Function follows Strategy 9783955531973

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Prologue
Introduction
Marketing. How to Sell According to The Rules of Marketing
Icons. How to Sell Architecture Through Iconic Buildings and Familiar Images
Politics. How to Recognize The People and Problems Behind The Figures and Graphics
Throng. Ideas for a Fast-Growing Population
Developer. The Attempt to Generate Demand, or The Architect as Project Developer
No. 1. Making The Rules
Outlook
Epilogue
Interview
Appendix

Citation preview

EDUARD SANCHO POU

Function Follows Strategy Architects’ Strategies from the Fifties to the Present

F UNCTION FOLLOW S STR ATEGY

EDUARD SANCHO POU

Function Follows Strategy Architects’ Strategies from the Fifties to the Present

Author: Eduard Sancho Pou Editors: Cornelia Hellstern (project manager), Katinka Johanning Editorial services: Florian Köhler, Michaela Linder, Anna Zwenger Translations: Kirsten Heininger , Keiki Communication, Berlin Copy editing: Kathrin Enke, Ludwigsburg Art direction and graphic design: Christoph Kienzle, ROSE PISTOLA GmbH Typesetting /DTP: Simone Soesters Reproduction: Repro Ludwig Prepress & Multimedia GmbH, Zell am See (A) Printing and Bindung: Kessler Druck + Medien, Bobingen

© 2015, first edition DETAIL − Institut für internationale Architektur-Dokumentation GmbH & Co. KG, Munich www.detail.de ISBN: 978-3-95553-196-6 (Print) ISBN: 978-3-95553-197-3 (E-Book) ISBN: 978-3-95553-198-0 (Bundle)

This work is subject to copyright. All rights reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, recitation, reuse of illustrations and tables, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in other ways, and storage in data processing systems. Reproduction of any part of this work in individual cases, too, is only permitted within the limits of the provisions of the applicable copyright law. A fine will be levied. Infringements will be subject to the penalty clauses of the copyright law. Bibliographical information published by the German National Library. The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographical data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Cover: James Rouse (1914–96), urban planner, project developer and strategist

Contents

P R E F A C E p. 6

P R O L O G U E p. 8

I N T R O D U C T I O N p. 10

HOW TO SELL ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF MARKETING p. 20

HOW TO SELL ARCHITECTURE THROUGH ICONIC BU I L D I N G S A N D FA M I L I A R I M A G E S p. 46

HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS BEHIND THE FIGURES AND GRAPHICS p. 70

I D E A S F O R A FA ST- G R O W I N G P O P U L AT I O N (IS THERE A MO D EL THAT C AN BE REPE ATED AT WILL?) p. 92

THE AT TE MP T T O GENER ATE DE MAND, OR THE ARCHITECT AS PROJECT DEVELOPER p. 110

MAKING THE RULES p. 134

O U T L O O K p. 162

E P I L O G U E p. 172

I N T E R V I E W p. 174

A P P E N D I X p. 184

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PR E FA C E EDUARD BRU

This book’s message is clear: To work as an architect, you need commissions. To gain commissions, you have to operate in the market for intangible goods – because in contrast to fruit and vegetables, say, when you contract to build something, the good you are selling does not yet exist. For this reason, some architects have developed business strategies – even if, as the author points out here, they don’t always want to admit it. A building intrinsically reflects its design strategy. What are the relationships between the sales strategy and the strategy used to develop something material and habitable that brings together all the necessary parameters, such as usage, form, technology and materials? Is one strategy more important than the other? Didn’t the design strategy once determine the sales strategy? And isn’t the reverse true now? What would happen if both culminated in a single strategy? And would it be interesting if it were so? Certainly, students don’t learn what the author calls “sales know-how” in the course of their architecture studies – or rather, he posits that it has not been taught until now. So his thesis that supply now determines demand is new to

us. It also contradicts the generally held belief that demand determines supply. Given these new conditions, how should an architect deal with small and medium-sized budgets, and what about large ones? Is only a repetition of what works possible in the first case – while in the latter the architect can design without sense or purpose, simply because the money is there? This analysis also includes the context and boundaries within which the author’s heroes – or perhaps anti-heroes? – move. Rem Koolhaas, for example, always tries to derive a system out of everything, beginning with his two companies, AMO and OMA, whose names mirror each other, through to the commissions he obtains to create buildings with great symbolic power. What Koolhaas sells is ideas and designs. Clearly, they meet a demand for symbolic values; at the same time, however, they maintain credible architectural principles: logic in structure, flexibility, repeatability, circulation and an avoidance of trivial ornamentation. I would assume that for Koolhaas, the idea of selling enters into a project as an additional component – the necessity of selling is not

Preface

negated, but rather used deliberately to interact with other variables. After his extensive and thorough research, Sancho Pou has established that the major change lies in the increasing involvement of corporate clients, who demand strategies. But is this really a major change? In its original form, classic Modernism was characterized by a tireless defence of the strategies of its protagonists – from Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier to Mies van der Rohe – against all comers. The enemy, though, is not one of the architects analysed by Sancho Pou, nor is it the “seller” of strategies; the true enemy is the architect who keeps going round in circles by himself and who never innovates. This brings to mind Walter Benjamin’s “Angelus Novus”, who, with his eyes turned to the smouldering ruins of the past, is relentlessly driven by a storm into the future. Benjamin’s storm stands for progress. Sancho Pou’s modern Angelus Novus, too, moves through a chaotic reality and finds a way to bring order to it, even if we don’t necessarily realize it at first.

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PROLOGUE “ W H E N T H E W I N D S O F C H A N G E B L O W, S O M E P E O P L E B U I L D WA L L S , O T H E R S W I N D M I L L S ” CHINESE PROVERB

Some architects deliberately use strategies to obtain commissions, to sell designs, to create buildings. This book describes their approaches in closer detail. If these seem at times to be purely marketing strategies – and some are – it is partly because economic considerations govern every phase of a project, from the initial designs through to the end result. Sales strategies are not taught in faculties of architecture, because the view has always been that an architect should not “sell himself”. Nor are they discussed among colleagues, because nobody wants to reveal the secrets of his success. Consequently, there is very little concrete specialist literature on this topic, even though there have always been architects who have been able to sell their ideas with great skill. For this investigation, articles published on architecture in the international press – with a focus on economic aspects – were analysed and classified. Ordered by topic, the examples covered in this book are taken from the period between the middle of the past century and now. How could it be otherwise? The analysis starts with the beginnings of marketing in America.

Up until the Second World War, companies oriented their production almost entirely towards demand. When the war started, however, producers had to increase their output of certain goods to previously unimaginable levels. At the end of the war, it became clear that production surpluses had resulted. Marketing began in post-war America, when companies were forced to develop strategies to attract consumers to their products. In this context, experts began to apply their understanding of economics to architecture. They started to demand buildings whose amortization would not be based on usage, or sales or rentals, but on the effect they would have on consumers of a certain brand. From then on, developing a building was seen as just another investment in advertising. Architecture came to be associated with intangible goods such as image, brand, power and experiences. The examples presented here are drawn from practice; their selection can be justified by their economic and political success. The aim is not to evaluate the built architecture itself – not because the result is unimportant, but because the focus here is on the strategy that led to its creation.

Prologue

Each chapter deals with real cases, drawing parallels between a specific 20th-century architect and a subject of the current architectural discourse. It will become clear that sales strategies are not a new phenomenon, but that they follow a pattern in their individually adapted form. The architects’ biographical details illuminate the times they lived and worked in, the conditions they started from and the ways in which they succeeded – or failed. What is interesting is the moment at which they risk their professional careers and bet on a strategy whose rightness can only subsequently be determined by the market. Surprisingly enough, three common elements have emerged among the strategy-deploying architects profiled here: they prefer building to designing; they are skilled speakers; and they are connected in some way with the West Coast of the United States. They are Frank O. Gehry (who lives in Santa Monica), Art Gensler (who lives in San Francisco), Charles Luckman (who worked in Los Angeles), William Pereira (who is from Los Angeles), Quingyun Ma (who is a dean at USC Los Angeles), Jon Jerde (who works in Los Angeles) and Rem Koolhaas (who, inspired by his time in Los Angeles, launched AMO). California is a place of opportunity, where results count for more than theory. In California, everybody is working on a strategy for success. The list of the designers of real architecture can be expanded here to include designers

of virtual and software architecture, such as Steve Jobs (who founded Apple and worked in Cupertino) and Larry Page and Sergey Brin (who founded Google, based in Palo Alto). This may seem surprising, but it is justified by the transformation architecture has undergone. Companies no longer simply commission a building designed to represent them. What they want is a strategy that will enhance their brand, their efficiency and their sales. Delivering all this is now part of the job of an architect. When we understand how the market functions, when we know who or what we are being exposed to, then perhaps we can “get on a wave and surf it”, as Koolhaas suggests. In other words, knowing the rules of the game is the basis for getting ahead. The challenge, especially in today’s world, is a huge one, because crises have changed the professional profile of the architect. We can no longer afford to operate solely within an architectural discourse whose language only we understand; we have to speak the language everyone else understands: the language of strategic discourse. Some architects are no longer simply designing buildings; they are concentrating on designing strategies. We need to start researching these to find out how they function and where they could lead us. We will certainly need them if we hope to convince society that we can still be of use to it.

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INTRODUCTION WHERE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE?

We live in a society in which companies and even individuals try to sell us something every day. This is most apparent in the ubiquity of advertising. The scramble for ratings, for a larger audience share, has spilled over from the mass media into our everyday environment and has even reached buildings. To understand this phenomenon, it’s best to borrow from advertising’s own methods and make use of images. An image is worth a thousand words in the attempt to convey the concept of strategies in the marketing of architecture. Two examples will serve to illustrate both the initial situation and the way things are today. The first example is a Joseph Beuys installation from 1980 titled “Wirtschaftswerte” (economic values), which can be taken to represent architecture in the mid-20th century. In the ample display of merchandise, the products are not in  competition, despite their abundance. Similarly, every architect once had enough space to develop his project (his object) and place it in its surroundings (on a shelf ). The objects, like their forms, are diverse, but convey a certain feeling of unity, distinguishing themselves from the gold-framed paintings behind the shelves. That generation of architects, then, all employed the same design

Wirtschaftswerte, Installation (1980), Joseph Beuys, S.M.A.K., Gent

Introduction

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Telephone bids for 99 Cent II Diptychon, photograph (2001), Andreas Gursky

tools in their attempts to outdo previous achievements with a new kind of architecture. The second example, a photograph taken by Andreas Gursky in 2001 titled “99 Cent II Diptychon”, represents architecture at the beginning of this century. Its scope has been expanded; there is more merchandise on display. More architecture is being designed, and everyone is trying to stand out. Given the prevailing  monotony of the goods, only those that offer the brightest yellow, the most stripes or the biggest box count. Manufacturing the packaging is of course expensive, as is seducing consumers, but if you want to sell, you have to attract attention. The result is visual chaos. Everything seems perfectly ordered, yet it is  difficult to distinguish one package from another because so many things are  vying for our attention that they all seem the same in the overall mass of objects. If we have to be guided by neon signs to find the right lemon-based hair conditioner that fights dandruff and smells of honey, and we don’t understand the order of the system, we won’t be able to identify the product and the product won’t find a buyer. Sales strategies can help one to grasp how to present oneself in such a fragmented commercial space and how one’s own product – be it a toothbrush or a building – can achieve prominence. The desire to stand out and develop an individual design language is resulting in increasingly arbitrary and playful forms in architecture. There is a push to build buildings we don’t need. Designs which don’t even try to solve problems and which serve only to boost sales are in demand. Every effort is made to persuade customers and win over the public, but it is all done on a scale and at a price that in practice is turning out to be too high.

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S AL E S ST R AT EGIE S: A D E F INI T I O N B A S E D O N VA R I O U S C O N C E P T S

Hotel Puerta América, exterior view, Madrid (2005), Jean Nouvel

Hotel Puerta América in Madrid opened in 2005 to huge media fanfare. The reason for all the press attention was the building’s originator, Jean Nouvel, to whom it owes its structure and “packaging”. A different architect or designer was commissioned to design each storey, so there is one floor designed by Zaha Hadid, one  by Norman Foster, one by John Pawson, one by David Chipperfield, one by Arata Isozaki, one by Mariscal, one by Vittorio & Lucchino, and the list goes on to include other famous names from the 18 firms of architects involved, which is how many floors the hotel has. There’s a reason it’s called the “Hotel de las Estrellas” (Hotel of the Stars). Some have vehemently criticized the hotel. They can’t understand how awardwinning colleagues, who have built great buildings, could “lower themselves” to work as “interior designers”. What the critics don’t understand is that the involvement of the star architects is just what gives the project its power of attraction. The sales strategy determined the hotel’s design. If you look more closely at the Puerta América’s floor plan, Nouvel’s simple division becomes clear: there is a central building core with lifts, 18 identical storeys, and textile shade elements printed with a message1 that can completely cover the facade – it seems like a container. Revisiting Gursky’s photograph, you can find parallels. The products on the shelf must differ from each other in their form, choice of colours and especially in the feelings they evoke. At the same time, they should also represent their company. Extending the supermarket metaphor to the hotel, the architect’s work is transformed here into a product that has to fill a shelf, namely a floor of rooms. The more typical the design, the more easily it can distinguish itself from other advertising vehicles.

Hotel Puerta América, Zaha Hadid (first floor): room and bathroom

1 The poem “Liberté” by Paul Éluard (1895 – 1952)

There are any number of reasons why architects would participate in this project or lend their names to it. Perhaps one of them has been promised that he could build a hotel in London for the same chain. Another joins in because his participation in a competition in Madrid is under threat and he wants to appear in  the media to boost his public profile. The next might get involved because he hasn’t built anything in Spain for a long time and believes that this hotel project might help him to relive past glories. Yet another participates because he’s not actually an architect but wants his name to be mentioned in the same breath as the big names. And then there are the rumours that someone has paid to get on the list. Even if it’s not important in this context, it should perhaps be noted that people have always been willing to pay to get on to bestseller lists: the publishing house that buys up entire stocks of its own books to enhance its sales figures, say, or the recording company that sends young people out to buy

Introduction

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the music of a singer whose career they want to push. Is that permissible? Do we  think this is a good thing? For many, for too many, being on the list is all that counts. Hotel Puerta América in Madrid is a good example of a concept, a design serving one paramount goal: sales. Although architecture has been used to raise companies’ profiles for decades, the situation has intensified recently. Clients are using architecture for marketing purposes, just as they invest in advertising or provide special offers to launch a product on the market. In the company’s annual balance sheet, the costs of architecture are entered under marketing costs. So which architect is on which floor in the “Hotel of the Stars”? The client expects that demand will be strongest for the rooms designed by Zaha Hadid, because of her extravagant shapes. So he puts them on the first floor, because these rooms usually remain unoccupied in a multi-storey hotel. He knows that guests want a nice view and don’t want to hear or see traffic, so he works against their wishes. He strategically puts the drawcard rooms on the lower floors and hopes that guests will endure anything – even spending a night in a room on the first floor – to be close to their favourite star. Inadvertently, this reveals a kind of internal ranking by the client. The first floor is assigned to Zaha Hadid, the second to Norman Foster. Both have won the Pritzker Prize. The third floor was given to Chipperfield, eternal runner-up in the race for big prizes. So those three, of all choices, are right at the bottom here, solely for marketing reasons. This building sells feelings: the feeling of spending a night in a room designed by a star architect. It sells an opportunity to wrap oneself in sheets designed by Zaha Hadid and illuminate one’s bedside table with one of her designer lamps. Even the corridor, also by Hadid, suddenly arouses interest. After all, the hotel guests are buying immersion in the Hadid Universe for a certain period of time. Should they grow weary of the curves and miss right angles, they will find Foster’s English perfectionism or Nouvel’s stimulating black on the very next floor up. There’s something for every taste. So the architect has become part of the offer. If you want to use sales strategies for yourself, you first need to figure out what you could offer that would help you conquer your own market niche. Hotel Zouk is also worth a closer look. It was designed by an unknown architect and has yet to be featured in any design magazine, but its concept is interesting. The hotel belongs to a Mexican chain specializing in so-called “discreet” hotels that rent rooms to couples by the hour. As it is situated in a commercial area among factories, you are unlikely to run into any acquaintances here, unless they’re visiting the establishment themselves. You can check in without getting out of your car. Reservations and payments are made on the Internet. Guests arrive in a parking garage made up of enclosed parking spaces and leave their cars there.

Hotel Puerta América, John Pawson (ground floor): foyer; Marc Newson (ground floor): tapas bar; Arata Isozaki & Associates (10th floor): room

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All paths are one-way, so you never meet anybody, even when entering or leaving your parking space. From there, you get to your room directly via a staircase. At the top of the stairs you will find just the room, no corridor. Hotels always try to keep corridors as short as possible, and here there are none at all for guests, only long, winding ones for the staff, who never get a glimpse of the patrons. The price of a room depends on its size and amenities, which range from a whirlpool to a swimming pool in a secluded garden with a waterfall. There are no rooms facing the street, no views, only skylights. You also won’t find any decorative art or superfluous design. The building has just two storeys – it doesn’t need any more. The parking spaces on the ground floor can be closed so that no one sees any telltale number plates. The rooms are directly above. The building takes up a great deal of room, but this is not a problem, as guests drive their cars right under their rooms. All the rooms have an internal roof terrace that lets in light and air. This creates an inner courtyard that guests can cross in company without being seen. From a purely tactical point of view, there is little difference between Hotel Puerta América and Hotel Zouk. Both position themselves by making use of the potential of their interior space, dispensing with the external environment and offering their customers a selection of facilities. Their concepts are based not on considerations of functionality or form or context, but solely on a business model. From all this we can derive the following definition, which will be tested over the course of this investigation: “A building can be said to be based on a sales strategy when the main criteria for its design are economically motivated.”

PRO J ECT V E R SU S S AL E S ST R AT EGY Since this is an initial definition, the issue now is how its scope and boundaries can be set, where decisions regarding just the design stop and where a sales strategy begins. These are not easy questions to answer, particularly as many architects tend to speak a different language with each conversation partner. Their line of argument depends on whether they’re talking to a colleague or a client, whether they want to explain the quality of their design or “sell” it. The Amsterdam Silodam project by MVRDV is the conceptual antithesis of Hotel Puerta América: a huge block designed by a single firm of architects, in which each section and every storey has a different facade. The result looks like a giant Lego block with multi-coloured stripes. Every resident can recognize his flat, even without counting the floors up to it. The building’s uniqueness makes it stand out from its surroundings. Its striking design is doubtless intended to impress neighbours and potential buyers, justifying the extra costs of a different

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Silodam, Amsterdam (2002), MVRDV

design for every floor; it is unclear, however, whether this business model will turn out to be effective. If Silodam is cited as a good example, then every striking building represents a sales strategy; yet this is not the case. Here we are in the realm of the subjective, of interpretation, where there is no black or white. It is a world made up of shades of grey, in which decisions that serve the sale are intuitive. They are lauded either because of their architect or because of a special design. It has thus far been regarded as positive and as a matter of course that an architect would want to “sell” his style. This opinion changes immediately, however, when an architect adapts his style to his client’s interests. Then he is accused of being “commercial”.

CONTEXTS Time was, before the rules of the market had wormed their way into art, when writers did not win literature awards simply for going on promotional tours, when painters did not fake auction results to push up the prices of their pictures. Back then, star chefs were not yet willing to sell sauces bearing their names in supermarkets. We are all increasingly prepared to acknowledge that we are looking for commercial success. And if we as a profession should ever have any scruples, the client will soon remind us who is paying for the building. Most buildings today are more or less designed to sell well. We are not yet aware that this development is unstoppable and that it is set to transform the entire architecture scene.

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In this context, it is worth taking a look at the world of jewellery retailing. As recently as ten years ago, small, local jewellers could turn a good profit. Once you were established as a jeweller, you could make a solid living over the years. Customers came because they wanted a special gift for a family anniversary, and because jewellery was regarded as a safe place to put one’s money. It was at once an investment and a kind of savings account, with the added pleasure of owning a diamond, a pearl, a pendant, a watch or the like. Now, most small jewellery shops are closing. Wearing a ring set with a pearl has gone out of fashion. Now what counts is not the value of a piece of jewellery itself, but the value of a brand. Armbands from costume jewellery shops sell well  if they are brand-name products. Instead of a real piece of jewellery, we would rather buy a leather armband covered with glass beads for the same price. But it can’t be just any armband; it has to be from Dolce & Gabbana or Tous, who convince people of their products’ value with incredible marketing campaigns. We no longer buy real values, such as gold, silver or diamonds; we buy fictive values. So costume jewellery boutiques are multiplying in shopping malls, while small jewellers’ shops in urban neighbourhoods are disappearing or barely getting by because all they do nowadays is change watch batteries. This situation appals the incredulous jewellers, who feel they are the real experts and are in a position to tell what is valuable. And they’re probably right, but marketing strategies are driving them from their traditional place. Translating the situation of the jewellery business to architecture, we can identify similar tendencies. The small architects will give up, because they don’t understand the concept of brand value. They don’t understand that a design, a slogan or simply the name of a foreign firm of architects will win a competition. They are unaware that their profession has changed and that potential clients are now looking for new values. Here, too, the problem lies in setting a price and in understanding that a building’s value doesn’t depend on what it cost or on the value we ascribe to it as experts. The price is determined by the market. This is the point where sales strategies come in – tools that make it possible to determine a building’s future value. Let’s consider the case of Herzog & de Meuron, who integrated a work of art into their skyscraper at 56 Leonard Street in Tribeca, New York. It may seem anecdotal, simply another eye-catcher on the building, but this is not the case. Anish Kapoor is a widely renowned English sculptor of Indian descent, famed for, among other things, his installation in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London. His sculpture “Intervention”, now installed on the skyscraper’s ground floor, cost the client more than the fee of the famous Swiss architects who designed the whole building with its 145 apartments.

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Intervention, sculpture, Anish Kapoor, design / rendering

The client paid for the sculpture, though, because he knows that he can assign a share of its value to every storey. He will be able to explain to every potential buyer that their new apartment, apart from its value as real estate, will be worth more thanks to its renown in the art world. Therein lies the power of the sales strategy.

O RIGINS AND HIST O RY The definition is formulated, the scope is demarcated, the applications of the sales strategies have been described – all we need now is an answer to the question of when they first emerged and what their origins were. Where did it all begin? Chicago in 1893. The World’s Fair coincided with the celebrations marking the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, so it was a unique opportunity to show the world that Chicago, after its disastrous fire of 1871, had risen like a phoenix from the ashes. It would enable the state to free itself of the stereotypes that it was inhospitable and wind-parched, or that it reeked of blood because of the city’s many slaughterhouses. Daniel Burnham was appointed architect in charge of all construction works, with a focus more on his role as a leader than on any artistic activity. After all, his was the important task of investing the funding as profitably as possible. He took on the role of mediator and coordinated the work of service providers and architects, seeking out renowned architects such as Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Follen McKim and Louis Sullivan. At that time, Frederick Law Olmsted was already a

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famous landscape architect, with projects such as Central Park and the Vanderbilt House in New York to his name. Charles Follen McKim had completed some showpiece buildings in his Beaux-Arts style on the East Coast. The Chicago World’s Fair was held shortly before he made his breakthrough as an architect with the Avery Library at Columbia University and with Penn Station in New York. Louis Sullivan was later to be instrumental in the development of the skyscraper and become Frank Lloyd Wright’s “spiritual father”. In an attempt to pay tribute to women’s rights activists, Burnham also hired the first female architect, Sophia Hayden, to design the Woman’s Building. As well as the pavilions, Burnham commissioned the building of canals along which electric boats would silently glide. He chose white as the colour in which everything would be painted, a move designed to convey coherence and consistency. Not for nothing was he working to present a clean and unique city. His Chicago was to glitter in Edison’s electric light at night, and be brought to life by the spectacle of Buffalo Bill, complete with Indians and blank cartridges. No effort was to be spared to attract tourists and visitors and dispel prejudices against Chicago. Another goal was to outdo Paris. The French capital’s hosting of the World’s Fair in 1889 was the reference project. If Chicago was able to win the bid, it was because no other city – not New York, Washington, DC or St. Louis – would be able to surpass the World’s Fair in France, neither in its splendour nor in the overstated awareness of its power that the Eiffel Tower radiated as a symbol of progress, technology and the future. Burnham had no doubt that he would find American architects who would know how to steal the iconic Eiffel Tower’s thunder. After several projects were rejected as implausible, unfeasible and unaffordable, a solution was found that was entirely in tune with the times. It was, however, less a building than a structure, a work of engineering artistry. The engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., proposed building a “Ferris wheel”, a huge wheel hung on an axle, on which people sat in cabins like train carriages that turned in a circle and from which the passengers would enjoy a panoramic view – an unforgettable experience. So the world’s first Ferris wheel was built in Chicago. It delivered everything Burnham demanded. It also unites all the sales strategies that will be addressed in the chapters of this investigation: · It stands in a real economic context, costs money to use, and thus generates profit. · It is a landmark, has become a symbol of the city, and can therefore be expanded and repeated. · It has been embraced by the masses: thousands of people have enjoyed it and it attracts and fascinates visitors to this day.

Introduction

· It serves political ends: politicians profit from its popularity because it placates the citizenry and briefly distracts them from real problems such as crime, health risks or lack of infrastructure. · Its foremost goal is sales: the selling of a World’s Fair, of a city and of a country. Originally, Burnham wanted an unprecedented building. He posed the right questions, but he didn’t have the means to answer them. More than 50 years would go by before the first building based on a sales strategy was built. It was an edifice whose client deliberately tied an excessive investment in a building to an increase in a product’s brand value and who knew that the costs would be returned not through the value of the property itself, but through a boost in the company’s sales figures and/or through a reappraisal by customers or consumers. Based on this analysis, he built the United States’ first skyscraper with a curtain wall facade in the International Style. He wanted it to stand out so markedly that he would be featured in all the magazines and on the television news. This building is Lever House, built in 1952 in New York by Gordon Bunshaft from Skidmore, Owings & Merrill and promoted by Charles Luckman, the first architect with an expertise in marketing strategies. This book starts with his story. “The show is about to begin.”

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Chapter 1

HOW TO SELL ACCORDING TO THE RULES OF MARKETING

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In the middle of the past century, Charles Luckman, himself an architect, began applying the methods of marketing to architecture. He had already very successfully implemented marketing strategies in large companies by occupying himself intensively with his clients’ needs and processes and by helping them to achieve the goals they set with an optimum use of the funds available. His approach was similar to that of a management consultant. He worked at the client’s premises so as to thoroughly get to know and understand operations and to stay in constant dialogue with the staff. This enabled him to develop a useful and efficient solution. Constructing a new building was a last resort. Before such a step was taken, he would do an in-depth analysis of all the renovation and conversion possibilities of the client’s existing buildings. This process made it possible to go back to models that had already been used with success. In his eagerness to satisfy others, Luckman did not pursue his own style. Rather his firm planned buildings based on the client’s style, clearly focusing on the client’s goals. He created architecture that lacked the “signature” of its architect and that was characterized by the following qualities: problem solving, compliance with a set budget, and long-term value creation. An architect must understand the mechanisms on which decisions made by the board or by

shareholders are based, justifying his decisions in relation to their impact on the client’s business situation. With this approach, a client is no longer obliged to recoup his investment in a building through amortization. This opens up the option of increasing individual budget items for the maintenance and construction of buildings. Justifying a building project based on capital returns implies that the building is seen as an independent advertising medium. A single building can change consumers’ perceptions and create what is for many companies a desirable intangible value that eventually results in higher sales figures. The building may also be used to optimize the working processes within the company. If the quality of the working environment improves, there will be positive effects such as a decrease in absenteeism, an improved loyalty to the employer, and a boost in productivity in the medium term. Going far beyond his classic role, the architect provides consulting services. Whether he charges for his services no longer depends on whether a building is built or not. The architect now earns his fee by providing the company with added value and helping its board to make strategic decisions. Luckman is an example of this practice. Comparisons and parallels with other architects are described in the final chapter. It will become clear that architects like Gensler or Koolhaas interpret business strategies for the companies they work for or even help entire countries define their identities.

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MARKETING AND ARCHITECTURE: FROM SOAP TO SKYSCRAPERS1

1 Borrowed from the subtitle of Charles Luckman’s autobiography, Twice in a Lifetime: From Soap to Skyscrapers. New York /London 1988

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rchitecture and marketing are two very closely linked disciplines. If you can’t persuade others, you won’t be able to sell, so an architect must be able to design as well as seduce. An online search using the terms “architect” and “marketing expert” yields not greats such as Norman Foster or Renzo Piano, creators of major projects that sell well, but personalities such as Benjamin Netanyahu or Ratan Tata, who are unexpected in this context. It’s surprising to learn that the Israeli Prime Minister holds a degree in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1975) and an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management (1977). Ratan Tata, former chairman of Tata Motors, one of India’s biggest companies, and developer of the Tata Nano Car, completed an architecture degree at Cornell University (1962) before going on to complete an MBA at Harvard Business School. The connection between architecture and marketing harbours great potential, exploding the boundaries of the architectural profession. Every architect has his own method of attracting customers. In one camp are those who prefer a traditional approach and who use personal or family contacts, participate in public tenders, or rely on the prestige of awards or university courses. In the other camp are architects who have developed new forms of approaching potential clients: architects like Cedric Price, an Englishman who joined of all kinds of societies and associations to make contacts and establish himself in society. He belonged, of course, to the Architectural Association, but also to more than 20 other associations and institutions, including the National Mouse Club, the National Lending Library and the Hot Staff Club. Membership in all these groups offered Price a way of understanding society and allowed him to use them as a “preliminary sieve” to find projects that nobody had yet commissioned him with. Taking the initiative – that was his kind of marketing. No one embodies the symbiosis between architecture and marketing better than Charles Luckman (*1909 in Kansas City, †1999 in Los Angeles). The key to his success – first in retail marketing and later in selling architecture – was doubtless his power of persuasion, with which he seems to have been born. He was the student body president at primary school and later in high school. During his architecture studies, he represented his fellow students at the University of Illinois and was renowned for his unbeatable eloquence. He spoke well in public and was able to make his case convincingly. All this was of little use to him, however, when, after completing his studies in 1931, he set out to look for a job during the Great Depression.

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Earning a paltry wage as an office clerk, he was barely able to feed his young family. By night, he was taking his first steps as an architect and working as an illustrator on advertising campaigns for the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Company. There he had difficulties convincing his superiors, who systematically undervalued his work, of the uniqueness of his ideas. But Luckman would not be cowed and kept insisting that he did good work. He argued that if a product could not be established on the market, it was due to the inability of the sales staff. So in a period of deepest recession, he was made to visit the retailers himself. He acquired seven new customers in a single day. “On Chicago’s tough South Side, Chuck Luckman sold soap to seven of the first eight stores he visited. Later he (Luckman) quipped: ‘If I couldn’t sell soap in a dirty slum area I might as well quit.’ He went on to chalk up an office sales record.”2 In fact, Luckman’s success was not based on the advertisements he illustrated. His tactic was to offer the proprietor of every shop he visited, in return for buying his whole batch of products, an illustrated sign with the shop’s name on it as a gift, on the condition that the logo of Luckman’s company would also appear on the sign. He invested a great deal of time in negotiations and won the trust of potential customers, which was soon clearly reflected in his sales figures. The company recognized his talent and moved Luckman to the marketing department, where he soon broke all records. At 30 he became president of Pepsodent and at 37 president of the multinational Lever Brothers company. He was made president of Unilever before the age of 40. During this entire time, Luckman was not working as an architect, but learning – or more precisely, developing – the methods of modern marketing. With the help of Arthur Charles Nielsen (who later marketed target-group-specific television viewing using the AC Nielsen Method), he integrated market analyses and sales quotas into his strategy and spearheaded discount promotions in large shopping centres designed to entice the masses. He invested large amounts of money in advertising and succeeded in sponsoring Bob Hope’s radio programme, the most popular show of its time. Major soap brands were the most important advertising clients of these programmes, which is where the term “soap opera” originated. It was the beginning of reality TV, the music of Bing Crosby and the heyday of radio as an advertising medium.

Charles Luckman. Cover of Time magazine, 10 June 1946

2 “Old Empire, New Prince”, Time, 10 June 1946

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Charles Luckman proved that he knew the secrets that were vital to selling a product, right down to the last detail: its positioning on the market, the advertising for the product or the sponsoring of a programme to introduce new offers. He was also able to balance accounts so that they always showed a profit.

Pepsodent products. Detail from an advertisement run during the Second World War telling consumers, “Don’t waste Pepsodent” (1942)

3 “Unilever corporation“, Newsweek, 6 June 1949

He became a legend in his own time, at one point advising both the White House and the unions, while also negotiating deals for cleaning products, oil, toothpaste and instant soup. Unilever was already a retail giant in both major business sectors of the time – margarine and soap – and had positioned itself as market leader in consumer goods. Dove, Omo, Hellmann’s, Knorr, Lipton, Lux, Magnum, Rama, Rexona and Sunsilk are brands or brand-name products that Luckman partly or wholly developed and that are still on the market. “Unilever became the world’s largest corporation outside the United States. It grew into an ordered maze of incomparable intricacy, more widely dispersed along lines of geography and product than any other corporation in the world. Unilever owns and operates five hundred and sixteen companies and employs nearly two hundred thousand people in every country of the world – barring only Russia. The American subsidiary, Lever Brothers, used the managerial talents of men like Charles Luckman. Around the world, they took in $1,364,000,000 in 1946, on which the profit was almost $48,000,000.”3 Determined to offer excellent product design, Luckman hired French industrial designer Raymond Loewy, originator of the Lucky Strike packaging and the Shell logo, among others. During Luckman’s tenure at Lever, the Frenchman not only helped Pepsodent products become extremely popular, he also improved the working environment for the company’s staff. For example, Loewy designed the interior of the canteen at Lever’s headquarters in Boston, where almost 1,000 employees ate daily. This canteen, with its view of the Charles River, sported vibrant colours and was air-conditioned, which was highly unusual at the time. With such building projects, Luckman always fell back on what he had learned in his architecture studies; with this intervention, he made the company more attractive and more innovative. In the early 1950s, Luckman decided to merge the Lever Brothers offices, hitherto located in Boston and Chicago, and bring them to New York. The move would enable him to better manage the company’s various business activities; he would be closer to the research and development laboratories in Edgewater, New Jersey, and could work together with the Big Apple’s best advertising agencies. Organizing the move, restructuring the team and looking for housing for their families involved an enormous managerial effort, but Luckman was able to convince the shareholders that the investment would pay off within three years, after which the company would again be competitive. At the time, the firm’s survival hung in the balance. If it was to make a new start, it needed a building that would symbolize this change.

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Lever House, New York (1952), Gordon Bunshaft (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill): the first building whose design was based on sales strategies

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4 Luckman, Charles: Twice in a Lifetime, op. cit., p. 242

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“The responsibilities I kept for myself were to select the permanent and temporary sites in New York City, to choose the architects, and to determine the size and design concept for the new building. After all, I was an architect.”4 Luckman chose Park Avenue, because it was the country’s most expensive area and all the buildings there looked venerable. It was the perfect place to show off a new building that would become the city’s biggest attraction. The building was designed by Gordon Bunshaft from the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, with its headquarters at 390 Park Avenue, almost directly across from the site where the Seagram Building would later be built at 375 Park. He decided on Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. The very fact that they had not yet designed an office building meant that a greater openness in developing ideas and concepts was expected of them. Luckman wanted the building to have character and inspire people so that they would appreciate the potential and quality of Lever Brothers. He wanted to achieve this impression by leaving large parts of the lot unoccupied to create a public square at the foot of the building. Not using part of the lot for the building was already a great luxury. The design also dispensed with commercial premises, cafes or restaurants on the ground floor. Only Lever Brothers employees would work in the building, so they would be completely surrounded by the company. To loosen the multinational company from its British-Dutch roots, only American materials of American provenance and processing and application were used. The company needed a connection with America, and a glass skyscraper would distance it from the usual Victorian way of building. Lever House is an example of the International Style and was the first building of its kind in New York with a curtain wall facade. Behind the facade is a courtyard open to the public, which proved to be a pioneering concept for other buildings in the district, such as the Seagram Building. The fact that this project was ever realized was entirely owed to its developer, who had an understanding of architecture and wanted a daring design. Luckman demanded large glass facades like the ones that had worked so well in  his shops. The more glass, the more people would come. He sought open spaces, like those in large supermarkets, while office spaces were usually strongly  subdivided. He wanted to work with steel, because the shiny material was associated with the future. This is how his retail experiences informed the overall design. “With a 63-car underground garage, the Lever was designed so that an executive could drive from the suburbs, park, have lunch in the third-floor company cafeteria, even play a round of shuffleboard on the landscaped second-floor terrace, and go home – all without ever setting foot in the dirty, chaotic city.

