Walter Gropius Lecture: Mark Lee, “Five Footnotes Toward an Architecture”

hi um welcome everyone sorry about the time it took to change over but it's because of all of you so um thank you uh but does Martin need it he does okay it'll deal so welcome everyone I'm Sarah Whiting I'm Nadine I want to begin by pausing to note that the GSD is located on the ancestral land of the Massachusetts the original inhabitants of Massachusetts of Boston and Cambridge and with this pause we pay respect to the people of the Massachusetts tribe past present and future honoring the land itself which remains sacred to the Massachusetts people and which serves as the ground for many complicated implicated histories a quick reminder that we have live captioning available tonight for our virtual audience for you in front of me are not the only audience to enable captions for you virtual people please click the closed captioning button at the bottom of the live stream window here in Piper we have live captioning which it can be entertaining at times I also want to invite you to join us for an upcoming GSD public program on Tuesday April 11th please join us for a public lecture by our own Rachel Meltzer who's a Plimpton associate professor of planning and urban economics Rachel's talk which will be here in Piper at 6 30 on Tuesday is entitled what we miss when we look at everything Global shocks and local impacts so if Rachel's going to talk next week about what we might miss this evening outgoing chair of architecture Mark Lee seems poised to ensure that we don't miss anything I was admittedly surprised when I read the title of Mark's talk this evening five footnotes towards an architecture it's the gropius lecture after all and it was Walter gropius who tried to wipe out history from the gsds curriculum when he was chair a position he held for 14 years mark from 1938 to 1952 gropius did not succeed by titling his talk five footnotes toward an architecture Mark is doubling down on history or at least a form of history and its value in architectural education for in addition to highlighting the footnote the historian's favorite tool his title is of course an evocation of local busier albeit a sideways one or maybe better set a bottom-up evocation rising from the Lando footnotes in his amusing but nevertheless serious book The footnote a curious history published in 1997 and I'm citing Pages 234-235 for those who want to footnote it historian Anthony Grafton reminds us that footnotes guarantee nothing in themselves yet footnotes form and indispensable if messy part of that indispensable messy mixture of Art and Science that is modern history I'd modify that slightly to say that messy mixture of Art and Science that is architecture and indeed all of us know from being on reviews with Mark or in meetings with Mark or from listening to Mark's own lecture introductions he has the most astonishing capacity to footnote architecture's artistic references it's easily and thoroughly as he cites technical material and formal details Mark doesn't claim to be a historian but he knows how to deploy history as an architect his references which range from high to low aren't evoked to impress but are instead a glimpse into the way that Mark thinks he possesses a rare ability to zoom into detail and zoom out to effect and in so doing he draws and illuminates connections and relations and that's what architecture does it forms relations and connections across histories across sites across individuals and across communities Mark talks about architecture the same way that he designs architecture drawing connections and drawing on connections to further the discipline and further the field another Grafton quote from the same book on footnotes offers further insight into Mark's expanded practice only the use of footnotes Grafton writes enables historians to make their texts not monologues but conversations in which modern Scholars their predecessors and their subjects all take part and here how is how Mark has brought his mode of practicing his thinking and his designing to the school he's taught us all through conversations and he's created fukun forms for conversations that have helped to navigate us all through the rather Muddy Waters of the Contemporary a moment of architecture culture that's not clear but that has promise promising threads promising footnotes promising Futures as Mark's books and looks and five on five series have shown us five on five five footnotes five years as chair on a personal note I'd like to thank Mark for five very markly memories of buildings meals conversations references and insights my first trip to Shanghai thanks to Mark's invitation to the wholesome conference in 2007 one of the most memorable jury presentations Mark and Sharon's presentation for the menial drawing Institute project in 2012 which led to what I consider to be one of the top buildings of the 21st Century a tasty and messy dinner of soft shell crabs back again in Shanghai in 2013 the seemingly endless conversations that ended up being included in your insurance 2016 book a house is a house is a house is a house is a house that's five houses in case you've lost count he always manages to reference a canonical work by turning it sideways the Chicago being all of 2017 and a sixth for me the most important one welcoming me to the GSD in 2019 oop I'm gonna be emotional now and being there for me in the schools chair during challenging to say the least times footnoting Wikipedia this time the number five is in numerology often associated with change Evolution love and abundance let me close this introduction to this talk which comes for you Mark at a moment of change in evolution with abundant love for me and from the school and with five photographs that illustrate your sartorial Flair your practiced look of tough vulnerability your architectural enthusiasm and the Habit that we're all happy that you quit cold turkey mark thank you and high five [Applause] foreign time invited to do a THD but I uh I decided to go for the honorary PhD I still haven't gotten it yet but thank you thank you all for being here in person and uh thank you for those who are joining virtually I have never read a lecture before but we all got to start somewhere and uh and I do have to read this one because it was written by artificial intelligence well well first of all I'd like to thank Dean Whiting for the invitation to deliver this lecture and for the thoughtful really thoughtful and generous introduction I'd like to thank her for leadership at the school and for the constant support she is offering to me in the department I would also like to thank Dean Master Favi for first inviting me here and taking the risk of appointing me as chair not a small wrist I might add and for entrusting me with this position I hope your satisfaction outweighs the regrets over time but not now needless to say I'm honored to deliver the water gropius lecture at the end of my chair ship in the tradition of the school in honor of Walter gropius here taken by Isa gropius allegedly looking down the imp's project well needless to say the chairship of the architecture department is a daunting responsibility no matter how the world has changed Harvard remains a beacon like when it did when the GST was first established everyone around the world look at Harvard for leadership I'm grateful that I have the benefit of building upon the legacies of my predecessors especially those who serve in the Contemporary era of the GSD namely professors Gerald McHugh the late Henry Cobb Jose Rafael moneo Max Coggin Jorge zuberi toshiko Mori Preston Scott Cohen Nakia balas I have the privilege to build upon what they have started and the examples they have set allow me to take on this role with ease and with confidence when I assume the chairship many of them generously reach out to offer guidance and advice some of them in hindsight are half truths most of them flat out lies but in all seriousness their encouragement gave that they gave me was invaluable beginning with Harry Cobb here you see his thesis project as a student at the GST Harry and his inaugural lecturers chair outlined the four essential qualities to fulfill the architecture the educational Mission the qualities of coherence of rigor openness and audacity quality is that he espoused and encapsulated in his reflection on the role of architecture and the university in his own gropius lecture qualities we have been holding here since along with Harry I'm indebted to Raphael Mack Jorge toshiko Scott and inaki who have continuously made themselves available and I would join all of them to extend the support and the generosity that they have shown me to Professor Grace law as she takes on the helm to lead the department to new heights in coming years during my time as chair I think what I've been trying to focus on is the facilitation of dialogues whether between the profession and Academia between scholarship and instrumentality between thinkers and makers of different generations and geographies with the help of my program directors I've always tried to curate these groupings and ground these dialogues on the built environment and particularly on the scale of buildings the common denominator if not the resultante of our metier I try my best to situate what I do within the context of the department with the knowledge of where it came from where it is now where it could be going and like the practice of architecture this has been a collective task I'd like to thank my colleagues in The Faculty the senior faculty who has really been tirelessly guiding and moding the future of the department in particular I'd like to thank hey Michael Hayes for setting the table and laying out the cutlery when I first arrived at the job the etiquette was so thoughtfully embedded in the settings I was able to learn my table manners along the way and I thank you for that I would like to thank the junior faculty who