they disappear and do we have to reconstruct them you know we have to reconstruct what do you understand by corner oh by and what I have to understand by that let me ask I have to ask you a question that because we're having this open discussion you you would agree that your work is about ideas and and the implementation of ideas yet I I can't understand and you have to tell me how it's possible in a large office where you have to keep producing buildings that you can have so many ideas I'm saying seriously because I couldn't have I mean literally it's like everyone else do you work how do what I want to ask how how you can work when you have so many things to do so many clients to see I mean you know they I mean how is it possible to keep up the level of when you were smaller intense I mean I think that's a real issue and I think it's an issue for you it's an issue for Frank it's an issue for REM how is it possible to keep up no I think it was his laughing who do who is not an issue for me no I mean that's that's the issue and and there is no doubt that we we are now probably at the reaches size way we where this is really reached a limit we cannot grow more except for if we change the way we work you've got 150 people the office and 38 active projects six team leaders roughly yeah we have to increase the number of team leaders enter because I would like to work and I do that how do you do a project like that I got pretty mad enough right we are I think that we are very well organized but still we have reached a limit there's no doubt and don't want to it's very I think it's very interesting we haven't talked about that that one thing is the architecture of the project and the other thing is the project of your company yeah of your life ultimately how you work and how you deal with clients I do very little socializing I do very little I don't see clients very often I don't do that so much I really extremely focus on and coaching the teams and working on the projects but even that you cannot extend that without a limit and we are really very actively thinking what we do in five years in from now and ten years from now should the company continue should we sell something should we have more partners should we do you know all kind of thing I really hope leader yeah no no yeah no but why I mean really how to work or vinegar how to work is is a very important thing know how you work so much work with it when I can write a set of instructions I really think I could write a set of instructions on how to produce an iseman project it wouldn't it changes because you grow but whenever you do the work I can see how it's come out of the way you work every time you do a building and I see the building I know why you did the building Lebon understand the building and it has an intense capacity to reveal itself in exactly where you're talking about but I hadn't it reveals nothing about how you work it you know there's always a contextual analysis there's always a historical analysis appear so there's nothing in your work that reveals any of the ways that you produce an architectural insight that is Paris publican yeah no okay so I think I won't describe with them okay but some of the work I saw it's it's shocking how different it is from all the work you know so how it's not how do you do that [Music] I think that's the ultimate result of conceptual work if we if we had the slightest if we were only slightly attached to some taste of some uh priorities we couldn't do that so probably this is but it's interesting because I think I am attached to a priori completely in other words I have a set I give summer seminars in the office we set up the the discourse for the year and then everything falls into that discourse I mean I'm not saying good or bad but I've ever said that time to think variant because I think that's perhaps also sometimes a disadvantage but I really don't know what actually architects rated but Peter works also he'll set up a process and then he'll set a few people working on it then he'll work critically it work as a critic he'll the process will get going and then he'll review the work and criticize it towards its end I don't get that I understand that you're working teams and you there's work that happens if you're going to bring a bring an idea about the project to to them we try to we try to define the guidelines in the working in a rolling kind of a process if you set up the rules from the very beginning you would destroy everything on the other hand if you are to lose you would also not get anywhere so it's really not so easy to say how you do it it's but isn't it okay for the accidents and in other words course want them in the hold Jeff the whole idea of setting up the rules is looking for the accidents the flaws the errors and going with those being willing to move I mean most of the work the the abu-dhabi project came out of being on that jury here at Harvard taking that kids sandwich of things and saying hey he screwed it up I know how to work this right and I I know that's where it came from you know and because I was fascinated by the potential of section in that problem by putting the three layers together and it was accidental in other words I saw something in something that someone was doing that had nothing to do with what he was doing and and ran with it and to me that had to do with a note I mean I saw it within a cotton a theoretical context of what I would call partial figure or you know whatever you want to call these things I don't like these posthumanist last humanists etc but it worked for me um what happened with Richard Serra in Berlin well he ran into Helmut Kohl I mean one day cold side us down and said you have to make some changes in the project and it took him two hours to do this Richard was sitting there and Richard said wait a minute and he said you know I've been through this before in Washington where these bureaucrats ruined our project and my project and I'm not going to sit for it here and Cole just rose up like a giant King Cobra and this huge man and said mr. Serra I am NOT a bureaucrat I am NOT an undersecretary I'm the Chancellor of the great German Republic and you don't talk to me like that and just blew him out of the room I've never seen anybody blow Richard away and that was the end he was gone and the next thing I know