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Lever House was the first sealed, fully climate-controlled building, with fixed windows held in place by aluminum mullions, so that Lever employees did not even breathe the same air as city dwellers.”5 When the design was completed, Luckman asked the architects to build a model. This he took with him to London to Lever Brothers’ headquarters. He wanted to pitch the project to the 24 British and Dutch managing directors; he wanted to convince them that this was the perfect solution for the company. “Then I went to work to sell it to them.”6

5 Nash, Eric P.: Manhattan Skyscrapers. Princeton 1999, p. 103

6 Luckman, op. cit., p. 243

The sight of this innovative building left all the board members speechless, apart from one, Arthur Hartog, who in his Dutch accent cried, “Shuck, it’s dif-f-fer-unt!” Luckman argued that never before had a building with such qualities been built, that the curtain wall facade’s green-blue tinted glass would reflect the sun’s rays, radiating the clean image of a soap manufacturer, which is what they were, while the contrast to the stone and marble of adjoining buildings would emphasize the structure’s exterior form. The building was to be organized as follows: a horizontal two-storey structure housed the accounting department on the first floor, and an inner courtyard let light into the ground floor. A staff cafeteria, with a large terrace above the gardens and the street, was planned for the second floor. From this level, a 20-storey building would rise vertically, accommodating the offices of Lever Brothers’ board as well as other offices for the expanded company. Only half the site was to be occupied; Luckman defended this with the argument that the unused space would allow the building to “breathe”, so people would be able to concentrate on its “pure” lines of glass and steel. Luckman’s hardest challenge was to explain why the company should dispense with commercial space. To do this, he drew three columns on a piece of paper. The first column represented possible income from rents from ground-floor retailers and banks. The second column stood for taxes on this profit, demonstrating how the latter would fall as a result and become negligible as a proportion of the company’s sales volume. The third column stood for the costs of a page of commercial advertising. Luckman was sure that the building in itself, if its design were only spectacular enough, would be a subject of multi-page spreads in newspapers and magazines and, as a result, the brand would get coverage at no additional cost. Luckman: “If you will let me do what I want, I will get millions and millions of dollars of free advertising for Lever Brothers from all around the world.”7 Despite a seven-hour meeting, the committee could not come to an agreement on the building’s design, but Luckman was confirmed as president of the company in the US, thus gaining full decision-making powers. This move, designed to prevent divisions in areas of authority, was a key success for Luckman, as it meant that nothing now stood in the way of his building.

7 Ibid.

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“When Lever House was in the early design stage, Skidmore experts spent days assembling an impressive array of arguments against ground-floor shops, e.g. shops would require basement storage space that might better serve as a Lever garage, in bad times the company might have to subsidize the shops to give the building a prosperous appearance, etc. By the time the soap-men got to see the final soaring design, they were dead set against shops. ‘They liked what they saw,’ says Skidmore, ‘and they wanted something more than a quick profit.’

8 “Ready to Soar”, Time, 28 April 1952

‘A client,’ architect Skidmore once said, ‘usually feels confidence and pride that a structure is being designed for his particular problem [...] In this way modern expression of his problem seems natural, and contemporary architecture has sold itself.’”8 Shortly after construction began, however, the unexpected happened. There were disputes between Luckman and the board. Lever had made losses in the detergent market due to strong competition from the Procter & Gamble group and there were disagreements on the future orientation of this area of the business. They could not agree, so after some tense meetings with the managing directors of the British and Dutch arms of Lever Brothers & Unilever, Ltd., Sir Geoffrey Heyworth and Paul Rykens, Luckman resigned his contract. Now aged 40, Luckman asked himself what he would do next. He rejected offers of high-level leadership roles in financial companies and industrial corporations, even those with important political ties, because the work involved was always the same. He needed new challenges. It was at this time that he received a package containing the final paper of this architecture degree. A former fellow student, William Pereira, had kept it all that time and now advised Luckman in an enclosed note to return to architecture.

9 “The Man with the Plan”, Time, 6 September 1963

Pereira: “Chuck, for 20 years I’ve had my eye on this guy. That’s why I saved this. I think he’s mature enough to return to the fold. How about it?”9 Aware that the only thing that had satisfied him in recent years was Lever House, Luckman rose to the challenge. If you consider that he was the best-paid executive of his time, with an annual salary of $300,000, that he was known as the “Boy Wonder of American Business” and that his image was comparable to that of Steve Jobs during his time at Apple, you can imagine the fuss his departure caused after his meteoric rise as a businessman. But his new direction was driven by his desire to return to his roots and start afresh as an architect.

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Charles Luckman and William Pereira: the businessman and the designer

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Luckman was not just any architect, but an architect with marketing expertise who, together with his former fellow student, was able to start one of the US’s biggest firms in just one year. For his part, Pereira had always been interested in the world of acting. He believed that an architect, like an actor, had to be able to get “under the skin” of what he was building. At the time he headed an office with six employees. The two men founded Pereira & Luckman Architects, Los Angeles, CA, and each held half the shares in the enterprise. The mixture worked. Luckman was the businessman and Pereira the designer. Pereira sketched and Luckman pursued commissions. Luckman was starting from scratch as an architect, but with the advantage of having acquired entrepreneurial skills in his preceding years as a board member of Pepsodent and Lever Brothers. The boards of large companies knew and trusted him. They were also were his potential clients. To obtain commissions, the partners worked to develop a unique selling proposition that would distinguish them from other architects. They presented themselves as a firm able to ensure detailed cost controls and adherence to building deadlines. Luckman knew that architects as a rule were unable to keep to deadlines or budget limits. He explained to potential clients that in every case in which he had awarded contracts as a client, delays had developed and costs had shot up. His firm offered precision and strong leadership. Still, Pereira and Luckman were on the lookout for a new market niche. They were aware that they could make up for their lack of experience with their powers of persuasion, but also that there would always be another architect who could do the same job better and faster. In order to grow, they had to stake out an area in which they would have few competitors. They found such a niche in the television boom. Television had become a mass phenomenon by the early 1950s and needed its own spaces for the production of broadcasts. Studios at the time were usually housed in old theatres that had been converted with endless networks of cables. That solution was not very functional, because there was no storage space and no access to permit the offloading of sets. Luckman decided to give their architects’ office a specialization in building television studios. He had no expertise in this area, because nobody, himself included, had ever designed a television studio from scratch before. But he knew well the demands of show business from the many radio programmes he had dealt with as a sponsor and advertiser. Now, in television, he was meeting the same people who had once worked in radio. Pereira knew how film studios looked, and Luckman persuaded him that the difference between those and a TV studio couldn’t be all that big. They got their first opportunity from William S. Paley, founder and chairman of CBS. A month after opening his office, Luckman met him in New York. Paley knew

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that Luckman understood the differences between radio and television, and asked him how long it would take to build a complex in Hollywood, where he wanted to consolidate the network’s entire production. Luckman took the plunge and assured him that he could build the complex within 22 months if the CBS board were involved in the planning from the outset. Luckman: “Bill, I could have our entire team here in New York in three days, and with Frank’s and your participation in the planning, we can have your new facility planned, designed, and constructed in twenty-two months.” 10

10 “Bill” here is Bill Paley, founder and chairman of CBS; “Frank” is Frank Stanton, president of CBS. Taken from Luckman, op. cit., p. 283

A budget of $13 million was made available for CBS Television City. The architects had to learn quickly and began with “market research”. As he had once done at Pepsodent, Luckman researched the opinions of the building’s future users. His architectural firm first drafted employee surveys and carried out research into how the television of the future would look. Everything was adaptable, because nobody knew exactly how the implementation would work. First of all, an idea for the project design had to be found – a concept they called a “Sandwich Loaf ”. There would be a central thoroughfare wide enough for a truck. Warehouses were needed on each side of it for storing sets and costumes, and the control rooms would be next door to these. Then came the studios and finally rows of seating for audiences. People would be able to enter the studios from outside without coming into contact with technicians or bothering the actors. The design was simple and was well received. Now they just had to fit the technical equipment in. “Many significant design features, copied innumerable times since throughout the industry, were first conceived and executed successfully here. There were new electronic lighting and audio systems, flexible ‘elephant trunk’ air conditioning ducts, a new batten counterweight system, de-mountable exterior walls, suspended audience monitors, camera runways, control room configurations, and audience seating plans that are still part of the accepted wisdom of television production today.” 11 They also designed the “sponsor mobile”, a crane-mounted glass sphere with comfortable seating in which the sponsors could sit, suspended over the action. From there they could see and hear everything, but none of their complaints about the waste of their money could be heard on the outside. CBS Television City was the first building specially built for television. Fifty more television stations followed. CBS alone commissioned Luckman and Pereira to convert two dozen former theatres in New York to television studios. Their conversion of a former dairy (Old Sheffield Milk Barn) had the greatest public impact. This building, in which cows had once been milked by machine, was redesigned to serve as a recording studio for news and daily series. The former cattle ramps were used for the trucks carrying costumes and sets. The production studios were

11 Steele, James (ed.): William Pereira, Los Angeles 2002, p. 88

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CBS Television City, Los Angeles (early 1950s), Pereira & Luckman: the first building especially designed for TV

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built of prefabricated components, so it was possible to move the walls as required. Cutting rooms were made of former cow stalls and a laboratory out of the pasteurization rooms. Rooms in which milk was once tested now became executive offices; the “Diet Milk Bar” became a staff canteen; and the cattle feed store was transformed into production suites. The concept worked. Luckman and Pereira were able to adapt and optimize the existing structures. Ultimately, they specialized in finding solutions to problems – which was what Luckman had always done. While they were opening an office in New York, the Federal Communications Commission issued licences for 2,000 new television broadcasters, each one needing its own studios. Among many other projects, Luckman and Pereira were involved in building various production facilities for the ABC network in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. After just one year, and in the middle of the CBS Television City construction project, they found another new market niche with the military – or more precisely, the military found them. The CBS building so uncannily resembled an army base with a large telecommunications centre that a stunned military leadership sat up and took notice. The architects’ sign at the construction site put the military on the right track, and so it came that one day, two lieutenant colonels of the Air Force appeared in Luckman and Pereira’s office. They wanted them to build a military base for jet planes. Jets were a new technology managed by the Air Research and Development Command (ARDC), today’s NASA space agency. The visitors asked them to draw up a design for Edwards Air Force Base, where the country’s best test pilots, later to become the first astronauts, were to be trained. But that was all still a long way off. During the negotiations, Luckman and Pereira assured the military that they could fulfil the task, although in fact they had no knowledge of jet technology and no way of knowing the significance of this development. Their ignorance  revealed itself in the initial price of $2,000 that Luckman quoted. But luck  was on his side, because the surprised expression of his interlocutor prompted him to add immediately: “Per sheet of drawings, of course.” In response to the next question of how many sheets would be necessary, the architect said about 40, so an $80,000 contract was concluded. The plans were to be submitted within two months. Luckman and Pereira first gained an overview of the site by flying over it in a helicopter. They then sought out the necessary experts: military consultants, aeronautical engineers, instructors. To find out what their client needed, they consulted everyone who could give them any information, down to the smallest

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detail, about the technology involved. There was no doubt: the military didn’t need design, it needed functionality. They considered the supply and maintenance of aircraft, security protocols and noise protection measures. It became clear to them that the contract would involve a construction bill of between $30 million and $50 million – for the first phase alone. In his presentation, Luckman decided to outline all the alternatives they had investigated along the way instead of just coming out with final construction plans. His tactic was to present a proposal, then explain why that particular option had not been pursued further. This was the very same “trial and error” method he had seen the military use. Luckman and Pereira were awarded the contract because they spoke the same language of strategy as their new partner. The architect used it to obtain the contract for a project, the military to win wars; but it was a common base that allowed them to grow closer. As their relationship strengthened, the contracts expanded. In 1953, the firm was awarded the contract for a project worth $300 million to build five Air Force and two Navy bases in Spain, including a base in Rota (Cadiz). Luckman founded a joint venture with other firms: Metcalf Eddy from Boston, a heavyweight among engineering firms; Frederick R. Harris, Inc., marine engineers from New York; and Shaw Dolio, architects from Chicago. This team developed the project, while Pereira and Luckman developed the master plan and coordinated the works. Luckman’s tasks also included holding meetings with politicians and the military. During the four years of the project, he went to Spain six times a year to supervise the work of the 150 engineers and architects from the US and the technicians on site. To prevent communication problems, the entire project documentation was done in English and Spanish. Luckman had always had a talent for leading groups, and the results here bore that out: the bases were ready on time and within budget. Their meetings were not impeded by the Franco regime, although the architect described Franco as a dictator who simply dismissed certain topics by inviting everyone present to coffee with brandy. The construction of a large supply depot in the town of San Pablo in Seville is the subject of one of the many anecdotes from this time. It was scheduled to be built in an area subject to flooding and thus not particularly suitable as a location. The US military rejected the architect’s application to change its site, because Congress had already approved the project. Luckman showed himself as resourceful as ever. The location he was proposing was no more than 30 kilometres from the original site, so Luckman convinced the Spanish government to redraw San Pablo’s boundaries so that the new location would still be in the same municipality. The warehouse could then be built as approved by Congress but in a place in which there was no risk of flooding and inundation.

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Luckman’s work with the military was not limited to constructing buildings, but later included consultancy as well. General Partridge, head of the ARDC and in charge of approving the building of Edwards Air Force Base, contacted Luckman with a “minor” problem. The general didn’t know where he should hold the trial launches of the first rockets and guided missiles. His team could not agree. Half of them thought they should be launched from Patrick Air Force Base near Melbourne, Florida, while the other half thought it would be better to build a new launch base at Cape Canaveral, 30 kilometres to the north. Luckman investigated the assembly and launch procedures and decided to first find out everything about every step involved. He found out that the rockets were built on the West Coast and transported by plane to Patrick Air Force Base. There they were taken apart for transport and driven by truck to Cape Canaveral, where they had to be rebuilt for launch – a launch that failed 99 per cent of the time. After a failed launch, the rockets were again disassembled, loaded on to trucks and transported back to the west coast. The architect suggested an exact analysis of the duration and responsibilities of this process using a time and motion study. He had always done this at Lever Brothers when checking the production chain. Using this method, he identified the real problem, which was that the rockets had to be taken apart after they were delivered by plane, because they could not be transported by road in one piece. The sensitive and extremely dangerous material was suffering from this constant handling. Luckman figured out that the rockets needed to be flown directly from the factory, without first being dismantled, to the launch ramp at Cape Canaveral, and he developed the right infrastructure to do it. His approach proved highly efficient. North American Aviation and Douglas Aviation were very pleased, because the material stayed intact, so they agreed to a trial launch of two rockets. Both launches were successful and Pereira and Luckman were awarded another contract of astronomic proportions: the master plan for Cape Canaveral. Consultancy became Luckman’s speciality. He solved business and logistical problems connected with the development of companies and the construction of buildings. A master plan that bundled an entrepreneur’s ideas became his main tool. One example of this is his cooperation with Walt Disney, whom he knew personally from his time at Pepsodent. At that time, Luckman’s task had  been to look after the sponsoring of the Snow White radio show. It was broadcast in summer as a replacement for the Bob Hope Show, but it was not a success. Nevertheless, Disney now turned to him again, commissioning him to develop a master plan for Disneyland. Walt Disney knew what he wanted, but he had no idea of the space required or the costs of building a theme park as he

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envisioned it. He initially commissioned the architects to plan Disneyland on a  three-hectare site. Luckman showed him that this would be impossible. So they looked for another four hectares of land, then later eight and then twelve hectares, but each time the site turned out to be insufficient for all the planned attractions. Luckman proposed a 20-hectare site, but Disney lost his nerve and stopped the project. It seemed to him disproportionately expensive. That was in  1952 and Luckman’s office had not yet carried out any economic feasibility studies, so he recommended commissioning a feasibility study from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). After four months, the SRI presented him with an answer; a 65-hectare site near Anaheim at a price of approximately $12,500 per hectare was the ideal site. It was close to an area with restaurants and one of the first theme parks in Los Angeles, Knott’s Berry Farm. Disney liked the study’s results and again commissioned Pereira and Luckman to develop a master plan. Now the site was big enough, but Luckman recommended buying more building land to develop office buildings. A furious Disney described him as “land hungry” and “crazy” and refused to listen to him further. The park was built according to the design specifications of Walt Disney, who had all the exact details in his mind. It was an enormous success, and just two years later Disney wanted to expand the park with a new attraction, a replica of the Matterhorn. He bought an adjoining 16-hectare site and had to pay around $100,000 a hectare for it. That was the price of success. Years later, when Disney built Disneyworld in Orlando, he would not make the same mistake twice and bought 11,000 hectares of land from the outset. The new project was also crowned with success, so he used the “extra” land to build another theme park next to it, the Epcot Theme Park. Luckman’s management consultancy was involved in selling not only figures, but also ideas. It offered new concepts, turning established notions on their heads. His firm was commissioned to expand the Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. The hospital needed another 100 beds but had only a very small budget, so either the budget would have to be increased or there would have to be fewer beds. Luckman proposed a third option. The 100 beds would be used exclusively for convalescing patients, for those who were already recovering and were about to be released. These patients did not need rooms with an oxygen supply or similar facilities, but only had to regain their strength before leaving hospital. Without all the extra installations, all 100 rooms could be built within the set budget. Once again Luckman had proven his worth. Within five years, the firm of Pereira & Luckman employed 400 architects and had a turnover of $1 billion. Luckman and Pereira gained great recognition for their ability to understand their clients’ needs, for their fast execution and their deter-

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mined compliance with planning goals. Luckman was persuasive because he spoke his clients’ language and understood what they wanted, usually for their shareholders. He knew all about logistics – how businesses were supplied and distribution centres managed – and used this knowledge to develop his master plans. Never before had an architect thought about using particular spaces in a different way or about organizing complex systems. Luckman and Pereira designed the master plan for Los Angeles airport, the first airport with several storeys to optimize flows of passengers from arriving and departing flights (see pages 54ff.). They designed the master plan for the University of Southern California, in the process developing a “vocabulary” to define the function and design of the buildings they were currently planning as well as future buildings. They were selling the future at a time when nobody knew how it would look. In future, a building or a structure would have to be able to adapt, grow and change so that investors could be sure that their investment would never lose value. So many business concepts, so many costs controls and so many deadlines to meet with so many employees to manage: Pereira und Luckman were almost overwhelmed by their success. Suddenly Pereira no longer wanted to go with this powerful flow: “It was like working in a factory. Everybody was standing in line with projects for us to do, like a line of railroad cars waiting to unload. I don’t say we were doing inferior work; I just know I wasn’t doing my best.”12

12 Pereira quoted in “The Man with the Plan”, op. cit.

In 1958 Pereira decided to leave this project development factory and start afresh. Luckman bought out his share in the company for half a million dollars and was now in charge of all projects. He made most of his employees minority shareholders in the company and ran the office under the name The Luckman Partnership, Inc., although it soon came to be called just CLA (Charles Luckman Associates). Pereira’s departure caught Luckman flat-footed. He lost a partner who had lent projects their architectural finesse, an expert who was able to bring him back down to earth and talk to him as an equal. In the search for a replacement, Luckman turned to the universities, recruiting promising graduates – outstanding young people with new ideas and a hunger to build. To show that his firm had lost none of its vitality, he organized an exhibition of all his works in the California Museum of Science in the summer of 1959. The exhibition was titled “A Biography of Architecture” and presented construction models, photographs and drawings of 30 buildings, focusing on “aspects of construction cost control, facility planning, engineering, research and analysis, master planning and construction management.”13 The reorientation of the firm, which had always taken its character from Luckman’s way of working, was quickly completed. It continued to be awarded major

13 Luckman, op. cit., p. 335

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Disneyland, California: The images show the development of the site from July 1954 until the park’s opening on 17 July 1955.

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contracts and to enjoy high profits. In 1961, it prevailed over 100 competitors, winning a competition to build Houston Space Center. Astronaut Jack Swigert’s famous transmission during the aborted Apollo 13 mission, “Houston, we’ve had a problem”, would one day be received there. Just one week after John F. Kennedy was elected President of the United States, Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the immediate construction of a control centre for special rockets in Houston, Texas. Luckman consulted with all the experts he had already worked with on building the military bases in Spain, among them Wernher von Braun. Determined to be able to talk to NASA people in their own jargon and to strengthen rapport, Luckman began learning all their acronyms and other terms and building them into his vocabulary.14 His firm won the competition, but there was no time to celebrate their success. They had to design a complex of 49 buildings within 48 working days, a demand made by President Kennedy and conveyed to the winning team by NASA administrator James Webb. In taking on the contract, Luckman made certain preparatory demands, as he had previously done with the CBS Television City building project. He would arrive on the following Monday with his entire team, so by then 100 fully equipped drawing workstations, four conference rooms and five offices were to be set up for him within NASA. In order to clear up any possible problems with the help of technical experts, and to be able to consult with them daily, he needed direct communication with those experts, so he demanded that all the heads of departments should work in the same place as his team. He also demanded that nobody in the NASA leadership should take time off over Christmas and New Year’s, so that he could keep his appointment to appear at the White House on 3 January 1962 at 10 a.m. On the day of the presentation, shortly before entering the meeting room, Luckman was told that the meeting could last no longer than ten minutes. This was a strict instruction resulting from the NASA leadership’s workload. Decisions had to be taken quickly and be effective, and no time could be lost. It was recommended that he should go into his final master plan straight away, but Luckman refused. He remembered his previous experience with the military. He knew that they had to understand why a certain solution was being pursued and why all the other options previously considered had been dropped. So once he was sitting before James Webb, he ignored protocol and made him the following proposal: among all the master plans he had investigated, there was only one that worked, but he would need an hour to explain why. Although he knew that he had only ten minutes, he began to explain everything from scratch. After seven minutes he stopped and asked whether he would have the further 53 minutes he needed or whether he should get right to the final design and end his presentation in three

14 Ibid, p. 393

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minutes. Webb liked Luckman’s approach, so Luckman began explaining the design’s benefits. After another seven minutes, Webb told him to stop, but only to ask his secretary to change that day’s schedule. He wanted a whole hour with Luckman. Luckman got the green light to develop the project. In order to comply with the regulations of fourteen different authorities, he engaged six firms of architects and thirteen firms of engineers. And so the building that became known as the “Shoot-for-the-Moon Base” was built. It was planned for the preparation of the flight to the moon, the fulfilment of Kennedy’s dream. Simulators were available to test every phase of the flight. Everything was tried out in them: test runs for the moon landing, studies on the atmosphere’s effect on the equipment, etc. Control centre staff oversaw flight operations on 90 monitors distributed throughout the building, following events in the capsule step by step and staying in constant contact with the astronauts. On 16 July 1969, the news that “The Eagle has landed” reached Earth. Neil Armstrong had set foot on the moon. Images of his heroic deed and the sound of his voice were transmitted to Luckman’s building and broadcast all over the world from there. Luckman became very influential, his power and credibility growing in business circles as well as among politicians. It was thanks to this position that he was able to build the Prudential Tower in Boston, a privately financed project that was at one point the costliest investment project of the 1960s. As well as other facilities, the complex included a 52-storey skyscraper, a 6,000-seat auditorium, a 1,000room hotel and apartments for 4,000 people. Luckman insisted on building this high-rise with 52 floors, against the clients’ original plan for 50 storeys, for reasons of psychology. If anyone wanted to build a higher building, he argued, he would have to build one of at least 60 storeys in height, because a 55-storey building would seem too close to the size of existing buildings. His building was therefore Boston’s highest for a long time. He had followed the same strategy in building a 62-storey skyscraper for the United California Bank.

15 Ibid, p. 329

Besides, this way he could also build an observation deck over the 50th floor. Because the clients were unable to come to an agreement on this, Luckman offered to keep the licence for operating the observation deck for himself and waive his $1 million fee in return. Impressed by Luckman’s proposal, the clients finally agreed to the construction of the observation deck: “If it’s good enough for Chuck, it’s good enough for us.”15 It cost an extra $200,000, but in the end provided the best return on capital of the entire building complex. Luckman had taken risks jointly with clients on other occasions as well. When they built the Marineland of the Pacific in Palos Verdes, there was initially no financing available. He was offered his fee in the form of shares and accepted.

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After three years, he sold his shares back to the client for triple their original value. He was prepared to take risks because he had a sound intuition about whether a project would be successful. His clients recognized this and noticed that he liked taking big gambles. Some put all their trust in him because of his demonstrable experience, others because he would put a $1 million “guarantee of success” in the contract. The architects entered a competition to build Aloha Stadium in Honolulu, a venue in which baseball and American football teams would play. To establish its feasibility, they carried out intensive research and studied the works of Pierre Luigi Nervi and Kenzo Tange. They went to most of the baseball stadiums in the US and noticed that most of their seats could be removed so that the stadiums could be rearranged for American football, but that such a rearrangement would only yield 5,000 new seats. A different solution for accommodating both sports had been built in Kansas, where two adjoining stadiums had been built for $50 million. The Aloha Stadium project, however, had only a $25 million budget, so they needed a different solution. They decided that it would be best to make the audience seating mobile so that the stadium could be rearranged to meet a wide range of demands. They contacted various American engineering firms to begin designing this “mobile stadium”. They decided to divide the audience seating into six sections of equal size. Four of them were to be technically equipped to be able to move 61 metres in a 45-degree arc. Each stand weighed 1,500 tons. They knew that their plan could be put into practice, but, as so often, they didn’t know how and at what price. On the day the various firms of architects presented their designs, Luckman began his pitch by spreading out the drawings and explaining the considerations and studies that went into them. Finally, he presented an electric model that caused a sensation. At the touch of a button, the model began to reconfigure itself, moving from seating for baseball to a different arrangement for American football. This spectacle had the intended theatrical effect. There was absolute silence and palpable tension as the model whirred. Would it really work? When the model had completed its conversion, there was applause and cries of “Bravo”. They had won another competition. Back in the office, they considered ways of putting their ideas into practice. They searched the archives of the Patent Office in Washington for something like “mobile seating” and found out that the Boeing Company used air-filled cushions to move aircraft over their assembly line. Boeing put them in touch with Rolair Systems, a Santa Barbara–based company that specialized in transporting heavy objects. They claimed initially that moving an entire section of stands in a stadium weighing more than several thousand tons would be simply impossible.

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Aloha Stadium, Honolulu (1975), Charles Luckman Associates: the world’s first multifunctional stadium. Arrangement for American football, for concerts and for baseball (from left to right)

16 Ibid, p. 370

On closer examination, it proved to be feasible after all. The next problem confronting them was drainpipes, because inside the stands there would be restaurants and toilets connected to the local wastewater system. Once again, the solution came from the world of aerospace. The Air Force was able to refuel aircraft in flight using pumps and retractable hoses. Working on this principle, a hose would unroll when the stands were moved and fall into place due to gravity. The hose would then roll up again to return to its starting position, with just another pump needed for drainage. Luckman: “The Strategic Air Command refueled their bomber planes, which were always in the air on twenty-four-hour alert. They did this by using a rubber hose, bound with flexible copper wire, between the fueling plane and the bomber. That was the answer.”16 They drew everything in detail, set the price and planned the process. The first step was the construction of a concrete slab on which various sections of the stadium would be moved. The air cushions would then be installed. Over them would be a metal frame for each section of stands that would hold 40 columns to support the audience seating. At the push of a button, the cushions would fill with air under high pressure. A different button would open a valve on the underside of the cushion – the part touching the ground – through which air would escape very slowly, creating a millimetre-thin layer of air under the cushion. The stands could then be moved without friction over the layer of air. Politicians liked the idea, but feared that it would be impossible to put into practice. Had anything like this ever been built anywhere else? What guarantees of success could the architects provide? What if it didn’t work? Luckman persuaded them by offering them a guarantee of $1 million in the name of his firm, so work on the project continued. The fact that the architect would risk $1 million of his own money seemed a very good guarantee of success.

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The stadium was built, and when the technology with the layer of air was tried for the first time, the sections of stands, each around 14 storeys high and weighing 1,750 tons, moved as planned. It took eight minutes for them to complete their 45-degree arc, and in just half an hour the four sections were in place. “It works!” cheered the daily newspapers on their front pages the next day. But the press was not always on Luckman’s side, as the building of Madison Square Garden in New York in 1961 showed. Everyone had an opinion on it, and it was criticized from all sides. It was a very difficult project. Not only did they have to take various clients and different needs into consideration, but the building also affected many people. The original Madison Square Garden, located at Madison Square, was a large covered area where various shows, ranging from dog shows to sporting events, were held. The venue had moved twice since its founding in 1879, and it had been further uptown on Eighth Avenue since 1925. Its owner, the Graham-Paige Corporation, was looking for a new site on which to build a modern arena that would hold more spectators and give them a better view of events. In their search for a suitable site in Manhattan, they came upon Pennsylvania Station. This grand Beaux-Arts style building no longer fitted in with an increasingly modern world of glass and steel. The station had been built in 1910 by McKim, Mead & White to a design based on the Baths of Caracalla in Rome (built in 217 B. C.). With its 45-metre-high vaulted ceiling, it impressed all visitors to New York, as it was bigger and more light-filled than Central Station. It also left quite an impression on the accountants at the Pennsylvania Railroad, as the building cost about $2.5 million a year in upkeep. Luckman: “Penn Station had become an anachronism in the age of summertime air conditioning and wintertime heating. It was great for everybody except the people who used it.”17

17 Ibid, p. 339

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The two operating companies concluded an agreement on the construction of a new, underground railway station, which paved the way for the building of a new Madison Square Garden and a 32-storey office building. Luckman was awarded the contract, because they needed someone who could convince an entire city to give up one of its most cherished landmarks. People still protested, however. There were demonstrations at the building site; the media provided the discontents with a platform for their grievances; and there was even legal action taken. Yet the architect continued to make headway.

Pennsylvania Station, New York (1910), McKim, Mead & White: historic postcard (1911), waiting room and concourse (from top to bottom)

18 Described in Hunch 10 – Mediators: The Berlage Institute Report, p. 76; also in Richard Carr: “Phyllis Lambert and the Canadian Centre for Architecture“, Studio International, 22 September 2008; Luckman himself described events differently: op. cit., pp. 323 – 325

19 “The art of marketing a product, a service, a person, or a company lies in determining and then advertising those things that are unique and distinctive. Whether you’re selling toothpaste, soap, or an architectural firm, your special, individual experience is as important as any other single ingredient. You have to demonstrate to the public just what makes you different from, and better than, your competitors.” Luckman, op. cit., p. 357

On the one hand he was fighting against those who wanted to keep the old railway station at any price, and on the other he was grappling with logistics. His contract specified that during construction, the railway station would have to stay open and remain fully operational for 250,000 passengers, 600 trains and two subway lines a day. The biggest problem lay in building the foundations between the platforms and in removing rubble by hand, because they couldn’t fit any machines in there. When construction was complete, the city had gained a new sports arena with a suspended ceiling spanning a vast, column-free space that could hold 22,000 spectators. In return, it had lost a wonderful railway station. Without meaning to, Luckman had kicked off a debate on the preservation of historic buildings in the US. The more time passed, the more the city mourned the loss of its beloved station. Commissions and organizations were set up to ensure that “no more Luckmans” would destroy symbols of New York City in their drive for efficiency. Nor was Luckman able to assert himself in every case. Samuel Bronfman, a wealthy distiller (his family name in Yiddish means “liquor man”), who had become a millionaire during Prohibition, initially commissioned him to design what was to become a famous skyscraper on Park Avenue, although in the end the building was designed by Mies van der Rohe. Bronfman, proprietor of the Seagram Company, wanted Luckman to build him a skyscraper to serve as a base for a castle he had recently bought in England and had shipped, piece by piece, to the US. His daughter, Phyllis Barbara Lambert, was appalled when she saw the design. She sent her father a letter beginning with the words “No, no, no...” and convinced him to forget Luckman’s design. In her search for support, she visited the then head of MoMA’s Architecture Department, Philip Johnson, and contacted the architect Mies van der Rohe.18 The result was the bronze and steel building that still symbolizes New York skyscrapers today. Luckman’s work was not characterized by an architectural language. His buildings made history not for their appearance, but because of his management. He knew well how to sell them using the full range of marketing techniques. Luckman defined it as a question of marketing. You had to show the public that your work was better than your competitor’s, whether you were selling toothpaste, soap or architecture.19

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Madison Square Garden (1968), Charles Luckman Associates: “The World’s Most Famous Arena” and one of New York’s most criticized buildings

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HOW TO SELL ARCHITECTURE THROUGH ICONIC BUILDINGS A N D FA M I L I A R I M A G E S

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A building that stands out from its surroundings because of its form, colour or structure becomes a stage from which messages are transmitted. It delivers a “slogan”, promoting the identity of a company or a group, and uses familiar symbols, metaphors and traditions to create connections. Buildings that enable such connections, similar to hyperlinks on the Internet, allow us to take mental leaps and delve into new images or more deeply into existing ideas. These buildings might resemble a mountain, emulate a wave or assume the form of a company logo. The observer perceives a certain linkage and promptly associates it with the extraordinary and the special, recognizing that this building stands out from the rest. The structure becomes a focus of public attention and rises in the public’s “ranking”. This kind of architecture can raise a client’s profile. Its exclusivity and uniqueness position him in the market in a special way. The architect can in turn justify a striking design, even if he knows he is taking on a role specified by the client, thus functioning as an “actorarchitect”. By planning a building that reflects another’s identity, he merges his own style with the client’s. This style is oriented towards

the demands of marketing. The architect’s task is to develop that style, making it visible in a building, or on a website, or even on a T-shirt. He aims for a result that will be different from all the others and represent his client’s brand values. It is hard to stand out when everybody is trying to be unique, but the higher the stakes, the more exciting the game. In the past century, a building was supposed to stand out as a landmark from the physical environment of its city. It had to be the highest, the most daring or the most luxurious in town. Today, buildings are no longer measured against their locally existing, physical competitors; they have to prevail in the virtual world of the Internet. They have to be the highest, the most daring or the most luxurious “in the world”. It is precisely this globalization that creates boundless competition. A building has to attract public attention and launch a “slogan” on the market that fits in with whatever the company is selling. Architecture that makes these connections is creating a new generation of iconic buildings, platforms not only for products, but also for their clients’ identities and values. They transport images, promise a happy future and thus stand for the best the company has to offer.

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IMAGES AND ARCHITECTURE – OR HOW TO BE A GOOD ACTOR, I N   H O L LY W O O D A N D A L L OV E R THE WORLD

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ome architects can sell their work simply on the strength of their name. These professionals have become famous, achieving the name recognition of politicians or top athletes. They stand confidently in the limelight, presenting their work to seemingly universal acclaim. They seek an immediate reaction to their work – to its design and to the built result. Every one of their projects or buildings tells a story and has its raison d’être, which can be described succinctly in just a few words. These architects generate images to bring their work closer to a broad public. This is how iconic buildings are developed. Yet, to reach the masses, persuade them, and gain recognition from them, you first have to approach them.

1 Zaera-Polo, Alejandro: “La ola de Hokusai”, Quaderns 245/April 2005

The architect Alejandro Zaera-Polo (*1963 in Madrid), in an attempt to convince clients and provide the local press with headlines, boils down his projects to a pithy concept, as he lays out in a 2005 article titled “Hokusai’s wave”.1 The key, as Zaera sees it, is to “tell a story” that convinces the reader that the project, despite its uniqueness and newness, despite its possibly strange and unusual shape and excessive costs, is closely connected to the local traditions and people. One also has to be able to give evidence proving that the project was not arbitrarily chosen and that it fits in perfectly with its surroundings. Zaera cites the example of the Yokohama Passenger Terminal (1995), his first major building project, which he won a competition to build. The project was in  Japan, a country with which neither Zaera nor his then wife and business partner, Farshid Moussavi (*1965 in Shiraz, Iran), had any kind of connection at the time. So they had won this competition, one presided over by an international jury that included his former boss, Rem Koolhaas. Still, the media and particularly  politicians harboured doubts as to whether two people as young as this Spaniard and this Iranian would be able to manage a project of this significance and complexity. The press conference held in February 1995 in Yokohama City Hall, which attracted a huge media crowd hungry to learn all about the winning project, dispelled any doubts. For the two speakers, it was an opportunity to finally put into

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The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1830), Katsushika Hokusai. Japanese woodblock print

practice everything they had learned in years of academic training and show what they could do. So they started their presentation by going into great detail. The audience members, not all of them architecture experts, soon grew restless and bored with the overly technical language and explanations. The media wanted to get to know the design without all the preliminaries, and the competition was not interested in the traffic concept, geometrical transformations or building technology. They wanted to see the result, the building. They wanted to know what would happen to their city. Zaera and Moussavi noticed their restlessness and decided to depart from their prepared script. They spontaneously fell back on an image they had initially not intended to use in their presentation. “It was ‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa’,” explained Zaera in the article mentioned above, “a woodblock print by a local artist [Katsushika Hokusai] that we had in mind when we were working out the geometrical modifications and possible construction methods.” And so they decided to rely on the familiar, the direct, the easily recognizable image. They invented a story that what had really inspired them was Hokusai’s wave, declaring the work of art to be the foundation of the project. With this improvisation, they succeeded in making a lasting impression. The audience reaction was immediate. There were cries of astonishment. Finally, after so much detailed technical information, here was an image that could help them identify with the project. The future terminal would be like a wave, which of

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course made sense. The wave off Kanagawa became the wave of Yokohama. From that point on, Zaera and Moussavi garnered applause and understanding for all the arguments they presented. The image seemed appropriate to the architects as a way of justifying their project’s complexity, which could now hardly be interpreted in any other way than the one its creators proposed. They owed their success to a simple metaphor.