oftentimes has the most direct contact with and influence on the students you're really the heart and the soul of the department and the visiting faculty who brings the rest of the world to 48 Quincy Street many of whom have contributed substantially to a culture over many years I thank you as a professor in practice and someone who maintains an active practice I need to thank my office starting with my partner Sharon Johnston and many others like Nick hofsted Lindsey Erickson not just for holding Fort or filling voice during the last five years of my limited availability and intention but more than often Rose to the occasion and exceeded what I would have done if I were there so I beg you to have me back and I promise to do my best not to be a hindrance I also like to thank my friends in the field at large some of you are here tonight mentors former proteges who are now mentors I thank you either for your support or for your circumvention that gave me the few to move forward with or the space to move forward without distraction lastly I would like to thank the students past and present many of whom I'm confident will become prolific practitioners influential teachers even Trailblazers and shaping the field and disseminating the culture of GST abroad and Beyond teaches it is always a hope that you will achieve things beyond our own imagination you represent a future of our discipline that we all believe in and optimistic about My Hope for this lecture is that it will serve as an affirmation for for the students of the simultaneous acts of teaching and practicing as a model that sustains and perpetuates the discipline and practice of architecture despite the respective Evolution might suggest otherwise this is something that lasted the almost 30 years of my life and a model many of us here believe in so my title as Sarah mentioned about lecture is five foot notes to what an architecture I've chosen five subjects that I feel Central and critical to my time here five themes that I find relevant in addressing the relationship between education research and professional practice today I've chosen five instead of one because I have short attention span and even if these subjects fail to form any coherence one thing consistent is that most of what you see tonight will be images of buildings and books two of my favorite things in this world it is also an opportunity for self-reflection on projects and buildings by our practice Johnson Markley a venture that ran parallel with my academic life and one that cultivates this reciprocal relationship between teaching and practice y5 Sarah answered it all you know it's a ubiquitous number in the culture of architecture five orders five Architects Five Points as a matter of fact this year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of version book that Consolidated kobuses Five Points and I have been chair for five years so I think it's good karma to F5 why footnotes uh I think when one thing about the five orders Five Points five Architects it always conjures up hallowed or Messianic tone you're like a anointing heroic rules of maxims that came from above I think today is elson's Peter Smithson had noted before we're at a time when there are no more heroic manifestos where meta narratives or Magnum opera or manifestos are met with increasing suspicion I think one is reminded of calvino's six memo for the next millennium where he named his chapters memos or memorandums evoking short informal messages or reminders used for internal communication so in that Spirit five footnotes suggests there's something ancillary something used for referencing or providing citations or additional information for meta narratives that already exist and lastly why two ward in architecture I think for decades the title of kobuze spoke has been mistranslated in his English edition by the painter architect Frederick echels by adding to the proper translation the word new you know something that wasn't rectified until I think 2007 translation and certainly before the book the importance of the new has already been emphasized you know in the title of the street Nouveau from which the content of the book first appeared actually it wasn't until a good 60 years later when when Jeff Kipnis wrote a piece title towards a new architecture did someone claim to be the rightful author of this title published here in the book edited by Greg gear at the end I think it brings into scrutiny the project and ideology of the new in modern architecture and his subsequent consequences today so the title fight footnotes toward an architecture reflects certain dispositions of mine perhaps the most obvious is the belief that the text a modern architecture texts with a capital T that is have already been written and most what we are left with at least at this moment is the implementation adaptation and expansion of these texts the five footnotes I would like to talk about are the footnotes on history on Cadence on autonomy on America and on point footnote number one on History why history because history gives us the context of time and a moment when discussions in the field over the role of history and architectures political imperatives are omnipresent the episodes over the course of modernity where the past plays a significant role for the future interests me I would like to start with a note from my own collection of ephemera by Walter gropius what better way to start with gropius at the gropius lecture where he wrote skipped in the Balkans neat and gulticus no be standing in Vando paraphazing heraclitis gropius stated that there's nothing constant in architecture nothing but constant change now this was written in 1964 long after his departure from the GST but still that revolutionary rhetoric of the inner War years was still pervasive few years prior to that in 1961 secret Gideon delivered the first copious lecture here titled constancy change and architecture which was an extract from his melon lectures a few years before titled the Eternal present in the Eternal present Gideon lectured on the beginnings of architecture and placed Primacy on constancy as an agency for change this came 20 years later after his space-time in architecture which was the result was a Noah of the norn lectures where he emphasized predominantly was where emphasis was predominantly placed upon change as the spirit of modern architecture and the notion of continuity were merely cited coming from sources such as Anonymous 19th century engineering 20 years later Gideon took on more measured tone on the notion of continuity than he did in space-time for me I think the the term constancy is important if we go back to cavino's six memos for the next millennium where he only wrote five chapters titled lightness quickness exactitude visibility and multiplicity they had written sixth chapter due to the factory and expectedly passed away before he departed to give his lectures here was titled consistency for me calvino's consistency is something different from Gideon's constancy while consistency refers to the steadfast's adherence to the same principles course or form constancy refers to the quality of being unchanging or unwavering while something consistent we start and stop but does not vary something constant does not stop though it may vary so while somebody regard history as consistent in modernism where it came back at different moments in his Evolution I do like to think that Gideon's constancy where history is continually present and varies serves a bit as a better model for history as a platform for change in the 1960s the Italian periodico casabella added the word continuita to his original title claiming history as a critical Legacy and calling for an alternative assessment of the modern movement the editor Ernesto Rogers invited a younger generation led by autorasi to address the tensions between continuity and a sense of the impending political crisis it was a move that provoked dissent amongst a slightly older generation namely Giancarlo de Kalo a member of Team 10 that included Jersey Sultan who was already teaching dad the GST and served as chair from 67 to 74. Rogers however defended this younger generation for framing the modern movement as a continuous Revolution that is a continuous development of an adherence to change not unlike Gideon's constancy around this time that younger generation led by Lowes led by Rossi looked at the figure of out of laws who emerged as a historical figure who offered a Counterpoint to that of kobuses perhaps who has been the role model for many it was a very divisive culture you know we can see figures as Rossi or Caesar who chose a lot of laws whereas others such as New York 5 chose kobuzay for for Rossi and his cohorts you know it was a time near the end of the lives of the careers of giants such as kobuze and miss vanderer a time when modernism was being challenged by the Next Generation and Rossi at the outset of his career as a young architect here you see his very first house built in 1960 chose decisively chose out of laws who represented continuity instead of kobuze who represented change now Lois is a transitional figure in modernism was long admired by Ernesto Rogers Rogers once claimed that Lowe's definition of architecture of an architect being a bricklayer who studied Latin was his favorite and most precise definition of an architect while Elusive and often misunderstood and harder to grasp in his modernist counterparts Los was someone who embraced progress as long as it falls within a cultural tradition always a provocateur he once said never should the architect waste his abilities on creating new forms which was echoed by Charles Eames more than 50 years later who said designers should innovate as the as a last resort because more Horrors were done in the name of innovation than any other the great Hermann Czech who devoted much of his scholarship on Lowe's wrote that those believed that in order to