he said good luck with the project and he said what were the changes we need to make I should give you the final Richard Serra line because we can take some questions Richard called me up after he saw Berlin and because this is the artist right because he's not and he hates architects or he thinks they're inferior less pure and any sent Peter great project and I said thanks Richard and he said your best work and I said thanks he said you know why and I said no no plumbing and there you have questions right there yeah you I got a ginger are you distinguishing the occupants from anybody else better because I've been handed off the Peter you know Peter made me mad so making them handle this question then someone goes you do both I mean ultimately they are both ideological positions I mean they are how what is the role of the subject and you know the subject object relationship you know from Brunelleschi to Albert Lee to the present is one of the what I call persistence ease of architecture and Jacque looks at it one way REM looks at another way but what's interesting what makes them political is those issues which engage the subject that those architects who engage that relationship are for me important architects and they're important because it is a political problem and and if you don't believe it you should have been with me in Spain three weeks ago when I had to testify about the political role of the subject in my project in Spain before the Parliament of Galicia and we had a parliamentary investigation about this project and its political ramification so for me all of the projects whether it was Berlin whether it's a project in Ohio that's sponsored by a Republican Congress in Ohio a Senate whether it's in Arizona which is so conservative and the kinds of appeal to the conservative populace you know they actually they love this this stadium which i think is a radical stadium and they like it because it makes them feel like they're part of the real world except is supposed to be it's the only non provincial perhaps building in Arizona but I shouldn't say that it's one of the non provincial buildings in Merida but that's political and I think the attitude of Architects to the subject-object relationship is what we're talking about here maybe I can say something about ideological architecture we've recently have a symposium in Munich where by the way bream and I were on the on the roundtable because we are working together on the house Accords which is a built as an ideological representation of naazy Nazism but the building is some himself somehow is transcends that is actually more interesting it has more layers but generally spoken I would say the least interesting architecture is ideological architecture which means architecture which has been built with a clear political statement and when Pierre says both our work is ideological I would rather say it both our works is is built with ideas is not idealistic but is is based on them on the world of ideas rather in the sense of blotto them in the sense of let's say blessed you know in the kind of ideologically driven way and the one architecture that really stimulates people politically you know in a way that it makes them believe in a place it makes them resist it makes them love a building maybe his stadium maybe Tiananmen Square or those places which are contained this world of ideas and not the ones that are built with this ideological purpose what I don't like is like right not just I know that we are on the same boat in this table I would also say that a poet by Baudelaire is much more powerful politically than a play by race which tries to educate you if you try to egg educate people this is the most unsexy thing that you can do I've been saying that along I really I believe that that's true someone should tell me earlier well I would have thought that you know matta-clark was brought up before I would have thought he's one of the most ideological artists meaning not to symbolize to symbolize an idea that's what we're going use art in the service of an institutional civility but maybe we misunderstand ideologically and the world of ideas for me this is - I don't ideology is has a very bad connotation in my the way I know did you see the artists Kapoor show and when you were and I think fantastic but you thought it survived the building I thought that was one of the most amazing it what I mean when I found that I can't I couldn't get over the presence of the architecture I couldn't let it I couldn't you know piranhas Kapoor his work you have to kind of fall into it and the building was so confiscating is it's the memories of not just that I knew this about the history of the building is just obtuse in its presence in a way that I thought it defeated the honors Kapoor's I was wondering can i Jack I think we have to be really I want I think this is gonna be a subject for our second debate we're going to have it in hand but I made no no but let me let me let me let me say this some of the greatest film and some of the great film that's being produced today and I don't want to go into it because my one of my mentors Roy grandmum there's a film expert is here so I would be careful some of the great film was made in the service of ideology and in fact remains great film I mean Leni rifle brief installs films whatever you want to say about them were our fabulous filmic Lee right and the you know the Russian filmmakers the battleship potemkin and you know Tarkovsky's films but there is a different that's different across time but then even I have I totally understand what you know that all of Leni Riefenstahl she is Olivia she's naive she's not really ideologic and she just was in love with these black guys I mean she saw these bodies and this amazing maybe it's just beautiful you know and she's not so naive Leni reinstall any other questions was not ideological like pledged to says you have to like this you know it's not that can okay it's not like a way we can go into that later over here I'm hating which I think that I I want to answer the question clearly because first of all it's a practice that occurs in journalism it occurs in art it occurs in film etc I know more people who are unpaid interns who want to get experience first of all we are not allowed to pay people without work permits and most of our unpaid interns