Yokohama Passenger Terminal (1995), Alejandro Zaera-Polo and Farshid Moussavi, Foreign Office Architects

Zaera became aware of the power of the image, of metaphor, and their use as instruments of persuasion. He decided to integrate them into his projects’ concepts. This meant primarily incorporating “iconographies of local significance” into them to help him establish rapport with local politicians and obtain commissions. This strategy made him a “local” architect all over the world, albeit one who was able to consider and analyse existing structures from an outsider’s point of view. At the same time, he had the perfect “excuse” when it came to defending himself against budget cuts and in planning risky solutions that would have been hard to accept in a different context. With the picture of the wave, he had hit the nail on the head. From then on, he linked each of his projects with a strong image. The Villajoyosa Police Station was built with a pentagonal floor plan – a clear reference to the Pentagon in Washington – and its outer walls were built of concrete with small round holes in it to simulate the machine gun rounds fired by a local resident who was furious about the many parking tickets he had received. He justified the design of the BBC building by saying that it looked like a film camera traversed by a folded strip of film. Similarly, he compared the new Olympic stadium for London 2012 with the muscular, well-trained body of a bodybuilder, and presented a design for Ground Zero in New York that consisted of interwoven buildings leaning on each other. The motto here was “united we stand”. To underscore his argumentation, he made use of images of so-called castells, human pyramids that are common in Catalonia and represent the unity of the people. Unconsciously, he changes according to the situation into an actor playing a role, through which he wants to reach as large as audience and as many followers as possible. He adapts his language to every challenge, every environment. If you slip into a role, you have to play it convincingly. He puts on make-up and, with his “film-buildings”, makes his audience offers. He knows people want action and special effects when they stream into the cinema. They want something spectacular, but with a simple story. If the script is too complicated, the audience gets lost and the film flops. Zaera wants to win over his target group – an indispensable factor in obtaining major contracts. To do this, he dispenses with his professional cloak, obscures his theoretical approaches and shows his audience only what it’s interested in. Everyone wins. He gets to design the building he likes, the public gets the

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“special effect” it needs, and the city gets something it can take pride in. And the  politician who commissioned such a building has everyone eating out of his hand. William Pereira (*1909 in Chicago, †1985 in Los Angeles) was the prototype of the “actor-architect”. He could slip into roles as the occasion required, and his mere presence radiated so much assurance that people instinctively trusted him with projects. As well as working as an architect, he taught at the University of  Southern California (USC) and, for many years, was the partner of Charles Luckman, with whom he had studied at the University of Illinois (see Marketing, pages 30ff.). Pereira stands out primarily because of his relationship to the performing arts world, to which he had felt especially drawn since his student days. It was no coincidence that he financed his university courses with illustration and advertising work and by working as a set painter at the university’s theatre seminar. After gaining his degree, he joined the architects’ firm of Holabird Root, working on the master plan for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. He left the company after a short time and soon afterwards founded the architects’ firm of Pereira & Pereira with his brother Hal, an actor and painter. The brothers converted theatres and created sets. They were awarded commissions “by the dozen” in up to 26 different states, as he recalls in his biography. At this time, cinemas belonged to the major Hollywood film production companies. Pereira worked for Balaban & Katz, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Of all the cinemas they converted, the Esquire Theatre in Chicago deserves particular mention. It was at 58 East Oak Street, and the public loved its Art Deco style. The cinema’s opening coincided with the premiere of “Gone with the Wind”. The film made more money at the box office than any that had gone before, turning into an unprecedented mass phenomenon. The Esquire was packed every day, though this success can hardly be ascribed to Pereira’s decorations. Pereira grew determined to try his luck in Hollywood. That was where the major productions were shot. That was where the power was. That was where an actor like him could become famous. For his wife, the model Margaret McConnell, who was famous for being the first woman to appear in Coca-Cola and Camel cigarette ads, the move was also a welcome change of scenery. She wanted to dedicate herself to acting and make a name for herself in the film industry. Pereira’s first contract in Los Angeles was to build a new film studio for Paramount. He wanted to understand the operations of film studios, to find out what was important, so he began to work on film shoots. Only in this way would he be able to develop something of real use to his clients. He took the view that he

William Pereira. Cover of Time, 6 September 1963

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had to “absorb the whole environment”, using the same methods as actors to “penetrate the situation” and then, armed with this knowledge, design a building. The architect ended up being on the film set every day, even giving his views on the sets.

2 Steele, James (ed.): William Pereira. Los Angeles 2002, p. 18

“He prepared for the commission by immersing himself in the history of film, which set a pattern for background research he would always follow afterward. His zeal impressed the studio head, who made him Paramount’s art director.”2 Things went so well for Pereira that he even won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects with the film “Reap the Wild Wind”, made in 1942. The director was Cecil B. DeMille and among the cast was a then still very young John Wayne. The film was about salvagers diving for treasure among sunken ships in the Caribbean. Pereira used blue models and screens to represent the sea and its inhabitants. In 1944 he was made production designer for the films “Jane Eyre” and “Since You Went Away”. He was also the producer of “Johnny Angel” (1945) and “From this Day Forward” (1946). Although he had dedicated himself to cinema, he never completely abandoned architecture; conversely, in his later architecture projects, he decided to put to use what he had learned on set: camera work, video control, screen splitting, image depth and audience reaction. He told a story and prepared for it the way actors got ready for their parts. He saw how they reinvented themselves with each new role, and decided to transfer this principle to architecture. With the design of the Lake County Tuberculosis Clinic in Waukegan, Illinois, he successfully implemented this plan. Instead of studying examples and typologies of buildings, he decided to work in a sanatorium for three months. Working daily with doctors and patients, he found out first-hand what was important to them. Like an actor immersing himself a role, he tried to experience what he should subsequently implement in his architecture. His design was accepted, but not because of its composition or his drawings. He had won the clients’ trust because he now spoke their language. He had managed to become “one of them”. Thus he took it upon himself to advocate for their needs and simultaneously to fulfil them. The public was fascinated by his way of speaking and his presence. Moreover, he succeeded in  creating a functional building that attained architectural significance. His sanatorium was included in the exhibition “Built in U.S.A. – 1932–1944” at the MoMA in New York. In the midst of this exciting work in cinema and architecture, Pereira was called up for military service. When America joined the Second World War, the architect, with his skills in stage sets and stage machinery, became a specialist consultant on camouflage techniques. He knew all about how to conceal things, integrate

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them, make them invisible, and simulate reality. Camouflage is not merely a question of “disappearing” into the environment; it also involves disseminating false information and deliberately misleading the enemy. Pereira used large models and props to confuse the enemy. He flew several times over the West Coast from Canada to Mexico, seeking cardboard dummies that he himself had designed. Flying over this area, he was able to see the great changes going on there. The cities were growing uncontrollably, and in his eyes, disorganized chaos prevailed. He thought about how construction would expand across this area. Seen from a bird’s-eye view, it was clear that the planning of this landscape was entirely focused on car traffic. When he later came to develop this area and design the university campus, he looked for a solution that would prioritize people, but without overshadowing his buildings. “I got a view then of the tragedies of helter-skelter planning, of the impossible traffic, the sprawling disorganization,” Pereira later said, and explained that, when he was shown the plans, “suddenly there I was staring at the veins and arteries of our cities, looking for the flaws, counting the mistakes.”3 Pereira’s Hollywood connections enabled him to build further major projects, such as the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley. This was planned as a nursing home with an adjoining hospital, which would house and care for impoverished Hollywood artists. The organization behind it was founded in the 1920s by stars of that era, such as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, and the entire film industry contributed towards the facility’s upkeep. After that project came the Pan Pacific Theatre in Los Angeles and the Lake County General Hospital in Hobbs, New Mexico. The number of his commissions grew with his fame. California was a booming region, where after the end of the war a sort of Gold Rush mentality set in. Building was going on everywhere. They all established  headquarters here: the aviation industry, future computer pioneers, and film production companies bringing television in their wake. Charles Luckman  must have recognized this potential when he became William Pereira’s partner and founded an architects’ firm with him in Los Angeles (see Marketing, p. 30ff.). The Pereira-Luckman partnership lasted eight years. In terms of the architects they employed and the amount of turnover they generated, they became one of the country’s largest firms and designed many major construction projects, ranging from the CBS Television City studios to the Cape Canaveral rocket launch base and Los Angeles airport. As they got more and more commissions, however, Pereira decided to leave the firm. It was clear to him that they had done very well, but that the services their firm provided were more like those of a management consultancy than of architects. He sold his share of the business to Luckman and

3 “The Man with the Plan”, Time, 6 September 1963

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started afresh with half a million dollars in his pocket, creating smaller but more daring architectural projects.

4 Ibid.

“The businessman who hires us, doesn’t need another businessman to do the work – he needs an architect.”4 In this new phase, Pereira focused on the extraordinary, but without any outwardly imposed style or formal continuity. He set out to develop his own language in his work, creating recognizable buildings that would stand out from the prevailing uniformity. On many occasions he succeeded. The first of these occasions was the construction of Los Angeles airport, LAX, in  1959. Pereira designed a master plan for the entire region and took particular personal pleasure in the construction of the “Theme Building”. His idea was to link all the terminals around a hub under a huge glass dome. This dome was designed to underscore the idea of centrality and at the same time lend the airport something unique, something passengers could take home with them as  a memory. The site was reorganized, however, and the terminals were built elsewhere. The huge hub he had designed was reduced in size and replaced with the Theme Building, which looked like a flying saucer about to take off. It was surrounded by a large car park, which made it look more fragile than it actually was. The UFO has since been reduced to a bistro. With its futuristic “retro stage set” by Walt Disney, it is reminiscent of a film set. It features an observation level from which visitors can watch planes taking off. Although the original design was by James Langenheim, an architect from the Pereira & Luckman firm, Pereira was the soul of the project. One could almost say “the two souls”, because his brother, Hal Pereira, was equally involved. Hal had come to Los Angeles with William and had also made a start in the film industry. In contrast to William, though, he remained an artistic director, and made a name for himself working on famous films such as “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Rear Window”. In 1954 he was commissioned to design the sets for the film “War of the Worlds”. William Pereira wanted to offer passengers passing through the airport a grand, cinematic experience, so he designed a UFO to greet them. With its space-age features, it is now an instantly recognizable landmark. Postcards depicting the building are still widely sold in Los Angeles today, proving that his concept worked. Over time, Pereira came to specialize in planning striking buildings. His clients hired him for his expressiveness and especially for his talent for attracting public attention.

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Theme Building (1961), Los Angeles airport, Pereira & Luckman and James Langenheim. The image of the Theme Building was used in the animated TV series The Jetsons, which was produced from 1962 and depicted life in the future.

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An expressive shape can set itself apart from the mediocre and make a kind of  statement. In a monotonously developed area, it seems to throw down the  gauntlet to its surroundings. This challenge hints at what goes on inside. Pereira’s strategy was to create unique buildings in order to advertise what was  happening within. He wanted to create an image that would transcend the boundaries of the building itself. This was all in the service of the client firm, as the building’s daring, novel, futuristic image would project these same qualities on to the image of the company. The architecture is no longer just a constructed object but a conveyor of intangible values, such as the value of the brand it represents. With a striking building, even if it is not a particularly large one, a company or organization can polish its own “facade”, giving itself a better image. Pereira was awarded the contract to build the Geisel Library at the University of California in San Diego. He had already worked for UC in 1957, contributing to the development of the master plan for its campus in Irvine. At that time, he had been asked to find land for the university’s future expansion in the San Diego area. The university’s central library was finally built, 18 years later, on one of the pieces of land he had recommended buying. The site was right in the middle of the campus and was to stand as a symbol of UCSD’s academic standards and research achievements. The building was planned as follows: 2.5 million books would be stored on 300,000 square metres of floor space. Pereira designed the form of the building as a gigantic sphere that would “float” above the ground and be divided into five storeys housing the library’s various collections. This design was rejected as too expensive and too wasteful of space. Pereira adapted the design by strengthening the columns and dispensing with the spherical sheath that was originally planned to have enveloped the building. Now projections extended like a staircase first outwards, then inwards again. He retained the five storeys and added two more below street level to accommodate the entrance and administration areas, so that the lovely view would be reserved for the students. The result is a building that, with its strong structure and massive form, commands respect. From the outset, all the elements were designed to create a certain image, even if they impacted the building’s functionality.

5 Steele, op. cit, p. 148

If there was criticism of the building’s proportionality or the necessity it created of a lifeless square with arcades, it was defeated by Pereira’s metaphorical explanation of the design: “Powerful and permanent hands that are holding aloft knowledge itself.”5 This metaphor overrode all other considerations, asserting the power of the image. That is the effect of iconic buildings.

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Geisel Library. Central library of the University of California, San Diego (1970), William Pereira

An analysis of Pereira’s work reveals no formal continuity. He seemed to find an individual answer for every project and every client. Operating with the strategy of a film actor, he took on a wide range of roles and did his best to interpret them. The most important thing was to reach his audience with his building, to touch people. This is precisely what Pereira was attempting when he designed the Transamerica Pyramid in 1972. The skyscraper, seen more often in films than in architecture books, became a landmark on the San Francisco skyline. It is a 260-metre-high, tapered building with 48 office storeys and a square footprint. It is delicate yet solid, but not very economically efficient. Its upwards taper reduces the floor space of the higher storeys – precisely those that are easiest to sell or rent out. Nevertheless, the building is visible from afar. Much like Torre Agbar in Barcelona, nicknamed “the Bullet”, or the London Swiss Re office tower, commonly called “the Gherkin”, it stands out sharply from the buildings around it, and is referred to simply as “the Pyramid”. This is a good sign. People only give a building a nickname if it works, if it touches them, and if they connect something specific with its appearance. It was not easy to gain the commission. Pereira submitted nine different designs to the client, and the pyramid was his final proposal. He wanted a dramatic effect, wanted to surprise everyone with a “happy ending” and so get the contract. In the end, he prevailed and was able to carry out his plan. His winning design was in fact one he had originally planned for New York, but the ABC board had rejected his proposal. Many years went by before he could implement his plan.

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The building encountered a great deal of resistance and criticism in its neighbourhood because of its height and lack of integration. Pereira didn’t understand this criticism. He had never intended his designs to harmonize with other buildings. His objects could have stood anywhere; his “spaceships” were ready to land in any surroundings. In the end, he was willing to compromise, reducing the originally planned 55 storeys to 48. He was also tasked with planning a small park at the foot of the building to integrate it into the city. The building, however, lost none of its charisma. With its rocket-like appearance, it looked straight out of a sciencefiction film. Pereira’s most vocal critic was a San Francisco Chronicle journalist named Allan Temko. Temko was an ardent defender of his city, attacking anyone he thought was jeopardizing it. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1990.6 Temko criticized Pereira’s personality as well as his notions on architecture. He described him as a “Hollywood version” of an architect, citing his lifestyle and his appearance, “his penchant for Bentleys and Lear Jet travel, his preferential dress in black and white, and the perennial blondes and British that seemed to surround him.”7 In an article in Time magazine, he portrayed him as a diva-like film star: Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco (1972), William Pereira

6 He also appears in the book “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, in the figure of Roland Major.

7 Boyer Sagert, Kelly: The 1970s. Westport 2007, p. 89

8 “The Man with the Plan”, op. cit.

“The black and grey Bentley snaked south out of Los Angeles along the Santa Ana Freeway, shook free of the traffic, and began to climb fast on a mountain road through the open country. At the wheel was a shapely brunette beauty – secretary, assistant and part-time chauffeur to the man in the back seat listening to Mantovani on a built-in stereophonic tape recorder. The car stopped on the mountaintop, where a friend was waiting; the man got out, a trim 6 feet, with heavy-lidded blue eyes and an actor’s dash. The wind riffled his wavy, iron-grey hair as he gazed out over Irvine Ranch, the miles and miles of grazing land and citrus groves rolling down to the Pacific. ‘Right about there, we’re going to put a city of 100,000 people,’ he (Pereira) said, pointing.”8 Like no other, Pereira embodied the glamour that one would ascribe to a Hollywood architect. Transferring the image of the Dream Factory to himself, he succeeded in selling clients this enchantment, a cross between seduction and style. He let them into his elegant world, so that the glamour could rub off on his designs for them. Pereira had managed to distinguish himself from others while he was still a very young man. He had always been interested in the world of stars and appearances. His strategy was to use images and symbols without resorting to a formal style or the use of specific materials. He sought to create distinctive, easily recognizable objects. In an interview he gave shortly before his 30th birthday, he was addressed as “William the Conqueror”.

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Pereira’s public image seems to have been more important to him than his work. Media attention still has a major role to play in architecture today – in a positive sense, as is proven among others by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (*1974 in Copenhagen). Ingels, too, knows how to handle the media and attract attention to himself and his designs. Like Pereira, Ingels knows how to win over the public, and he embodies success. Yet times have changed. While trends used to be set by Hollywood and its stars, they are now set by Internet multi-millionaires, people who made their fortune practically overnight by programming IT applications such as Google (Sergey Brin and Larry Page) or Yahoo ( Jerry Yang). Although they have used the Internet to change the world, they all go to work in shirtsleeves and sneakers, in the same “business uniform” as Ingels. These days, you won’t become famous for winning an Oscar or driving a Bentley; the world has become more austere and professional. Google now determines who tops the rankings. Ingels is a media phenomenon. If you enter the abbreviation for the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in google.es, his firm’s name appears in first place, ahead of Big Ben, the Big Bang, before the film of that name starring Tom Hanks, ahead of the Big Mac and the singer Notorious B.I.G. It is hard to believe, but at the top of a hit list of 948,000,000 entries is the name of an architect in his late 30s who already has more than 100 employees and comes from a country of just five million inhabitants. His fame crosses local and national borders, spreading out in the depths of the Internet, where he is one of the leading personalities. One may well ask, then, how Ingels has managed to become so famous in such a short time. The answer is obvious: like Pereira, he uses images. He designs symbols and models that he can repeat later in any environment by adapting  them to the specific context, with the difference that he has expanded his activities beyond the world of cinema to include comics, video games and the Internet. In fact, when he left school, Ingels wanted to become a comic artist, but there was no regular degree programme for that, so he began studying architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. He grew to like it there, especially after working as an intern in Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm in 1998. After completing his studies, he went back to the Netherlands and worked for Koolhaas from 1999 until 2000. There he had the opportunity to work on the Seattle Central Library project, during which he met his future partner, Julien de Smedt (*1975 in Brussels).

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Central library, Seattle (2004), Rem Koolhaas /Joshua PrinceRamus (OMA), LMN: Design diagrams and sketches. The library as a “holistic environment”, in which the conventional programme is developed into a choreographed sequence of experiences

The work on the library turned out to be quite a challenge. The project took place in Seattle, the cradle of information technology and home to companies like Microsoft and Boeing, at the very height of the dot-com boom, just before the bubble burst in 2000. Building a library, something physical, at a time when everyone was focusing on digital books and the Internet, required lots of research to be done for the design so that they do the client justice. The architects around Koolhaas had to ask themselves whether a library was a reasonable investment in the future. If all knowledge could be found on the Web, what benefits could the building bring society? Ingels learnt to pose critical questions and question timetested principles. In 2000, he returned with Julien de Smedt to his home country of Denmark, fascinated by the new technologies of the Internet era and with many new ideas in tow. He did not yet know, however, how to realize his true potential and implement the innovative way of planning that he had learnt from Koolhaas. To create architecture, to experience the power and freedom of project development, you need many years of professional experience. The young men, however, were not interested in waiting. They plunged headlong into the adventure of making a film that would present their ideas on architecture to the world. They wanted to create a cinematic work without making a new film; instead, they planned to use existing film material to tell their own story. That way, they could employ the “services” of great actors such as Jack Nicholson. They would create a

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new story by re-cutting and splicing scenes. Their film was to be produced precisely as they would develop a building: by combining systems and materials in a new and meaningful way. Ingels: “We had both gotten the idea of making [a] film in the same way that you make a building. When you make architecture, you don’t cut the mountain out of a block of marble; you put together a lot of existing systems. It’s about how you put things together, how you curate all the different things from the catalogue together in a new way that makes it original.”9

9 Ohtake, Miyoko: Bjarke Ingels of BIG, Dwell, 23 July 2009

They applied for funding to finance the film, but were turned down by the various institutions they approached. Fortunately, they used the time while they were waiting to participate in competitions, in three of which they surprisingly won first place. They decided to postpone the film project and establish an architects’ firm with the name PLOT. This adventure lasted five years until they separated in 2006 and each of them founded his own firm: BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and JDS ( Julien de Smedt). Their way of “making” architecture initially matched the philosophy of their film project. They didn’t have to “shoot” anything new. The idea was to transform what already existed. They also translated the experience they had gained while training with Koolhaas to other scales and situations, looking for an opportunity to apply the ideas they had brought with them to actual building projects. They soon made a name for themselves with their graphics, functional diagrams  and apparent formal simplicity. As part of each project, they included a presentation explaining the building process to the client in a way he could grasp. The document showed the initial situation and how various changes or amendments to individual parameters could affect the construction of the building all the way to the final project. In the images, every step looked simple and easy to understand. It is this approach – this provision of detailed explanations to the client as an invitation to come along for the entire building process – that distinguishes them from Pereira. While Pereira presented a final result, an object, Ingels tries to justify every step in advance. He wants the public to understand how construction is affected by various factors – economic, urban-development, political and environmental – and how he responds to these problems. He formulates his solutions in way that is simple and easy to follow. Ingels: “We try to make it easy and intuitive, to understand why it is like it is and why that is interesting. So I think that’s sort of a... probably not a style, but more like a discipline towards being able to communicate ideas.”10

10 Ferrari, Felipe de: Bjarke Ingels interview, 0300tv, October 2007

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In his philosophy, the solutions he presents should look like comic sketches on paper: consistent and recognizable, but not overly defined. It should look as though the project was achieved without effort, even though endless numbers of designs and models were necessary to achieve the result. Ingels speaks of iconography. In his work, he condenses expressivity to the maximum while minimizing forms. In this, he borrows conceptually from the engineer and computer scientist Ray Kurzweil, who, in his book “The Singularity Is Near”, defines complexity as an ability to pack a maximum amount of information into a minimum amount of data. Kurzweil is talking about computer science, but Ingels transfers this idea to architecture. He knows that the best computer game is not the one with the most complicated plot or the most sophisticated graphics or special effects; it is the one that offers the most entertainment for the least effort (e.g. required processor capacity, loading times, waiting times). To continue with this metaphor, the computer games Tetris or Arkanoid seem at first glance very simple, but they can be endlessly extended and played at ever-increasing degrees of difficulty. By recombining elements, players can create countless complex structures. This is how Ingels approaches his projects. In the search for maximum results, he starts with the repetition, shifting and manipulation of geometric elements with minimal effort, even sometimes building initial models of his buildings with Lego blocks. There are no doubly curved parabolas or other free forms; the starting point is always regular polygons, which are then reshaped in an on-going process. This method can be applied to the most diverse formats, from the project planning of a building to the creation of a website. His firm’s website (www.big.dk) is clear and simple. Symbols represent each project and can be arranged by year or typology. When you click on a symbol, the project appears as series of images. The first image shows an overview. The second is a data sheet showing the floor space in square metres, the people involved, and the goal of the contract. The following images show sequences of how the design expands, doubles, stacks up or is extruded to reach its final form. Models, diagrams, ideograms and brief animations explain the concept. It’s a bit like a magic show: “Ladies and gentlemen, I have here a site. I’m going to take this thing here apart and set it up there and ... pull a rabbit out of my hat and voilà! A new building!” His projects have no consistent formal identity, but a common strategy. It is the kind of presentation that is easily recognizable and useful in communicating ideas.

11 Ibid.

Ingels tries to create an architecture “capable of creating the maximum effect with minimum means, the maximum comfort with the minimum energy consumption, the maximum functionality in the smallest space, the maximum quality of life at the lowest possible cost.”11 He succeeds in doing this with symbols.

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Website, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group, screenshot. Every project is represented by an icon, and the projects can all be sorted under various headings.

At the same time, in preparing his design, he has to identify connections between his fundamental principles and those of the client. In this, too, he differs from Pereira. While Pereira looked for a novel and unique project, something “new” that the client could make his own, Ingels offers an answer that is just as individual but that is clearly connected with the client. The original idea must be “customized”, adapted to satisfy the client and his wishes. This results in designs such as the Superharbour, proposed in 2003. This floating island was to be a container port handling all the Baltic Sea’s freight traffic. The architects had the idea of presenting the project to the Danish shipping company Mærsk, which handles freight from all over the world. Mærsk has ships, wharves, millions of containers and an easily recognizable logo, a white star on a blue background, whose form Ingels wanted to use for the artificial island. It was so obvious that it might have been taken for a joke, but they meant it seriously. Giving the island the form of the company logo, a seven-pointed star, would strengthen the company’s image. This was how he pitched his design to Mærsk. The island would also be strategically located to consolidate shipping traffic from the CoMa (Copenhagen–Malmø), HamBrem (Hamburg–Bremen) and Benelux (Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) axes. The perfect place for it, they thought, was the axis of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, which as then proposed would connect Denmark and Germany via a bridge and a tunnel. Since large distances would have to be overcome, the link would be a bridge where the depths presented an insurmountable obstacle, then continue as a tunnel. Construction of an artificial island would be necessary where the tunnel came to the surface and the foundations were anchored on the bridge side. PLOT’s proposal was that this island would function as a gigantic harbour that would be able to handle shipping from all harbours in the area. According to calculations, this would free up building land worth 20 billion euros in Denmark’s largest cities, enabling them to dispense with infrastructure measures on their peripheries. The practice

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looked for economists to carry out a feasibility study for the project and approached Mærsk, a company that had enough capital to fund the project and that was headquartered in Denmark. So they planned the harbour and had a potential client for it in mind. They designed a symbol that would represent the company, a seven-pointed star as a template for the design of a harbour with seven piers. Mærsk, however, rejected the project, citing its high construction costs and the associated financial risk. The company also expressed misgivings about a harbour that was so essentially associated with their brand that it would be hard to sell to anyone else in the future. No other company would buy it if it bore a competitor’s logo. In this case, then, the symbol proved to be an obstacle. PLOT still believed in their project, however, and convinced the relevant authorities to present it at the Danish Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale) in Venice in 2004. It was an ambitious project for a small country seeking to position itself in the world and give itself a name beyond Arne Jacobsen’s classic designs. The architects introduced the project with a video clip in the form of a comic. They used first-person narration to reach the largest possible audience. No PowerPoint presentation or voice-over for them – no, they opted for this unusual format, which would not have been out of place on MTV. In the video, they did not mention Mærsk or explain the origins of the form they had chosen for the island. They had to find another buyer, even if there was not yet a demand for their product. Like Pereira, they offered it up with the reasoning that the potential client perhaps even didn’t know he needed it yet. The shape, which had been so important in the planned sale of the project to Mærsk, now became a mere anecdote. Superharbour (2003), design, PLOT. The form of the island (centre) based on the logo of the MÆRSK shipping company (above) and the “recycled” design for the Red Star Harbour (2006), Guangxi Province (below)

“We’ll sell it to someone else, whoever it may be,” they thought and decided to simply reuse the idea, detached from its originally planned site. Copy and paste, as it were. In the end, it was all about economic profitability. In 2006 they presented the design again, “revised”, of course. Now it was to serve as a symbol of Chinese identity. They presented it as the Red Star Harbour in the province of Guangxi, and again they were rejected. They had recognized, however, that they could give a design numerous lives if they adapted its identity to its environment. They now knew how to extend an idea’s lifespan. And recycling designs is, after all, a form of economizing and sustainability. The People’s Building in Shanghai was also a “recycled” design, one originally destined for a hotel in northern Sweden. It was going to be a tower splitting up into two wings at the bottom, one housing a conference centre and the other a

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wellness centre with a swimming pool. The resulting gap at the base would have enabled people to cross through underneath and reach the river on the other side. Ingels considered it a simple idea with an interesting form, but it did not fit in well with the Swedish landscape. They did not win the competition and the design was about to return to the obscurity of the desk drawer, when a Chinese developer noticed it. He had been leafing through their portfolio and, after seeing the building’s form, which resembled the Chinese calligraphic character for “person”, could not get it out of his mind. Where Western eyes saw only an upside-down Y, he found a message calling to millions of people from China. Ingels hired a feng shui expert and tripled the design’s size so it would befit the proportions of China. Determined to find a buyer, he went to China and proposed it for Expo 2010, but his idea was rejected. The commissioners for competition had decided not to have any tower blocks built near the Expo site. After much running around, it now looks as if the skyscraper in the form of the symbol for “person” may be built in the Pudong district of Shanghai. “I’ve been traveling for the past six weeks trying to sell this project. And at this point you begin to see how being an architect means that you have to be a little bit of a politician. You become too familiar with codes, laws and how they can be limiting,”12 Ingels later recalled. Ingels had become a kind of sales rep peddling his products, his buildings looking for a place to be built. This would not be the last time. For the area near Stockholm airport, he designed a hotel to “greet” arriving passengers. To his mind, nobody seemed better suited to this task than Sweden’s royal family. Thrilled by this idea, he turned the whole facade into an oversized pixelated mural depicting the Princesses Victoria and Madeleine and Prince Carl Philip. But a design with so much “royal ego” didn’t stand a chance in low-key Sweden, so Ingels packed his bags again. He then tried to sell his design to Arab countries – the same building with the same facade. The only thing he changed was the arrangement of the pixels. Instead of a diadem, it now depicted a turban: architecture to suit the consumer. “Rather than being radical by saying fuck the context, the establishment, the neighbours, the budget or gravity, we want to turn pleasing into a radical agenda.”13 Rather than dispute with the client and foist his design on him, Ingels adapts to him. He tries to meet everyone’s needs, satisfying the developer, the statutory regulations, the budget and the neighbours, because he knows that if he fulfils all wishes, nobody can reject his design. Even if his design seems strange to them, they will accept it because it fulfils all their stated requirements. So it was with his building “The Mountain” in Copenhagen. The developer wanted to build two separate blocks: one of 10,000 square metres for apartments and a

People’s Building, Shanghai, Design / Rendering, PLOT

12 Ingels, Bjarke: “The Denmark™ Organization”, Archinect, 2 October 2007

13 Westerstad, Elsa: “Can you be young and good-looking – and successful?” Forum Aid, February 2008

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Presentation of the design for the Superharbour as a comic at the 9th International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale), Venice 2004, at the Danish Pavilion, PLOT

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second, of 20,000 square metres, as a car park. Ingels, however, combined them in a single building with eleven storeys that merges both functions. The car parks on every storey form the basis for the apartments, which are set on stepped terraces. All the apartments thus have their own garden with a view of the surrounding landscape. This originally difficult assignment led Ingels to create something completely new here, a new type of residence: a suburban housing block in which people live as closely together as in a city, but which offers the quality of life of an outer suburb. The building resembles a mountain. To highlight this metaphor, the architect covered the facade of the car park areas with oversized pictures of Mount Everest. He wanted to intensify the symbolism and remind people that Denmark may not have any natural mountains, but that someone had dared to build an artificial one there. The building was built, it won competitions and acclaim – and came to the attention of Azerbaijan, a country known not only for its reserves of energy, but also for its four-thousanders. Azerbaijan wants to open itself up to the world and use its increasing revenues to attract tourists and step up investment. To do this, it needs a world-class tourist attraction. By constructing something like this building, Azerbaijan would present itself internationally as a modern country. It would be a landmark so unique that all the world’s media would cover it. As the site for this development, they chose the island of Zira, which has an area of 1,000,000 square metres and which can be seen on the horizon from the capital, Baku. Here a magnificent resort was to be built. BIG’s design idea was inspired by Azerbaijan’s seven highest mountains: seven buildings, each one featuring the silhouette of one of these mountains. Each building is enormously high, each differs from all the others, and each interprets a different theme. What they all have in common, though, is that they are all based on revised projects and unbuilt competition entries. BIG has had the opportunity here to use his complete portfolio, on a much larger scale than he could ever have imagined: the opportunity to develop an incredible “stage set” for a city and secure global attention. The result, though, is perhaps in danger of itself becoming a backdrop in some science-fiction film. (The USC’s Irvine campus by Pereira was used as the set for the film “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes” in 1972.) This is the risk an architect runs when he plays with forms in the search for something as intangible as the future.

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The Mountain, Copenhagen (2008), BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group

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Like Pereira before him, Ingels sells the future by means of images that become associated with a company’s progress or a country’s development. The rendering is no longer simply a catchy image, but proof of the extent to which a client, be it a company or a country, is prepared to innovate. If we are persuaded of their ability to innovate in the area of design, we trust them to be able to have an impact on politics, technology and society. Hence they try to radiate this desire for change, this modernizing impulse, to attract clients and investors. For this reason, they build figurative buildings that stand out from their environment. The role of this environment is the main difference between Pereira and Ingels. For Pereira, it played a lesser role; his buildings had to stand out from  the chaos of an airport, a university campus or a city like San Francisco. Nowadays, the environment extends almost into infinity, thanks to the Internet. Ingels crosses borders, designing buildings and cities with which he attracts the attention of a global audience. People all over the world will recognize his language of form in the media, even if they never see his designs in person. This  makes us all potential clients of architects and their buildings. We are all spectators. And if one day someone from Lagos or Bombay, from Tegucigalpa or Xian, finds out that a place named Zira exists and that the island is in Azerbaijan in Central Asia, where there are very high mountains, then Ingels has succeeded. His mission, after all, was to present a country to the world through a building.

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HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE PEOPLE AND PROBLEMS BEHIND THE FIGURES AND GRAPHICS

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A politician wants to serve his country; an architect wants to build it. To bring them together, a mediator is often required – someone who gets both sides of the story, someone who is able to process large quantities of data and interpret graphics so that the problems and appropriate solutions reveal themselves. This mediator is a person who understands the various phases of a building project and can explain them to all parties involved in the process. He is able to assess precisely the effects of a certain building project on public opinion and on voting behaviour. In this sense, his job profile resembles that of a political observer; in reality, however, he is a far more complex figure, who has the ability to define tasks. And, even more importantly, he succeeds in finding people who can successfully advance the project. In the planning of a construction project, the goal is not just to get the project built, but to ensure public acceptance for it. This means that the project must be both affordable and also of some benefit to the consumer. When some politician in office needs publicity, however, these conditions sometimes fall by the wayside. This chapter deals with the topic of the “political mediator”, someone just a small step away from power, and the “architecture mediator”, an expert with the power of influence. Both are skilled speakers, both have an instinct for

what is doable, and both know which horse to back to win. With his disarming single-mindedness, Daniel P. Moynihan earned the respect of all political parties in the four decades of his career. He succeeded in putting his own stamp on the tasks with which he was entrusted. Whatever his brief, he tirelessly championed the preservation of historic buildings. And the guidelines he drafted established the architectural principles for American government buildings to this day. Ricky Burdett is impressive for the cleverness with which he recognizes who holds the reins of power in countries as varied as Brazil, China or Turkey. Through events he has organized, he has successfully networked with mayors and bank representatives, putting himself in a position from which he can exert influence. He has created opportunities for the strengthening of contacts and the launching of projects. Both men teach or taught at university, and both have managed enormous sums of money on behalf of their national governments. Starting with a thorough analysis of existing information, they decided which models would work and drew appropriate conclusions. They both demonstrated an ability to connect graphics and diagrams with problems and people. And once the figures had a face and a name, they delved into the problems in greater detail. Both have been able to establish relationships between data and society.