communicate new ideas one cannot use a new language at the same time I think case in point you can we can see in those works such as the Lowe's house the use of a classical column in a completely unclassical way with a base on top with a with a modern lintel and engage the slightly sloping street with uneven stairs in between perhaps this tension between constancy and change found its ultimate expression in the Greek order skyscraper of the Chicago Tribune tower competition then of course many other counter movements that profess another direction for modernism that often took a softer gentler and more evolutionary stance spawned many collectives such as the rationalist group of seven new volcento that included in individuals like tehrani and Libra are here but also linderius sataurus in Italy or someone like Giuseppe de frenetti a student and collaborator of Los who did this uh Corner apartment in Milan or Giovanni muzio who did the monastery it also expanded in the urban Direction yeah we see the tibetino in Rome by the neo-realists uh that that tried to work on the Reconstruction of the post-war city as well as in some some scales like uh smithson's you know team 10 or van nuak where they scales that between the city and a building we also see buildings that that uh respected the existing Urban morphology but built with modern Technologies like albini's La Renaissance or ppprs Chase Manhattan Bank in Milan now this this project of constancy has had its challenges you know eventually when it evoked the moments such as latendenza and certainly later post-modernism the first Venice architecture biennale directed by Paolo Portuguese has marked an end to that tendency and for some this was already a predictable direction for Portuguese as he already coined the term Neil Liberty in 1958 something that through the anger of Reign of banham I I think the choice between adopting an extremist stance or reformist one or the choice between fatalism and Calvinism is a question architecture face in these historical episodes but also a question that we face today the year before I assumed the chairship Sharon myself became the co-acistic directors the shared invention of the Chicago architecture biennial which we named make new history it was an opportunity for us to reflect on the role of history and practice at that moment theme came from an observation that on one hand with the availability of data and images there's a lot more information out there than there's attention there's a lot of creativity but without a common grammar on the other hand many Architects seem reluctant to consider what they do as being part of a general cultural production and part of a history bearing an insistence of being unprecedented and disconnected with past architectures so at a time when information is ubiquitous abundant and available when its hierarchy is flattened we think history for us serve as a structure if not a substructure to organize information and provide both context of time and meaning one of the two large-scale installations is the vertical City where we invited 16 Architects including Chris gonton buys 6A Francis Caray Tatiana Bilbao Bob Patricia Barbers office surgical base among others who designed these five meter tall contemporary iterations of the renowned Chicago Tribune Tower of 1922 and this is such a heavy history that of course 1980 we see the late entries that included the work Ahoy and Rodolfo and Frank Gary we also chose to rebuild or reconstruct two of the projects uh loses losses entry as well as Ludwig Hub assignments for us two projects that represented the two Polar Opposites of the schemes as submitted the two extremities so these buildings are these models they're both scale models and and also full-size columns say when we first offered the prompt to our participants we anticipated responses from the perspective of four areas of building histories histories of building artifacts image histories you know histories or representations material histories history of matter and Civic histories histories of architecture from an urban scale the second large-scale installation is the horizontal City where we invited 24 Architects to reconsider the status of the architectural interior by referencing a photograph of an interior that was important to each architect a series of models were sitting on bases in the configuration that was organized as Miss vanderer's original master plan for IIT included karamuku ledg Legends Batman Mayo Urban lab welcome projects first office and many others as materials were proposed and subsequently developed microbe taxonomies began to emerge we see typological transfer where transposition of a historical type we see the reappropriation of a precedent where the recognition and reinvention of elements from history of buildings as repertoire for the new we notice a New Primitives of epism where things are even more primitive and archaic as a source of work we also see rebuild and reuse and recycle from buildings and existing buildings or ruins there are larger rooms this is a large room for a Sana project uh Sylvia reconstructed the um uh the Deutsche architecture Museum a project of ungers and the models of the collection making the comment on on the models and the archive bow cool did their version of giato's Chapel rato Kaiser did a series of rooms reading rooms as well as a Bookshop we see a consistent desire among the participants to find the old and the new and the new and the old you know with the belief that the oldest always knew it's seen through knowledge we also did a lot of installation in these interstitial spaces we see Paul and Paul's Corridor Camilo Restrepo Andrew Zago monetnock you know for us the question about this Paradox between constancy versus change it's less about choosing sites than embracing the tension between them and perhaps to end this footnote I would like to to quote out of Van Nike and from 1966 who said I've heard it said that an architect cannot be a prisoner of tradition in a time of change it seems to me that the architect cannot be a prisoner of any kind and in no time can the architect be a prisoner of change footnote number two on Cadence why Cadence Cadence refers to time to a beat to a rhythmic sequence I think this the dichotomy between the old and the new between constancy and change has something to do with cadence or the speed and pace of the transition from the old and the new or the oscillation in between Paul virilio in his book speed in politics concluded with his regard for the value of speed over the value of space so in one hand Gideon might have spoke about space-time virilia was talking about speed time so I asked what what is the speed in Cadence of modern architecture early modernism's predilection of the new and for revolutionary inevitable for inevitably took on the fast Cadence at the end of the 20th century with late capitalism thriving as the predominant economic model the pension for newness accelerated that already fast Cadence and it became linked with the market where newness and speed became inseparable But ultimately whether we like it or not architecture is slow or slower because building is slow as it demands tremendous financial and human resources because of its scale because of its life cycle so while media and Market are getting faster and faster architecture and comparison is appearing to be slower and slower although architecture still is and should be what me said the will with the will of the epoch translate it into space the translation is happening much slower today than before so how do we reconcile this this is a for an older generation here you might remember the legendary Dutch footballer Johan Cruyff the proponent of Total Football he once said remember this code deal he's once says speed and insight are often confused when I start running before everyone else I appear faster so so I think what Christ seemed to be saying is that if one is strategic on when to move and when to stop speed is not necessarily the only ingredient to get to where one wants to go in architecture Adam Caruso I think in 1998 reacting to the speed of globalism and its effect on cities and architecture wrote a piece titled the tyranny of the new way critique architectures dependence on the Zeitgeist of economic forces as an excuse to attain relevance so instead of accepting architecture as a commodified product of the new and the fast where novelty is constantly created Created to feed the market he advocated for Cadence of stasis he argued that while being still off pace is frowned upon in the free market economy architecture's inevitable slowness and his capacity to be reflexive and critical sets it apart from the market and advertising and could thus put forward strategies that might give shape to what comes after the global market as well as a reminder of the things that are excluded within the current social model when I look back to the history of different strains of modern architecture and particularly Scandinavian modernism much admire for a certain sobriety Precision humanism while being non-domatic as we see in the work of secret reverence it serves as an example of a delayed on off-pace development I think much of the case this Cadence has to do with scandinavia's embracement of Nordic classicism in the early 20th century as a regional style so which in turn resulted in a delayed arrival of modernism albeit when it did arrive it was a much more refined and mature modernism so we see the incorporation of Figaro or stripped-down classical elements in this case another project by leverns a chapel by leverns on the left or Eric Brickman's great Chapel in Finland even Alva Auto in his early career dealt with classicism had a much delayed maturity compared to his counterparts and of course the figure of ericuna asplundh never really had the anxiety or urgency to be modern but when modern come came it was very evolutionary and very slow I I think