are in fact foreign workers and the way you get into our office is you work is an intern in three is three months because you can't do anything for three months anyway and then we usually hire those people who survive etc and pay them and get them working papers and get them into graduate school and give them seminars etc so I don't want to even in Dane to give that question because it was men that kind of snarky it was not it was I was mentally and I get away I want to respond to it and say thank God for people who are unpaid interns when I started in architecture I was an unpaid intern I think the practice is fabulous people who move up in the world all start as unpaid interns thank you they don't have they don't have any unpaid intern out they only pay people no but yeah [Music] we were I'm gonna repeat the question the question is when you visit an archeological site you don't know what the builder meant you don't know how it was occupied but you could still gather some interesting understanding about the work from the way it operates as a kind of legacy of its use and she's asked each of them to speculate in the year 3000 about what the reception of their work as an archaeological ruling might be at the time okay set there okay Peter that's a great question because I was with a a university president recently and he said you know what I'd like to have on our campus I'd like to have a building of our time right and I thought to myself now what the hell is that right because if I can't figure it out today how the hell are people three thousand years now going to figure it out and I think and and Colin Rowe my mentor used to be very much against the whole idea of a zeitgeist that when me said architecture is the will of the epoch translated into steel and glass how the hell did he know what the will of the epoch is so I think we're on really slippery ground saying what is an architecture of our time and will it matter three thousand year because anything that's built today in a sense is architecture of our time number one and if we have a architecture like Leon queer or new urbanism and we have Jacques Herzog and Peter Eisenman on the other hand etc everybody knows the difference right and and it also is important those differences those cultural differences I think what I like about being at Yale is there is leon career there is demetri porphyrios there are people who we can disagree with and but of our our of our time Leon is a product of our time as is as Jacques as is Jeff etc and I think that the important thing is the fact that we are in a pluralistic time right we are not in a dogmatic moment in time we don't have a new epi stem let's say or paradigm there is no new paradigm we're working on late modernist paradigms and late periods are really interesting because they are diffused and so someone in 3000 years will look at this period and say it was a light moment it was before happened and when they were all doing the same thing look you have to be a modernist in a you have to be in French traditionalist in in the bizarre school in the 19th century you had to be a modernist to be it at Harvard in the in the 20th century you know in the Gropius here the only history that was taught was Gothic architecture and I can't tell you but I got that because I worked attack you know that infused into me and I told Gothic architecture at Cambridge I took gothic art Columbia never took over and I thought to myself how did that ever happen to me right it came out of Gropius and Harvard so there were those kinds of dogmatic didactic influences which I don't think exist today that would be my idea of today the Deana answer you have a guess um I don't know what would be after my death honestly so I can only speculate tell me but um no and what I always think is interesting about architecture is that beauty and love it sounds naive but I think those buildings where people are attracted to and people care for will always stay or will always be reconstructed and will be remain important whether it's Imperial Palace or a church or a stadium or whatever and all we can do is especially when we do public buildings we have to do buildings which people accept this is goes back to the idea of the tenant or do or the people and if such a building works like a large museum we didn't know when we paid whether people would ever accept this gigantic space the Turbine Hall has turned out to be the most successful art space you know because it you may like it or not but it's extremely successfully so far that people love it and use it and because this is so this is beyond my influence that's again the thing with a baby it has to survive and if this is true it will probably also survive later which means if you dig it out it will remain something important it has a place or it speaks for itself without our name because it's attached to the people I know that's why and this is the last thing I would like to throw in the water I don't understand why the Twin Towers were not rebuilt as they were I think it's the biggest mistake whatever design was made proposed would be weaker than a reconstruction a culture that comes later would say well they built a memorial what the hell did they do a memorial for the biggest memorial would be two richest reconstruct area question this is but this is archaeology of the future I would say building the Mies Barcelona pavilion was the biggest mistake for Mises career because I'm liked it much better than black and white and this the scale doesn't work in the new situation it is like that's a library building yeah I don't think you rebuild produce but I what do you think about racism I think that's fantastic they rebuild a family yeah no no I and even even I don't I I don't have a clear answer Peter that's a debate in itself but I'm very very interested that guys around Kerkar I'll tell you why what's the difference honestly think the difference the frown character was a great building a Trent towers were not of course gaudy enough but the twin towers are not so bad and I would have rebuild them well they're not as bad as what's going up now exactly thank you okay by the way guys wait guys go I mean I introduced but it's also something different New York and the twin towers and the skyline of you New York is a word in itself it's very close to this visual thing that