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MEDIATING BET WEEN P OLITICS AND ARCHITECTURE

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nvariably, construction projects involve a range of different groups, some of which are on board for several phases of the project. These include project managers, developers, building contractors, politicians, users, sometimes the media and perhaps even neighbourhood initiatives. These groups sometimes reflect public opinion, as they represent various positions in society. Often, they are in communication with another specialist who normally attracts little public attention. This is the “architecture mediator”, a kind of cultural agitator who enjoys good relations with politicians and is able to advance a project. His tasks include organizational planning, discovering the potential of a project and deciding which path to take in order to make progress.

Planning begins with the definition of a commission. What goals are being pursued? What are the basics of a competition? How is the jury put together? These are all decisions that have to be made in advance, prior to the work of the architects, but that are fundamentally important to the result. The preparations for celebrating the 700th anniversary of Switzerland in 2002 clearly show the role of the mediator. Expo.02 was to be staged with four pavilions. Four firms of architects were commissioned to build one pavilion each: Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Architektenteam Multipack, and Diller + Scofidio. For reasons of environmental protection, there was a requirement that the pavilions should be disassembled and removed when the Expo ended without leaving a trace on the site. From the outset, experts recommended that the pavilions should be erected on piles in the lakes, ensuring that they could be dismantled again without damaging the environment. This simple and effective solution meant that materials could be brought in by ship. Various comparative studies had determined that the transport of structural components by road could result in the collapse of the entire road network and would also be detrimental to the environment, so this option had been ruled out. Quays, assembly halls, loading zones and even concrete factories were built on the lakeshores. The mediator’s tasks included carrying out studies on the site, the effects on the area, the theme of each pavilion and the expected number of visitors. He also had to persuade the relevant politicians to give the green light for construction to begin. As expected, the architects’ proposals varied widely. Each developed a very individual response: a monolith, three towers rising up out of the water, and three

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Blur Building, Expo.02, Yverdon-les-Bains (2002), Diller + Scofidio

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Expo.02: Three towers, Biel, Coop Himmelb(l)au (top left); Galets, Neuchâtel, Architekten– team Multipack. Renderings (bottom left); Monolith, Murten, Jean Nouvel (right)

“galets”, flattened spheres. The most striking proposal was the Blur Building by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, which was an artificial cloud over the lake. It was designed to look like an unearthly object floating above the water 200 metres from the shore. The visitor was supposed to have the feeling of entering a cloud and disappearing inside it. In the interior of the Blur Building, visibility was reduced until nothing more could be seen and space was opened up for the perception of other stimuli. The sum of sounds and rays, combined with the inrush of other sensory impressions – damp, defencelessness – was a unique experience for every visitor. To achieve these effects, 32,000 sprinklers that filtered, cleaned and atomized the lake water were installed on a metal frame. The sprinklers were calibrated according to wind speed and changes in air pressure. Depending on the weather, visitors would find themselves in a compact cloud or in a kind of breathing spaceship whose exhalations spread across the whole lake. The installation was very popular with the public and among critics. The fact that the pavilion had been built “on the lake” was no doubt critical to its success, so its success was due in part to the person who had defined the commission: the mediator.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Cover of Time, 28 July 1967

Daniel Patrick Moynihan (* 1927 in Tulsa, † 2003 in Washington, DC) was such an architecture mediator. He had the ability to charm people and convince them of the usefulness of construction projects. He was the type of politician that every American mayor or senator wanted on his side, whether it was a matter of renovating an existing building or building a new one. Moynihan had studied sociology and demographics, and this scientific background gave him the ability to read diagrams and deduce results from them. It was no coincidence that he always relied on statistics when presenting his proposals. Where others saw only figures, he looked beyond them to see the people and their problems. He served as the US

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ambassador to India and to the United Nations, and was a four-term senator under Republican and Democratic administrations. A Democrat from the state of New York, he entered the US Senate for the first time in 1976 and was re-elected three times (1982, 1988 and 1994). He declined to run for re-election in 2000. During the presidency of John F. Kennedy, he began working in the White House as Assistant Secretary of Labour under Arthur Goldberg. His tasks included the review and analysis of various reports with the assistance of mathematicians and statisticians. In June 1962 the government commissioned him to draft a report advocating the building of new government offices in Washington, DC. In the resulting Report to the President by the Ad Hoc Committee on Federal Office Space, Moynihan presented an overview of all government real estate and forecast the government’s future space requirements in square footage. It was not hard to justify new building projects to the public. The government had not built a single new edifice in the city since the 1920s and 1930s. Moynihan, however, was to transform completely the typical architectural designs of public structures, or what he called “grey buildings”. He believed that the monumental, grey, gloomy buildings in the style of the Pentagon, which people had come to associate with the US government, offered their users little in the way of comfort. He had repeatedly expressed his concerns to the illustrator Saul Steinberg, who at the time was working as a scholar at the Smithsonian Institute and who shared his opinion: “You know, all these government buildings seem determined to impress upon citizens how unimportant they are.”1 Although the report was supposed to be limited to the spatial requirements of ministries, Moynihan could not resist including design criteria for making the buildings more friendly and open. The resulting “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture” broke with the prevailing official building style and called for firstclass architecture that reflected the spirit of the times in which it was designed. This initiative turned out to be ground-breaking. It was an opportunity to leave the tradition of the “grey” buildings behind and commission the best architects of the time. Moynihan justified his approach with the following advice: “Build whatever the Whiskey Trust is building. Over the years you won’t miss the best.”2 This was a reference to the pioneering Seagram Building by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, whose client was the head of an alcoholic drinks company (see Marketing, page 44). Over time, the Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture succeeded in putting their stamp on the architecture of public buildings in the United States.3 Some have even compared their importance to that of the American Declaration of  Independence. The then Secretary of the Commission of Fine Arts, Charles H. Atherton, said, “You can’t revise them. They are so basic and so right in everything.”4

1 General Service Administration Vision + Voice, Design Excellence in Federal Architecture: Building a Legacy, December 2002, p. 10

2 Ibid. 3 In the 1990s, the Guiding Principles were used to define the Design Excellence Program of the General Services Administration (GSA), an independent agency of the federal government tasked with supporting the work of various government departments. The programme is designed to help in the selection of the most suitable American architects for the design of government buildings. The architects selected under this programme for the building of structures for the executive and judicial branches and for the National Oceanographic Data Center in Washington have included Thom Mayne of Morphosis, William Pedersen of Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects, Richard Meier of Richard Meier & Partners, Robert A. M. Stern of Robert AM Stern Architects and Charles Gwathmey of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates. Ibid., p. 4

4 Ibid., p. 13

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Moynihan’s Guiding Principles for American government buildings

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GU I D I N G PR I N C I PL E S F O R F E D E R AL A R C H I T ECT U R E 1. The policy shall be to provide requisite and adequate facilities in an architectural style and form which is distinguished and which will reflect the dignity, enterprise, vigor, and stability of the American National Government. Major emphasis should be placed on the choice of designs that embody the finest contemporary American architectural thought. Specific attention should be paid to the possibilities of incorporating into such designs qualities which reflect the regional architectural traditions of the part of the Nation in which buildings are located. Where appropriate, fine art should be incorporated in the designs with emphasis on the work of living American artist. Design shall adhere to sound construction practice and utilize materials, methods, and equipment of proven dependability. Building shall be economical to build, operate, and maintain, and should be accessible to the handicapped. 2. The development of an official style must be avoided. Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government and not vice versa. The Government should be willing to pay some additional cost to avoid excessive uniformity in design of Federal buildings. Competitions for the design of Federal buildings may be held where appropriate. The advice of distinguished architects ought to, as a rule, be sought prior to award of important design contracts. 3. The choice and development of the building site should be considered the first step of the design process. This choice should be made in cooperation with local agencies. Special attention should be paid to the general ensemble of streets and public places of which Federal buildings will form a part. Where possible, buildings should be located so as to permit a generous development of landscape.

Moynihan’s report also dealt with the topic of redeveloping Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC, which was designed by Pierre Charles L’Enfant in 1791. This boulevard is one of the city’s main axes, comparable with the Champs-Élysées in Paris, and it was commissioned by President George Washington during the planning of the city. Processions and other celebrations are often held here on “America’s Main Street”, which links the Capitol with the White House. Some history books report that John F. Kennedy, on the day of his inauguration as President, looked out during his drive down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and thought about how he could redesign the boulevard to make it livelier. Pennsylvania Avenue represented power, and he wanted to go down in history as the man who had modernized it. Some regard this anecdote as apocryphal, as Kennedy had travelled down Pennsylvania Avenue from his house in Georgetown on many occasions during his time as a senator. He had probably already had the idea of redesigning the avenue back then. What was decisive, though, is that in the midst of the campaign for re-elec-

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The US Capitol

3rd Street

The Grant Memorial

4th Street

7th Street

9th Street 10th Street

12th Street 13th Street

14th Street 15th Street

The White House

Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington: aerial view of the Federal Triangle looking towards the Capitol (left); map (right)

tion in 1964, John F. Kennedy put his weight behind Pat Moynihan’s report, thus paving the way for the simple but daring proposals of his staffer to be implemented. The president set a date on which he would present the redesigning of Pennsylvania Avenue to Congress. Then he left for Dallas. It was the fateful day of 22 November 1963. Moynihan: “The last word from John F. Kennedy before he left for that trip to Dallas was that he wanted to have a coffee hour when he got back to show the  plans for Pennsylvania Avenue to Congressional leaders. A group of us were meeting to talk about this when the phone rang to say the President had been shot.”5 A week after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the new president, Lyndon B. Johnson, received Kennedy’s widow, Jackie, in the Oval Office. She asked him to continue her husband’s legacy by building a cultural centre in Washington in his honour, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and to proceed with the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue. Johnson agreed and Moynihan obtained the commission, which was to take 40 years to complete. Like every project, this one needed money. The first step, then, was to find financing, an endeavour that was complicated by the fact that the initiator of the project was deceased. A commission was set up to look into a resumption of the project,

5 Ibid., p. 10

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but funding would not be adequately secured until 1974. The necessary financing was finally provided via the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation (PADC) in the form of a publicly financed loan.

6 Jacobs, Jane: The death and life of great American cities. New York 1961

Alexander Owings. Cover of Time, 2 August 1968

7 “To Cherish Rather than Destroy”, Time, 2 August 1968

The redesign was to give the avenue a completely new face, more potential uses and even the occasional residential building. The goal was the kind of diversity  Jane Jacobs described in her book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”6. Above all, those involved wished to create a counterweight to the urban planning model of the giant city of Brasilia, which was full of institutions, but empty of life. They turned to Nat Owings, who at 65 headed the architecture firm with the most contracts in the whole country: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Himself an  expert negotiator, Owings was bowled over by Moynihan’s marked ability to assert himself in the face of resistance – whether it came from members of Congress, bureaucrats or commission members. Moynihan was not in a hurry, so his tactic sometimes was to wait out problems until events suited him better. What Nat Owings said of Moynihan is a fitting summary of the qualities of a mediator: “He is ebullient, competent and devoted – and also a randy rogue, a bandit and a buccaneer. His great ability is to get other people to do good work.”7 Giving the avenue an ordered appearance necessitated negotiations with developers of buildings that that were not originally within the avenue’s building line. Nat Owings had to personally confront FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover to convince him to let them move by 22 metres a Bureau administrative building that was to be built in the northern section of the avenue. The FBI accepted the proposal. As well as Hoover, Owings was able to persuade Jerry Wolman, another developer on Pennsylvania Avenue, to change his plans. Wolman was involved in the planning phase for a building in a pedestrian zone on the avenue. In “exchange” for moving his building on to the building line, Owings granted him an extra storey. The two men got on so well that Wolman commissioned Owings to construct the John Hancock Center, a 100-storey skyscraper, which became a Chicago showpiece. Owings gained not only a new client, but also a new member of staff: David M. Childs, a member of the commission. The young architect was made head of the Washington office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and eventually became one of Owings’ most important partners. In 1975 President Gerald Ford made Childs chairman of the National Capital Planning Commission. The redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue lasted until the completion of the Ronald Reagan Building in 1996. Built by the Pei Cobb Freed architecture firm, the structure is distinguished more by its size than its architectural quality.

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(Moynihan never got involved in questions of design; it was his opinion that everyone had his own role to play.) It is the second-largest federal building after the Pentagon and contains public and private offices, in keeping with Owings’ preference for mixed usage. The building is the centre of public life in Washington. It is often used for government receptions and ceremonies and is home to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Moynihan succeeded in redeveloping Pennsylvania Avenue and keeping the promise he made to Jackie Kennedy. In the 1990s, he bought a place to live there, between Seventh and Ninth Streets. He is commemorated in Daniel Patrick Moynihan Place, a section of plaza near the Ronald Reagan Building. In recognition of his life’s work, the monument there is inscribed with the text of his Guiding Principles. Interstate Highway sign

Moynihan’s strength lay in his ability to never stand still and to advance even difficult projects in the fog of bureaucracy. He had a knack for knowing which senator to join forces with and which official’s door to knock on, and he always had his goals clearly in mind. For him, persuasion was a question of figures and data, never of ideology. He was content to understand the economic formula according to which politics worked: “how you pay for things and how you vote determine changes in the government.”8 In 1991, construction of the Interstate Highway system, the motorway network linking all the states in the continental United States, was completed. The final costs vastly exceeded the sums originally quoted. Moynihan was commissioned to evaluate the connections between highway construction and the country’s productivity, to identify the effects of freeway construction on the economy. Planned as a simple analysis, the investigation became the basis for a financing system developed by Moynihan, a blueprint for infrastructure measures. With it, he proved the influence that various forms of financing can have on our built environment. As an opponent of motorways – he regarded entire sections of the highway network as superfluous – Moynihan showed that most highways, especially in the centre of the country, were underutilized and that, by contrast, there were serious congestion problems on ten per cent of the highways around major cities. Borrowing from Malthusian population theory, he foresaw the problem that the number of vehicles would increase until the road system collapsed. Traffic volume could be reduced in only two ways: by expanding the railroad network or by introducing tolls on certain routes. In an article he had published in “The Reporter” as far back as 14 April 1960, titled “New roads and urban chaos”, Moynihan had criticized the highway programme of Senator Albert Gore Sr. ( father of later Vice President Al Gore), which Gore

8 Robert A. Peck quoted in General Services Administration, op. cit., p. 210

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had published four years before. Arguing that society did not need many of the highways planned under the Interstate and Defense Highways Act, Moynihan lamented that the programme’s only beneficiaries were the car industry and road construction companies. The Republicans took the view that highways facilitated trade, and Democrats campaigned with a slogan designed to appeal to voters’ sense of fairness: “Better schools, better hospitals, better roads.” Members of Congress from the South and the West wanted the new highways as tools to promote population development in rural areas. Moynihan warned, however, that these unnecessary highways would lead to a dispersal of factories and businesses all across the country, as well as to population movements, which would radically change life in the cities. Cities would become mere suburbs whose inhabitants would need a car to achieve mobility. (In this critique, in which he cited Levittown and its repercussions, Moynihan comes across a visionary. See Throng, pages 95ff.). Moynihan meticulously investigated financing forms because he knew that the construction of interstate highways had only picked up speed after their financing was reformed. The building of the interstate highways had been authorized by Congress in 1944. In 1952, the US federal government financed 60 per cent of their construction costs, although by that time only one per cent of the entire highway network had been built. In 1956, under the amended legislation Gore had pushed for, which also levied a federal tax on fuel, the federal government’s share of the costs increased to 90 per cent. Local governments now had to provide just 10 per cent, or in some cases only five per cent, of funding.

9 Moynihan, Daniel P.: “New roads and urban chaos”, The Reporter, 14 April 1960

10 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick: ISTEA (Intermodal Surface Transportation). Introduction, 8. Act P. L. 102 – 204, 1991

When the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) came into force in 1991, what was originally supposed to be a report had become a financing concept for future projects. It is here that the work of the mediator reveals itself. It had become clear to Moynihan that many states had pursued highway construction because they didn’t have to bear the construction costs themselves. For them, federal money was “free money”, and they didn’t know what precisely it was used for. “The urge to have the highways was not matched by an urge to pay for them.”9 In 1991, as mentioned above, the Interstate Highway system was declared complete. After an actual construction period of 35 years, it had cost $125 billion, far more than the originally estimated $27.5 billion over ten years. With this data, Moynihan had a cogent argument for changing the financing model for the future. He proposed that 75 per cent be paid by the federal government and 25 per cent (including maintenance) by local governments. He believed that local authorities would spend money more carefully if they had to shoulder part of the costs themselves. “Public goods tend to be perceived as free goods and consumed as if they had no cost… . Just as there is no such thing as a free good, there is no such thing as a freeway.”10

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He had had a similar experience when he headed the Senate Subcommittee on Water Resources. At that time, the dredging of harbours was the province of the federal government, and many cities demanded deep waters in their harbours as a vital precondition for the flourishing of their economies. Yet, when the cities received no more money for it, most decided to dispense with further dredging and invest in things they really needed. As well as changing the financing form, Moynihan proposed carrying out studies before construction began, to consider among other things whether an airport or railroad line might be a good alternative to a highway. He also proposed examining every project to ascertain whether it was worthwhile and whether it complied with federal government guidelines. He wanted to dispense with inner-city highways, because building land in inner cities was in short supply; land had to be appropriated and its owners compensated, which could make these roads into the city endlessly expensive. Moynihan proposed taking a percentage of the money earmarked for the construction of highways and using it to renovate historic or other special traffic routes. This money could be used to convert railroad lines into cycle paths, say, or restore old bridges for pedestrian traffic, or even to drain wetlands. Even as a student, Moynihan had shown great interest in preserving historic buildings, and he always looked for new uses for such structures. He was later involved in restoring the Prudential Building by Louise Sullivan in Buffalo, New York, and even set up his own office in the building. Union Station in Washington, DC, by Daniel Burnham and the Custom House by Cass Gilbert in New York are further examples of his restoration activities. A building Moynihan could not save, however, was Penn Station in New York. Built by McKim, Mead & White, it was demolished in 1962 by Charles Luckman to make way for the construction of Madison Square Garden (see Marketing, pages 43ff.). Nathan Glazer in his 2007 book “From a Cause to a Style” writes that it is unfortunate that Moynihan was at that time only the Assistant Secretary of Labour, even if he was on a course to change his country’s history with his “guiding principles”.11 Madison Square Garden was a project that provoked fierce protests from the outset. These clashes, however, would open the public’s eyes to buildings worth preserving. New Yorkers were soon calling Madison Square Garden “the palace of three lies”: it wasn’t a garden, it wasn’t a square, and it wasn’t on Madison, either. Moynihan put a great deal of energy into the project of building a new railway station that would be “worthy” of the city of New York. He proposed converting the James A. Farley Building, a post office, into the entrance of a new com-

11 Glazer, Nathan: From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture’s Encounter with the American City. Princeton 2007, p. 162

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muter rail station. The building, once saved by Moynihan, is right next to Madison Square Garden at the subway station. He created the Pennsylvania Station Redevelopment Corporation to implement the project and tried to find funding for it.

Moynihan Station, New York: Rendering courtesy Friends of Moynihan Station

12 Moynihan: “Well, there have been [proposals to name the new Penn Station after me] and I have gone to great lengths to say no because I don’t want other people to get involved and say, Why the hell am I building a memorial to him?” O’Connor, Mickey: “The View from the Hill”, Architecture, July 2000

13 Forgey, Benjamin: “Senator of Design”, Metropolis, December 2000

14 Diamond, Ros: “Tracing 9H”, Architectural Research Quarterly, September 2005

Moynihan died in 2003, but his project lives on. The design of the new station was proposed by David Childs (who had worked with Moynihan on the development of Pennsylvania Avenue), but it is not certain that he will stay in control of the project in the end. Not much has happened with it since Moynihan’s death, apart from one change: the name. Instead of Penn Station, the city of New York wants to call it Moynihan Station in Moynihan’s honour, despite the fact that he frequently declared himself to be against such a change. The reason for his stance was not only humility; he was afraid the public would not support the railway station if it were a memorial.12 Moynihan liked to quote President Thomas Jefferson, who once said, “Design activity and political thought are indivisible.”13 In terms of Moynihan’s profession, this could be interpreted to mean that architecture and political thought go hand in hand. But Moynihan also knew that, in politics, there are decisions whose implementation can take a lifetime and even longer. Very few politicians know anything about architecture. Even fewer architects can deal with politics. One exception is Ricky Burdett (* 1956 in London). He describes himself as an “urban consultant”, a political consultant for urban development. His task is to support politicians in choosing architects and implementing construction projects. Cities are becoming increasingly complex, so politicians need external experts who know which architectural concepts show promise. In his work as a professor at the London School of Economics (LSE), Burdett studies and categorizes cities, identifies their “DNA”, their essential core, and derives data and information from that. He doesn’t design buildings; he develops strategies for revitalizing individual cities. In contrast to Moynihan, who was involved in politics as a mediator, Ricky Burdett has developed his work on the margins of politics, offering his services from there. At the outset of his career, Burdett was head of an architecture gallery in London called 9H, a reference to the hardness of pencils. The name, Burdett said, was to convey “the notion of pencil hardness… hardness, terseness, critical of present discourses in the sphere of history and architectural criticism but also suggesting ways to moving forward.”14 In the context of the art world, his current work is in fact comparable with that of a gallery owner. He seeks out buyers, i.e. developers, for the artists, in this case  architects, he represents. Even before a commission is awarded by a museum (a government authority) or a private foundation (a company), he knows which artist (architect) would be best suited to the project and that particular client.

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9H gallery, which existed from 1985 until 1991, emerged from the success of the architecture magazine of the same name,15 which was started by Masters degree students at the Bartlett School. Burdett was on the magazine’s editorial team, which wanted to present alternatives to the highly technical formal games of the high-tech architecture shaping the discourse at the time. Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Michael Hopkins had initiated this trend. At 9H, the decision was taken to swim against the tide and to present architects from (continental) Europe who were practically unknown in London. They published articles on buildings by Lilly Reich & Eileen Gray, Paolo Caccia Dominioni, Hans Döllgast, Cleon Crantonellis, Arata Isozaki, Álvaro Siza, Richard Meier, Francesco Venezia, Eduard Bru, Herzog & de Meuron and Eduardo Souto de Moura, among others. Those young professionals, some of them now star architects, turned away from all the concepts that they considered predictable and boring and associated with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) at the time, and their ideas gradually became “alternatives”. The gallery was run by Ricky Burdett, David Chipperfield, Wilfried Wang and Ken Armstrong. It was located on Cramer Street, occupying the ground floor and basement under the offices of “Blueprint” magazine and behind David Chipperfield’s office. Within a short time, they were planning exhibitions, holding ten of them in their first year. The architectural exhibits themselves were not very profitable, but they helped them to make business contacts, as architects, politicians, journalists and decision makers thronged to their exhibition openings. Burdett described his work in the gallery as “the most interesting I’ve ever done”16 and for him it became a kind of crash course in becoming a mediator. Burdett met representatives from the American firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill at an exhibition on Paternoster Square, and they offered him two years’ work at the Chicago Institute for Architecture. In those years, he became familiar with the “American way” and developed the idea and concept of the Architecture Foundation, an independent organization for the promotion of an expert and realistic discourse on architecture. The Architecture Foundation was conceived as a forum for project proposals, opinions and concrete construction projects. In contrast to the SOM Foundation, which the partners of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill had founded in 1979 and 13 of whose 14 members were architects, Burdett limited the number of architects on his foundation’s board to a quarter. He wanted to reflect society as a whole and especially to involve representatives from the world of the arts. To do this, he brought in influential personalities such as the developer Stuart Lipton, who together with Richard Rogers was to develop 20 million square metres in London; Norman Foster; and Doris Saatchi, then wife of Charles Saatchi, a proprietor of Saatchi & Saatchi, the advertising agency with the largest number of offices worldwide. He was successfully advancing towards his country’s cultural and economic elite.

15 9H: Bartlett translations, 1980 – 1983

16 Finch, Paul: “Mysteries of the organizer”, Architects’ Journal, 3 November 1994

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The first exhibition put on by the Architecture Foundation in 1991, which focused on Frankfurt, had just 600 visitors. In contrast, the 1992 touring exhibition “City Changes”, examining developments in London, was a huge public success and attracted 160,000 visitors at four locations. Burdett had successfully established the AF. His tactic of addressing both citizens and politicians as the target groups of his exhibitions had worked. The AF became a platform for new, up-and-coming talents, the “young architects”. It also took on planning work, such as the planning of the new Jubilee Line of the London Underground.

17 Ibid.

As director of the AF, Burdett proved that he was able to foresee problems and anticipate the possible reactions of the public and decision makers. Because he could assess both, he used this knowledge to convince politicians of the right strategy. He was listened to, because successful architecture brings in votes. In this sense, Burdett aligned himself with former French President Mitterrand, who once said, “Culture is the third biggest vote catcher, and architecture is the biggest component in it.”17 In addition to his work as head of the AF, Burdett in 1993 was named architectural adviser to the Tate Gallery, where he again proved his worth as a mediator. He had to decide where the Tate Modern would be housed in future and who would get the commission for it. His choice of location was risky; he decided on the conversion of an old power station in the Bankside district of the then run-down London borough of Southwark. The Bankside Power Station is an enormous structure, built to plans by architect Giles Gilbert Scott in two phases from 1947 until 1963 and closed in 1981. Located across the Thames from St. Paul’s Cathedral, it is now a quick walk across the Millennium Bridge from the centre of London. What was decisive in the choice of location was the considerable height of the turbine hall, at 35 metres, and of the chimney, at 93 metres. After the conversion, there could be no more doubting the wisdom of Burdett’s choice of location, which is borne out by the gallery’s over four million visitors a year. At the time, though, he had quite a job convincing people. A competition was launched, an exhibition was organized by the AF, and debate followed. The proposal of Herzog & de Meuron won out against the big names of the time, with a design Burdett favoured because of its simplicity. Their plan was to retain the turbine hall and use side lighting as well as skylights. The outer walls of the structure would also remain practically unchanged. Burdett defended the design by claiming that retaining this great industrial building would attract the public and that it would be an ideal location for works of art. He encouraged his colleagues to “think big” and envision a multi-storey hall taking up the building’s entire length. This would, however, present its own challenges, such as questions about the types of exhibitions that the building would house and of the format and nature of artworks that would be capable of filling such a space.

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Soon the search was on for artists who would be able to create unique installations that would be suitable for the vast hall. Louis Bourgeois, Anish Kapoor and Juan Muñoz are among the names who succeeded in doing so. Yet the work most popular with the public, according to a survey in the “The Guardian” newspaper in October 2008, was Olafur Eliasson’s “The Weather Project”.18 Eliasson’s installation was an artificial sun. In the immeasurability and grandeur of this unique hall, it found its appropriate space. The idea caught on immediately. It was reminiscent of Diller + Scofidio’s cloud. Both projects turn the observer’s attention to the infinity of the sky, one seeking the sun, the other the clouds.

18 Gonzalez-Foerster, Dominique: “Which Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation gets your vote?”, The Guardian, 13 October 2008

The Tate Modern opened in May 2000, proving the springboard to success for the Herzog & de Meuron team. In 2001, they won the Pritzker Prize. Burdett had shown himself to be a mediator with foresight. He had commissioned the two architects even before they were famous, when they were still comparatively inexpensive. He had a feeling that working on the Tate Modern would be good for their careers. But being a good mediator involves more than just choosing suitable architects. Everything has to be right: the commission, the building and the schedule. After his success with the Tate Modern, Burdett was made a consultant to the BBC and the city administrations of London and Barcelona. In Barcelona he was able to present arguments based on his experiences from London, and in London he drew on his experiences in Barcelona. In 2002, he convinced London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, to launch “The Mayor’s 100 Public Spaces” programme, which invited citizens to redesign the London public places that they used every day. The initiative was designed to produce the kinds of public spaces that cities like Rome or Barcelona already had.19 Ten projects a year were tackled with the goal of creating high-quality public spaces, ranging from the upgrading of squares to the opening of new spaces for urban development. It was essentially an English version of the “plazas duras” initiative that had taken place in Barcelona before the city hosted the Olympic Games. Ricky Burdett combined consultancy with academic work. In 1997, he accepted a position with the London School of Economics (LSE). The university did not at the time offer any degree courses in architecture or urban development, but Ricky Burdett was interesting to them because of his contacts. The LSE has long been an elite training ground for the leaders of tomorrow. Pat Moynihan studied there in 1950 on a Fulbright scholarship, and the school was confident in Burdett’s ability to attract students of that calibre. The LSE Cities Programme was created as a new department in the Faculty of Sociology – the first design-oriented centre for education, research and consultancy in a university specializing in the social sciences. The renowned mediator began giving graduate courses and organizing conferences and symposia, to

19 Burdett: “London will end up with the sort of public spaces there are in Rome or Barcelona” [when the Mayor’s 100 Public Spaces programme is complete]. Nayeri, Farah: “Olympian Task: Can Burdett Turn a London Dump into Barcelona?”, Bloomberg, 15 June 2005

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The Weather Project (2003–2004), Olafur Eliasson, Installation in the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern

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which he invited mayors and urban planners seeking recipes for success for their cities. Eight years after taking the position, he was made professor of urban studies at LSE. In 2005, he launched the Urban Age project, an ambitious and global version of the Cities Programme, which extended its focus beyond London to the whole world. The project deals with the issue of globalization and aims to establish an  international think-tank. Burdett was able to secure the sponsorship of Deutsche Bank for the project, and jointly with the bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society, the International Forum of Deutsche Bank was established. It began with a series of conferences, at which politicians, decision makers and architects  were again represented – not only in London, but all over the world in cities that were undergoing transformation and that might serve as examples to other cities. The first conferences were held New York, Shanghai, London, Johannesburg, Mexico City and Berlin. Each of these cities stands for a different fate. New York has reinvented itself, Shanghai is undergoing a phase of explosive growth, London is Burdett’s own city and the example he knows best, Johannesburg represents what doesn’t work, Mexico City seems to be on the verge of collapse, and Berlin for a long time experienced a decline in population. Burdett analysed what worked and what didn’t work and encouraged his students and researchers to look for solutions. Conferences serve the purpose of networking. Urban Age is like the World Economic Forum at Davos, at which decision makers speak and present their visions. Things were easier for Moynihan, who had state organizations with their remits and commissions and precisely defined areas of authority available to him. Persuading people was an entirely different matter. Burdett, in contrast, is confronted with far more diffuse power structures, and in order to offer his “magic formulas”, he has to first find out all about his potential interlocutors. The next conferences were held in Mumbai, São Paulo and Istanbul, cities with enormous growth prospects and thus greatly in need of solutions to problems. But who sets the tone in India, Brazil or Turkey? How does one go about finding out which political and business leaders architects should visit und what projects banks should provide financing to? Urban Age serves as a platform for identifying suitable partners and building relationships of trust. Here answers are offered to problems so that services can subsequently be sold. Burdett needed to attract the attention of the world’s media. To do this he got the International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale) in Venice in 2006,20 of which he was director, to focus on the topic of the city. And he made use of the resources of the Italian state to add more cities to Urban Age. In the end, the list of par-

20 “Cities. Architecture and Society”, 10th International Architecture Exhibition, 2006

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ticipating cities included Barcelona, Berlin, Bogotá, Cairo, Caracas, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Milan, Mumbai, New York, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. This time, the persuader Burdett was ready with more graphics, more data and more three-dimensional effects.

21 http:archnet.org/calendar/ item.jsp?calendar_id=45900. Retrieved on 24 March 2013

22 Tate Modern: Global cities, p. 3

23 Burdett, Ricky (ed.): The endless city. London 2007

“The exhibition will not only feature information and data on how these cities are being transformed in social, economic and cultural terms but also display new architectural and urban projects that are affecting the way people live, work and move in the dense metropolitan environment of these world cities.”21 He held another exhibition on ten cities for London’s Tate Modern in 2007 titled “Global Cities”. He used the material and data that had been compiled for the Venice Biennale, although here he included only Cairo, Istanbul, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, São Paulo, Shanghai and Tokyo. The exhibition “depicts the changing face of ten dynamic, international cities and explores them through five key themes: speed, size, density, diversity and form,”22 explained Burdett. In 2007, he published the book “The Endless City”23, a compilation of information he had gathered over the years. In it he categorizes cities and presents himself as a “global finder of solutions”, explaining the ideas presented at the conferences against the backdrop of the increasing densification of cities. Among the concepts discussed are ways to avoid the proliferation of cities and the formation of huge conurbations; not separating functions, instead aiming for mixed use; and even models of decision-making authority for mayors, so that they can intervene in the economic growth of their cities. The book also deals with the assessment of a model’s sustainability and introduces the consultancy and lessons gained from Urban Age. Burdett wants to prove that a city can be transformed by architecture that distances itself from “high-tech solutions” and focuses more closely on social policy. He investigates the collapse of Mexico City’s traffic system, which was, among other things, impacting the city’s competitiveness and causing serious social structural and environmental problems. Burdett recommended a solution that had already been implemented successfully in Bogotá. This consisted of an efficient bus network, which would reduce road congestion and strengthen social cohesion. His argumentation was reminiscent of Moynihan’s battles prior to the introduction of the ISTEA. Burdett recommended that the mayor should promote public transport and stop  extending the highway network. His proposal was to provide dedicated bus lanes, which would be demarcated by kerbstones and raised traffic lanes to prevent other vehicles from using them. Using graphics and reams of data, he also presented his “recipe”, with some specific adjustments, for Mexico City.

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“Cities. Architecture and Society” exhibition in the Arsenal, 10th International Architecture Exhibition / La Biennale di Venezia, Venice (2006), Ricky Burdett

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The politicians accepted his proposals, and the first dedicated lanes for socalled  Metro buses, which travel as fast as underground trains, have now been built.

24 Ibid., p. 23

Urban Age has raised politicians’ awareness, showing them that decisions involving architecture can have powerful effects on the social environment. It is about “deep connections between social cohesion and built form, between sustainability and density, between public transport and social justice, between public space and tolerance and between good governance and good cities that matter to the way urban citizens live their lives. Perhaps more so than ever before, the shape of cities, how much land they occupy, how much energy they consume, how their transport infrastructure is organized and where people are housed […] affect the environmental, economic and social sustainability of global society. Cities are not just concentrations of problems – which they are – but they are also where problems can be solved.”24 His work with Urban Age has made Ricky Burdett into a global consultant, who, while he does not have direct power, certainly commands influence. His is a position comparable to that of Moynihan when the latter was ambassador to the United Nations, before being elected to the US Senate by his state of New York. He didn’t have concrete power, but brought his influence to bear in many countries. Until his successful election to the Senate, he was denied the keys to the Treasury. Both these kinds of power are now a reality for Ricky Burdett. On the one hand, he is able to wield influence in many countries through his activities as a consultant with Urban Age; on the other, he enjoys personal access to sources of power in London. Together with other architects, he made no bones about his rejection of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), the authority responsible for organizing the Olympic Games in London in 2012. They accused the ODA of being too strongly influenced by the interests of the Games’ sponsors and felt that the opinions of individual project managers were not being adequately acknowledged. To silence their critics, the politicians made Burdett their “design consultant”. The closer the crucial date in 2012 approached, the fuller his diary became, until he was spending all this time at this post. His tasks were to commission teams of designers, order works, and monitor compliance with budgets and delivery deadlines. These activities were similar to his work for the Tate Modern, although on a scale 20 to 30 times greater. This time the budget was bigger, there were more locations and there was more at stake: the image of the country in the eyes the world. Burdett had to organize, take decisions and set selection criteria, in the process developing his own “guiding principles”:

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London before the Olympic Games 2012. Aerial view of the Olympics site

“1) Firstly, the brief will always put design on a extremely high threshold, alongside deliverability and functionality. 2) We then go out and find the very best talent available for the job, regardless of profile. 3) Finally, we have mechanism in-house that ensure design quality is always balanced with restrictions such as time and budget.”25 Burdett was facing the project of his life. He had been commissioned to transform his city, London, in a time of crisis. With the bar set high by the preceding Olympic Games in Beijing, he was under enormous pressure to succeed. There were presumably countless run-ins with architects, politicians and journalists along the way, but he succeeded in implementing his programme with a great deal of diplomacy. In September 2005, he wrote, “Architects shape cities. Politicians make policies. Getting them to talk to each other is what interests me.”26 The brilliant Mr Moynihan would certainly have agreed with this remark.

25 Foster, Phin: “Let the Games Begin”, Designbuild, 1 August 2007

26 “Brief encounter: Ricky Burdett”, RIBA Journal, 112 / 2005

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I D E A S F O R A FA ST- G R O W I N G P OPUL ATION (IS THERE A MODEL THAT C AN BE REPE ATED AT WILL?)