a faculty who had been with me at open houses will be sick of this John Haider Pope that often refer to but I'll say it again there's a short distance Runner architect and there's a long distance Runner architect the short distance Runner is just that a short distance Runner his Trail is straight flat and the end can be seen he's a crowd pleaser though he runs fast and is soon out of breath the long distance run scope is simply vaster his heat transverses a more complex landscape he gets better with age his distance is extended his architecture once become sponsor and richer some way I I consider Avro Caesar to be an architect who also benefited from being delayed you know also partially isolated from the rest of the world under the Salazar regime in Portugal in his early career he had a delayed emergence although within Portugal he started when he was 25. uh instead of an architecture that progressed as a series of recurring epidemics like his counterparts in Western Europe or in the U.S Caesar was certainly a long distance Runner and went through a slow process of accretion earlier I had referred to Rossi's and his generation's choice between Los and kobuzay for Caesar I think he didn't have to choose he simply did both you know it seems for him there are no fault lines no positions only Mastery and design and execution and I find that and I find it interesting to look at the repertoire of Caesar who has been quoted as saying Architects don't invent anything they transform reality but then what is Caesar transforming you know in his repertoire one could say that there's the presence of anonymous vernacular buildings that coexist with the Architects such as Lois kobuze jjp out Molly Stevens Aaron Mendelssohn Auto among others whether it be deploying kobusier's horizontal ribbon windows juxtaposed with peers on the right instead of the columns as kobusi did as seen here Caesar integrates and transforms its influence into something that is completely his own for the sake of comparison if we examine the repertoire of Venturi Scott Brown for example I think we could equally decide decipher a rich repertoire of works and influences from the anonymous roadside architecture of the American Main Street that coexists with the language of Hawk small van brow luchens verness brazini Khan and on but but for me I think the difference between the the architecture of Caesar and Venturi Scott Brown lies not in the difference of their respective repertoires on their particular influences to their work and instead the difference lies in the diverging temperaments to what the demand for legibility on the of the influences so for example when one looks at a Venturi Scott bound building I think there's a probable sense that it is important that the for The Architects that one is able to recognize the reference and how it is transformed well when one's looking at a Caesar building one get a sense that the architect is doing everything possible to hide where the source of the work came from so the legibility for Caesar's resources are more Elusive and the references remain more as a Point of Departure to be erased than it ended itself to achieve this I think Caesar went through a long process of iterations where the references momentarily cease to be a language or part of an architectural lexicon this is an architecture of slow production and slow consumption this notion of slowness in the design process has been referred to by John summerson on Edwin lutchen's struggle with classicism and Hutchins who was brought up in the picturesque tradition of the 19th century was seized at the age of 35 when he was designing the house was seized by both the Splendor and the restrictions of classicism riding on the struggles with classicism and the difference between copying and embodying something luchin wrote the Doric order can one cannot copy it one would be caught instead to be right one has to design it from scratch it means heart labor hard thinking but if one would tackle it in this way one owns the order it is no mean game no it is a game you can play light-heartedly Legends describe this slow and arduous design process that could distill the essence of classicism to its core where the architect became in summersen's words with the orders as well as up against the orders so as the world is getting faster and the Cadence of building appears to be anachronistic is there a way for architecture to take advantage of its own intrinsic slowness if it's been said that the first digital turn pertains to making and the second pertains to thinking could fast thinking be complemented with slow making these are questions I Ponder these are questions I have while being reminded of the title of nice Vander Rose Manifesto with infinite slowness arises the great form I want to share with you a project briefly the Manila drawing Institute that Sarah had mentioned was situated on the 30 acre campus that included a rothko chapel from 1971 nearby Philip Johnson St Thomas University his last miseen project most notably Renzo piano's first building the manual collection of 87 sits as a large-scale object in the middle of single-family post-war single-family houses from a post-wall context all also together with these hundred-year-old oak trees in the 90s there were the Byzantine chapel and cyber Tommy Gallery so for us designing this project is really thinking about the negotiation between the scale of the institution and the scale of the pre-war houses some way is not that unlike what Camilo site wrote about in the ringstrasse problem in Vienna when you have all these large Optics how do you reconstruct the middle context I think we also looked into the history of the building you know many buildings of the mineral bear the essence if not the direct typological references of worship spaces or liturgical spaces like chapels Crypt even the Nave of the of the piano building so for us we really looked into medieval monasteries you know we looked into The Cloister types we looked at hortic hottest conclusives which are closed and open to the sky we looked at these bases of courses where the Monk Is owned banks are only by themselves versus The Cloisters that they are in contact with the world outside we look at at scales and and also configurations of these vernacular houses somewhere that we want to situate this between the scale of the residential and the scale of the institution I think from the perspective of our practice the Cadence of slowness had a positive effect on our office and its steady subsequent growth we also see pause as a positive effect on the field as I always try to pay attention to practices who are either one step ahead or one step behind I think that's always where the most interesting work is footnote number three on autonomy why autonomy because of recurring questions I have on my own namely what does architecture do best that no other disciplines could do another question is what is the reason behind the need for autonomy or the urgency for autonomy that called for the acts of Separation resistance opposition or taking a critical distance yes there have been moments in history where architecture questions its own worth you know especially when the relevance of the discipline is challenged or threatened from the outside late 19th century into war years in the 20th century late 60s and 70s when the world was experiencing drastic cultural and political changes I've talked about how architecture had looked forward and backwards at these times of the challenge architecture is also looked outwards and looked inwards at these moments when this Valley was questioned and I find it's often during these times when the theme of autonomy or the act of looking inward emerges while being aware of the opposite like when Walter Benjamin wrote about how real innovation in 19th century occurred outside of academically sanctioned practices or when writers like Victor shlovsky said that new forms of art are but created by the canonization of peripheral forms and of course how productive this distinction between the periphery and the center of the discipline could be questioned nevertheless the debate between The Fringe versus the center of Architecture is like a Apparition that never goes away he had two covers of the journal the influential Vienna based publication bow founded in 65 on the left you see Hans holline's famous issue titled everything is architecture in 1968 on the right we see Hermann check's issue on out of loss and Joseph Hoffman 1970 already representing the fault lines within the critical establishment between looking outwards versus looking inwards and in practice of the avant-garde of the 60s those who look outwards one could say the metabolism Japan price and akigram in the UK akizum and super studio in Italy and we can continue and then they met with the counterparts who look inwards of Rossi and grassy the Korea Brothers Matias ungres manchuri Scott Brown and Grays in the U.S perhaps the two most influential books that predominantly look back into architecture during this period was Rossi's architecture of the city and venturi's complexity and contradictions two books one European one American subsequently related to the respective neo-rationalism the tendenza and post-modernism of the time now while the Americans you know from Venturi Scott Brown to the New York five were looking at Europe through their own interpretations John Hayden emerges for me as a singular figure that was not as easy to be placed he had two posters of hayduk's exhibitions at the etiha in Zurich in the 70s and early 80s while there are many occasions that bridge a transatlantic divide between American and European Architects when think of the Europa American exhibition curated by Victoria gregotti the preceded portuguese's first architecture finale I think haydak painted a slightly different picture you know uh hit us work certainly haddock's early work certainly would be considered