I said before but to rebuild a house would be such a strong statement that at least we should have discussed it more than just you know before one opens a new we didn't participate because I didn't know the answer and later I became aware that this is part of this idea of crown killer of even the Schloss discussion actually it's not uninteresting design an honest receipt and don't say you can just reconstruct it but it is very difficult very interesting because it touches in so many things about time about memory about this kind of idea of concept and and what is it it's really interesting because like the Wooster group did an exact reconstruction of the port Theatre the Grotowski I mean really exactly reproduced it and when you first think it you think this is grotesque in the way the Peters talked about but it was so compelling as a new form of originality it would can just say it's obviously the wrong thing to do even though it would have to be like the frame by frame reconstruction of Michael hankies film in funny funny games but can I operate quick answer I'm going to take them to guys here's what I think is going to happen three thousand years ago they're going do these two buildings that one's going to be let's say since in any other one's going to be the Dominus winery they've been buried they gonna dig a moat it turns out by by pure miracle they are exactly preserved perfectly and then they but the guys that are looking at Donald Winer they said there must be some rocks missing because there's these little holes and then somebody else they don't because they know I think they're supposed to let light through and maybe guys they don't be ridiculous you know so they're going to be debating his archaeologist of whether they're looking cos they were thinking to find this concrete that's printed they say no that was an accident that happened because of time and the other guy said no they did on purpose in a negative cigarette so they're not going to know what it means or how in it they're going to dig Peter's building up and they're going to say oh this thing this is building must have been completely scrambled by an earthquake you know there's business there's no possible way to reconstruct with this because no nobody in their right mind would have done this [Music] [Music] [Music] how are your own students better exactly than that that's a great I think it's a point I wanted to bring up because I mentioned this to Jeff Kipnis last week I guess I said you know what the big change in pedagogy I think is whether for good or for bad is that the schools that I went to and what I was working against was that they were set up to feed people into the profession they were not set up to learn about the discipline and and I think the relationship that existed and still exists as a dominant method of is the relationship between academia and practice praxis was where you went and what has changed slightly or has corrupted that model is the idea of theory that academia has now in a certain way the pedagogy of academia has focused on theory as a theory like all of these PhD programs which are in architecture schools and I think that's something to think about because is the school to be set up to feed people into practice or is it set up to open the discipline in other words to explore the knowledge of the discipline and I think that's changed and I think against the opening no I didn't say that I said it's people there is a tension in the world as the PhD guys we get really nervous here I don't know no there's a tension in the world between those people who see the School of Architecture as a way of preparing people for practice I think the difference for example is it you go to a business school or you go to a PhD in economics if you go I mean there are certain banks that I know that don't want Harvard Business School people because they want people that know about the economic models etc and they have their PhD work in economics there's an enormous difference between the Yale Law School and the Harvard Law School because the Harvard Law School is preparing people in a in a certain way watch differently than then the Yale Law School and I think these differences exist in the schools I mean I think Princeton is a school that's much more concerned about the discipline and Harvard is much more concerned about the possibility of a professor of the profession I think Yale is somewhere in between I don't want to say that's good or bad but I believe there has been a difference in pedagogy precisely because of the interest in theory that has developed in this country certainly and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing it remains to be seen I'm going to come in - no I know I write here what do you think I think her way architects are taught at least in my experience is been perfect go ahead you spoke earlier I've had the time about the ability of architects of architecture and ability to attract and the enjoyment of the attractions of architecture and this has certain connotations in terms of decide and decide treatments and I just wanted to speak to the necessity and importance of the attraction and is dealing with this totally different experience than nature which is as the experience on the inside which has very different well are you again playing the outside against the inside but how can one understand misunderstand me so much I clearly said that actually I'm not I said now I'm actually not interested in facades I'm interested in attracting people and the inside and the outside I don't care you know we never treated the outside better than the inside only the outside is more visible you know it's into magazines about that or not that that is a distinct experience from a distinct issue the attraction from what is going on on the CNAs and pounds how do those sort of what is it symbiosis that only works together I mean of course we can say there are buildings which only exist from the outside like Victorian kind of experiences like I'm assigned but we've never done a building like that very rarely can do a building like that maybe the the one we've done was where we could the storage building where we couldn't wear what it allowed to the inside where we have these layers but that was the single with the only building which was like that they also do if you can ever