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Architects usually design for a certain client and a certain site – in other words, in a specific context. Customized housing is, however, a luxury most people can’t afford. Standardized products, like those sold by IKEA, have influenced our attitude towards the home. It is now up to architects to think about the dreaded issue of industrialized housing. We are sceptical about it, because in our eyes, such a concept is hard to adapt to individual users. We also know that the final price rises with increasing individual adaptation. So we have to ask ourselves this: Can we design moderately priced homes that fulfil some basic needs for a limited time only? Based on two examples, I will outline below how industrialized housing has been given impetus by migration flows. The return of thousands of American soldiers from the battlefields of the Second World War led to the construction of thousands of homes and to a new kind of living. The model of the suburb made up of single-family houses, each with its own garden, was born – and it has since spread all over the Western world. Now, even greater changes are underway. China’s rural population is moving into the cities, and we have to think about how these people can be accommodated. This is a huge challenge for planners: in the next 20 years, an estimated 500 million Chinese will move from the country to the city in search of a better life. Just as the suburb emerged in post-war Amer-

ica, the hyper-dense city is now emerging in China. To deal with this reality, we will have to study past successes and failures. Levittown is an example of a concept that was a solution for many families in its day, but which has turned out to be unsustainable. For people to be able to live in it, the hyperdense city will need a new model of social coexistence. Elements of the virtual world will be necessary to provide the inhabitants with enough room for leisure activities, emotional release and individual pursuits that will no longer be available to them in reality. For most people, the issue of standardization will no longer be relevant then, because everything virtual can be configured and adapted to the user. Reality, in contrast, will be standardized, for reasons of cost. Designing for masses of people is a huge challenge, because suitable models have not yet been defined. We have to act quickly, though, because China’s rural population is already at the gates of the cities. It is bound to be the Chinese themselves who come up with solutions, because the country’s intellectuals are being educated at the world’s best universities, and they are capable of combining Western knowledge and Asian practice in an optimal way. In Chinese culture, everything flows, everything changes, everything can be adapted – and this applies to architecture as well.

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THE MASSES AND ARCHITECTURE – THE SE ARCH FOR THE BEST STR ATEGY

H

ow can the requirements of vast populations be met? What standard solutions will be suitable for the largest number of people without changes and adaptations having to be made? This is not about “customizing”, which starts from an individual desire for modifications and incorporates them into a design. Future concerns also do not play a role here. This is about meeting current needs as inexpensively as possible. Individual adaptation means regarding a home as a material commodity that should last a lifetime, even if many customers will subsequently use their homes in ways different from those they had planned, or will simply sell them. In reality, the way society is developing means that durability will have to give way to mobility, a situation in which we seek immediate gratification of our current needs. The future is so unclear that the question is no longer how someone plans a home; rather, it is how and where he will be able to live, or forced to live, should he change jobs, should his relationship end, or should the overall economic situation change. Everything becomes more complicated when it is not the individual making the changes, but when wider social or economic shifts make it impossible to keep living in a certain place.

1 Beck, Ulrich: Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London 1992

2 Ibid, p. 53

The sociologist Ulrich Beck describes today’s society as a “risk society”.1 His work focuses on the social, political, economic and industrial risks that are increasingly beyond our industrial society’s institutional control and protection mechanisms. He investigates the phenomenon of individualization and lists the following aspects as characteristic of the risk society: · Today’s risks can cause systemic, often irreversible damage to society. · The return of uncertainty; risk as recognition of the unforeseeable and of the threats to modern society. In a reflexive society, society itself becomes the problem. · In the new forms of social living, people experience an individualization that is rooted in the disintegrating traditional ties of industrial society. · Society’s common sources of meaning become depleted and individuals in the new society turn away from them, seeking an independent identity. “In class positions being determines consciousness, while in risk positions, conversely, consciousness (knowledge) determines being.”2 · There is a political and institutional vacuum. Social movements are a new form of legitimization.

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Levittown (1957), aerial photograph

The result of social risk is that we live with increasing uncertainty. What once was regarded as a certainty is no longer one. If we want to provide solutions for masses of people, they will have to be designed for a specific point in time. A product must be conceived and produced at an affordable price. If the masses buy it, it stays on the market until the market is saturated. After the Second World War, there was widespread optimism among Americans returning from the war. Many young people no longer wanted to live with their parents, yearning for homes of their own. William J. Levitt (*1907 in New York City, †1994 in Manhasset, NY) recognized the compelling social need to create new and inexpensive housing. In 1947, he made a breakthrough with a revolutionary offer that, for many families, turned the American Dream of a home of their own with a picket fence into a reality. On a former potato field in Nassau, Long Island, which had been earmarked for urban development, he offered houses at a special price

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of just 7,990 dollars (about 64,000 dollars at today’s prices), which people could pay off over 30 years in monthly instalments of 58 dollars. The area was not connected to public transport, but when one compared the price of these houses with that of a shoddy flat in New York, the prospect of a house on 228 square metres of land with a living room and an open fireplace, two rooms, a fully equipped kitchen and a bathroom was very attractive. What is more, the price included heating, a television and a washing machine, and another storey could be added to the house. The idea caught on fast. On the first weekend, 20,000 prospective buyers came to the building site and 1,400 houses were sold in one day. For a chance to buy one of those houses, people stood outside in queues all night, whatever the weather. William J. Levitt. Cover of Time, 3 July 1950

3 Lacayo, Richard: “Suburban Legend William Levitt”. Time, 7 December 1998

The secret of this low-priced building style lay in the industrialization of the construction process, in its organization: “We channel labor and materials to a stationary outdoor assembly line instead of bringing them together inside a factory.”3 Levitt worked with prefabricated parts as much as possible. Everything had to be assembled on site. Saws, to Levitt, were superfluous, as he felt that having to use a saw was invariably a sign that something didn’t fit right in the first place. He liked to compare his enterprise with General Motors and boasted that he could have a house built every 16 minutes, or 37 houses a day. He always had figures available to wow an audience. He divided the construction process into 27 steps. He would hire a painter to paint nothing but red lines, or a repairman to assemble just the feet of washing machines, and so forth. Each task was left to the respective specialist, which saved that 25 per cent of the time a worker would otherwise have wasted thinking about what to do next. Levitt negotiated with banks, the government and unions, because he needed the government to guarantee the bank loans, veterans’ organizations to extend lowinterest mortgages to their members, and unions to stay away from his building sites. He also got building regulations changed to allow his system of using concrete slab foundations for houses. Everything was prefabricated, down to the last screw. Levitt even used wood from his own forests, which made him independent of price fluctuations in the timber market. As far as possible, he cut out all middlemen, so he would not have to pay their profit margins. Thanks to the savings he made, every completed house made him a $1,000 profit. These were single-family dwellings with gardens and pitched roofs, much as preschooler might draw them. They all stood lined up on a slightly curving street, with two trees on each lot. Most of the buyers were white lower-middle-class

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Levittown (1947): Building materials on the construction site, ready for assembly. The houses were built in 27 discrete steps.

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Levittown in the press: Architectural Forum, April 1949

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Americans. There were restrictions on African-Americans, even black veterans, until as late as 1959. Strict rules such as “Hanging wash on Sunday is forbidden”, “Fences between houses are not allowed” and “The lawn must be mowed once a week” regulated communal life in town. The former soldiers were used to such rules and, for a while, a certain military order and neatness prevailed. In just three years, the potato field had become Levittown, NY, a town of 17,447  houses that Levitt built. It had become a symbol of American progress. There were lots of media reports about it, including the inevitable stream of jokes and anecdotes. Radio shows liked to tell stories of husbands who justified their affairs by claiming they had simply gone to the wrong house, or of children who went missing because they could not find their way home. Singer Pete Seeger satirized this in his song “Little Boxes”, which included the line “all made out of ticky tacky, and they all look just the same”. Yet Levitt’s concept was so successful that he repeated it in other places. He built Levittowns in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and even Puerto Rico. By the end of the 1960s, he had built 140,000 houses worldwide. Levitt succeeded because he had found an answer to what was an urgent question at the end of the 1940s: How can suitable housing be built for 10 million lower-middle-class Americans? His success coincided with the spread of the car, which made it easy to transport shopping home, so it didn’t matter how far Levittown was from public transport. Levitt’s decision to look for development sites in the vicinity of industrial areas

Aerial photograph of Levittown in 1958 (left), and a view across Shanghai from the Oriental Pearl TV Tower (right)

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where workers were needed was right on the money. In those locations, the new homeowners were able to find jobs that allowed them to pay off their mortgages. Levitt posed the right questions for the time, and he worked on offering answers. So, what questions need answering today?

4 McKinsey Global Institute: Preparing for China’s urban billion. March 2009

The architect Qingyun Ma (*1965 in Xi’an, China) is faced with a challenge comparable to the one confronting Levitt. How can the 500 million Chinese who will move from rural to urban areas in the next 20 years be accommodated in the cities? This problem is 50 times bigger than Levitt’s and is exacerbated by a shortage of space, as China’s cities already feature extremely high population densities. “If current trends hold, China’s urban population will expand from 572 million in 2005 to 926 million in 2025 and hit the one billion mark by 2030. [...] By 2025, China will have 219 cities with more than one million inhabitants – compared with 35 in Europe today – and 24 cities with more than five million people. [...] This growth will imply major pressure points for many cities including the challenge of managing these expanding populations, securing sufficient public  funding for the provision of social services, and dealing with demand and supply pressures on land, energy, water, and the environment.”4 This shift makes it necessary to think about hyper-dense cities and develop methods to relieve this pressure. Ma himself has experienced his country’s rapid transformation. Xi’an, the city of his birth, lies on the Silk Road, along which traders once brought news from the West. Within less than a decade, Xi’an has been transformed from the rural environment of Ma’s childhood into a metropolis like New York. This experience has had a profound impact on Ma. The development of his city is exemplary of the extreme speed with which China has changed in recent years.

5 Serra, Catalina: “El joven arquitecto de Xi’an”, El País, 14 June 2004

Qingyun Ma studied architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing and, with the help of a scholarship, completed a Masters at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for the New York–based architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox, where he designed buildings for major American corporations. He met Rem Koolhaas when they were both working on the book “The Great Leap Forward”, and the two subsequently collaborated on other projects, including CCTV and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Koolhaas says of Ma that he doesn’t start “from scratch, making a clean sweep of the past like most of his colleagues, but rather attempts to discover relationships between historical substance and new buildings. One of the original features is that his works are still Chinese or close to Chinese.”5 In 1995 Ma founded his own architecture firm, named Mada. Four years later, he  changed the name to MADA s.p.a.m. and returned to Shanghai, looking

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for  development opportunities in a China gearing up enthusiastically for the Olympics, a place where everything was growing, moving and brimming over with ideas. Given his relative inexperience, it would have been normal for Ma to start out as all architects do when they open their own offices: by designing a single-family house. Ma, however, was commissioned to design the Wuxi Campus Center in Zhejiang, which involved developing an area of a million square metres. The enormous scale of this project – an area bigger than that of all the works of Kahn, Aalto or Mies van der Rohe – did not faze him. He hired 40 employees and commissioned another 40 external collaborators. He got started on the first part of the campus, an area of 180,000 square metres, for which a library, student residences, lecture halls and sports facilities, among other things, were planned. To get a handle on the management of the office, the building and the client, he availed himself of a concept well-known in China: “sùdù” (速度), which can be translated as “speed”. Everything happens so fast that there is no room for doubt or adjustments, so one prerequisite for “sùdù” is clear, simple decisions and instructions. The architect controls the construction process. As with Levitt’s projects, everyone has to know what to do. Improvisation is not welcome here; for the system to work, everything has to be coordinated. Processes must be simple, unambiguous and one-way, otherwise it would be impossible to manage the sheer number of parties that such large-scale projects involve. When construction is a race against time, there is no room for corrections; you cannot pause to weigh the pros and cons of a decision. “In China a decision made by a designer, I would say that it directly impacts the physical construct” [– in contrast to the Western world, in which changes are first checked by many supervisory entities].”6 Some architects probably dream of this kind of freedom, but it also harbours risks. At this high speed, according to Ma, designs are directly implemented as the architect first planned them, with fewer intermediate steps than in the West. The way he describes this process, it is as if a design were never printed out as a plot or seen as a model, but were turned straight into a completed building. “The whole industry is almost like a plotting machine [that] plots your drawings out in a three-dimensional way.”7 This means that definitions of details or 1:50 scale plans are dispensed with. Many decisions are made during site visits, and the building is defined by its basic idea, without reference to a drawing. The different sections of a facade, for example, may be defined by means of codes. This means, say, that Part A is made of aluminium, Part B of concrete and all the connections of steel. These are not prefabricated components, but rather formulas that serve as quasi–building instructions for the workers to carry out exactly. The system leaves nothing to chance. It can

6 Jeevanjee, Ali: “Qingyun Ma: The Idea Behind s.p.a.m.”, Archinect, 10 December 2007

7 Ibid.

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Wuxi Campus, Zhejiang (2003), MADA s.p.a.m.: Models on which codes define the different areas of the facade (left), building site (right)

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be used in large-scale building projects in which there is no time or budget for highly detailed planning. This solution is thus a kind of construction using prototypes. Surprises are therefore not rare, and it may be that a building ends up a few metres higher than planned. In China, this does not matter at all. The main thing is that the building is completed on schedule and that it fulfils its function. As he gained more practical professional experience, Ma realized that a drawn design alone could not adequately describe a project at increasing levels of complexity, and that this required tools that the architectural language did not offer him. To carry out projects on such a large scale takes strategies.

8 Ibid.

9 He also references this in the name of his firm, MADA s.p.a.m. Here the letters stand for Strategy, Planning, Architecture and Media.

10 Jeevanjee, op. cit.

When Ma talks about this shift in his thinking, he likes to tell an anecdote: “I like spam, because when I first came to the United States the only thing that I could afford to have a sandwich with was spam. [...] Thinking about it, it’s actually good, the idea behind spam is to condense the nutritious agents by not recognizing its original form.”8 In spam, in other words, the individual ingredients are subsumed and hidden in plain sight. For Ma, this idea9 when transferred to architecture, means that it must reflect and meet various potentially opposing social, political and economic interests. “Planning with no social strategy, or economic strategy, is nonsense. So before you start to plan, you have to work on strategies. Architecture is really a form of representation of what we do, it’s a form of representation of social forces, of economic dynamism. Planning thinking leads to strategy.”10

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When he is set a task, he first establishes strategies designed to offer his client affordable solutions. “The important thing is to connect your idea to the money.”11 The solution may not necessarily be a building. It could be a sketch, a picture, a property deal or even a book.

11 De Muynck, Bert: “Architect in China. An interview with Qingyun Ma of MADA s.p.a.m.” Ubiquitous China, volume 8 / 2006

Ma was entrusted with large projects from the outset. This gave him the financial latitude to be able to pursue conceptual work in his firm as well. He has invested in the publication of various texts outlining strategies for solving real issues, including “How to Develop Hainan Island”, “How to Develop the North Bund in Shanghai” and “How to Revitalize Xian”. All these concepts are what Dutch architecture historian Ole Bouman would call “unsolicited architecture”, by which he means proposals that are made without a contract or commission and that are designed to attract the attention of the politicians to whom the architect wants to present solutions. The precondition for this is an awareness of the interests of the public. Western tradition is based on preserving historic buildings for as long as possible. Chinese tradition instead places value on the human relationships linked with such buildings. It does not matter whether buildings are reconstructed, demolished or replaced, because the inherent value of even antique buildings is not anchored in the stone itself, but lies in the significance that society attributes to that stone. One example of this value of relationships is the house Ma built in Xi’an for his father, although the latter did not actually need it. The neighbours expected it, however, because of the tradition “that one has to build a house to prove to the village how successful he is, regardless of how far he has traveled.”12 Building a house is synonymous with constructing a monument to the success of one’s family. It symbolizes the link with one’s roots and the obligations that result from that. Ma built the house in a way that was once customary in rural Xi’an. It took five years to collect and select the stones from the river and 11 years to complete the building. It took that long because the farmers could only do construction work in the free time they had between harvests. Luxury means having enough time to be able to afford to wait. Luxury means building a house that represents the relationship between a father, his son and their ancestors. No matter where Ma currently lives, he and his family have forgotten neither their roots nor their neighbours. Chinese culture is based on a certain approach towards time and on the spiritual value that is ascribed to every object. What is important about an object is not its age, but rather its significance to society. If a building no longer serves a purpose,

12 Keune, Eric: Qingyun Ma: Accommodating Resistance. 2007

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House of his father, Lantian (2002): Architects: MADA s.p.a.m. Quingyun Ma built the house for his father in the hilly landscape of the Jade Valley. In Chinese tradition, it represents the success of the family.

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it is better to demolish it. “[An architect] does not preserve a space that prevents future opportunities. Since territory is limited, this would freeze development for future generations.”13 In Ma’s opinion, then, keeping something that is no longer needed means preventing potential growth, restricting possibilities and burdening future generations.

13 Anderton, Frances: “The Wild West Meets the Wild East”. Radio programme on KCRW, 17 July 2007

By now, Ma is convinced of the transience not only of buildings, but also of processes. In 2010, he completed construction of the headquarters of Xi’an’s television broadcaster, the Xi’an Centennial TV and Radio Center, the design of which the client changed seven times. Consequently, Ma changed the building seven times, repeatedly adapting it. He was willing to do this because he understood that it helped the clients understand their own needs. His script, his concept, emerges in a process of trial and error. As part of a concept for the Shanghai Expo, Ma, together with Rem Koolhaas’s think tank AMO, thought about the significance of a world’s fair and about how it could be organized in our times. In Ma’s view, in a globalized world with a single world economy, it made no sense to categorize the pavilions according to country. Instead, the expo should be a showcase for the revolutionary trends of tomorrow, those that will shape our daily lives in future, “because an expo is about ‘next’”.14 It seemed to them more reasonable to arrange the pavilions according to topic. People want to know, for example, who is doing stem cell research, where they are doing it, and what scientists are in charge of the projects. In short, the expo should show how the world works, as a knowledge-based network. By placing things in relation to one another or by creating such relations, even an architect can take on the role of an inventor. Everything is based on reinterpreting what already exists to find solutions for the future. This is where the challenge lies. Let us return to the difficulty of finding a solution for the 500 million people moving from the country to the city in the hope of better living conditions. It is obvious that Levitt’s solution will not help here. China can build houses, but there is no space to put them in its cities. Also, the problems inherent in America’s suburbs have become clear over the years: an extreme dependency on cars, a lack of centres one can walk to, a lack of infrastructure, no concepts for integrating the older generation into these structures, a serious environmental impact on the landscape, etc. In addition, the low population density has made roads very expensive to maintain. Levitt’s model was a godsend for many American families in its day, but, unlike Ma, he had no notion of transience. His houses should have been built like short-lived products, designed to be demolished eventually and replaced by a more modern “product”. Levitt symbolizes the American model that has spread all over the world. Ma now has the opportunity to develop an alternative and to present a Chinese model

14 Jeevanjee, op. cit.

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15 Miranda, Carolina A.: “Asian Designers Are Schooling American Architects – Here’s How.” Fast Company, 25 November 2008

16 Jeevanjee, op. cit.

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of hyper-density: buildings with a limited shelf life, which can be demolished as soon as they become obsolete. “Everything has a life cycle, as should buildings. Preservation is an action in sacrifice of future possibilities. The future needs its own space.”15 Applying his theory does, however, require that property be state-owned, which it is in China. When a piece of land is leased with a subsidy and then returned to the state, there is a possibility of correction. Such a system allows for demolition and redesigning, renewal, change and adaptation to any situation. To vindicate his thesis and encourage politicians not to hesitate to dispense with things that are no longer of use, Ma reminds us that Shanghai has been rebuilt seven times in the course of its history. If you look more closely at the changes to the city that have taken place in less than a century, it becomes clear that the skyscrapers now on the Bund have nothing in common with the single-storey, colonial-style houses that defined its look in the early 20th century. “Everything is in flux, it’s a flow,” Ma says, referencing Confucius and emphasizing the value that Chinese culture has always placed on change.16 Perhaps the biggest migration in recent human history is approaching. If we are  impressed by Shanghai with its 10 million inhabitants now, Ma predicts that  within 20 years there will be 10 new satellite cities surrounding the city and  its population will have expanded to 100 million. He expects the same thing  to happen to Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. People will move  to the big cities looking for new opportunities, without thinking about whether there is housing there for them. Drawn by hopes of a better future they have seen on television, they will stream into the cities with their preconceived  notions. They will settle on the outskirts, urbanize them and increase population density.

17 Rowe, Peter: The Chinese City. Interview with Peter Rice, held on 29 October 2008 (http://movingcities.org/interviews/the-chinesecity-in-the-east-asian-context/)

High-rise facade in Hong Kong

It is not the first time that this process, which gave rise to phenomena such as Levittown, has occurred, as the architect and urban planner Peter G. Rowe explains: “Indeed the growth rates have been high, but they are not unprecedented, if you consider the migrations in Italy or the reshuffling in the US during the post-WW2 period on a normalized basis. What is unusual about China is that the period of growth is longer. The numbers don’t suggest it is unprecedented in any way except in sheer magnitude. Which makes sense in a nation of 1.3 billion people.”17 Ma takes the view that architects have to think about the social relationships in a hyper-dense city. They should not restrict themselves to constructing buildings, but must consider how the life emerging in these cities can be coordinated. They must also help to ensure that people want to live in these metropolises.

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South China Science and Technology University, Shenzhen (2008), MADA s.p.a.m.: Renderings

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The solution might lie in an updated version of Levitt’s system, but with a production chain that is optimized in terms of sustainability and economic viability.  A system that can be built efficiently, cheaply and quickly, and that ensures minimum quality standards for the population. A temporary solution, perhaps consisting of small, easily assembled residential units built closely together. The distinctiveness of the individual units would have to be underscored in some way so that this individuality could provide residents with a certain degree of reassurance. Just as the emergence of the car industry made Levittown, and subsequently individual travel, possible, it will be necessary to develop a technology that will allow people to live in extremely densely populated cities. New technologies are already changing our social relationships as well as our personal experiences, and will change them even more in future. We use technologies to replace fundamental aspects of our existence, such as feeling or touch, with surfing, Internet access or personalization. For Ma, then, the concept that will allow us to create new forms of living is based on the virtual, 3D environment of a fictive parallel world in which everyone exists as an avatar. He believes we need this other reality to survive emotionally. In the virtual world, we can live in a huge housing block like a giant beehive, and still maintain our virtual selves in the villages where we were born, where we will always live in our dreams. The virtual world gives us access to what we cannot have in reality and makes it possible for us to keep in touch with the friends we left behind when we left the countryside to move to the city. The Chinese can adapt to this life, because they do not cling to physical objects but to the relationships that the objects create. Today’s generation of adolescents no longer distinguishes between the virtual and the real world. Reality is fused with the virtual, and the latter more closely approaches their understanding of life. Through social networks, they can instantly be close to their friends, their music, their holiday or their interests. Their real environment loses its importance when they have Internet access. These are the people who can survive in an extremely densely populated environment: people who no longer need real shared public spaces, because they can find them in the virtual world; people who have all their personal belongings in their

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virtual space, either because they can’t afford the real-life versions, or simply because it’s not worth their buying anything that would impede their extreme mobility. This change has already begun; the virtual world is mingling with the real. Architectural renderings that seem utopian convince decision makers and capture the attention of the masses. They win competitions and become built reality. What is strange, though, is that more and more architects are drawing their inspiration from this once wholly virtual architecture. In the end, everything material will be standardized and the virtual will be individualized. If we want to provide for the masses, custom-making products will not be sustainable, as this costs too much and uses too much energy. It may sound like science fiction, but the virtual world will be the technology we use to define the hyper-dense city. Ma is looking for solutions for his country, and international experts are waiting for new ideas. The big ones, however, will not be coming from the West this time. There are bound to be enough people in China besides Ma who are rising to the challenge.

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THE AT TE MP T T O GENER ATE DEMAND, OR THE ARCHITECT AS PROJECT DEVELOPER

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An architect of the “project developer” type plans construction projects as an investor does, with an eye to a building’s profitability. His designs are oriented towards securing revenues for his client and generating consumer demand. To distinguish himself from his fellow architects, he finds a radical language for his designs and hopes their distinctiveness will let him stand out. In doing so, he will often enter a race he cannot win, because everybody wants to be the one to build the highest, the most brightly lit or the largest building. It is a race one is almost bound to lose. Architects like John C. Portman want to stand out by designing interiors on an impressive scale. What counts for them is making an overpowering impression on people entering a building. The dizzying heights of the atria are designed to transmit an almost palpable excitement. These outsize public spaces give visitors a distinctive feeling, which is where the success of Portman’s buildings lies. Everyone wants to take the “space capsule” up to the revolving restaurant. But, just as at a funfair, what people like one year may bore them the next, either because it’s a repetition or because the consumer has simply grown older and more mature. Portman has a unique ability to carve out a market niche in the public’s hunger for novel experiences. Yet he does not create any new niches. He always uses the same idea in his projects; it’s just bigger every time.

The architect Jon Jerde offers visitors to his buildings new “sensations”– something emotional that can be simulated at no great expense. Jerde succeeds in creating spaces – even fictive ones – in which he “tricks” users with graphic elements. Because the human brain processes fictional images as well as real ones, Jerde evokes the same emotional responses with simulation as Portman does with his real buildings. Jerde was the first to design shopping malls that resembled public streets, but streets that were always clean and safe. Instead of public authorities, private developers were responsible for upkeep and maintenance. Bit by bit, and barely noticeably, public space was privatized. Jerde also wanted to appeal to consumers’ emotions, creating individual niches that would give each customer the space to enjoy the impressions he had created. Portman and Jerde both achieved very high returns early in their careers, so developers showered them with commissions. What they did not understand was that demand changes over time. In contrast to supply, which is visible and tangible, demand is based on dreams, longings and ideas, which are supposed to induce people to buy. The public is hungry for new things, new sensations. The challenge is to predict or generate demand so that we can succeed in satisfying the market.

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ENTREPRENEURS AND FINANCIAL STR ATEGIST S – LARGE-SCALE PROJECTS

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oney has always been a taboo among architects. Their skills, it seems, do not include an ability to negotiate or to forecast a project’s economic feasibility. At university, they learn how to plan buildings that are integrative, sustainable and flexible. But if they neglect to take control of the economic side of things, they risk losing the leadership role, and the construction process might get away from them entirely. Clients get involved in building projects for various reasons. For private developers, the main motivation is investment; for public authorities, it’s gaining votes. Either way, every project-related decision must also be profitable. Some architects take on the role of developer themselves, either to maintain control over the project or simply because there is nobody to finance it. Before an architect invests his own capital, though, he must ask himself whether he is prepared to shoulder these greater-than-usual risks. If the building project does not succeed, is unpopular or doesn’t sell, criticism of the building will be the least of his worries. His entire livelihood will be at stake. Charles Bulfinch (*1763 in Boston, †1844) has gone down in history as one of the leading architects of Neoclassicism in the US and as one of the builders of the Capitol in Washington, DC. In this book, he could equally well have made his entrance in the chapter on mediators. He was also unusual in that he was deeply involved personally in the financing of projects. He took on risks that were too great and, in the end, was ruined. Bulfinch graduated from Harvard University and then gained some professional experience as an architect. From 1785 to 1787, he took a grand tour through Europe. Upon his return to the US, he built Hollis Street Church, his first building in Boston. He then built other churches in Taunton and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, various houses for famous people, and the Old State House in Hartford, Connecticut, all in the English neoclassical style. Designing buildings was his passion, the hobby of a highly educated man, but it was not something he earned money doing. His living came from an inheritance. All this changed when, inspired by his previous success, he decided to develop his plans for Tontine Crescent on Boston’s Franklin Street. He had designed 16 townhouses with the intention of making them the most elegant properties in the

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country. Built of brick in the style of New Town in Edinburgh, Scotland, the row of houses followed the curve of the street. They were initially very well received and Bulfinch was looking forward to another great success, until the Jay Treaty was signed in November 1794. This document, signed by the American and British governments, was supposed to resolve the disputes that had arisen between the two countries following the War of Independence, but people doubted that the state could comply with the obligations negotiated in the treaty. The investors vanished. Bulfinch was liable with his own money and found himself insolvent. He lost everything. “My inexperience and that of my agents [...] in conducting business of this nature […] led me to surrender all my property [...] and I found myself reduced to my personal exertions for support.”1 He was now obliged to work more professionally as an architect, becoming one of the first in America to charge for his work. The Tontine Crescent project’s unfortunate end did not have a negative impact on his professional reputation, and Bulfinch was awarded increasingly important commissions, such as the Massachusetts State House in Boston and the expansion of Faneuil Hall, a Boston landmark. His career reached its zenith in 1817, when then US President James Monroe chose him to be the architect for the continuing reconstruction of the Capitol. Bulfinch had experienced all the facets of the professional life of an architect – the sweetest successes and the bitterest defeats. He is remembered not only for his many achievements as an architect, but also as a developer who was unable to pay back the debts he had run up and who went to jail for it. At least he was incarcerated in the Massachusetts State Prison, which he had designed himself, so perhaps he felt at home there. Another example of an architect who faced financial ruin is a contemporary of Bulfinch’s, the Englishman John Nash (*1752 in London, †1835 on the Isle of Wight), who became famous for designing St. James’s Park and the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and who began the enlargement of Buckingham Palace. In 1778, Nash inherited £1,000 and began to speculate with the money. He worked as an architect, builder and developer, buying houses and rebuilding them in order

1 Bulfinch, Ellen Susan (ed.): The life and letters of Charles Bulfinch, architect. Boston 1896, p. 99

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Villas in Regent’s Park, London (ca. 1818 – 1833), John Nash

to sell them on at very high prices. This was, however, not always successful, and by 1783 he had lost everything. He had to leave London and start afresh in Wales, where his family was originally from. He left his old life behind and specialized as an architect of country houses. Within just ten years, he had gained such a good reputation that he was able to return to London. Thanks to his wife’s connections with the Prince of Wales, he worked for the royal court from 1798, and in 1811 he received his biggest commission so far: the creation of a master plan for Regent’s Park. The park’s name was not chosen by chance. Nash’s client, George, the Prince of  Wales, was at the time Prince Regent for his father, George III. The project involved building a palace for the prince and 26 villas for his closest friends. Nash decided to recreate a rural area with typical country houses in the middle of the city: a fanciful landscape with a canal, a lake, a large forest, botanical gardens and villas. In 1818, just after construction began, work on the prince’s palace and most of the villas had to be stopped because the Napoleonic Wars tied up the funds necessary to continue construction. Nash contributed his own money for his building to

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proceed and the project to progress, once again taking on the role of developer. He managed to get the canal and the park, now one of London’s “green lungs”, completed, and oversaw the building of nine villas by his pupils. These properties are now among the most expensive in Great Britain and include the official residence of the US ambassador and the campus of Regent’s University London. Nash’s entrepreneurial sense turned out at any rate to be beneficial for the development of a site that was later to become the most exclusive residential area in London. Bulfinch and Nash demonstrated their entrepreneurial spirit by taking financial risks on building projects and consequently failing from time to time. Although their experience grew with every project, they each needed a backer, a client with sufficient power and money to develop and implement large-scale building projects. Bulfinch’s mentor was the then US President Thomas Jefferson, whom he had met during his grand tour in Paris and who became a kind of mentor to him, and James Monroe, who gave him lucrative commissions. Nash was architect to the Prince Regent, who later became King George IV. Today, large-scale commissions are not usually awarded by individual patrons, but by large companies and multinationals. Yet the power of these has weakened, because a CEO is accountable to the company’s shareholders, who demand results. It is no longer enough to create a project that is “impressive”; it must above all be profitable. The architect John C. Portman Jr. (*1924 in Walhalla, South Carolina) understood these business factors very well. If nobody was prepared to finance his projects, he did it himself. He looked for opportunities to implement profitable projects and in the process became his own developer. He no longer waited for commissions; he generated them himself. To find such opportunities, you have to be able to recognize the potential of a place and have a feeling for the use and dimensions that might be possible for a building located there. Portman first had to learn the language of his potential investors in order to understand the parameters within which they made their decisions. In his first attempt, he got together with a residential construction company to plan a medical centre. The plan failed, because after a year he hadn’t been able to acquire enough tenants. He had to abandon the project. He wasn’t as badly off as Bulfinch had been, but he lost $7,500 — money he didn’t have. To gain more time to look for suitable building sites and projects, he sought out a business partner and settled on the architect Griffith Edwards, who was 20 years his senior and had been his professor at Georgia Tech. Edwards had excellent knowledge of regulations and technical construction details, which left Portman more time for planning and above all for his search for new projects.

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2 Portman, John and Barnett, Jonathan: The architect as developer. New York 1976, p. 24

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In 1956, Portman found a new opportunity; the Belle Isle Building in the centre of Atlanta, originally a multi-storey car park, which at that time housed the regional office of the Veterans Administration. The VA was moving to a new building and the spaces would be vacant. Portman found the building’s owner, talked to him about possible new uses for his building, and proposed converting it into a shopping mall, a project for which he would be available as the architect. Portman knew the building well; he had worked there for several summers as a parking attendant. The owner replied that he only knew about cars, so he was thinking of converting the building back into a car park; and that such a project and the burden it would impose would be too much for him. He would agree to Portman’s plan only if Portman set up his own company for the project. “Young man, [...] you go out and form a corporation, and I’ll lease the building to you. Then you can make it a mart or anything else you want.”2 Portman jumped at the chance. He wanted to build a furniture mart, so he sought out acquaintances that had contacts in that industry. The first person he  got in touch with was the furniture salesman Randy Macon, and then he contacted an old fellow student named John La Rue, whom he trusted to be able  to find suitable tenants for the new shopping mall. He then called on his  former Naval Academy comrade Herbert Martin, who had a lot of experience  in setting up trade fairs. They divided their work into four areas and made  Portman, the project’s initiator, the chair. They sought out tenants for their property at trade fairs, and in the first phase, leased 3,700 square metres of  the 22,300-square metre building, although only in the street-facing half of  the  first four floors. The rest of the building was used as a multi-storey car park. Within a very short time, all the floor space was rented out and the furniture mart kept expanding into the car park until it finally took up the whole building.

Merchandise Mart, Atlanta (1961), John Portman: The photo shows the Atlanta Merchandise Mart before other buildings were erected on Peachtree Street. It has since been extended several times.