as autonomous of dealing with the interiority of architecture of drawings of production of projections I think his encountered with Rossi at the etiha in the early 70s not only generated opportunities for each of them to teach and exhibit at each other's institutions but actually affected haider's own work in a profound way one could see how The typological Primitives of Rossi's work were animated by Hadith into anthropomorphic or xeomorphic figures with poetic resonance in his Tech ciphered messages for a catalog of hadox exhibition here the GSD in 1987 wrote about the difference between Rossi and hayduk and I quote monao regard Rossi's City a static Eternal and immobile in which permanence is perhaps the most pronounced characteristic his city is thus associated with memory memory is inevitable background against which our lives are profiled architecture's ever-present materialization of our memory but in my opinion haydak City in these drawings is situated at the opposite pole of such a vision the city of haydock is continually transformed it is diverse Alive changing it responds to an infinite number of solicitations that are immediately reflected in this form the result of the city its architecture is change here again I think in Raphael's text the opposition between constancy and chain is again evoked the notion of autonomy points to a universality that transcends the specific but also one that transcends the local and Fisher on elox and turf are the historian ashitur and I have to thank my colleague Erica for a teaching me about visual airlock it's a collection of books that showed historical monuments Around the World published 300 years ago a few things stood out for me was arranged as a collection of examples like a Cabinet of Curiosities instead of arranging them chronologically all monuments were redrawn the same way a process of uniformity that normalized Regional Traditions a bit like the internet and like many operative manifestos fishes antwerf or acted as a source of his own work everything in book four where he focused on his own project so it also acted like a manual this notion of universality is a Trope of autonomy was noted Again by Rossi in the work of Palladio who compared his Venetian Palladio work versus the Palladio that is seen around the west of the world where palladian architecture is being developed like Jefferson's Monticello or the English palladian Architects like in this case Richard Boyle's Chiswick house where the work often surpassed Palladio imperfection in the Chiswick house case it resembles palladio's Villa copra but quintessentially English with its delicate facades and painterly interiors and without the muscular abstraction of the Italian predecessor Rossi continued by writing that once the fundamental and autonomous principles of architecture have been created they would develop themselves over long periods of time because what modern architecture wanted to attain sarasi however its notorious failure was due to the fact that it chose to induce rupture rather than represent continuity here we see two projects by miss van der rohe the left is his project for the Bacardi administration building in Santiago Cuba the right is the Neuer National Gallery in Berlin the Bacardi project in Havana was was designed first but the project was lost after the Cuban revolution in 1959 a few years later he had the opportunity to design The New National Gallery in Berlin and he transposed the same design painted it black and it became the most Germanic thing that this cross-column you know this combination between the the I-beam and the cruciform column was already developed in in for Santiago so this this dichotomy between universality and the local is something that continues from the context of the Renaissance in the Baroque of Palladio and Fisher Von erlock to the context of the modern and post-modern architecture of Miss vanderer and Aldo Rossi I have often seen the history of buildings I loved seeing them change over time like a balances like history of cities it's like for me it's like a chess game you know Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on top of the White House taken by down by the Reagan Administration it was like one one master makes a move another makes another uh I I'd like to share a chess game of sorts at the architecture chairs office here at gun Hall designed by John Andrews 50 years ago 51 years ago it's uh in the public in publication interventions a publication to celebrate the anniversary of GST Scott Cohen wrote a piece on an architectural episode that happens in the building he said that Monero upon arrival at his office as the new chair of architecture in 1985 discovered two closely Spades spaced circular Columns of unequal size in the chair's office that really bothered him now those who know the building this is the consequence of a design philosophy you know that we see in the Northeast side of the building in this case particularly the northwest corner detail of the building where cost Circle The Columns of decreasing size indexes the subsequent load each column respectively supports it's a functionalist Trope not unfamiliar to John Andrews who trained under Jose Luis sir and to the modernism of that modernism of that period maneo took it upon himself to build a rectangular box around the smaller Circle or column resulting in one square column and one circular column of roughly the same size evoking the classical tradition of pairing a square plaster together with a round column Scott I thought brilliantly noted that Monero wrestled these columns from the modernist rhetoric and placed them squarely within the classical turning Andrew's structural gradient into something classical as if Robinson Hall was restored in the heart of the new architecture Academy in the chair's office of garden Hall it's also interesting for me to look at to to take on Scott Scott's lead and to note the tectonic shift you know from the use of brick as a response to the campus versus the stone that we can meet in White's practice have been more accustomed to break building a plaster this inexacto even pixelated profiles to the palastas the contrast against the sharply profiled and tablishes and architrave that is more common in the work of making meat and white and also there used to be a lot more columns in Robinson Hall not all of them were part of the architecture I know some of them did survive and moved to gun Hall so to come back to manila's intervention in the chair's office now this device of the paired columns you know something mostly used in architecture from the 17th century onwards is itself divisive Cloud Pro considered couple columns to be structurally superior culture medicine contrast describe the paired columns as a fault and the first step to Vice I love it architecture can be a first step device and over time monero's paired columns have also experienced changes when inake balance became chair he walled in these two columns to create a large wall that supported a large screen then Michael Hayes excavated them and then when I assumed the chair in 2018 I erected a third column and a glass column that is triangular in plan and so for me this juxtaposition of it you know with Andrew's circular concrete columns and Monero Square drywall columns somehow evokes the family of platonic shapes you know which Kandinsky was a huge proponent of at the Bauhaus with gropius and instead of kandinsky's color shape Association it turned into a material shape Associates Association as we can see you know from the exterior the three columns the Papa Bear Mama Bear call them and then the the third one and then the new one in in the studio um so in this great Photograph by Nori uh Minami so what does it mean for this type of exercise beyond the chess game you know are we just looking for a beautiful game or what Brazilian football is called ojogo Bonito is this a capri a capricious project it certainly is you know in a time when we are facing seriously challenges in the world do we need linguistic games we do not but I think for me this is a small gesture I hope in this small gesture I hope architecture does not forget its ability to communicate to tell stories of its past stories that serves nothing more than a reminder of the relevance of architecture to construct better futures I'm curious to see what Grace would do to the columns and this this this for me is is really where the disciplinary autonomy matters as long as we don't forget the autonomy has to have an expiration date there are advantages of looking inwards but it should never be a Perpetual condition and there are advantages of building walls to provide respite as long as they are temporary as long as they are not xenophobic and have limited checkpoints I want to quickly show a few images of the model 11 art studios that we did at UCLA it's an industrial area in in Culver City I think this notion of the column versus the wall this is tilt up construction where columns are embedded we adopted a formwork where the shape of the column becomes Incorporated in the Tilt up Construction in the lineage of urban Guild or Rudolph Schindler but it also has to do with the notion of the industrial building versus a school versus the type of a palazzo has to do with tectonic and stereotomic construction the story of the column and the story of the walls okay the last two full notes are much shorter photo number four on America why America stems from the question of what context do we work in I've talked about history as the context of time I like to talk about the cultural context of where we work whether we work in America or not America has been culturally present around the world for looking forward to an extensive degree especially in the 20th century in this issue of casabella continuity titled architecture USA published in 1963 again edited by Ernesto Rogers designed by Kyle lenti it was an issue where the young Don in Linden before