visit let's say the palace tour in Tokyo which is very excessive because it's a store many buildings are not accessible you would understand what I'm saying this is you cannot even distinguish anymore what is inside outside in which way does it works out release construction lay spatially but I'd say it I've been a lot of the buildings and one of the things I discovered it's interesting is the extraordinary awkward extent that the photographers go through to make the precise work if like if you go to the Rococo Factory it's you know see any of this you don't see any of the stuff you think you're going to see right time it you have to it's amazing when you walk inside and then you look back a lot of the perception of the work is having a kind of ambition to exteriority is comes from the way photography feels feel obligated to produce ephemeral transient small effects as a permanent design I really think it's when you're there it's pretty amazing I'm going to read as the last question a question laughing you know photography work Specter outside the inside is very difficult to catch space you know it's much easier to catch surfaces on pictures it's logical is it discrete two-dimensional thing very few photographers can can photograph space I want to ask a question okay I believe inside the broadest or I think that's an ideological gesture that's not a question but then we talk about that may be your opinion Peter plus elevation but then we have to talk about what you mean by I don't know you put we we know that what we mean by that and that'll mean leni riefenstahl and I don't mean bertolt brecht I mean a Peter we know yeah okay I'm a reader's question if the question for you be continued this is a Yale question from overflow room 109 as a generous moderator I ran around earlier and I asked them to sit this is my one present my reader than I'm going to go it's for you given the release of the Miami Art Museum project is exhibition that is meant to document the design process in other words the public design process does that affect the design process and does it make you uncomfortable in any way does it afford an opportunities not usually present in another project well I think we shouldn't overly stretch democracy even not in in America and and you know the China the China the Beijing project the result of the competition was also open to the public and they could comment on which one they wanted but they knew which one they wanted and in Miami I'm sure they will listen to the people much more than a China but you cannot of course say give us your opinion we do whatever you like so it is I think interesting to listen to how people would react to this idea of the relation to the park the idea of the green to the idea of open inside outside the arrangement of the galleries and again this is a very conceptual driven project where really we can make changes in how you arrange things but of course we cannot exchange we cannot change that how you negotiate how our universe or the would we would we would we would I mean we would together with your a to say this is what's the outcome what are the essential the criticism coming from the essential criticism will need to come from the professional sites in the curatorial site which which has already been part of the discussion so it was the project where literally you know we could play together and it didn't mess up the concept but from my point of view these open processes see a library was another one that went through the motions of it they assumed that everyone's knowledge of architecture is pretty much equal you know that they don't really understand that an architect brings a rarified unique understanding of the way architecture produces effects and this idea that what they are is a kind that they're kind of pulled taking machine to see where the will of the people is it really it really undermines the possibility of doing good work it would make me extraordinary but it's I think is more of a political strategy than the real democratic thing because the Switzerland is the is the hardcore democracy you know but in a bad way I must say because there people really misunderstand their role and they really destroy everything democracy can be very destructive the way they do it in public buildings and swear to it well I think it's very clear that architects should defend democracy but not practice that I definitely think this is okay I'm going to take one last question because I kept promising one last question and then everybody can flood up here and just mob these guys with all the questions you want I invite you to do that good for autographs and stuff go ahead ask the question I'll get here comes the question for your position sorry you were in the bathroom with me we're going to take this question now I'm really worried I think the quizzes was John Eisele OS sees the performer next in intended pleasure mark the question is what is the role that here in the value of society to your work and his own work in contemporary architecture in general course you are the very model for other professions day and the impression that you get something architecture for my morning Mormon article where it's also over the way I think they think innovation so how do you can see the role of your obligations to a larger thinking of society in your work given the naivete of trying to do that and the failures it produced how about that is that okay okay there yeah I think that I think the one thing that has changed is the modernism is on one has had many things but on the other hand is mainly the visibility of architecture under the way it's exposed to to the media maybe Peter wants to add something obvious we can we can already go in the bathroom maybe across media culture I think an ideology or two subjects that we have to put on a table as we didn't get to media bigness in next meeting but and because it's my it's it's a lot about that to this and of course architecture contains always when I said your concept of the world and this of course is very much a lot of that is your relationship to the to society and to to the idea of the city what is the city what's the role of architecture in the city what how far can you go as an architect well in which way does architecture replace City Planning or city planning will places architects it has so