It was an enormous economic success. The four initiators saw that there was demand for a much larger retail and office space of some 185,000 square metres in size. The success of the furniture mart project was obviously due to its convenient inner-city location, with the city’s most important hotels nearby. They decided to build another building in the same area and selected a large inner-city site on the corner of Peachtree Street and Harris Street, now renamed John Portman Boulevard. They bought the land for what was at the time the highest amount ever paid in Atlanta, and this project, the Atlanta Merchandise Mart, was a success as well. From his profits, Portman bought out his partners, and joined forces with Trammell Crow, a Dallas-based developer who specialized in developing shopping malls. This step lent him more professionalism and clout, thus giving him access to new financing options. Together Portman and Crow bought building land in the

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same area, at 230 Peachtree Street, and began to build high-rise office blocks. Once again, their success was assured. Until this time, Portman had designed functional and faceless commercial buildings, because all he wanted from his projects was to earn money. This was meant to reinforce banks’ confidence in him and get them to invest in future building projects of his, even if the stakes increased. The next project Portman initiated was the construction of a hotel on the corner opposite the Merchandise Mart. It would surely be easy to find guests for it, he reasoned, with the shopping mall and nearby offices bringing in people from far away. This time though, the architect changed his previous approach and decided to invest in the building’s design, opting for a gigantic, 22-storey-high atrium. His idea was to invest most of the budget in this unique interior as a visitor draw. Instead of marble and other expensive materials, he used breadth, height, and a vertiginous impression of space. Since the building offered neither lovely views nor an interesting environment, Portman wanted to concentrate on making the hotel’s interior unique. It was to be an immense hall the likes of which had never been seen. Given the success of his earlier projects, and because potential investors who had not believed in the Merchandise Mart were not about to make the same mistake again, he succeeded in securing financing for the project. Then came the catastrophe. When the first four floors were completed, and after a long series of delays and strikes, one of the partners decided to pull out of project, because he longer believed in its viability. Desperate, Portman visited all of the major hotel chains, among them Hilton, Sheraton, Loews and Western, but despite his efforts, nobody was interested. During a dinner held on the top floor of the Merchandise Mart, from where there was a view of the building site, Conrad Hilton himself scoffed: “That concrete monster will never fly.”3 And yet, a buyer was at last found: the Hyatt House Corporation, then still a small hotel chain on the west coast of the US. Convinced that the hotel in Atlanta would be a good reference for his company’s expansion, the chain’s proprietor, Jay Pritzker, bought the still unfinished building for $18 million in 1967. The Pritzkers had shown their business acumen for many years. This Chicagobased family had operated their timber business so successfully that the company soon grew into a group of companies with several subsidiaries. Jay Pritzker had been inspired to invest in the hotel business on a trip to Los Angeles on 27 September 1957. While he waited at the airport for his flight, he sat in a cafe named “Fat Eddie’s”, and was surprised to see how busy the attached hotel was. The hotel bore the name of its owner, Hyatt R. von Dehn, and was for sale. Pritzker recognized the enormous potential that hotels built for business travel-

3 Ibid., p. 30

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Hyatt Regency, Atlanta (1967), Lobby, John Portman

4 Ramirez, Anthony: “Jay Pritzker, Billionaire Who Founded the Hyatt Hotel Chain, is dead at 76”, New York Times, 24 January 1999

lers would have. Hotels near airports, perhaps even on airport grounds, would be perfect for people like him, who were just passing through. He offered the owner a price of $2.2 million. Because he didn’t have a sheet of paper, he wrote the offer on a serviette. The sale was concluded, and Pritzker began opening similar hotels at other airports, including San Francisco, Seattle and San José. Years later, when asked what had moved him to make such a risky offer, he answered that the decision had been an easy one to make. It was “simply the first first-class hotel that I had ever seen at an airport.”4 Portman’s hotel in Atlanta aroused Pritzker’s interest because he saw in it a completely new kind of hotel. This new type of Hyatt hotel – a prestigious conference hotel close to an area of major economic activity – was christened “Regency”. The design concept for the Hotel Hyatt Regency Atlanta revolutionized the market. Seen from the outside, the building was large and square, a concrete block giving no clue as to what was inside it. A small, tunnel-like, badly lit entrance led to one of the corners of the lobby, which, because of the commonly heard reaction of people seeing the vast, futuristic-looking space for the first time, was dubbed “Jeeeeeeeeesus Christ corner” by the hotel staff. Stunned by the sight of the enormous, garish red hall, visitors stopped dead in their tracks. A metal work of art vaguely resembling a parasol was suspended on a long cable from the roof. There was also a bar and, in the background, the glow of brightly lit “miniature space capsules” made of glass. These miniature capsules were panoramic lifts that

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whisked visitors up to the hotel roof, where the Polaris awaited – a revolving restaurant housed in a UFO-shaped structure, which seemed to be hovering over the city and about to touch down on the building. America’s space exploration programme was at its height in 1967. Astronauts were celebrated as heroes, and people wanted to feel what the men with “the right stuff ”5 had experienced. Visitors to Portman’s building were given the feeling of being in a “space ship” and ascending like astronauts to enjoy the feeling of hovering over the city. A visit to the building was a unique experience. The speed of the lifts, the long cable on which the “parasol” hung, the deceptive fragility of the blue Plexiglas windows of the restaurant inside the dome – all of this  was new, everything was futuristic, and the hotel did not fail to make the desired impact. From its first month, it was over 90 per cent booked, and it became a model for all the other Hyatt Regency Hotels that were later built all over the world.

5 Wolfe, Tom: The Right Stuff. New York 1979

Portman found more and more projects and received increasing amounts of money to invest. The complex of buildings on Peachtree Street in Atlanta grew steadily and now covers 14 city blocks and 1.76 million square metres. Portman connected the buildings by means of 17 corridors, passages and bridges on three levels, all of them shopping promenades and offices, no housing. It was a succession of spaces and areas with fountains and trees, where people enjoyed strolling and felt safe. Visitors would not have to forgo comfort, security or air conditioning here. Portman’s creation was enthusiastically acclaimed by both the public and the business world. The Rockefeller family also pinned their hopes on Portman. They believed he would be the right man to update the concept for the Rockefeller Center, which had been developed in the 1930s, and bring it to San Francisco. Ever since the Rockefeller Center had been built in New York, nobody had dared to try and replicate this complex of businesses, theatres, television studios, restaurants, a below-ground public plaza on which you could skate in winter, and 19 highrise buildings, which attracted 125,000 people a day, and right in the middle of Manhattan. The Rockefeller brothers entered into a partnership with Portman to build the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, dubbed “Rockefeller Center West” by the press. Local authorities had for some time been looking for a suitable developer who would be able to breathe new life into the city’s run-down Waterfront area. On this site, which encompassed eight blocks of housing and over 400,000 square metres of space, Portman built a complex of buildings with – at the time – three high-rises of 20, 30 and 45 storeys. The goal was to compete with Pereira’s Transamerica Pyramid for dominance of the San Francisco skyline. The buildings

Jin Mao Tower, Shanghai (1998), Atrium, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill

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Thyssen-Haus (Dreischeibenhaus), Düsseldorf (1960), Helmut Hentrich and Hubert Petschnigg: 1960s postcard (left) and a model of the Embarcadero Center, San Francisco (1971 – 1989), John Portman (right)

6 Portman and Barnett, op. cit., p. 27

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were to house several department stores, three theatres, businesses, restaurants, a wine museum and the 802-room Hotel Hyatt Regency San Francisco, for which an atrium even more striking than the one in Atlanta was planned: an indoor space in the shape of an inverted pyramid. The buildings were connected with each other at about the height of the third floor by a kind of plaza above street level. Some critics of the project claimed that this created a commercial axis above the street, enforcing a separation between public and private space. Portman argued that he was complying with the building code by creating parking spaces in the lower areas of the complex. The Embarcadero Center was everything he had envisaged: a complex of connected buildings with offices and leisure facilities that encouraged people to spend time there. It was designed so that visitors could arrive by car; no link-ups with the city’s pedestrian zones were planned. The spectacular interior, various levels, sculptures and decorative plants seemed to be attempts by Portman to tame this monstrous building. While the design of the building’s interior had been all about meeting the visitors’ needs, no concessions whatever were made in its external appearance, which featured functional facades. Ever since the construction of the complex in Atlanta, Portman’s buildings had been characterized by offset volumes. They bore a certain resemblance to the Thyssen-Haus, built in 1960 by Helmut Hentrich and Hubert Petschnigg in Düsseldorf. Jonathan Barnett, who worked for Portman, confirmed that during its design phase, the American media had reported extensively on the German project. Portman himself denied that there had been any kind of influence at work.6 Portman sought out other partners besides the Rockefeller brothers for the Embarcadero Center building project, this time not only among his friends, but among his colleagues as well. He found them in Trammell Crow, who knew how to sell (and had already been his partner in Atlanta), and in Cloyce K. Box, head of the George A. Fuller building company, which had already built large, complex

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buildings, mainly in New York, such as the Metropolitan Opera House, the United Nations building and the Seagram Building, and who now took over the construction management.7 Half the company’s share capital was owned by the brothers David and Winthrop Rockefeller. The former was the President of Chase Manhattan Bank, while his brother was governor of the state of Arkansas. The brothers’ involvement meant “cash” and important relationships with politicians. The other half of the capital was owned equally by Portman, who was overall head of the project, Crow and Box. This quintet was a perfect team. Because Portman was the project’s leader as well as a partner with whom profits and outlays would be divided, the others were certain he would make sure that he multiplied the value of every dollar invested. The project worked in economic terms, though it lacked a connection to the city. The buildings, commercial spaces and offices attracted the public, but customers no longer left the complex and went out in the street. They arrived in cars, walked through the buildings or went shopping, then drove away again. Portman’s attempts to create a pedestrian zone had created an attractive shopping mall, but it had nothing to do with the city. It was a shopping street that wasn’t a street, with fountains, lights and trees. Everything was private and policed. The Center represented the privatization of public space and a failure to integrate urban development. But politicians saw the whole thing differently – back then at least – because Portman was able to attract investors and create jobs in areas in which economic performance was declining. He organized the roads and businesses, so public authorities were no longer responsible for things such as changing light bulbs and street cleaning. They also saved substantial amounts on policing, as security at the complex was in private hands. Things for which public authorities had once been responsible now became the responsibility of private investors: the administration of public space. The completion of the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco was followed by a commission to build the Renaissance Center (RenCen) in Detroit, another Portman complex, in which Henry Ford II invested $357 million. Twenty-eight banks and 51 private investors also participated in its financing. This building project was designed to halt the decline of the city, which had fallen into a deep depression after the 1967 riots in which 42 people were killed. More than 2,000 houses had burned down during the clashes between the largely African-American population and the police. Among the reasons for the riots were unemployment and the readiness of the police to use extreme force. The white population had already largely retreated from the city centre to the suburbs, so

7 George A. Fuller Co: “This construction company was founded in Chicago in 1882 as Clark & Fuller by C. E. Clark and George A. Fuller, a Boston architect and engineer. The company soon became the leading builder of the world’s first skyscrapers going up around Chicago. By 1890, when Fuller’s company became one of the first construction firms to be organized as a corporation (capitalized at $750,000), it had already built several skyscrapers, including the Tacoma Building designed by Holabird & Roche. Fuller was one of the first true general contractors: it completed large structures by coordinating the work of hundreds of men working under several subcontractors. The company opened a New York office during the 1890s and built several large structures in that city, including the New York Times Building and Daniel Burnham’s Flatiron Building, which was known briefly as the Fuller Building because the company was headquartered there.” Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago’s Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses 1820 – 2000 (Mark R. Wilson, 2004)

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there was latent racial segregation. Dissatisfaction was rampant. The construction of the RenCen was supposed to send a signal, restoring confidence in the city and attracting investors. Construction began in 1973. Three years later, four 39-storey office blocks and a 79-floor high-rise were completed. In addition to a large shopping mall and restaurants, the complex included the city’s tallest hotel building at the time. However, the decision to build this project near the Detroit River and not in the city centre, where it would have helped to revive the inner city and link it with neighbouring districts, turned out to be a mistake. Renaissance Center (RenCen), Detroit (1977)

In pictures, the buildings were shown reflected in the water, which made them look even taller. The location offered outstanding views of the city – but the hoped-for recovery of the city did not take place. The RenCen attracted the city’s remaining successful companies, but buildings in the city centre emptied, and nobody wanted to move there. The enormous size of Portman’s new complex, too, meant that not enough tenants could be found to achieve full occupancy. The offices were used, as the staff of the Ford Motor Co. worked here, but the restaurants, shops and hotel stayed empty. In Atlanta, Portman had proceeded in increments, building first one building, then another. He had responded to demand one step at a time. Here in Detroit, in contrast, his rushed building project of vast dimensions ruined the market, depriving the city of any chance to revive. People drove right up to the buildings, then drove back to their quiet suburban homes in the evenings, without coming into contact with dangerous Detroit along the way. The problem was exacerbated by the use of the building’s first three floors as retail spaces, so that everyday office life was carried out above the city. This in turn increased its exclusivity, keeping the city even more at a distance. The complex was inaugurated in 1977 with a huge gala featuring the Detroit Philharmonic Orchestra and a $300 dinner. A sculpture and a fountain by Isamu Noguchi had been installed, and the mayor of Detroit’s sister city Florence, Elio Gabbuggiani, was invited to the celebrations. According to one anecdote, the organizers even asked for a loan of the statue of David by Donatello so that they could exhibit it in the RenCen, but the Italian foreign minister refused. The celebrations were followed by harsh realities. Just one year after the opening, Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young commissioned a group of architects to carry out a study on the RenCen. In their report, they did not hold back with their criticism of its design and construction. They pointed out, among other things, that the building’s heat insulation was insufficient for the region’s harsh climate. What they criticized most of all, however, was the project planning, the inadequacy of which they blamed for the deserted state of Detroit’s inner city.

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One of the first countermeasures taken was to exempt companies in the city’s centre from paying municipal taxes. This had little effect. In 1982, it was found that the population of the inner city had decreased by 37 per cent since 1970. These figures were additionally discouraging. Ten years passed before the city administration took the initiative and decided to link the city centre and the RenCen via the “People Mover”, an automatic train that travels on a circular elevated track. By 1983, the building’s owners could no longer service the loans, and the RenCen fell to their creditors. After an eventful period, General Motors bought it in the 1990s. The car maker decided to concentrate on this location, renovating it completely and turning it into its corporate headquarters. Despite his Detroit experience, Portman remained true to his principles. The Marriott Marquis hotel in New York was proof of this. The city’s mayor had sought Portman out to ask him to revitalize Times Square. By the 1980s, many of the area’s theatres had closed, and it was growing increasingly seedy. Backed by the city administration, Portman had five theatres demolished – the Helen Hayes, the Morosco, the Astor, the Bijou and the Gaiety – to create the site for the construction of a 2,002-room superhotel. New York’s citizens demonstrated against the demolition, a legal challenge was brought before the Supreme Court, and even “Superman”, the late actor Christopher Reeve (1952–2004), tried to block the project, but even he was powerless to stop Portman. The enormous building with its oversized atrium displays all the effects familiar from Portman’s repertoire, but instead of a complex, he designed just a single skyscraper here, with a shopping mall, a hotel, a 1,600-seat theatre and, of course, a revolving panorama restaurant dominating the entire building from the top. The lobby is on the eighth floor, giving visitors a view over Times Square and also keeping them at a remove from events there. Further below are the shopping mall, the theatre, and a car park in the basement. The most important features of this building are its vertical elements – the height of its lobby and its lifts. The atrium soars upwards, adding to the perspective of the interior. The lobby is a crowd magnet and for this reason alone is profitable for management – despite the incessant need to regulate its temperature and despite the rising energy costs in an era of climate change. Ultimately, the building looks like an overblown television production with lots of special effects and little content, which makes it uninspired and largely predictable. Portman built buildings for the purposes of entertainment. He wanted to create emotions, disregarding the fact that the effect of his buildings did not translate well to photographs. Visitors are often disappointed when they try to capture the jaw-dropping impression of the atrium on film, especially if they

Marriott Marquis, New York (1985), Lobby, John Portman

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lack wide-angle lenses, and are reduced to taking snapshots of individual parts or of the lifts. Only in the mid-1980s did Portman begin to attach importance to facade design, details and effects that looked good in photos. It was the time just before the use of effective renderings. While designing a building, some architects even tried to take into account the camera perspective that would offer the best shot of the structure. Presenting the right image became more important to some than considering the experience that visitors to the building might have. It was no longer physical reality that was being sold. Buildings had to be designed to attract the greatest possible interest, even if only a small number of people would actually visit them – and this small number of people would, in turn, make their visit to the building dependent on its “reputation”. This creates a new situation, in which advertising, fiction and manipulated reality supersede the reality of a building. You can no longer tell whether what you see is made of stone or cardboard. Welcome to Hollywood. The architect Jon Jerde (*1940 in Alton, Illinois) lives in Los Angeles and specializes in the power of images. In 1984, he was given the opportunity to “design” a kind of city and focus exclusively on how it would look on television. The occasion was the upcoming 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, an event whose significance had hit a low point. After the US boycotted the 1980 Games in Moscow, the future of the Olympic movement was uncertain. Neither the country nor the city showed much interest in the Games. There was an urgency to act, as money was lacking and planning was inadequate. The solution was to revive the city’s 1932 Olympic facilities. Twenty-six venues were renovated and the only new facilities that had to be built – to the tune of $95 million – were indoor pools and a velodrome. Jerde’s idea was to dress up the venues with a kind of “backdrop architecture” and lots of colours and graphic elements. He used the scaffolding and formwork usually found on building sites, gave them some simple cladding or a coat of paint, and used them to cover areas that didn’t look good on camera. Working together with Deborah Sussmann, art director at Charles & Ray Eames, he developed an overall graphic design. To enhance the look of the surroundings, he hung banners, awnings, balloons, flags and kites, whose striking colours were designed to catch the eye. Magenta, red and yellow livened up the facilities and at the same time indicated exits, ticket offices or snack stands. Jerde had obtained this commission in a roundabout way. In 1982, he was asked to convert students’ dormitories at the University of California at Los Angeles

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Design concept for the Olympic Games in 1984 in Los Angeles, Jon Jerde

(UCLA) into housing for the athletes. He used temporary elements as a visual signal that this was part of the Olympic village. He knew about the power of signs, offers and advertising from his work on shopping malls at the architects’ firm of Charles Kober Associates, pioneers of the “box-like shopping mall”. These helped to control flows of people and generate points of interest. Those in charge realized that through these means, and through the medium of  television, the Olympic village could be made to look new and radiant, so they  entrusted him with the whole project. Viewers all over the world saw the  colours on their screens and associated them with modernity and multiculturalism. In Los Angeles, the mecca of film, Jerde’s concept was accepted as a matter of course; the city was accustomed to seeing the sets of television studios. Many fellow architects, however, vehemently criticized his approach, seeing it as a lost opportunity to effect urban development changes, an opportunity from which many other Olympic hosts had profited in the past. The difference, though, was that Los Angeles at the time had no public financing to fall back on for large infrastructure projects. And the private-sector investors were interested only in shortterm effects that would lend the sports event a certain unity. These changes were meant to last just for the two weeks of the Games.

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The strategy of entrusting Jerde with this task turned out to be highly profitable, as he succeeded in lending the city a new character with very little cost and effort. And this despite the fact that the city’s prevailing urban sprawl essentially contradicted Jerde’s concept of unity. Jerde created a kind of handbook of guidelines that his project staff of around 600 people could implement easily. In addition to the stadiums and major sports facilities, there were 170 Olympic Games venues, most of them located on the university campus. Things were made more challenging by the fact that work there could only begin after the end of the semester. The Games were ultimately a great success, both with the public and as an advertisement for American “show business”. For the organizers, the Games also proved profitable, making $270 million, more money than any other Olympic Games. Shortly afterwards, Jerde followed up this success with the construction of the Horton Plaza shopping mall in San Diego, California. Since the early 1970s, the city administration had planned to regenerate its centre and link the harbour area with the inner city. The many bars, strip joints, tattoo shops and dilapidated houses in the city’s centre were often frequented by sailors on shore leave, because the main base of the US Navy on the west coast, the Naval Station (NAVSTA), was in San Diego. Relations between the city’s inhabitants and the sailors became increasingly strained, reaching the breaking point. The city launched competitions for various projects. Frank Gehry, whose days as a “star architect” were still far off, specialized, like Jerde, in building shopping malls, and he presented a design together with the developer James Rouse. Gehry had edged out Jerde in a competition for a shopping mall in Santa Monica in 1980, but this time Jerde was awarded the contract for the project. He implemented the building project in San Diego jointly with the developer Ernest Hahn, and it became a goldmine for them both.

James Rouse. Cover of Time, 24 August 1984

He designed a shopping mall extending over six blocks, whose look would be defined by colour and a certain irregularity. He wanted to incorporate cinemas, shops and restaurants, so he did what had worked in Los Angeles in 1984: he set some basic rules, then gave his staff “free rein”. He tasked six employees from his office with the design of one building each, and instructed them to have as little contact as possible with one another during the design period. His aim was to have them come up with a large range of different solutions, a variety of buildings and forms. He defined 49 light colours for his staff to use and combine; this “confetti” was designed to infuse the project with vitality. He added platforms, towers and bridges, widened and narrowed the paths, covered and uncovered the streets. The diversity was designed to delight visitors. “The project was to come up with a logic of human movement to get to it, through it, back around and so on. Having done that, it was to create almost a one-act,

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two-act, three-act, four-act sequence of chambers of experience. It was high variety, so people would be enchanted by moving through this place. It had bridges and platforms and terraces and all sorts of things no one had ever seen before in these types of environments. And, incidentally, you could buy stuff.”8 Compared with Portman’s buildings, the surroundings here seem less cold and monumental, closer to the human scale. The actual visitors’ level was no longer located high above the street but at street level, where the city and shopping mall could merge. Jerde had realized that a shopping mall could be a place for community life, where one could meet neighbours and friends and develop interpersonal relationships. “The shopping centre was the last place left where American communal life existed.”9 To make this happen, the main goal, sales, had to be pushed into the background a bit. Horton Plaza was innovative because it did not follow the classic rules of shopping mall design, nor did it disorient customers or deprive them of sunlight. Rather, it was designed to become a place in which to meet, stroll about and perhaps stop for a drink. “The consumption addiction is what will bring people out and together.”10 Once they were relaxed, they would soon want to buy things. The new concept was a smashing success. Just as everyone had once copied Portman and made a soaring lobby a fixture in every hotel of a certain size, shopping malls pulled out all stops to implement the idea of using entertainment as a means of promoting sales. The decision was based on hard figures: in theory, a successful shopping mall in an optimal location (such as at a busy intersection) can attract around nine million potential shoppers per annum. Horton Plaza, however, had 25 million visitors in its first year. Everyone wanted Jerde: cities, politicians and above all developers. They all wanted to repeat the same model elsewhere in the world, so he expanded his architecture firm. Interestingly, Jerde’s idea appealed most strongly to the Japanese. They were experienced consumers, and they liked this new model of approaching potential buyers with entertainment. Japan was in a phase of strong economic growth. Property prices there rose to unprecedented heights in the mid-1980s. In 1985, the decision was taken to build a new airport, what is now Kansai International Airport. There was no room for an airport in the area’s densely populated cities, such as Osaka and Kobe; what is more, residents protested against plans to build one, because they were concerned about the resulting noise pollution. The solution was to construct the new airport on a yet-to-be-built artificial island. On this island, which would be connected to the mainland by a three-kilometre bridge, a new city was to be created: Rinku Town. Jerde was entrusted with the master plan for both the city and the airport.

8 Jerde quoted in Silver, Allison: “Jon Jerde”, Los Angeles Times, 20 December 1998

9 Heathcote, Edwin: “When good things come in mall packages”, Financial Times, 20 August 2001

10 Jerde quoted in Anderton, Frances: “At home with: Jon Jerde; The Global Village Goes Pop Baroque“; In: New York Times, 8 October 1998

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Jerde incorporated all the experience he had gained with the building of shopping malls into these designs, which included shops, sports facilities, residential buildings, houses, offices, restaurants and hotels. Thanks to its proximity to the airport, the city would also have excellent transport connections. Everything was designed to be appealing, and everyone was certain the project would be a success in financial terms as well. The future looked rosy. Jerde planned the city as a ring, bounded on one side by a breakwater and on the other by a canal. Engineers took the view that a slightly curving breakwater was not particularly suitable for the docking of ships, but functionality played a subordinate role here. The main thing was to give the city an identity, to turn it into a landmark that everyone landing at Kansai International Airport would remember – the best advertising for attracting companies to Rinku Town. At the end of the decade, the Japanese property bubble burst (バブル景気 baburu keiki, literally “boom of the bubble”). The situation on the property market in Japan had been so overheated that prices had been five times as high as those in the United States. Now they plummeted to a quarter of their former value, so the project to build the new city was halted and the airport, built to plans by Renzo Piano, only opened in 1994. Despite all this, Rinku Town did not remain a city on paper. The United Arab Emirates revived the concept for their own artificial palm-tree-shaped islands, which were designed to raise the emirates’ global profile. Jerde’s gigantic idea served this purpose, and it was realized in Dubai.

Master plan Rinku Town, Japan (1988), Jon Jerde, design

Despite the unfortunate end of his airport project in Osaka, Jerde continued to be awarded contracts. In 1993, he again devised a surprising plan. Universal Studios commissioned him to build a mixture of shopping street and theme park. The Universal City Walk in Los Angeles was designed to connect existing film studios along a 500-metre-long street, a pedestrian promenade lined with cinemas, shops, restaurants and a hotel. The special feature of the project was that nothing had yet been built on the site, which gave the architect absolute freedom. Jerde decided to acquaint himself with the needs of the businesses that would be there, so the project’s planners were in close contact with the tenants from the very start of the design phase. Jerde designed the facades, choosing symbols and colours that most resembled the respective products, but that also referenced the film world. The result was a series of facades covered with large signs and neon advertising, behind which the buildings disappeared. They had the appearance of stage sets, although they were actual buildings. Another reason why Jerde designed the shops in collaboration with their proprietors was so that they could decide together how best to get people’s attention and thus generate the highest sales. In the end, though, the surfeit of colours and forms produced its own kind of balance, a type of uniformity in itself.

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Universal City Walk, Los Angeles (1993), Jon Jerde

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11 Jerde quoted in Silver, op. cit.

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The result was not all that different from Chinatown, Little Tokyo or Olvera Street, all quarters of Los Angeles that seem to transport visitors to somewhere far away. The Universal City Walk emulates the film world, and cinema is all about hyperbole and entertainment – exactly what Jerde had in mind. What made this quarter different from the other three was that this project was privately financed. This was not about planning a new area as part of larger urban development project; instead, what was deliberately created was “an entertainment place you go to”.11 As the capital of gambling, Las Vegas, like no other city, is focused on leisure activities. In the mid-1990s, the city administration approached Jerde with a problem. Fremont Street had always been the heart of the gambling industry in the state of Nevada. Located in central Las Vegas, Fremont is lined with nine casinos – not the biggest casinos, but the oldest. In the early 1990s, they were renovated and upgraded for the future. The problem was that most tourists now went to the Las Vegas Strip, further to the south, where 19 of the world’s 25 biggest hotels were located. The opening of  the Luxor casino and its 4,407-room hotel in 1993 had only made things worse. The 30-storey building in the form of a pyramid was even bigger, higher and more spectacular than all the other hotels. The pyramid was hollow, providing space for an enormous atrium (in the style of Portman’s designs). Its seemingly boundless proportions fascinated tourists. So how could tourists be lured back to Fremont Street?

Fremont Street, Las Vegas (1995), Jon Jerde

12 Jerde quoted in Silver, op. cit.

What counts in Las Vegas is the superlative, so Jerde decided to put his money on just this concept. If the world’s biggest atrium was on the Las Vegas Strip, he would make Fremont Street itself the world’s biggest casino and build the biggest “foyer” there that people had ever seen. Silly as it may seem, the epithet “the biggest” fascinates tourists, who want to see the phenomena listed in the Guinness Book of Records with their own eyes. Jerde’s proposal, then, was to build the world’s biggest “foyer” by roofing over Fremont Street. To do this he planned a canopy vaulting over the entrances of the casinos and connecting them all. The canopy could then be used for projections and shows – the sea of lights was there only to impress and entertain tourists. The concept worked, bringing in visitors and publicity. Concert performances, documentary films on the city’s history, and even simulated New Year’s fireworks were put on. People seem to prefer fiction – it always seems better than reality. “If you designed the human experience, it would serve the final purpose – to sell stuff – better than anything you could think of.”12 Jon Jerde’s global reputation as a problem solver grew, and soon other projects followed in Rotterdam, Hamburg, Warsaw, Hong Kong and Taipei, among others. Jerde finally did get to build in Japan. The Canal City Hakata shopping mall in

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Fukuoka opened in 1996 on the banks of the River Naka. The client wanted a shopping mall that would be like Horton Plaza but would reflect the character of the surroundings. It was clear to Jerde from the outset that the river would be the key to his design. His idea was to build a kind of Grand Canyon through which the river could flow, with buildings rising along its “banks”. The idea worked because a canyon is narrow. And that is precisely how Jerde justified his decision to build very densely and to use almost all the land on the site. The Japanese embraced the project and Canal City Hakata was another winner for the architect in terms of profitability. In its first year, Canal City Hakata welcomed 16 million visitors, thus revitalizing the Fukuoka city centre. “These things are vast consumption machines, but we treat them as communal complexes that happen to have shopping in them. What we provide is urban glue.”13 In 1997, the city won AsiaWeek magazine’s “Best City in Asia” award for its transformation and power to change. In Canal City Hakata, there are theatres, cinemas, a shopping mall, an office building and a Hyatt hotel. “The distinctions between civic and commercial realms are blurring.”14

13 Jerde quoted in Ouroussoff, Nicolai: “Fantasies of a City High on a Hill”, Los Angeles Times, 9 April 2000

14 Ibid.

The project is reminiscent of Portman’s designs, but it was the project’s developers, not Jerde, who determined its direction. To meet their demands, Jerde designed extravagant buildings that took up lots of space, such as a spherical theatre. There are further similarities to Portman’s designs in the individual buildings’ many storeys and their connecting paths and levels, with some at street level and some five floors up. Considerations of natural light and opportunities for contact between people seem almost to have been neglected; central to this design were the striking colours and slightly curving forms designed to provide “more

Canal City Hakata, Fukuoka (1996), Jon Jerde

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life”. The water shimmers and shifts, creating a fantastic ambience of light and sound. This project seems to bring together Portman’s monumentality and Jerde’s entertainment approach.

Palm Jumeirah, Dubai (2006), PTW Architects

The concept turned out to be a profitable one, and it has since been copied in many other cities, in other contexts and for other clients. Its formula consists in finding the correct ratio between the number of square metres one needs to construct such a building and the sales figures one hopes to achieve. If one takes Canal City Hakata as a base of reference, the profit potential is enticing indeed: in its first year, the Japanese project generated over $500 million in sales. Problems are bound to arise, however, when decision makers decide that this type of success can be repeated arbitrarily. All at once, buildings were being constructed that were based entirely on figures and statistics, charts and process scenarios. Moreover, people tried to apply Portman and Jerde’s strategies to different contexts and even to take them one step further. What came of all this is buildings with atriums that were even higher and even lighter, and that offered even more things to see. In theory, building islands in the shape of palm trees, such as Palm Jumeirah in Dubai, would seem to be financially profitable. Concepts like these have a recognition value, are widely showcased in the media, are unique and, in particular, associate the property with the idea of “entertainment”. Their success seems guaranteed. But can the idea of entertainment be transplanted readily into an entirely different cultural context – in the case of Dubai, for example, to a place where people don’t go out but live secluded lives in their houses? We create facades, projects and buildings in hopes of repeating our past successes. The projects may be formally different, but their content is identical: the same number of square metres, the same proportions. The artificial islands, the cloned high-rises and the millions of residences without buyers are examples of this indiscriminate approach. We don’t seem to have learned our lesson from Detroit’s RenCen, which never achieved full occupancy. For a project to work, it has to be planned to meet demand. When Portman planned the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, he had already built three shopping malls there, which had made the building of a hotel indispensable. It is a mistake, however, to think that all we have to do is create a “special” building, and we will automatically find new users for it. After all, if all buildings are “special”, then none of them is truly indispensable.

Artificial islands, tulip off Randstad, photo montage, Innovatieplatform

A while ago, the Dutch, too, were showing an interest in building an artificial island in the shape of a tulip. They wanted to use thousands of tons of material, and all for a symbol that would be visible only from the air. The island was to be built just off Randstad, a metropolitan area between Rotterdam and Amsterdam. For one thing, it would have a protective function for the existing dykes in this era of climate change; for another, the project would create additional land to build on.

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This case is different from that of Rinku Town or the artificial palm-shaped island of Jumeirah and is more like that of the man-made islands off Miami. Creating new ground where there are high population densities and a shortage of building land is bound to be successful in the long term, as the example of the entrepreneur Carl G. Fisher proves. In 1925, he wanted to build a new bridge linking central Miami with Miami Beach.15 To do this he planned a series of 11 artificial islands on which the piles for the required 12 sections of bridge would be built. Fisher obtained an official permit to dredge the bay and to use the excavated earth to form the islands required for the bridge piles. At the time, it did not occur to anyone to limit the islands’ size. It was assumed that the costs would be offset by a toll for crossing the bridge. The city authorities also profited from the fact that the private investor dredged the bay at his own expense. All the greater their surprise, then, when the islands grew to their present size. And the owner of all the islands was none other than Fisher himself. Five of the islands are now inhabited. The properties on them are among the most exclusive in the US and are owned by celebrities. Fisher paid $8 million for the construction of the bridge and sold the islands for $88 million. We must think about strategies that create long-term value and implement projects for which there is actual demand on the market. Most importantly, we must study the past to find out how money was made or lost, so that we can act accordingly in future. After all, only those building projects whose profitability can be proven will be financed. For this approach to work, we need to assemble case studies that will help us to persuade others and keep building.

15 See also Sancho Pou, Eduard: Pin-ups, Racetracks and Baby Elephants, or How to Develop an Artificial Island Strategy. San Rocco 1: Islands, March 2011

Artificial islands off Miami, Miami Beach (1925), Carl Fisher

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MAKING THE RULES

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In 1896, American architect Louis Sullivan summed up his thoughts on architecture in the renowned formula “form follows function”, one of the most important maxims of 20th-century architectural theory. He was breaking with the architectural tradition of past centuries to focus on the functional aspects of building projects. His maxim was widely acclaimed, becoming a fundamental concept of modernist architecture. Yet Charles Luckman’s Lever House heralded the emergence of a new approach, in which buildings were designed not only to be functional, but also for strategic considerations. In this approach, architecture was conceived as a means of advertising, a tool to help a company become more popular and thus to increase its profits. Luckman, as a leading expert on sales in the United States, knew how to use a building as a marketing instrument. He became successful the instant it became clear that he could solve his clients’ problems. His commissions multiplied. On the “hit list” of architects, Art Gensler is Number One in terms of budget size. His company employs the most architects and has the most offices worldwide. He uses strategies in his designs and does not like to see his work reduced to the construction of buildings. Instead of signing contracts with his clients as a contractor, he “opens accounts” with them and advises them in their decision making, whether it concerns the necessity of a building, an optimization of their business, or the hiring of a major contractor. He compiles data on the building site, the building and its efficiency, and is thus able to forecast the expected profit of a transaction. Companies commission him because he can anticipate the probable suc-

cess or failure of an idea. Managers at all levels seek him out for his opinion. It is in this way that he is involved in the strategic decisions of his clients. For a whole generation of architects, Rem Koolhaas represents the Number One. His often daring projects enthral students and experts alike. He, too, sets great store by strategies, and he has created a separate entity called AMO within his architecture firm that deals in pitching ideas to clients, regardless of whether these ideas are subsequently built. This enables him to offer a wider range of services and carry out research into subjects in which he is interested. He takes the view that a building’s physical manifestation, its tangible part, comprises only a small part of architecture. In contrast, he sees the activities of a consultant – in other words, the work with the intangible – as a process by which to deepen his architectural thinking and increase the value of unbuilt works. Koolhaas and Gensler both know strategies and use them in their projects. From case to case, then, they move away from the functionalism propagated by Sullivan and follow instead a new maxim: “function follows strategy”. Where once the strategy lay in designing a building to be as impressive and striking as possible so as to express a company’s economic might, as was the case with Lever House, companies now want to develop intangible concepts of experience and entertainment in order to strengthen their brands, an approach exemplified by the Apple Stores. The intangible now determines the tangible. The digital determines the physical. Consulting, in the form of strategic thinking, has found its way into architecture.

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NUMBER ONE – WHO HAS THE MOST SU CCESSF UL STR ATEGY ?

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he examples given so far raise the question of which concept is best, which example we should follow. Each architect represents a certain strategy. Now that we are familiar with a wide range of these strategies, the next question is how we should go about using them. One at a time? In combination, all at once?

An investigation invariably begins with a series of conjectures that are pursued until one arrives at a result that one perhaps anticipated at the outset. But there are surprises along the way. In our context, Rem Koolhaas seems to fit best the profile of the “architect-strategist”. He manages better than anyone else to keep his trump cards in his hand, then play them in the form of a sensational building. He uses subtle channels, but can take a very offensive stance, too. He writes books, polemical pamphlets and slogans, designs shops and skyscrapers, and sells them like no other. Koolhaas always seemed to be the one to emulate – until Frank Gehry came along. Thanks to his design language, Gehry is now the most famous architect, the Number One with the greatest recognition value. The masses adore him; for politicians in particular, eager to see a repetition of his recipe for success in Bilbao, he embodies a potential deliverance from all urban development problems.