the completeness patient of Sea Ranch wrote a piece titled philology of American architecture Rogers in his editorial titled two Americas and one observed that Americans no longer think about their present and their future they have been trying to grasp a tradition on which to construct a unified language a language capable of expressing an autonomous reality or owing nothing to others Yes you heard the word autonomous in the same editorial Rogers also noted that the two different Americas were represented by two opposite poles on one hand there are the problems of the Metropolis sprung out of Industrial Development on the other hand of opposition to the Metropolis calls for small modest architecture built in wood and simple materials here Rogers is observing the coexistence of extremities in scale and in scope and the absolute absence of Middle Ground as an American condition and I'm always than one I think Roger's editorial piece foreshadowed the debates between the whites and the Grays in the U.S that would follow in the 1970s so by the way the students these are also the debates from where I stole the title five on five I think following the lineage of Outsiders looking at America with exotic lenses when baudryard took a road trip across the country in the 80s he was fascinated by its banality and strangeness the Luminous horizontality of Los Angeles the steepling gentleness of the skyscrapers in New York wrote about the desert the ultimate metaphor of America summarizing its qualities and Five Points of empty vast radiant indifferent and Sublime continues to hold Fascination for the rest of the world so when Florencia Rodriguez and myself was invited to co-edit the first and reformated Harvard design magazine in 2021 we chose America as the title and the theme of the issue why did we why why do we think we think we why did we think we should rethink America we thought at a time when globalism appears to be in Retreat when the hegemony of American culture appears to be in its waning years we felt it was a good time to re-examine the notion of America as a concept as a culture as a place as a state of mind as a country and as a history so the issue attempted to reflect on America's design and social cultural context through projects taxonomies dialogues text fictions spatial interpretations we try to collectively explore possible Futures and possible Americas when more than 50 contributors that included the likes of Michelle Lemmy Maurice Cox silver laven Ram Emmanuel Jenna Ireland Charlotte vonmos as well as the last published conversations with Dave hickey and Harry Cobb in the same way that America has been studied and interpreted by Foreign eyes and Minds the modern architecture of America has also bore memories of a continental past as well as adaptations if not complete reinventions that made them fit into American contexts perhaps this divide could best be encapsulated by two of Miss van DeRose columns the European cruciform column of the Barcelona and tuganda house the build version of this abstract Cartesian point to the American I-beam column of the Farnsworth secret building where the manufacturing process and mass production factored into its form we could compare this lineage in the scale of buildings one could say that Crown Hall already embodies they are the only thing that embodies of Shinko as an abstraction where the proportions of neoclassicism or the difference between gopia's own house in dasar versus his own house here in Lincoln where the Lincoln House attempted to find its own way its own Presence by incorporating American Construction components like wood siding or glass bricks or the difference between oh I went one too far sorry missed out on the Rossi and Gary but it's okay this one is really self-evident uh but I think unlike Europe uh I think Americans the American culture architectural culture never felt the conflict between this dark serious deeply moral Teutonic ideal and the sprightly festive Latin aestheticism both sentiments could co-exist in America you know the difference for me is the visibility of Europe has turned into the legibility of America and the essence of Europe has transformed into the presence of America in this sense the fire station of Venturi routes really embody for me the best of American architecture oh here here is the uh the The Rossi and the Gary I think for me the difference is Rossi was really building a reductive abstraction of the parts so where Kerry reintroduced what Rossi has discarded to recreate a palazzo That Never Was um kabuse published the book a house a palace they equated the house as a common denominator of all scales of projects I think in their own practice the single-family house has remained a common denominator you know whether they actually are houses or accessory buildings or some were designed as a house that became a photo Museum you know I think all these became for us barometers to measure larger or smaller scale projects you know this is for us really the the most American of types like even this one house in in Japan we thought of it as an American type I think also Reyna banham's Los Angeles the architecture of four ecologies were very important for us the book was written uh more than 50 years ago and Los Angeles has certainly changed but the Foothills The Plains of it the superbia the autopia in many ways was still there in the physionomy of the landscape but just much more intense so so whether it's more stereotomic houses or Boolean abstractions from larger volumes to the emergence of the frame in our work there always has a very distinct relationship to the exterior to the interior versus the exterior I think what Lois was talking about being gentlemanly on the outside and much more perverse in the interior I think this division is being more ubiquitous in a place like Los Angeles as opposed to where everything is open before everything is connected between the interior and the exterior I think this density is causing this type of differentiation between interior and exterior I think part of this group of work was was uh edited in a book that Sarah had mentioned edited by Rachel geyser that we also incorporate a lot of artists that we have worked in to interpret these houses and also try to find similarities between them so the last footnote is on point the lion point the phase on point refers to the relevance and appropriateness or the condition of just hitting the mark being just about right not too much not too little it's not an easy thing to do for me at least here we see two books by Kandinsky published 16 years apart the first is titled concerning the spiritual and the Arts where you talked about spiritual Revolution about painting dealing with psychology of colors and the inner lives the second to the right point line to plane was published after he went to the Bauhaus starting from point you know the moving the moving point became the line movement of the line became the the plane now if you look at these uh what did condensy drink the Kool-Aid at Bauhaus what do you think right if you look at these two book titles alone you might think they're two from two completely different authors you know one problem into inner psychological State the other proponent for an objective materialism but I do think Kandinsky is on point here did he have conviction in his theoretical position perhaps not so much but being contextual absolutely how do we do do it in architecture how could one be on point in architecture I like Wes Anderson's movie The Grand Budapest Hotel story set in 1932 for those who have seen it there was this music Gustav the concierge protagonist who set to zero the new lobby boy he said what is a lobby boy lobby boy is completely invisible yet always in sight a lobby boy remembers what people hate a lobby boy anticipates the client's need before the needs are needed a lobby boy is above all discrete to a fault it's not so different from the code of service by Cesar Ritz the hotelier who founded the Ritz hotel chain who was the first one to say the customer is never wrong he said see all without looking hear or without listening be attentive without being servile anticipate without being presumptuous if a diner complains about a dish of wine immediately remove it and replace it no questions asked I love it I think our cities would benefit from having more architecture that behave like a lobby boy the problem we have today is not that we don't have clear directives dictated by Missouri Gustav or Cesar Ritz the problem is that most of the time we don't know when a building should be a lobby boy when it should be a concierge when it should be a guess or when it should be an aristocrat well I know at a time when the discussion of equality is prevalent why am I referring to nomenclatures from class structures of a distance past because I do see within those social structures efforts and strategies of creating more equal and egalitarian society that's worth examining for example in a recently translated Copa out of laws he said I'm a communist the difference between myself and a Bolshevik is that he wants to turn all people into proletarians whereas I only want to turn them all into aristocrats these are two forms of equality you know one is equality by suppression the other is equality by elevation and for those he was he's he was referring to what he called mental aristocracy as opposed to a social economic one based on hereditary privileges where do we find equality in architecture for me equality resides in the generic specifically the elevation of the generic the generic is something that has certainly has been written about much written about from the ordinary of Venturi and Scott Browns that is coupled with the ugly to the generic or ramco house that is coupled with the city in the sense that for Venturi Scott Brown the ordinary is an antidote to the original for kuhas the generic is is the antidote to Identity history and