it's such a wide field that I don't think that I can give you an answer instead I want to make I'm gonna make a critique of this particularly some symposium and I'm disappointed in you by the way because as you're sharing that now I want to share that publicly because I believe the role of something like this is to knock us off our positions in other words the sort of public persona that we have and I feel that all we've done tonight is confirmed both of our public positions you know me is what he is this you know good guy bad guy whatever and I don't think that we got into anything that dislodged where we were and that's what your role was and I think you haven't maybe I think you're right I actually intended not to do that because you asked me a question with answer your question I I felt like you were both uncut wondering whether it would happen so I thought look I'm going to set up a dialogue it's going to go on for a little while I'd rather get it going and I'd rather there'd be a real comfort to the thing and else I thought it would be possible to flesh out some issues that were just inchoate also as Jeffrey will remember I once moderated a m-michael remember this Michael I once moderated the exact same situation with REM and Chuck and I spent the whole hour battering them knocking them off the positions and then Jacques stood up and yelled any architect that writes is a fraud and you know and I thought okay this was really intense and I'm not telling you the audience came up to me and said you are a monster don't you know that was that they were so angry at me but that's good what's wrong with being angry at you I'm angry you a lot I'm actually I decided I'm gonna take this thing I want there is an important conversation in architecture to be held between the two of you in my opinion it was going to start tonight start it's not going to end because Peter also we shouldn't overestimate the kind of events we said a few things which were interesting and a lot of things which were not so interesting and that's it yeah and that's how I love you thank you we can I think that we have an obligation to find a way to open ourselves if we're going to do this not just to repeat what we know but to try and open up to why we're here why the two of us agree to do this why we respect one another even though we have a certain differences and I think that some of the most important critical things that I know is the discussions the discussion I had with Chris Alexander here at Harvard is remembered by a lot of people it had a lot of tension not not bad respect on both sides this conversations that I've had with with Richard Serra with there you know any number of people and I think we need to find a way to be able to speak in public without destroying our public vanity image etc and get to some of the issues that do are important for pedagogical reasons in other words and I I don't think we got there yet I think it was as Jeff said it was you know moving around you know but we didn't there's been no goring of the bull if that's possible or even necessary and I didn't mean that like that and I mean you know I meant to throw into perspective two positions which I think are important for these students and I don't think we knew we got there tonight okay and then I would like to hope that we could continue and and and and find a way to get there and some last thoughts I don't know I think that it's very important that you you talk people talk to each other who have a certain verbal ability of the certain intellectual ambition not ambition as a stupid word sudden willingness to expose themselves so I don't feel like at all that like I was defensive or so or I tried to play the role of the good guy or whatever I don't care about these things and I don't think that you know that you do that I I think that they are rather and I also don't know how far we can go in this kind of psychological analysis so I'm sorry if I if I mentioned this kind of Jewish idea of a Jewish thing that was it but in fact the psychological part and our text is very psychologic you know urbanism is very psychological this text about the cities being the the kind of petrification of their own psychological patterns and so that there is something about that but what we I think could we cannot so easily analyze each other I don't think that makes sense you know sit down at whatever I don't think this is so interesting but I think is it more to say to talk about our time and what architectures role could be in that time and education is not uninteresting and also I think the role of criticism what's the role of a newspaper magazine I think they are tremendously less important than they were and probably also it is to do with the fact that there are no good really figures anymore in this business they became cynical they become you know they come they're not supportive you don't need to be supportive than a Eve in a stupid way but somehow say things that are important and interesting I think you know all the critics I think there's a few this sorry not all the critics er I don't know any I don't almost know anyone almost look at me but then who write in daily newspapers I know these papers no longer yeah like what I'm saying is I was in a discussion with REM in Montreal I mean I remember I think he's a master at this but I want to say this he got up and he showed four slides right the first slide was the Parthenon he said that's great architecture right and then he showed Bilbao and he said that's not then he showed your project in Abu Dhabi he said that's not then he showed my project and he said that's not and boy that blew the lid off the world I'm in other words whether he meant in an honor as a provocation he put you Franken myself against the Parthenon and where is he but that's a big honor especially especially because we do not have a project in Abu Dhabi oh do I all right awesome I'd like you by welcome others you know that another tower he showed it was a tower that you did sorry I didn't bastard no no no no no was a cognate what's the desert in the background anyway I write here I think I remembered your [Music] you

Channel: Harvard GSD

Views: 71,959

Rating: 4.8414917 out of 5

Keywords: 12042007, herzog

Id: bB_GUTJZpTw

Length: 101min 11sec (6071 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 24 2013