1 Frank O. Gehry quoted in “What’s in store for the future?”, WWD, 29 March 2002

At the start of his professional career, Frank Gehry worked in the architecture firm of Charles Luckman and William Pereira, the latter of whom had been his professor at the University of Southern California. Before becoming famous, Gehry worked for many years with the developer James Rouse, who specialized in building shopping malls, so Gehry was taking part in competitions against Jon Jerde, among others. From Rouse, he learned to design buildings for the retail trade. “Shopping centers are designed to stimulate an impulse buy. They aren’t designed for the comfort of human beings. They’re designed with all the toilets in the corners of the building; if someone needs one, they have to walk past all the stores to get to it. When Santa Monica Place opened, Jim Rouse, of the Rouse Co. in Columbia, Md., was so proud of that shopping center. He thought I’d done this amazing place – it wasn’t – but we were walking around Santa Monica Place together when it first opened and he was saying, ‘This is great.’ As we were walking, one young lady came up to us and said, ‘Are you guys honchos (in charge)?’ We were both wearing name tags. Jim looked at her and said, ‘This is Mr. Gehry, this is the great architect who designed this center.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Well, I have one question: Where the f—’s the bathroom?’ ”1

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Gehry had become an expert in people flows, accesses and window displays. He knew what annoyed customers and what appealed to them. From that point, it was a logical consequence to design a building like the Guggenheim in Bilbao, a building that sells itself. Gehry had always been interested in art, although he was rarely able to let this passion inform his architecture. He designed lamps and sculptures and drew numerous sketches on paper, but he never fully lived out his artistic side. In the late 1970s, he moved with his family into a plain wooden house in Santa Monica, which he wanted to extend using simple materials such as sheet metal and plywood. With this house, he was able to give his creativity free rein and try anything he liked without waiting for a client’s approval. When the new annex was completed, it had neither axes nor symmetries; there were only levels, layers, additions and lots of windows and doors, an ensemble that later came to be described as deconstructivist architecture. The singular nature of the house put it on the front pages of newspapers and magazines. Radically different from anything that had gone before, the Gehry house caused heated controversies – down to shots fired at it by a neighbour. Gehry was not aware of what a change of course this meant for him until his best client came to visit. Rouse was impressed with Gehry’s house, but made it clear that if Gehry wanted to keep building in this style, he should not waste his time on shopping malls. Gehry had attempted a design that Rouse would never have been able to pay for. “I had somehow convinced myself that I was doing the right thing, that I was pushing the boundaries as best I could. I didn’t realize, until [Rouse] pointed it out, that I was never going to get anywhere with his company. He pretty much laid it out for me. They weren’t interested in design. They were interested in the bottom line.”2 Rouse encouraged him to develop his own architectural style, so Gehry gave up his 40-person architecture firm specialising in shopping malls and started a new practice with just three employees. He took on different contracts and changed his way of working. After five years, he had once again established himself and had developed a style based on his own design language, which, crucially, he had also learned how to parameterize with the help of a CAD scanner. He succeeded in applying these forms, like a cabinetmaker or a sculptor, to buildings like the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. That museum won people over with its design, its individual style and its recognition value. Its facade seems to have emerged by a random process, while its

Gehry’s house, Santa Monica (1978), Frank O. Gehry

2 “Breaking out of the box”, Success, 1 November 2008

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interiors follow the logic of a shopping mall. At the Guggenheim, there are passages, display windows, widely varying ceiling heights and huge spaces. A pathway for visitors has been defined, but you can also, as in a mall, choose your own route. Some spaces, such as John Portman’s hotel lobbies, simply astound visitors. People recognize them because they are unique. Nobody had ever seen anything like the Bilbao museum. Like Lever House, it was planned according to strategic considerations, mainly for the purpose of selling itself. Even back then, Luckman was aware of the impact a building could achieve in the media, which would serve as free advertising for the architect and for the company residing in the building. Gehry is familiar with these strategies, but they are not the deciding factors in his work. To him, they are initially of secondary importance; what he seeks for his designs is a clear, formal and unmistakable power of expression. His work is based on aesthetic criteria, drawn mainly from art, which he describes by means of modern technologies. If he employs strategies at all, it is because he understands how retail, bricks-and-mortar shops and shopping malls work. He knows that their formal design is not durable. Such a space is outdated after ten years at most and then has to be redesigned. Gehry is in a good position to confirm that, if you regard architecture as something lasting, you should not get involved in building shops. Nobody can guess at the future of these buildings. For illustration, Gehry’s Santa Monica Place shopping mall, completed in 1980, was extensively refurbished as early as 1989, and Jon Jerde redesigned it again nine years after that. When it comes to a building’s profitability, the name of the architect is immaterial. These days, building designs are based in part on satisfying the demands of users or the market. This rule, quite obvious in the case of a shopping mall, could be extended to all of architecture. A project is no longer defined by its design or form, but by certain strategies. It follows that we should begin to plan strategies instead of buildings. This means planning spaces and their relationships. Whether the spaces are real or virtual is unimportant, because the relationships will always be real. As architects, we have to be able to enter into this world completely, regardless of whether it is built or not. This is not about unusual forms like bubbles, folds or blobs. Strategies have no form; they serve certain goals and purposes. An analysis of this can be done particularly well using the example of retail trade, whose spaces could be described as “living”. In order to appeal to buyers, they have to be adapted constantly, so their profitability is frequently scrutinized. And they are the starting point for marketing tactics that then extend to the entire spectrum of architecture.

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W H O I S N U M B E R O N E I N S A L E S ? T H E A P P L E ST O R E S In terms of sales figures alone, the Apple stores were a smashing success from the start: “Apple’s stores were the fastest retail operation to ever reach $1 billion in annual revenues, taking just three years to reach the mark, beating out the previous record-holder, clothing retailer The Gap.”3 In planning the Apple stores, the first consideration went to what would make them stand out. Apple products were already available from licenced sellers and on the Internet, so it would have been quite a major outlay to make simply for purposes of increasing sales. It was time to think of a strategy for changing the way they were sold. The plan was to design a store which radiated dynamism, in which customers could touch everything and where staff would be on hand to help. These criteria would have to be implemented by someone capable of effecting and shaping such a change: Ron Johnson, an economist at Stanford University.4 Johnson had been in charge of marketing at Target, a large American discount retail chain, for 16 years. He had revamped Target from the ground up, using the fashion manufacturer and distributor The Gap as his model. In the early 1990s, The Gap had decided no longer to sell other manufacturers’ products through its shops, but to sell its own label exclusively. The company would be able to control its sales itself, manage its own shops and clear stock at its own convenience. Advertising campaigns supported this process and aimed to spark new trends. The merchandise moved faster and customers came in more frequently. There was a steady stream of new products, or at least it was made to seem that way, with regular changes of the window dressing, merchandise displays and instore advertising. Johnson recognized the potential of using some of these measures at Target. They would create their own house brands and sell them in their stores at prices that everyone could afford. He met the architect and designer Michael Graves, who had designed a highend teapot for Alessi that cost almost $135. Convinced of the necessity of “democratizing” designer products and making them accessible to the wider public, Johnson asked Graves to create designs for Target. “People don’t realize it’s just as hard to make a cheap thing as it is to make an elite or expensive thing; in some cases it’s harder. We’re always fighting – in architecture or object making – budgets.”5 Graves agreed and began developing new brand-name products characterized by sound design and a low price. Within five years, Graves had designed over 800 objects. Rather than restrict himself to his own designs, he made sure that the principle of affordable design was applied to the company’s entire range of products. Thus the company’s sales figures, and with them its brand value, grew. These results would hardly have been attainable through advertising campaigns alone. Steve Jobs, the late founder and former head of Apple, became aware of Johnson’s work and asked him to think about how it could be communicated to consumers

3 “Apple has a List of 100 Potential Store Sites”, ifoAppleStore, April 2004

4 At JCPenney, Johnson was unable to replicate the success he had achieved with Steve Jobs at Apple. Jopson, Barney: “New dog, old tricks”, Financial Times, 13 April 2013

5 Tischler, Linda: “Target Practice”, Fast Company, 1 August 2004

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that Apple products were special yet affordable. Jobs was convinced that computer sellers were not making enough of an effort to explain the capabilities of Apple products. It was therefore essential, he believed, for the company to open its own stores so that it could control this channel of communication.

6 ifoAppleStore, op. cit.

Apple designed a prototype for a shop in a warehouse near its headquarters in Cupertino, California. Johnson worked on it incognito for a year under the pseudonym “John Bruce” to prevent their plans from becoming known. The motto was “shop different”, their goal a world of experiences in which customers could discover exciting things as well as just shop, where they would feel good and be able to learn something. The appearance of the store was consistent with the corporate identity of Apple products – simple, intuitive and logical. It was designed to arouse customers’ interest and emphasize the qualities of the brand. As well as a display of new products, a preview of future developments was planned, yet customers were not supposed to get the impression of being in a store. Instead, the intention was to create an effect “like a great library, which has natural light, and it feels like a gift to the community. In a perfect world, that’s what we want our stores to be.”6 Thinking about ways to sell their products in the stores, they came up with the idea of a series of experiences for consumers. They set up an area in which customers could try out digital applications – access e-mails, edit photos and cut films. The stores were divided into four sections: 25 per cent of the floor area was for products, 25 per cent for music, film and photos, 25 per cent for accessories and 25 per cent for the so-called “Genius Bar”. The latter was one of Johnson’s inventions. What could be better than being able to put your technical questions  to an expert directly, free of charge and face-to-face, especially in today’s world, where such questions are usually answered by call-centre workers in another city or another country? This was to be a bar where customers could get a drink and talk to someone who would solve their problem. Initially, free Evian water was served, but that practice was stopped after six months because of the enormous demand. Apple wanted to give consumers the feeling that the store’s proprietor was more like a friend and adviser than someone out to sell them something they didn’t need. That is why the sales staff were not paid a commission. A large area of focus was on customer-oriented after-sales support. The aim was to build trust, bind customers to the company and make more sales in the long term. The buyer should feel like part of a community. Apple again managed to bypass the rules of the market.

7 Clark, Ken: “Next Act for Apple: Stores”, Chain Store Age Executive with Shopping Center Age, July 2001

Jobs: “My stores would sell not merely products but also gratification. […] When I bring something home to the kids, I want to get the smile. I don’t want the U. P. S. guy to get the smile.”7

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The best proof that a business idea works is that it finds lots of imitators. Everyone copied Portman’s lobbies, and countless companies have adopted the Genius Bar concept. In the US, for instance, the Whole Foods supermarket chain created an “Advice Bar”, in which customers can get advice on their purchases and even recipe ideas. Apple also tried to place stores in the best areas, challenging the established principles of retail trade, according to which expensive products like cars or computers are sold well outside city centres, usually on inexpensive suburban plots of land with huge car parks. According to market studies, consumers don’t mind driving a long way to buy a special product. Johnson and Jobs, however, went precisely the opposite route. You don’t buy a car or a computer every day, they reasoned, but technology changes every few weeks. They wanted customers to visit their stores at least once a month to keep up with developments. Apple decided to open stores where they would reach the largest number of people: on high streets amid clothes shops, close to tourist magnets such as museums, railway stations or shopping malls. This was aimed at attracting passing trade: “They will never drive 10 miles to look at us, but they will walk 10 feet.”8 The first Apple store opened in 2001 in Tysons Corner Center, Virginia, and the second on the same day in the Glendale Gallery in Glendale, California. The design of the third shop, in Pasadena, California, ultimately became a model for subsequent stores. Their atmosphere was to be, in Johnson’s words, “inviting, approachable, forward-looking, warm, interactive and intelligent”.9 In 2004, work began on the construction of 100 stores based on the one in Pasadena. They featured natural building materials such as stone slabs for the floors and wood for the furniture. What was unusual, though, was the idea of using glass not only for the shop windows but also for the stairs. Extensive research and even the development of patents became necessary to ensure that the stairs would be serviceable, durable and safe in case of fire. Everyone would want to try out the glass staircase. To intensify the impression of transparency and translucence, the store features a glass gallery, another clever device. It allows natural light to enter but without reflecting and interfering with viewing on screens. All these features are carefully designed to emphasize the functionality of the stores and their products. By 2012, there were almost 400 Apple Stores worldwide, and expansion is continuing using the same store concept, but with slight differences. The strategy itself is constantly being redefined, based on sales figures in each individual store, and this information is used to optimize the next one. This approach enables the company to identify the stores with the highest sales, information that can then be used in other countries and markets.

8 Lohr, Steve: “Apple, a Success at Stores, Bets Big on Fifth Avenue”, New York Times, 19 May 2006

9 ifoAppleStore, op. cit.

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Sometimes, though, even the best strategy is of no use when there is no space and all the best spots in the city are already taken – or inaccessible because the competition is pulling strings in the background. Then you have to create a space seemingly out of thin air. This was the situation in 2005, when Apple wanted to open a store on Fifth Avenue in New York. Months went by and it seemed impossible to find a home for the Apple logo in the Big Apple. Sony had already been present in the city for  over a year with its Sony Style store, which had opened on the ground floor  of  Sony’s US headquarters on the corner of Madison Avenue and 55th Street. Despite its large display windows, few customers visited it. The store was  not far from the tourist drag of Fifth Avenue, but to get to it you had to look for it actively. Sony’s concept also didn’t work; the emotional connection was lacking. Since no suitable space could be found, Apple created one. They chose the best location in the city, on the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street, where the Avenue runs into Central Park near the entrance of the majestic Plaza Hotel. Opposite it was the General Motors building with its underground plaza, built in 1968 and regarded as a failure ever since. New York estate agents called it “the Well” or “the Pit”. It smelled of emptiness and nobody felt called upon to fill it. This is where Apple opened its flagship store. Nobody would have believed that this unattractive spot would soon feature the fantastically popular Apple Store 147. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the place suddenly re-emerged in new splendour. This is thanks to a glass cube almost ten metres wide. The empty, frameless cube appears to be floating. Customers reach the store’s basement floor either in a panorama lift or down floodlit stairs encircling the elevator core. It is like a secret door to a world reserved for insiders, where they are awaited and looked after, a gateway into a technological treasure trove right in the middle of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. This store is an incredible success. Customers stream in and out. As a landmark of the city, it is reminiscent of I. M. Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre in Paris, although without the seclusion of the Jardin des Tuileries nearby. By day, the glass cube looks so ephemeral that it completely disappears into the New York traffic. Only at night, when the logo gleams and lights wink on, does it begin to shine.

10 Lohr, Steve, op. cit.

If Luckman could have seen the Apple Store, he would have insisted that his concept for Penn Station under Madison Square Garden was working here. He wouldn’t have built a glass staircase, though, and he didn’t experiment with the play of light. In his world, people still sought out the sun and didn’t have digital problems to solve. “‘The Apple stores are selling digital experiences, not products,’ says Ted Schadler, an analyst at Forrester Research. ‘Its stores can be seen as solutions boutiques.’”10

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Apple Flagship Store, New York (2006), Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. This picture shows the refurbished structure completed in 2011, in which the facades are made up of just three individual glass panels (instead of the previous 18).

GENSLER , THE LE ADING BRAND ARCHITECT Apple wanted people to think of its stores as places where they would find solutions to their problems. The company commissioned the architect Art Gensler to help them meet this ambitious goal. His architecture firm has now designed the most Apple stores, including the biggest, Apple Store 235 in London’s Regent Street. What makes Gensler such a good problem solver is that he thinks outside the box, does not restrict himself to aesthetic issues and keeps profitability in mind. “Architecture is about solving problems. One of the problems is aesthetic – it’s the most obvious, but it’s not necessarily the most important. Money is the most important and I learned that lesson from my clients.”11 Apple had a concept and a strategy, but they needed somebody who could implement it all over the world and continuously improve it. If Apple already had a strategy, then what was the architect’s task? Who is Art Gensler? Gensler is also Number One. He has already been at the top of the list of the 100 major architecture firms worldwide, in a ranking that the British magazine “Building Design” draws up annually according to criteria such as volume of contracts, number of architects employed and number of offices. In 2009, based on

11 Wilson, Lizette: “The art of architecture”, San Francisco Business Times, 28 October 2005

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that year’s facts – 31 offices, 1,360 architects on the payroll, 3,000 employees in total and over $500 million in turnover – Gensler topped this unusual list, which includes just a few famous architects. Third place went to Norman Foster; Skidmore, Owings & Merrill were sixth. Nary a mention of Gehry. Private enterprise and the creative world are two entirely different things.

12 Capps, Ronald: “Flying with Eagles”, SMPS Marketer, August 1999

13 “Business of architecture. A conversation with Art Gensler”, 14 April 2007. http://www.archi.ru/ events/news/news_current_press. html?nid=5817&fl=1&sl=1. Accessed on 18 April 2013

14 Wilson, Lizette, op. cit.

It’s not surprising that there are few household names on the list. Gensler is one of those architects who avoid the limelight, who don’t want to impose their own architectural language, who put the client first. “Put the focus where it belongs. It is not your project. It is the customer’s. Educate yourself in your customer’s business and language. Know how they make their money and what defines their success.”12 Gensler has no recognizable design style of his own. He concentrates not on his  own signature, but on his client’s style. Asked whether there is a typical Gensler style, he replies: “No... I hope there is Gensler quality.” 13 He relies mainly  on strategies. Gensler has replaced the classic maxim of “form follows function” with “function follows strategy”. In fact, he is a master of both maxims, offering not only design, but also expertise. Before he begins designing a building, he helps the client estimate its cost, the required investment and the building’s impact on the market. He stays at the client’s side for the entire process, from site selection through to construction. Wherever the building site is, whatever the projected cost, he is always there to analyse his client’s way of thinking and working. He takes an interest in how the client earns his money to ensure that his investment will be profitable. He doesn’t need a project manager or specialist developer. He manages his projects himself, and his success is proving him right. Gensler opened his architecture firm in 1965, together with his wife, Drucilla, as an accountant and secretary, and the draughtsman Jim Follet. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill had just designed the Alcoa Building in San Francisco, and Gensler’s firm was commissioned to adapt the offices to the tenants’ requirements. In the 1960s, in the middle of a service sector boom, many firms of consultants and lawyers wanted to relocate to San Francisco or open branch offices there. Gensler seized his chance, offering to adapt office space to the client’s work processes as an additional service. At the time, he had no competitors, because architects did not usually accept commissions for interior refurbishments. The view was that this was work for decorators or carpenters. Gensler professionalized refurbishment, rationalizing office space and making it more efficient. “The culture very early on was to work on business-to-business terms. Not be decorators,”14 comments Ed Friedrichs, one of his first employees. After the Alcoa Building commission, he redesigned a good half of the Bank of America’s office space, which in the late 1960s was in San Francisco’s second-highest building, surpassed only by Pereira’s Transamerica Pyramid.

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Gensler was able to win his clients’ confidence with his strategy of optimizing the company’s working environment. Using statistics and surveys, he proved that his measures would improve employees’ performance, boosting productivity and with it the company’s turnover. His clients awarded him follow-up contracts, not only to refurbish office spaces, but also to build new ones. He knew exactly what companies needed, over time evolving from an interior designer to an architect, then to a consultant. “Gensler is a client’s architect, rather than an architect’s architect.”15 With this simple premise, he was able to occupy a market niche in which he had no competition.

15 Slavid, Ruth: “Leader of the pack”, Building Design, January 2009

One example of this is the Gap stores, which Ron Johnson later used as his model  in developing a strategy for Target. Gensler has built over 3,000 stores all  over the world for the chain and even set up a dedicated department in his company to concentrate on the Gap and its needs. He didn’t get the commission because he headed the world’s biggest architecture firm. In fact, it’s the other way round: His office is now the world’s biggest precisely because he has built so many stores. The story goes back to 1969, when Gensler had just begun to work as an architect. He met the Gap founder Don Fisher one day on the beach. They talked, and as a result, Gensler was commissioned to design the Gap’s first store on Ocean Avenue in San Francisco. It was a great success and many others followed. Gensler’s greatest achievement is arguably the fact that his client has stayed with him for 40 years. When the Gap subsidiary Banana Republic opened its headquarters in London in 2009, Gensler was again the architect. Gensler sells strategies and his experience. He knows what makes for successful sales. He only has to analyse his data to be able to judge whether a store will be successful or not. He works all over the world and thus knows exactly what works. His experience was what led Apple to commission his services. He lets his data inform the design of his buildings. At that moment, a project’s architectural aspect is secondary to strategic aspects, as he has to proceed step by step. To support his client through the whole process, the architect expands  the scope of his activities as far as possible. Before the design itself comes consultation on an optimum site, then the adaptation of the building to the client’s needs, and finally the selection of the best construction company at the lowest price. Gensler’s skills as a consultant enable him to better monitor results and achieve higher returns. “Often the creative part – what the project ought to be, how it should be put together – is really the issue before any design can even start.”16 As a consultant, he has changed the meaning of the word “contract”. He used to get contracts to create individual buildings, now he has contracts for specific

16 Harrigan, John; Neel, Paul: The executive architect. New York 1996, p. 33

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The first Gap store, San Francisco (1969) and the first Gap store in China, Shanghai (2010). Art Gensler

budgets. He opens an account with a client, and from then on, he administers their properties, seeking to adapt and optimize them. To be offer to offer these services, he first had to go through various phases. Like other architecture firms, Gensler’s offered the usual services in the 1960s, such as preliminary designs, approval planning and execution planning, albeit with a focus on interior design. The added value he offered was that his architects understood their clients’ language and were thus better able to adapt their work to the clients’ needs. In the next phase, in the 1970s, this range of services was expanded to include requirements analyses. Before developing preliminary designs, the Gensler team studied the company so that they could work more precisely to meet its needs. They covered issues such as which departments had to be close together, how many freelancers and salaried employees worked there, and so forth. This way, Gensler had become involved in a business that was quite unusual for architects to work in at that time. In the 1980s, he studied the organizational structures of companies more intensively – the step before requirements planning, as it were. The focus was not on physical space, but on the company’s structure and development, which a multidisciplinary team of business experts and consultants defined in cooperation with the company’s management. Clear goals and business strategies were first set out, and the actual space required was then planned on that basis. They supported the client in evaluating the advisability of constructing the building and in choosing the right location for it. In the 1990s, they decided to cover the entire process, again expanding their portfolio. As well as handling the design and the construction supervision, they now also took over the hiring of construction firms. As they were responsible for the budget, this made them better able to ensure that the construction work was done within budget and on schedule. Nowadays the focus is less on a concrete construction project than on the clients themselves. Support and consultation is provided in all phases of the process. In  this context, Gensler likens his work to a racing car that can achieve extremely high speeds. It is designed and built, but eventually adaptations and improvements become necessary to ensure maximum driving performance. The same happens in an architecture firm, where the building is constantly being

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optimized and analysed as to how many people work there and how, whether additional staff can be accommodated, whether more office space needs to be rented, how high property prices in the area are, what the actual maintenance status is, what tax incentives are available for the use of alternative energies, and so forth. This creates huge amounts of data that can be used to help in decision-making. The biggest change for architects is that they are now working for companies as consultants. The information they manage goes beyond mere recommendations. Rather, it consists of accurate data that is more useful than a balance sheet, an optimum mix of which can be used to calculate profitability and set quotas. The architect thus becomes a manager of information that is vital in deciding where, when and how many square metres will be built, “helping organizations to develop visions of their future.”17 Architects have long assumed that this way of working is exclusive to large firms like Luckman’s, where construction projects are designed and churned out assembly-line style and where it’s not the architectural quality of a project but its profitability that counts – as if the architecture were sacrificed to financial considerations. We like to think that we are above this kind of system and are not prepared to renounce our claim to creating high-quality architecture. We resist the apparent dictates of the market, even if our revenues suffer. We would rather keep designing buildings that bear our “signature” and run a firm that is not influenced by economic interests. But isn’t that unrealistic? For decades, though, this has been the message propagated at institutions of higher learning, which are finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that the market is changing the profession. Gensler is one of those who were quick to realize that companies want a service from architects, one they are not trained to deliver. This opens up a gap between the academic and the practical worlds that we need to address. There is only one Gehry, just as there was only one Picasso. It cannot be assumed that every architect can impose his own signature on his work. The future of our profession depends on whether we take on projects with which we can make a contribution to society. We need to leave our egos and certain unrealistic notions behind. We should not just concentrate on designing buildings, but come up with strategies, too. We should be able to find answers for the general public that are not restricted to the architectural, instead developing ideas, forms of action and strategies that will have a greater effect on social structures. Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas (*1944 in Rotterdam), another Number One, gives us hope and at the same time destroys our notions of the independent architect. He has succeeded in uniting the theory of a university professor with the practice of a seller, because he understands how the market works.

17 Ibid., p. 269

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KO O L H A A S I S N U M B E R O N E – O R I S I T N U M B E R 4 1 ? Assessments of Koolhaas’ genius vary. On the one hand, he is Number One to his  students: an agitator who writes about modernity in his books and implements stunning projects all over the world. He teaches at Harvard, gives lectures, presides over international committees and has won the Pritzker Prize. A whole generation reveres him and wants to work with or like him. On the other hand, this icon of architecture only made 41st place in the rankings that Gensler topped: the Top 100 in the world of architecture, assessed according to criteria such as volume of commissions, number of offices and number of architects employed.

18 Wolf, Gary: “Exploring the Unmaterial World”, Wired, June 2000

19 Koolhaas, Rem; Mau, Bruce: S, M, L, XL. New York 1995

20 McGregor, Jena: “The Architect of a Different Kind of Organization”, Fast Company, 1 June 2005

Koolhaas has won numerous awards for designs that were never built, because they were risky or too futuristic. To justify his designs, he felt obliged to start a new discourse, postulate a theory that would explain every step. He has chosen the hard road of an architecture that makes no concessions to the client. His activities as a publisher and author have enabled him to deal with various issues and, what is just as important, to arrive at conclusions. Writing allows Koolhaas to discuss his work and disseminate his theories. Koolhaas aims “to modernize and reinvent the profession by making use of our expertise in the unbuilt.”18 His book “S, M, L, XL”19 is one of the best and most important contributions to the contemporary discourse on architecture. This compendium of projects has achieved cult status, becoming a bible for a whole generation. Koolhaas has so many followers because he presents an architecture that takes functionality to its radical extreme. At the same time, as Joshua Prince-Ramus noted, “Koolhaas does not have a signature aesthetic; there is no immediately recognizable flourish in his work. Rather than focusing on shape or style, Koolhaas organizes a building by its functions, uses, and content.”20 Koolhaas avoids any standard formal language or style guidelines. His projects concentrate solely on uses, contents and processes. Instead of presenting “auteur architecture”, he gives space to a method or a system. He can do this with the help of his students, who support him by creating countless versions of a design to experiment on. He develops a programme and transfers a sequence, a movement, a pattern or a story that links everything together. As in a game of Tetris, the individual volumes in his models, a building’s different areas and uses, are transposed, shifted or even deformed until the final arrangement is found. Once this arrangement is complete, he wraps it all up according to predefined criteria. The wrapping, the facade, hints at what lies behind. The more drastic and convoluted the wrapping, the greater the expectations of the “gift”. Examples of this design process include the urban concert hall Casa da Música in Porto and the Seattle library. In a certain sense, they are the accumulated legacy of many earlier designs for buildings that were not built.

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In the 1990s, the Convention Centre in Lille turned Koolhaas from an architect who designs and makes proposals into one who actually gets buildings built. Proof that he was already held in high regard was a commission from Edgar Bronfman Jr., which was to give the development of his firm a vital impulse. Bronfman, the grandson of the Samuel Bronfman who had asked first Luckman and then Mies van der Rohe to build the Seagram Building, commissioned Koolhaas to design an office building for Universal in Los Angeles in 1995. Client and architect worked on the various options for four years and developed a programme for the building. To do this, they had to find out where the interactions between artists and employees took place, where privacy would be required, what would happen in the hypothetical case of a sale of part of the company – in short, they carried out research into all the functional processes. The result was office towers connected by urban development elements, forming a unified whole and designed to facilitate an exchange of ideas among all the company’s departments, from accounting to the creative talent. The client liked the design. However, it was at this time that Time Warner and AOL merged, presenting a new model that connected the print and audiovisual worlds with the Internet. It was a clear shift of focus towards the digital world. Universal’s management put the project on hold, because there were doubts about making such a  large investment in offices, something material, while the competition was moving in the direction of the virtual. Universal’s management was, however, still happy with the process. Koolhaas had made them analyse their internal structures and think about how they could improve the way they worked. The diagrams and schemes helped them to optimize their business. The client valued the analysis that OMA had performed for the company, even if it contained perhaps too much information for them. If they had not tried to create “the world’s first completely openable facade”, they could have completed their work within six months instead of four years. Koolhaas realized during the  design process that concepts have an inherent value, independent of any built structure. Inspired by this idea, he set up a separate department in his firm for consulting on developing strategies. He called it AMO, his firm’s name read backwards. Where OMA was the abbreviation for “Office of Metropolitan Architecture”, AMO now stood for “Architecture Media Organization”. Koolhaas divided “the entire field of architecture into two parts: one is actual building, mud, the huge effort of realizing a project; the other is virtual – everything related to concepts and ‘pure’ architectural thinking. The separation enables us to liberate architectural thinking from architectural practice. That inevitably leads to a further questioning of the need for architecture, but now our manner of questioning has changed: first we did it through buildings; now we can do it through intellectual activities parallel to building.”21

21 Sigler, Jennifer: “Rem Koolhaas”, Index Magazine, 2000

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Working with AMO enabled him to plan projects on a wider conceptual basis, forgoing design issues to concentrate solely on concepts – the same approach as in politics and business, where a project’s returns are precisely itemized. AMO became a tool Koolhaas could use before the construction process to separate it from the building’s physical reality. He uses architectural forms to find solutions to economic and political challenges, showing how decisions can be arrived at and the power to implement them gained. Scenarios and the consequences of human activity are evaluated, relationships researched and the results shown in diagrams, drawings and data. AMO emerged just as the Internet became popular, at a time when the intangible, the virtual was becoming more valuable – links, connections, relationships. AMO’s approach is reminiscent of Gensler’s analyses of corporate structures, with the difference that Gensler has been using them since the 1980s and Koolhaas first began in this century, but both are pursuing the same goal with their different methods: the design of strategies. The first projects AMO worked on dealt with defining brands. Then-president of the European Commission Romano Prodi commissioned the firm to develop a concept designed to increase cohesion among the various nations in the EU. The unity and diversity of the new Europe was to be defined by a new flag of its own. The result was a flag made up of the colours of the individual countries’ flags. Composed into a sequence of coloured strips, it looked like a barcode, forming a single entity. Every EU citizen would be able to identify his own country’s flag within it. Koolhaas develops concepts; he is a consultant constantly expanding the scope of his activities. In 1998, the Dutch government commissioned Koolhaas to develop a concept for “the airport of the future”. The architect joined a multidisciplinary team headed by the Schiphol Group and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The team’s remit was to find answers for a public divided into supporters of an expansion of Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and supporters of a new airport location, which would solve the present residents’ noise pollution problems. Koolhaas proposed building a new airport on an artificial island in the North Sea, following the example of Hong Kong and Osaka airports. There would be no local residents to bother, so the airport could operate around the clock, in contrast to all the other airports, where night flights are banned. It would be a hub for passengers and goods coming into the whole continent of Europe. As well as the airport, a city with hotels, offices and shopping malls for the “transit population” would be built. Passengers would not have to set foot on Dutch soil or go through border controls; they wouldn’t even need a visa for Europe. It would be like a free port, a huge duty-free shop with no national limits, a place

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for people to do business, go shopping or simply meet. As Koolhaas explained, the island would be inhabited by a new type of person, “the ‘kinetic elite,’ borrowing a term coined by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. These are the people whose personal lives are entirely subordinated to business demands, who travel hundreds of thousands of miles every year, who need not a home but a home base, a comfortable and convenient nest in which to recuperate while waiting for the next flight. It is an elite whose status is proportional to what they sacrifice in ordinary human satisfactions. Confined to tiny spaces, fed out of standardized plastic containers, condemned to follow prescribed routes, they are an entirely indoor species. By building a city dedicated to their convenience, OMA solves a seemingly unsolvable dilemma: Airports must be close to population centers, but noisy airplanes must stay far away from backyard barbecues. OMA’s Schiphol is designed to attract a new type of human being, for whom backyard barbecues are as archaic as hunting for meat in the jungle, and for whom the muffled sound of planes through thick walls is a ubiquitous and therefore unnoticed element of the environment.”22 Koolhaas sells his projects by talking about a new kind of building, a new society, one so grey and futuristic that it seems to have sprung directly from a book by George Orwell. A city on the sea, surrounded by aircraft, belonging to no country. A model for it already exists: Jerde’s unbuilt Rinku Town project near Osaka, which he planned as a “city of leisure” with links to the sea, piers, seaside promenades and shopping malls for families. Yet these are precisely the people who will not want to be subjected to aircraft noise and live with the threat of a possible plane crash; they’ll want their peace and quiet. Koolhaas, however, understood that there is another type of person, one prepared to live in this interior space that is open 24 hours a day, where there is no schedule or routine and everyone is just passing through. He knows his way around this space. He is himself part of the ‘kinetic elite’, in the air 300 days out of every year. Koolhaas demonstrated the financial profitability of his idea to potential investors and politicians by talking about sales per square foot of retail space. In a city, you can typically achieve $600 a year per square foot; in an airport, this figure can go up to $1,200. This is how he sought to convince his potential client: with economic forecasts. Like the Universal building, however, the airport was never built; there was a lack not only of financing but also of political consensus and determination. Instead, the decision was made to extend Schiphol, with the team choosing continuity. Koolhaas has built his most significant projects outside the Netherlands: the Casa da Música in Porto, the CCTV headquarters in Beijing and the Seattle Central Library. To work out what position will have to be taken and how the project will have to be approached, AMO always carries out essential ground-

22 Wolf, Gary, op. cit.

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Schiphol, study for a new airport (1998), OMA/AMO, Rem Koolhaas

23 Koolhaas, Rem: Great leap forward. Cologne 2001; The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping. Cologne 2001; Al Manakh. Volume 12 / 2007

24 Rem Koolhaas in conversation with Beatriz Colomina. El Croquis 134 / 135, 2007

work, analyses and studies of the issues, which are then presented in books.23 These serve to position and present projects and, as a result, help them to win competitions. In 1997, Koolhaas published the book “MoMA Inc.”, just one copy of which was published for a single client. It was his unusual entry in the competition to extend the MoMA in New York. Given the competitors who had been invited to take part and the jury members, he estimated that he would only have a chance of winning if the jury took his intellectual input into account. “I was totally aware that I needed to challenge [the jury] because with that list [of participants], I could never win on any other basis. Only if they went for it as an intellectual effort, which of course they announced at some point, would we stand a chance. Otherwise there was not hope.”24 In the book, he describes how a museum should be positioned so as to sell itself. The Tate Modern and the Guggenheim had already reinvented themselves; now the moment had come for MoMA. Koolhaas did not win the competition, perhaps only because the book carried that “Inc.” in its title. The museum might be organized like a company, but explicitly stating this fact may have offended the sensi-

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bilities of some potential clients, who still regard themselves as patrons in the Renaissance sense. Koolhaas, then, uses books as a medium for disseminating his ideas and promoting his architectural firm. He is not the only one to sell his projects and ideas this way. After Kennedy’s assassination, there was a lack of support for the Pennsylvania Avenue project (see Politics, pages 75ff.) so Nat Owings published a book of all his completed sketches and studies to keep the project in people’s minds. He sent luxurious bound copies to every member of Congress, thereby managing to keep interest in the project alive. In his book, he left no doubt that he was the one best qualified to carry out the project. Although Owings was “convinced that 90 percent of those books were never read by anybody,” he learned that “the only way you’re going to get a congressman to know what you’re talking about is to tell him personally”.25 For Owings, the book was a pretext to approach politicians, but he was looking for more, namely a commission. So he advertised the book and the results were not long in coming. “Look” magazine was interested and published a report with photographs of his models for a new Washington, DC. Among the magazine’s highly heterogeneous readership was the First Lady, who asked him to present the Pennsylvania Avenue project. Her involvement in the “Committee for a More Beautiful Capital” meant that she was keenly interested in his ideas. Lady Bird Johnson became one of Owings’ most important supporters. This was better as a first step than a commission. The book had given him access to the White House. Koolhaas approaches the task with more precision, but pursues the same goals. Publishing books has made him a specialist in certain topics and has given his work more legitimacy. Some books are the work of his students, to which he adds essays, such as the “Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping”, which deals with the complex world of large department stores. The book describes the development of sales areas and in doing so, refers to statistics that show how money moves, how quickly it regenerates and what forces keep it circulating. His study compares shopping malls with museums and homes, thus boosting their value; never before had any great architects been interested in shopping malls. As well as the buildings themselves, the equipment and technology that determine a shopping mall’s functionality are also dealt with. He believes that air conditioning, escalators and advertising are the vital elements here. Air conditioning can ventilate large areas without the need for windows or any links with the outside, and escalators make it easier for visitors to access different floors, so that they entirely lose contact with the street. The sequence of special offers, lights and goods that visitors see as they pass through lead them deeper and deeper into the building’s interior. Visitors are removed from the public space and enter a private, slightly predictable, more boring and controlled place. “The nature of the city has changed radically from the public to the private. The vast majority of urban sub-

25 “In an effort to firm up our efforts on the Avenue, we got out what we called the Green Book, which is a magnificent report. It’s really well done. We got 5000 copies out. […] We sent one to every member of Congress, to which I might add I’m convinced that 90 percent of those books were never read by anybody; I don’t think Congressmen have time to look at anything much. We learned this. The only way you’re going to get a congressman to know what you’re talking about is to tell him personally. Then President Johnson finally wrote me a letter thanking me very much for carrying out the direction of the Pennsylvania Avenue Council. […] This report was very good, and I got my cursory letter of thanks from the President. He was pretty busy. So we were dead. But I claimed that I wasn’t dead for the simple reason that we had a report out and I was the editor of it, and, therefore, I was still in business as long as the book was in circulation.” Frantz, Joe B.: University of Texas Oral History Project 76-5. General Services Administration National Archives and Records Service, March 1970

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26 Sigler, Jennifer, op. cit.