context for Allison Peter Smithson what they call ordinariness is structured around the Notions of Association the as found or the use of repetition besides the generic ordinariness is also associated with the norm something that is typical or standard for which Pierre Vittorio already stated it best when he said that it's potential that its potential lies not in the rehabilitation of a norm but an analogical use of the norm as a form of exception I think this idea about the norm prompted me to write the text generic specificity five points for an architecture of approximation in 2012 which I like to read to you now 0.1 generic and specific architecture's most dramatic evolution in the last century has been the increasing fissure between the generic and the specific as internationalism at the beginning of the 20th century evolved into globalism at the beginning of the 21st the roles which generic and the specific architecture played in the course of globalization has been reversed while the international style of modernism assumed a generic form to homogenize and sterilize the specificity of local contexts the global architecture of late modernism has launched a counter movement which assumes a highly specific form to invigorate and overwhelm the generality of newly homogenized local local contexts Point number two distant polls at a time when anything goes when architecture architecture does not celebrate shared values when there is globalization without an international style when generic specificity is replaced by specific generality these two poles of architectural production Global and specific on the one hand local and generic on the other are more distant than ever before Point number three bottom-up assimilation previous attempts at reconciling the gap between Global and local production have predominantly been modes of resistance against the hegemony of a global imposition on local form from venturi's complexity to Frampton's regionalism from Rossi's analogical City to Unger's dialectical City more often than not such measures of resistance against top-down Global operations spawn nietzschean monsters of Their Own rather than a form of resistance architecture today needs a form of assimilation to reconcile the chasm between generic and the specific between Global and local space instead of a top-down approach to subordination architecture today needs a bottom-up strategy of integration instead of a suicide bomber approach to Defiance the architecture of avant-garde needs a radical the radicalization adopting a trojan horse approach of approximation Point number four the generic approximates the logo an architecture approximation provides a methodology which assimilates local typologies geographies construction methods symbols traditions and language as means to appropriate Global form on a building scale typologies and iconographies specific to the local contexts are deployed as a form of departure through processes of abstraction and adaptation to indigenous spaces are translated into a state of equilibrium suspended between being specific and generic between something which is familiar and foreign on an urbanistic scale generic volumes are used as a basic building block through processes of agglomeration the Primitive volumes are combined to approximate the specificities of the local Urban context creating a state which hovers between vernacular and determinacy and typological specificity Point number five a projective model the concept of approximation is an architecture straddling instrumentality and form provides a projective model of practice it is universal yet intrinsic to local constituencies being simultaneously specific and indeterminate it transcends language does not review its taxonomy at the outset but like a striptease slowly unveils its identity to those who give them time and attention it is direct and like science it does not does not beg to be understood but pleased for pleads for active involvement imbuild with life by the presence of habitation like a hater mass or team 10 intervention it oscillates between contemplation and participation it is not bespoke but lose fit suggesting similarity but not sameness unlike top-down approaches where Imperial forms impose on colonies and architecture of approximation rises from the bottom and provides a model for operating in the threshold between Global form and local space so it has been more than 10 years since I wrote this piece but it still resonates with me early in the lecture I had mentioned the term temperament and I do believe that the generic has to do with the temperament and most importantly being on point is less a matter of adopting positions than a matter of temperament while the concept of character is Central to architecture discourse in the 19th century the idea of temperament seems more relevant to me today when the past one would judge a building by its character and evaluate a building significance according to the principles and Architectural positions along with its symbolic content temperament instead denotes a building's psyche and tendencies for me character is disposition temperament is predisposition temperament is based from which character emerges none like the difference between climate and temperature the difference between temperament and character lies in the endurance in time I think in today's architecture World there are a lot more practices that offer a variety of different temperatures and characters but less that deals with climates and temperaments with convictions that could stand the test of time I would like to end this footnote with an image of a ruin of a Roman oil mill and briskane in Algeria just because I have at least one column in every chapter I feel obliged to make sure there's also one in this one you know and perhaps recall what Louis Khan said consider the momentous event in architecture when the wall parted and the column became so this concludes my five notes to one in architecture and to end my groping structure I will again quote Walter gropius who once said if your contribution has been vital there will always be somebody to pick up where you left off and that will be a claim to immortality I personally feel very satisfied to be the one who helped pick up where others have left off to play a role large or small to make other contributions vital if not making them immortal why because I have a fundamental belief in the discipline of architecture I believe that we are all destined to play our respective roles and collectively we made our discipline worthy of thought and worthy of discernment for myself I've devoted my adult life to pursuing this intersection between something that is ordinary and something that is magical this pursuit to do things that are kind of simple but possesses something perhaps intelligent perhaps something deep or something meaningful and there's somewhere and then if I'm lucky if the stars align there's a little tiny flick of magic that's the architecture I love that's what I believe in thank you very much [Applause] thank you [Applause] all right we're going to take five questions that was that was that was that was very interesting it was no it was um uh I it was it was very moving and also very telling I think um I I have one maybe small question I do want to open it up because I think there are a lot of people here who have a lot of questions but one question would be where does humor fit into your Five Points because humor as we saw in your delivery remains a huge part of your Arsenal and and I wonder where it where it fits human the work or in my personality I I think uh I'm funny I'm a funny guy no but I think for me for me humor humor is not the end you know humor is a way to open up a door and find a common ground you know I also like I also like to be humorous before saying something very serious you know I think it contrasts you know it has a reference you know and uh uh I think oftentimes uh there's so much depth in things that you need the entryway is not there you know it's so close and I think humor is something that sets a different tone and also creates a certain distance I knew you would have an answer no no I think that's actually absolutely correct it's your way of opening doors I think it's also your use of cadence in your approach to history and to all of these topics um I do want to open it up quite quickly because we we have gone quite long so I want to give people a chance to jump in we'll wait five minutes yes please Emmett thank you uh hi uh I enjoyed the lecture I had a question about the structure of it which seemed to learn from the period that you reference uh in such depth the post-war the idea of rendering your own work a kind of footnote to the history that you're putting forward something actually that came up in Eric's uh book five on five last week in reference to their monograph talking about complexity and contradiction you get to the end of the book and then there's Ventures uh work and it's something similar soon to be at work in your lecture you don't want to put the work first you want to ground it in a construction of history that it's in relation to and I wonder how much that's a conscious uh relationship that you're constructing in that method of looking at history as a kind of foundation for the work in terms of how you actually present the work itself similarly in your own book although it works a little bit differently because they're the you sort of foreground the artist over the the work but this sense of the work itself being a kind of footnote to something else maybe also in relation to the kind of question of operative criticism that came up today in the book launch like the architect as an operative critic as a not concerning ourselves with the historian for a moment but that architecture itself has to engage in this kind of Act of constructing a history in anticipation of itself or in support of itself here it's so clearly foregrounded in a way that we don't normally see you don't lead with the work thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you oh hello yeah oh thank you thank you thank you for the question I I think practically answering a question I just have done 90 of my lectures are lectures about our own work you know so I thought tonight is a good occasion to open up my closet you know and show other things besides my work and and I think I wanted to show some you know but not necessarily going in depth over it because for me I think how I observe these points or these footnotes are not necessarily ways for me to legitimize my projects you know so I don't know actually if there's a direct connection you know some of them may be obvious but I think it's more parallel between my observation of the field and my professional life you know sometimes I think being too for me at least being too self-conscious about it I I feel Shackled you know so for me having that slight distance is important because you have to change your mindset you know when you uh when you practice that's not that's different from being in Academia I think you know and I think I mean we talked about it in our own faculty meetings you know the mentality of an opener versus the mentality of a closer you know as a academic as an intellectual your your tendency is to open up things and ask questions you know but as architect you your tendency is to give answers and to give form you know and and I think these are two different uh uh temperaments if not mentalities that one needs to negotiate with the trick is you have to know which hat to where at which which part I feel yeah please worried about the clients that you have that are not sophisticated enough to understand the Academia part of it oh uh oh they're watching you now I I mean I I I I I can share with you my own education as architect you know what are moments that were important for me the first time I've seen a presentation of a um uh was referred to as lecturer Peter Eiserman he was talking about the syntax you know of I was I was blown away I thought wow this is a great building you know as a student of architecture years later I heard moneo talking about the Marseille block and he talked about in terms of the beiton Brut he talked about the formwork the roughness the the roof it was a very poetic reading I thought wow that's a great building you know many many years later I I've heard a contract a developer who does not care about Poetics definitely not syntax he said he loves this section of the maase block because it reduces the amount of corridors which are more expensive to build to less than 50 percent because it has a different fire rating and all the units have cross ventilation he thought it's a great building and that's the moment I realize great buildings have many different stories you know and being able to find the parallel story with your client with the developer with the student I I think that's what attracted me to architecture they're all these different layers and really part of the the importance is to find it's a shared project so how do you find the common ground whether it's the client whether it's engineer or whether it's the building inspector two down three to go John May you're really gonna do five huh I'd like you I like your rigor I'll pick it up from the best um I'll just put you on the spot Mark I mean um for for many of us uh especially if we ended up in La at any point it was it was never mark it was Mark and Sharon and I think I'm curious for you to talk about your partnership a little bit because it's it's you you two have been such a kind of solid team for so long um that it's I'm curious now how you reflect looking back at this body of work that obviously there have been a lot more work to come but um how do you think about that now or how has that changed over time well I think that of the work that I've shown the things that you would like is all because of Sharon I think it's your question about it is because of me no I think uh I think you know that many uh of these type of Partnerships you know Jorge Rodolfo you know that uh James and Grace you know there are many different forms of of combinations I think we both of us had been you know had a parallel track you know with Academia and and practice in different in different uh intensities you know but for the last 25 years since we had our practice certainly I think taking the chair position here was very different than a visiting professorship or just teaching you know that completely changed in terms of my involvement I had attention span to the office so this is something that I think I'm actually looking forward to the next five ten years to see how that would affect the practice in a positive or negative way Sharon do you welcome him back yeah more questions thank you um my question is where and why are all your buildings White well they're not I'm trying to think of how many buildings that we have done that's white okay I need someone no they're not white uh you know like the hill house was uh import uh was uh important project one of the early projects for us when we were building the house we invited Jack Pearson the artist to come in and and he looked at the house uh we have to decide what color to mix into this Grail code to coat the entire house we looked across the canyon and he noticed a lot of eucalyptus trees and he said why don't you use the the lavender color that occasionally appears on the eucalyptus bark as the color and for us that was incredible uh Revelation you know because it's it's something if you see that color it works well with the color of the eucalyptus with the leaves and the pigment and shrunk but it's not always there you know so it was a color that helped it to be both uh foreign at first but also grounded to the context in a pretty inexplicable way you know I think that's what we're always trying to do you know so if you look at that house there are some moments if the afternoon sun is directly on it it does look white you know but when the when the sun sets the lavender comes out you know I think that's the that's a moment that that I love you know yes the uh our very first house in Mafia was white because we're looking at a it was a very Mediterranean Sun you know we thought that that there's a history of the sun and the reflection of that and the shadow when we did the Manila was white because not only because Menzel piano did the white there but we also think the difference between a wall versus a column baragan talked about the wall as a place where the shadow of the tree can take a rest you know and and we wanted to have that that place as a canvas you know so thank you Antoine okay oh it's coming really two questions the first would be to get the text of your lecture because there was so much back to it that I really need to read it at that stage now the other question I had for you is not about history but it's about art because you know art seems to be extremely important in your life and you know the visit when we went to massmoca Etc you pretty much never stop to talk when you talk about art so and it disappeared a little bit in your five foot notes so I wanted if you could say a few words about the place it occupies in relation to architecture or not I don't know yes thank you Anton I I forgot who was the architect who said and it was said a long time ago okay who said if architecture is my wife what is my mistress and uh I remember I remember Frank Gary I Frank Erie talked about the importance of art for him not necessarily as a discipline or as a practice but as a as an odd world you know versus the architectural world and he said something to the effect where the art World exists but he is not really a participant so he doesn't have vested interest in it the way that the way that he he is an architecture you know and I think that for me or maybe I interpret it that way football for me was very liberating you know so I can really look at a work without any politics without any of its substructure and looking at it purely as work as a spectator and that was a parallel thing for me that keeps my mind fresh and keep me interested I think some of you who are into music you would I hear from musicians who say I'll never buy the album because that drama was you know it did something to me at a party you know I don't care you know and I I think having that world presence but not being in that world is something that's very liberating for me and inevitably there was some crossovers you know and we learned from visual artists of course we learn from conceptual artists it's not always that the work is directly translatable to the to the architecture work itself but this was something that um that was important for for sharing myself and for our office thank you so I think what's amazing about Mark is that so you read a lecture and you said it was one of your first times doing that it was a lot to take in fabulous very dense the captioner had problems with it um but but so we all do look forward to reading it but you answer questions in exactly the same way and so that's what I find actually so extraordinary about you is that you you write a text but you actually Converse in the same manner you're able to pull out footnotes from thin air and and references and package them in an answer that is generous and complete at the same time opening doors but also making clear statements and that's a very very unique trait it's something that I think is is you've brought to the school that you've offered us and that has really been extraordinary to watch this evening was an amazing performance of that but also a very generous offering of your way of thinking your way of working to all of us and I thank you for it thank you thank you [Applause]

Channel: Harvard GSD

Views: 14,746

Keywords:

Id: VKZr5rhkIPQ

Length: 91min 56sec (5516 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 10 2023