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stance that is built now is private. The major shift is that the city used to be free, and now you have to pay, whether it’s a museum or a store.”26 As his years of practice mounted, Koolhaas arrived at conclusions similar to Jerde’s. Public space has been privatized and people are bored with always being offered goods for sale. They are looking for new experiences; otherwise, they can stay home and shop on the Internet from the comfort of their sofas.

27 Ibid.

In designing stores, Koolhaas first looks for an opportunity to create a large space in which no products will be sold, where interesting things can happen instead, with no pressure to buy. He is looking for a less aggressive approach to consumption. Prada gave him an opportunity to put his ideas into practice. The company with its high-end brand of clothes and accessories wanted to raise its profile in the US at the beginning of a new millennium by opening stores in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It was also looking for a holistic brand concept. “They asked us to make a proposal for how they could manage their expansion without losing their reputation for adventure and experimentation. So it dealt with an explosion of scale – how they could remain interesting or surprising in spite of their much greater presence. We addressed a series of strategic and organizational issues. Based on those factors, we defined what a store could be, and how the experience of a store could be extended. Then they asked us to do three stores. Complementary to those stores we’re involved in defining their identity in virtual space. We’re also working on technological advances that can make the experience of being in a store better – we’re trying to reinvent the dressing room, the cash register; we’re trying to remove some of the traditional irritants of shopping. One of the irritants of shopping is that you always have to know exactly when you’re in a store and when you’re not, so we tried to blur the limits. […] So we want to make a Prada store in Soho that is still a store, but that can contract all its commercial elements into a single point and liberate the rest of the space for public events. [...] We thought that one unique thing Prada could offer is a degree of generosity toward the public – that there doesn’t always have to be heavy-handed commercial presence.”27 The first Prada store, which they called the “Epicenter”, opened in 2001 in SoHo in New York. Created in the former home of the Guggenheim SoHo, it featured 2,190 square metres of commercial floor space on the ground and first floors. The investment would total $40 million. The floor of the ground floor slopes along its entire length down to the basement storey, rising on the other side to form a sort of large wave. This space is used from time to time as a theatre and has seating from where one can look around or view the shoes on display. A  stage for performances rises out of the floor at the push of a button: pure gimmickry. The walls are adorned with large murals stretching from one end of the shop to the other. These are “wallpaper” in the truest sense of the word – walls made of paper. The walls are repapered every season with a theme

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Epicenter, Prada, New York (2001), OMA / AMO, Rem Koolhaas

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from  the  current collection, featuring collages and drawings by major artists such as Damien Hirst, who designed the wall in 2007. Metal boxes that function as small, mobile display cases hang down from the ceiling to the ground floor. It’s all extremely “hip”, characterized by great mobility, but at the same time without much utility. The actual selling is done on the basement floor, which one gets to without really being aware of it, because one is borne along by the wave. There are walls of shelves and racks on which clothing hangs. It’s all like a typical luxury boutique concept with extremely expensive materials. When you enter the changing room, the transparent door darkens electronically. The “mirrors” show your silhouette, but slowly. In fact, these are not mirrors, but cameras that project your image so that you can look at yourself from various perspectives, without having to turn around. The computer system recognizes regular customers, recalls their previous purchases, and recommends combinations of clothing based on this information. It’s all technologically sophisticated, but not very practical. Nobody wants to wear just one brand of clothes. Ultimately, customers wander through the store as if  through a museum. They come in, look at everything and marvel at the extremely high prices of shoes or evening dresses. Some buy T-shirts or caps as  souvenirs so they can prove they’ve been there. The press has noted the store’s distinctiveness, providing it with free advertising and making it another tourist attraction in the city, as Lever House was in its day. Once again, the architect stands above the brand. The store works better empty than full of customers, even though the aim is to bring in as many people as possible. Yet only when it is empty can you enjoy its details. Prada is also selling the architect who designed its store. In this sense, there is a difference between Koolhaas and Gensler, who did not want Apple to publicize him as their stores’ creator. Yet the strategies of the two men are similar. Both stores are not just shops; they also try to be public spaces. Apple was going for the comfort of a library, while Prada opted for the audacity of a variety theatre. Both want to be known for something more than just sales, to become a place where ideas and creativity can be exchanged, whether through a “Genius Bar” or a multifunctional space. Thoughts on how to get from one level to the next play a major role in both these projects. In his “Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping”, Koolhaas refers to the revolutionary invention of the escalator, which makes movement through space effortless. At Prada, he does the same thing with the wave. Its size and breadth enables customers to descend without being aware of doing so, because the goods on sale accompany them as they go. While customers walk down, they discover new products that attract their attention. Apple, with its seemingly fragile glass staircase, managed to turn the mundane activity of walking up and down stairs into an entirely new experience. The trans-

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parency and translucence of the steps make customers intuitively look up to the next floor, so the staircase is an invitation to ascend. The aim is to have visitors stay in the store as long as possible, whether or not they buy anything. Here, the brand itself is being sold, so the most important products or services are as far from the street as possible. The “Genius Bar” is always right at the back on the first floor, like eggs and bread are in supermarkets, so that customers have to walk through the entire store to get to them. A few weeks before Koolhaas opened the Prada store in SoHo, Gensler completed the world’s biggest toy shop, also in New York. With its 10,200-square-metre sales floor, it’s the flagship store of Toys “R” Us. There is no glamour and no architectural detail as there is with Prada, but the store is far more efficient, because every detail is subordinate to the sales strategy. It is near Portman’s Hotel Marriot Marquis, on the corner of 44th Street and Broadway near Times Square. Gensler has imitated the store’s surroundings by incorporating advertisements, lights and movement into the building as essential elements, turning its whole facade into a huge billboard. He divided it into 165 elements, each of them a separate screen, using a system of backlit polyester foils. The effect is impressive, because it looks as if billboards on the facade are being swapped constantly. Over 25 images can also be combined in each “window” to create a huge mural. This disappears sometimes, leaving the displays to shine through transparently. It is more impressive than all the huge video screens in the area, it looks clearer and can vanish if required. More surprises await inside the store, whose interior is dominated by an 18-metrehigh Ferris wheel. Children can sit in its 14 cars, which are based on characters such as Barbie, Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Monopoly. This feature makes the store  seem even bigger and clearly distinguishes it from its competitors. The store is divided into various departments: a section for soft toys; one for Barbies, featuring a multi-storey house with balconies and colonnades; a Lego world with skyscrapers typical of the city; and a Jurassic Park, with a Tyrannosaurus Rex that moves and roars and scares the kids. All this brings in customers  and thrills the children. Simply visiting the store is an experience, and it’s worth going out of one’s way to see. This kind of gratis reward also strengthens the brand. Riding the Toys “R” Us Ferris wheel is comparable to reading your e-mail for free on an expensive Apple monitor that you might never be able to afford. Gensler finds ways to make such connections. It’s part of his strategy. At the same time, he designs new means of selling every product in a brand, and tries to sell every corner of the store indirectly. Major brands pay to be represented in an individually designed car on the Ferris wheel, or to appear on the facade or on the more than 100 monitors distributed throughout the store, repeatedly showing what wonderful things a certain toy can do. It is no longer the store that presents the

Toys “R” Us, New York (2009), Art Gensler: Various presentations of the facade

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products; the brands themselves decide how the space is to be organized and how their wares will be presented to the public. Koolhaas must have noticed that his store could not serve as a model, except in theory. The space provided at Prada SoHo for cultural events was too small to accommodate exciting things and too large when nothing was going on. Customers need spaces that can adapt to their needs more quickly. For Koolhaas, the experience of shopping is the new sales method. In 2009, he presented a new concept for selling products without displaying them at all. He  designed the Prada Transformer, a modified tetrahedron offering various activities, for Prada in Seoul. What is new about it is that every side of the tetrahedron is planned as the basis for an activity. In order for these to take place, you have to literally stand it on its head, with four cranes turning and moving the building. A different programme was planned for each of the four sides, with one mode dedicated to fashion shows, one to showing films, one to exhibiting art, and one for special events. When the pavilion is rotated, there is a new perception of space, so “regular customers” return more often. Here, it’s not just a question of giving the walls a new colour, or replacing the wallpaper with a new design by a famous artist. Here, the building is literally turned around and its use completely changed. Luckman achieved a similar effect with his Aloha Stadium, although that had an actual functional purpose (see Marketing, pages 42f.). Using a complicated system of air cushions, the stadium could be converted and rows of seating adapted to the particular event, with modes for American football, baseball and concerts.

28 Matussek, Matthias; Kronsbein, Joachim: “Das Böse kann auch schön sein” [Evil can be beautiful, too], Der Spiegel, 27 March 2006

In the case of Prada, everything happens on a smaller scale and the Transformer becomes a toy for adults, a Ferris wheel on which big children can ride, a place full of surprises. “Today’s architecture is subservient to the market and its terms. The market has supplanted ideology. Architecture has turned into a spectacle. It has to package itself and no longer has significance as anything but a landmark.”28

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We are in the era of Show Architecture, in which architects are pursuing the twin goals of selling and of achieving fame. They are all trying to create a unique building that outshines all the others. At the same time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish a copy from the original. With modern communication media, images or designs can be copied immediately, sometimes even before they are implemented. The building that attracts more attention than all the others will win this competition; the highest, the one with the most apartments, the biggest or the most mutable emerges victorious. Many have tried to emulate Portman’s spectacular lobby with all its features, which has led to some designs that have got completely out of control. Koolhaas has also made use of this dynamic, if not deliberately. The Prada Transformer, radical in the extreme, is proof of this. He was intent as never before on ensuring that there was no chance the building would ever be mistaken for any other. The Transformer may have worked better as a cube, although then the very uniqueness and recognizability he was after would have been lost. In 2002, shortly after the opening of the Prada store in SoHo, Koolhaas won the competition for the CCTV project, a complex that would house all the departments of China Central TV and the film studios of the 16 Chinese television broadcasters. In a few years, CCTV is expected to become one of the world’s leading television channels, so the commission promised great prestige. The effect Koolhaas was seeking to achieve could be compared with that of Pereira and Luckman’s CBS Television City, but on a vastly different scale. The project, which included offices, studios, auditoriums, bars and even a viewing platform, had a budget of $650 million. It is located in Beijing’s Central Business District (CBD), an area with 300 new buildings in varying stages of completion. The impression is one of a mad scramble to attract attention with the highest structure or the pointiest tower. In this jumble of new structures, Koolhaas manages to make his novel building stand out. The CCTV building consists of two skyscrapers 234 metres high and connected at right angles at the top. The effect

Prada Transformer, temporary pavilion, Seoul (2009), OMA /AMO, Rem Koolhaas’ basic form of the tetrahedron for various event modes

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it produces is one of overpowering vertigo. Standing below, but even seeing it in pictures or on screen, you can feel the building’s tension. The colossal 70-metre projection dominates the structure, looking, alarmingly, as if poised to crash down. Not only is it unlike anything else; it is latently perilous, causing shivers to run down one’s spine. It is both a landmark and a window through which we can glimpse modern China.

29 Vanderbilt, Tom: “Chairman Now”, Artforum, September 2004

Underscoring its uniqueness, the building looks like a three-dimensional Chinese character. Its appearance changes drastically with the angle from it is viewed or photographed. It has depth and movement. Rather than one facade, it features hundreds. Thus each viewer has his own personal view of the building. Such structures can only be built with the aid of complex computer programs capable of calculating the huge range of forces and strains acting on the overhang in the event of a hurricane, earthquake or plane crash. Koolhaas has created an inimitable landmark. The building is bound to attract the same regard as its architect. The difficulty will lie in ensuring that the interior spaces work, that the various rooms, studios and productions are accessible in such a complex structure. Functionality has its drawbacks, even if you want to believe the contrary. The famous maxim “form follows function” has lost its relevance. The image, the symbol, has priority. Marketing, the public, politics and economic interests all shape the form of a building. Gensler’s motto of “function follows strategy” is right. Here, strategy sets the course and functionality follows suit. As Koolhaas put it, “A building was no longer an issue of architecture, but of a strategy.”29

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CCTV, Beijing (2012), OMA/AMO, Rem Koolhaas

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OUTLOOK VIRTUAL, FREE OF CHARGE, SOCIAL AND GLOBAL

Now that the various strategies have been presented, it is time to take stock. The analysis has shown the importance of strategies in decision-making in the course of a project, and the compelling impact they can have on society. There is no magic formula or set of guidelines that guarantee a project’s success. This book seeks to reveal the power and influence of strategies, the origins of which it traces back to the 1950s. It is only recently, however, that have we come to expect architects to reveal their strategies publicly and to explain them. Design considerations that were originally based on context, specific proportions or an individual aesthetic have paved the way for other justifications based  on the pragmatism of the economic and social environment. A gap has opened up between the formal and the informal, between the subjective – which is inherent in the practice of architecture – and the system. Some architects use strategies to defend a planned concept to a client, others to solve problems. The examples described in this book were selected to highlight the dilemma in which architects find themselves, and which they experience tangibly in a building’s concrete design and intangibly in projects that have to do with a brand, a relationship, the abstract. Luckman was the first to recognize the potential of the intangible. It became manifest in the construction of Lever House, which was built not simply to be used, but also to improve the image of a brand. This approach was new and led to the creation of architecture for which budget restrictions were almost entirely absent. The costs of constructing the building were lumped together with the costs of advertising, so architects could justify their arbitrary designs. This period, which only ended with the financial crisis in 2008, lasted for a good 50 years: half a century of fierce battles to erect the highest, biggest or most extravagant building. Yet to the extent to which these structures rose skywards, they also lost contact with the ground, with reality. In retrospect, it can be said that, thanks to the enormous financial resources that were made available for construction, it was a period in which architects had great leeway in the development of projects. Since the 1990s, CAD/CAM technol-

Outlook

ogy has allowed architects to examine formal solutions in advance and plan increasingly complex and hitherto inconceivable forms. Computer-aided design, renderings and animations have given many politicians, government advisers and/or developers the confidence to have the model presented to them actually built. Society has been receptive to many of these designs, but the decision to build is not based on a structure’s appearance alone. Developers now also demand profitability, and architects have to resort to sales strategies to win clients over. Taking specific projects as examples, this book investigates the ways in which, departing from their respective starting situations, some architects have been able to assert themselves on the market. The events are viewed from an unconventional perspective, however, in which an evaluation of the results is of secondary importance. The resulting information might help architects in practising their profession, as strategies can yield proposals that will enable them to persuade prospective clients better and thus to develop new projects. The deeper we look into the material, the more indications we find that strategies not only serve to justify decisions made in the building process; they can also stand alone. Based on the fields of activity pursued by Rem Koolhaas (AMO) or Art Gensler (Gensler Information Solutions), we have looked at how architects have become consultants on numerous issues that go well beyond the scope of the construction of a building. Architects now also offer solutions to political, economic and social problems. The job of analysing the financial crisis is now the purview of economists and engineers, who inevitably focus on economic viability. The time may have come for architects to bring their visions and values to bear in society. This proposed step may be risky, yet it is indispensable to the survival of architects in today’s environment. In the long term, constructing buildings will no longer play a major role, at least not in our immediate environment. Building structures cannot be the only goal of architects. We must stop restricting ourselves to the tangible and get used to the idea of building the intangible, too: contacts, links, associations, ways of using space.

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ARCHITECT S NO LONGER PL AN BUILDINGS BU T DECISIONS . H O W W I L L T H E F I R ST ST E P S L O O K ? Every period in history has had a tool that shaped the development of that era’s architecture. In the Renaissance, the discovery of geometrical perspective had a revolutionary impact. When planners began using it to design buildings, their plans came to life, and the ruling classes understood and accepted building projects far more readily than before. A similar thing happened when scaling methods were developed. They made new forms of urban planning and development possible. Palladio and Le Corbusier both used geometry and proportion to design buildings, but in radically different ways. More recently, the design of the Guggenheim Museum became possible only because Frank Gehry was able to scan his real models and translate their curves into data. Many building designs are based on complex curves created using a spline function, with which it is possible to draw curves, change values retrospectively and reduce the degree of the polynomials. An even simpler example is the ellipse. Until René Descartes defined the ellipse, it was known that it existed but nobody knew how to describe it. Descartes developed a new method of curve sketching, which laid the foundations for analytical geometry. Architects now use tools to plan projects with increasing levels of detail at an early stage. This has changed the planning process, necessitating a new tool: BIM (Building Information Modelling). BIM is a method of collating all of a building’s data created in renderings, drawings, etc. A wall is sketched in, the elements it consists of can be saved directly, and information on materials, quantities or prices relevant to the building can be identified. BIM is a system for generating information during the design process. An architect can use it to make decisions on price, thermal efficiency or lighting conditions, or to check the stability of a support structure. Advertising would have us believe that these programs simplify the design process and make it easier for users to make changes, but critics say that in reality we are leaving it to our computers to determine our solutions for us. As we draw, we can obtain data on profitability, energy efficiency and structural stability. If, for example, we are planning a north-facing window in order to provide a view of the mountains or a river, or because we simply regard it as good for the project, alarm bells will ring and remind us to upgrade the heating system accordingly and plan to use thicker glass. It is becoming increasingly difficult for architects to evade the norm, the standard. A focus on greater efficiency is having the effect of making architects’ work more and more homogenized. Initially, this may seem like bad news for our profession, but it is bringing changes in its wake, because complete parameterization turns buildings into databases. The first advantage of this is that a project can be envisioned in more detail, although this does not yet represent significant progress compared to what lies

Outlook

ahead. BIM is a method for creating virtual models that can be used to answer questions not only about the structure itself, but about its functionality, logistics and efficiency. It shows a building’s performance and profitability with reference to its inhabitants. As with Gensler, clients can log on to the databases to participate in decision-making. Thanks to this system, we always know the current cost of property. This may initially seem trivial, but a dearth of this information – the fact that there were no figures available for the current worth of real estate – was one of the causes of the global financial crisis of 2008. Decisions are no longer based on Excel spreadsheets and formulas, but on an analysis of virtual models. If, for example, the design of a hospital is commissioned, its efficiency can be determined continuously by adding or omitting various parameters. Visualizations can show how deliveries are brought into the building, which routes are required and how processes can be optimized. A developer can reproduce reality in his virtual scenario, taking people – both the sick and the healthy – and their respective roles into account. The model also provides information on users’ behaviour. We can create a virtual model to increase efficiency, so that through incremental optimization, we can make reality resemble this virtual utopia as

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BIM model of Blackfriars station, London (2012), renovation: Jacobs Architecture / Tony Gee & Partners. Various programs were used in the design process.

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closely as possible. The virtual model also allows us to concentrate on very precise questions, such as whether containers are required at the end of every corridor or only on each floor. Through a simulation of various possibilities, an optimum model begins to take shape. Even if BIM limits the range of possibilities in the design phase, it can be used to move decision-making to an earlier point. It provides updated data on our physical environment in real time, so planners know what counts, know the return on investment and the maintenance costs. Buildings are, as Gensler put it, like cars on a racetrack that we have to optimize so they always achieve maximum performance. This approach is, in fact, sustainable. Sustainability is not about putting wind turbines on top of empty buildings or about saving energy with the right kind of construction type. After all, if nobody wants to buy the buildings, they will not be sustainable. Sustainability is about using resources efficiently, economizing, and only building what’s really needed. We are entering a world in which visualizing problems results in a better understanding of them. At the outset of the financial crisis, it became clear that the regulatory authorities were not able to assess the risks they were exposed to. If they had been able to precisely visualize their loan and debt levels, somebody would certainly have put the brakes on earlier. Visualization means simplifying decision-making and more consciously identifying the scope of problems. Dan Roam is worth a mention here. Many of his books deal with problem-solving and the selling of ideas by means of images. Say the US government provides $785 billion in one of several bailout deals designed to rescue banks. This sum is so huge that it’s hard to relate it to anything. If you wanted to visualize this magnitude, you could do it this way: The precise distribution of funds of this financial aid package is outlined in a 700-page document. Dividing the number of pages by the amount of money provided, you get about a billion dollars per page. Can a properly designed budget involve the expenditure of a billion dollars on just one page? That seems hard to imagine. If this is how we approach reform, it is barely conceivable that anyone can have a concrete idea where all the money is going. Architects determine the scale, the budgets and the perspectives. We are able to plan virtual environments and create scenarios. We are the very people who could be at the forefront of change.

Outlook

H OW C AN S O C I ET Y BE PE R SUAD E D T O R EC O G N I Z E O U R C L A I M TO LEADERSHIP IN THIS SHIFT? The same way we have always done things: free of charge. We are a community that presents itself by means of competitions, without receiving any compensation. We offer our knowledge and skill, getting appreciation from others in return. On the Internet, everything works that way. It is, for example, becoming increasingly difficult for journalists to get paid work, because so many bloggers write for free. In the virtual world, there are more and more “freemium” services. General information is gratis, but specialist details cost money. We manage to survive in this tough environment because our profession goes hand in hand with “free” offerings. Without charging for it, we create models, mobility studies and everything necessary to gain a commission, and we are always prepared to extend our areas of responsibility. We can develop a symbol that is also an effective promotional message about a whole country, as Bjarke Ingels did in Azerbaijan, yet we only charge for a preliminary design. An advertising campaign with a similar effect would cost far more. We can create fictions and plan design concepts like Jon Jerde, turning a diverse area like Los Angeles into a unified city and the Olympic Games into a business model, yet charging only for the design of some walls and small adjustments to infrastructure. Starting with minor commissions, solutions can be designed that result in fundamental changes. Another example is Daniel P. Moynihan. Asked to draw up a list of vacant offices in Washington, DC, he established “Guiding Principles” that became the fundamental design criteria for public buildings. Some architects don’t charge much initially, but as soon as a company approaches them again with a similar commission, they increase their fee. To find clients, we should seek out the owners of a property, a building or a company and present them with a model of how they can increase their property’s value. We should make them an offer, preferably one that includes a building. That gets our foot in the door and can be built on. Koolhaas and Gensler have launched their own management consultancies à la McKinsey to develop business models. Architects should dare to make proposals and prepare decisions in a diverse range of areas in the hope that the public will accept them. Ito Morabito (*1977 in Marseille) is a designer working under the name of Ora Ito. Although he left university without finishing a degree, he earns more money than many others in his industry. His strategy for increasing his name recognition was to work “for free”. He started out by designing for famous brands like Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Apple – without their having commissioned him to do so – and then publishing his designs on the Internet. His works were also published in various

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magazines, which created demand for the products in stores, even though they only existed as renderings. Ora Ito showed that he could identify a market niche, understand a company’s philosophy, and design a product that met its customers’ requirements. None of the companies for which he “designed” products sued him, because they realized that his designs enhanced their own brand image. Now he actually designs for some of them. We architects should start proposing strategies to society. How should cities and hospitals be planned? How and from what do we want to live in old age? We are capable of reformulating things. We should try out Ito’s idea and disseminate our proposals, initially for free, on the Internet. If there is an idea there that really interests people, we can then start the process. The Internet is a showcase in which all kinds of ideas, renderings and strategies can be presented but where the social component is in the foreground.

WHAT ST R AT EGIE S AF F ECT U S A S A C OMMUNI T Y ? WHAT S O C IAL A N D G LO B A L ST R AT EG I E S C AN W E O F F E R ? As architects, we are experts on public space, on the environment, on integration. Instead of restricting ourselves to determining the structural order of a site, we should help communities to achieve what they really need. Technology has become part of people’s lives. It doesn’t take much to invest in social networks. All one needs is a computer and Internet access, which offers most people, the masses, a platform. We now have more data than ever before, and it is up to us to interpret them – never losing sight of the fact that decisions on architecture always have a fundamental effect on society. Daniel P. Moynihan understood this. He saw the people behind the figures and was able to bring about political decisions that aligned the built environment with its social aspects. He was highly perceptive and offered people appropriate solutions. For a long time, architects have focused more on the external appearance of a building than on the feelings of the people living and working there. It has only gradually become clear how important it is to include target groups in the development of projects, in the process of value creation, so that the needs of everyone involved can be addressed successfully. This is the concept of “co-creation”, in which products are developed on the basis of the end users’ opinions. It is a simple strategy of engaging in dialogue with people, giving them access to knowledge and organizational tools through workshops and discussions. If we are to develop products that meet their needs, we must be transparent. In return, they will give us their time.

Outlook

The English architect Will Alsop (*1947 in Northampton) has used this approach with great success. In 2007, he launched a new urban planning concept in New Islington, an inner-city area of Manchester. His Tutti Frutti project involved 26 sites for which the future owners could submit designs. A website called on interested parties to submit proposals, regardless of whether they were architects or not. A jury of experts, which included Alsop, selected the most interesting ideas and found ways to implement them. Here the architect was simply a project administrator, and the planning was done by non-experts. The intention was to use a focus on end users as an effective promotional tool. Word would spread and people would take notice. Tutti Frutti involved the construction of 1,700 flats as well as offices, a school, a hospital, shops, cafes, a canal and a swimming complex. The overall design was in the hands of Will Alsop. The free market is increasingly willing to involve consumers in planning if that is what they desire. This is a market whose participants are well informed, in which it can be hard to convince customers of a product’s excellence. So, instead of the old approach, in which a product is first designed and then advertised to convince customers to buy it, consumers themselves should participate in creating products. In the Tutti Frutti project, this new approach worked a bit like bait. Clients were allowed to believe that they were making decisions on the situation, even though in reality the contribution of interested parties was vanishingly small in relation to the overall construction volume. Yet it is a step in the right direction. Architects have to learn to listen to people instead of dictating their own criteria to them. They should be mediators, helping clients to live out their dreams and to come to decisions. This means they will have to learn to listen. Burdett comes to understand cities by measuring and quantifying them, creating charts and tables, comparing their density, always seeking the recipe for success. When he discovers similarities between two places, he transfers ideas for solutions from one to the other. He looks for a pattern and visualizes how a solution might work. He is especially interested in ever-expanding cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai or Mexico City, none of them exactly models of ordered growth. Change in those cities is taking place much faster than it is in Europe; everything is unpredictable there, so it is exactly there that we should look for future solutions. We architects must be the first to plan at the social level for more than seven billion people worldwide. If we focus on designing housing in the way we learned at university, there will never be enough funding available to build it. This model can only work for the 500 million people in the Western world. We assumed that, thanks to globalization, millions of people would migrate to Western or European countries, most of them from populous countries like China

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or India and even from resource-rich countries like Brazil, Russia, Canada, Australia and the Middle East. The global crisis of recent years has meant, however, that the masses of people who might have supported our economy and society in the coming decades can no longer help us. The market no longer has enough solvent buyers. We are offering housing that nobody wants, because nobody can afford to buy it. Multinational companies are facing the same problem. Some products that have been on the market for a long time are no longer finding buyers. Some companies, like General Electric (GE), are now carrying out “reverse innovation”, moving their research and development centres to countries like China or India so that they can better understand and meet the needs of potential consumers there. When a product is designed for consumers who have major restrictions to contend with, a successful launch on that market is a fairly good indication that the product might sell all over the world. One example of this is ultrasound scanners. GE is the global market leader in this sector, with the company’s scanners found in most of the world’s hospitals. The scanners are technologically advanced and reliable, but they are too expensive for certain potential buyers. For the Chinese market, GE developed a portable scanner that can be hooked up to a standard PC. The device, which costs $15,000, can be used to diagnose a variety of ailments, including ectopic pregnancies, ulcers and pericardial effusions. Naturally, the standard version of the scanner is far more precise, but at a purchase price of $100,000, it is also far more expensive. What is paramount here is that a “portable” scanner makes ultrasound examinations possible and affordable, enabling many hospitals with limited equipment budgets to offer this kind of examination. The approach is not new; products are often adapted to specific environments or potential buyers. The new factor here is that this adapted product has become a top seller in the Western world, too.

1 Immelt, Jeffrey R.; Govindarajan, Vijay; Trimble, Chris: “How GE is disrupting itself”, Harvard Business Review, 21 September 2009, p. 3

Applications and forms of use may vary, but the product itself is the same. Most hospitals now have large, expensive scanners in their radiology departments, but the portable scanners are in use by their emergency doctors and outpatient clinics. Private practices also work with this scanner. “Success in developing countries is a prerequisite for continued vitality in developed ones.”1 GE’s strategy lies in the development of a product that has 50 per cent of the original scanner’s reliability but costs only 15 per cent of its original price. If you  consider this ratio, the challenge facing Qingyun Ma, who is looking for ways to design living space for his compatriots, becomes apparent. It is clear to him that he can export a successful model from China to the rest of the world. After exporting clothing and technical parts to consumers all over the world, China is now developing new forms of living, of being and of making interpersonal contacts. This model will, I believe, be taken up at a global level, as its devel-

Outlook

opment will have taken far greater restrictions than those prevailing in the Western world into account. As with the portable ultrasound scanners, the concept will be the same, but we will use it in different ways. Such housing will probably initially be used for people often found at the fringes of society, such as migrants. This will doubtless lead to a debate on reasonable housing conditions. Later on, people who could afford “normal” housing will also want to live in a “China type” house. Just as it would have seemed impossible decades ago for “house brand” products to exist, buildings can become famous as trademarks. This will set us on the path to a new era. “Go East,” Koolhaas urges us. The future lies in the East, and it will arrive faster – “sù dù” – than we think. The challenge is within reach of those who want to take it up. Architects often face a lack of commissions, but if we can think in terms of strategies, there will always be plenty to do.

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EPILOGUE

This analysis is meant as a call to action. We cannot wait for our bosses to hand us commissions. Politicians and other decision makers are in retreat, so we will have to take care of our future ourselves, set our own goals. We need to investigate our environment, develop models, create strategies and make our results available to people free of charge. We need to prove that there is a new way of looking the future in the eye. Today, now. This proposals arrived at in the course of this investigation are not absurd. Let us take Google as an example – an endless, free database consisting of thousands of links. It forms and integrates networks, thus presenting a model that both businesses and the masses can embrace. Le Corbusier regarded motorization as his century’s most important contribution to revolutionizing architecture. We will have to look at Google to find out what is in store for

us, although that would go beyond the scope of this book. Instead, we will focus on Google’s strategy, which Larry Page, who co-founded the company with Sergey Brin, defined as follows: “There’s not many things you use as much as a toothbrush, so you should be working on those things. Email’s something you use more than a toothbrush. We try to stick to the sorts of things that really matter to people – and things that we think we can improve a lot.”1 Google’s business is based on services that are as useful as toothbrushes – simple and inexpensive, something that we use every day at a negligible cost. Staying with the toothbrush metaphor, the problem for architects is that they have spent the past 50 years designing ever more exclusive ”toothbrushes”, with no regard for the fact that they have become increasingly awkward to use. These ”toothbrushes” are now so finished and feature such exquisite structures, projections and materials that their strategic tasks have been left to

Epilogue

others. Architects must get back to what a toothbrush is actually for. In doing this, they should not only consider the design of a toothbrush, but its cost and shelf life as well, while keeping in mind that it is only really effective with toothpaste. The value of toothpaste, in turn, lies in its efficacy, its flavour and especially its brand. Toothpaste has no form – and in this, it resembles strategies. Charles Luckman, who worked at Unilever for 20 years, sold toothpaste, among other things, before he arrived at a new understanding of what architecture can achieve. The time has come to broaden the scope of our activities. To our formal design skills – our ability to design “toothbrushes” (the building, the material, the tangible) – we architects must add the ability to design “toothpaste” (strategies, politics, the intangible). To put it in a nutshell, we must get involved in answering the question of how we want to live in future.

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1 Rowan, David: “Inside Google: Eric Schmidt, the man with all the answers”, Wired, 30 June 2009

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IN TERVIEW A CONVERS ATION WITH ART GENSLER AND BJARKE INGELS

This interview was conducted in Art Gensler's summer residence near San Diego, California, on 8 August 2011. Sancho Pou: First, I’d like to speak about Charles Luckman, who said, “The art of marketing a product, a service, a person, or a company lies in determining and then advertising those things that are unique and distinctive. Whether you’re selling toothpaste, soap, or an architectural firm, ... [you] have to demonstrate to the public just what makes you different from, and better than, your competitors.” Do you agree or disagree with this? Gensler: I agree completely. I never met Mr Luckman, but I know his son. I don’t think of what we do at Gensler as marketing, but probably it is. We’ve built an organization that is basically a marketing machine, but not in the traditional way. Our strength is that most of our projects come to us through the very close relationships we build with our clients. Our whole strategy is based on the importance of the power of design. If you listen carefully to your clients and work closely with them, you can create great buildings, spaces and environments. We are not market-

ing a Gensler style; instead we are marketing an approach that involves being very responsive to our clients’ needs and goals. We push them, we help them to understand what resources and options are available, and we support them wherever in the world they want to go. That’s why we have so many Gensler offices – because many of our major clients are global organizations. Currently we are working on thousands of projects, large and small, in locations all around the world. So, “marketing” at Gensler is really all about addressing each client’s needs and problems to deliver a quality design solution. We push high-end design and responsive design. We want to design environments that are more impactful for the people who use the space. We work hard to make sure that our designs enhance their experience – whether they are working, entertaining, travelling, shopping or whatever. We also care a lot about the budget, costs and schedule. But we especially care about being responsive. Ingels: I think I normally make a sort of a primitive distinction in the field of architecture. The field of architecture – and this is especially the case in America – is governed

Interview

by two kinds of practice. One, which is maybe one per cent of the field, is an expressive sort of architecture genius that makes really striking, very expressive, very spectacular, very expensive and difficult, sometimes even malfunctioning, designs. As you know, you get an incredible amount of attention, but you also get an army of problems along with it...

individual client to us. Each has a chairman and a management team with a unique approach to customer service. Sometimes that approach is being implemented, and sometimes they look to us to take them where they want to go. Our job is to interpret each client’s requirements and then work with the client to achieve those goals.

Gensler: Yes.

Another thing: good design is very important. Unfortunately, a lot of buildings are being built that are just not very good. When a Gensler team works with a client, we’re not trying to create a design that changes the world or is selected for a magazine cover. We’re trying to take the client’s problem and deliver a good project – a solid design that’s innovative, appropriate, on budget, and that works for the user, the developer, whoever is involved.

Ingels: And then you have the professional, corporate consultancy that is also called a service company, where what is actually brought to the table is reliable but also predictable, boring and boxy. Gensler: I agree with you in many ways, but I disagree with you in others. The world needs just so many “look at me” buildings. Some of these unique buildings are designed to represent a designer’s style and vocabulary. I think that the brilliance of architecture is that there is an opportunity for many different positions. At Gensler, our position is that we’re not trying to sell a style or push a specific image. We want to create contemporary, fresh architecture 99.9 per cent of the time. Sometimes we are asked to design an addition to an historic building, and we recognize that context is important to make the completed project a success. If it’s a restoration or rehabilitation project, we have experts in the firm who can address those specific issues. I get easily bored with doing the same kind of work all the time. I like to provide our clients with different and unique solutions. For example, we work with the top ten banks, and their business needs and goals are really basically the same. But for each one of them we develop a different design solution, because each of those banks represents an

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Sancho Pou: Luckman said that one part of his success was doing marketing research, trying to understand the client well. Do you do marketing research? Gensler: We do a lot of research. We spend a lot of time at the beginning of projects working with the clients in what we call a “visioning session”, where we try to draw out of them what they want to accomplish. I’ll give you an interesting example. The most publicity and positive reaction – based on letters and compliments – we have ever received on a project is on the airport renovation we just finished in San Francisco. When we started the project, there were many people on the airport staff who said, “Look. It’s just a renovation. Keep it cheap and get it done, because we need more airline gates.” But there was also a group of us who said, “This can be more than that. This should be more than that.” We thought that an airport should be a welcoming place for arriving passengers. It’s strange that, historically, all the emphasis has been on the ticketing and departure areas from which people leave, and there was less attention paid to the arrival experience. We want to provide them with a good experience when they leave, but we also want them to feel a special welcome when they arrive at their destination. So we had an all-day work session. We gave people Post-it notes and asked, “What do you want? Is the budget the main thing? Could it be hospitality, a San Francisco–oriented welcome? Or is it built around the airplane?” I think airports are too much like airplanes, not very humanistic. So, everyone at the visioning session was walking around, putting their thoughts on these Post-its. Finally they said, “Wouldn’t it be unique to focus on hospitality, by making the airport feel very much like the

lobby of a great hotel?” If you go into a RitzCarlton or Marriott, the lobby is just teeming with excitement, and it’s just a fun place to be. Well, we built the San Francisco Airport that way, and people love it. We have Gensler people who research and analyse the client industries in our individual practice areas. They are discovering solutions for issues our clients currently need to address. It’s great, because it helps the company, it helps the user, it creates good design and it’s the right thing to do. That’s the kind of project that I get excited about. Now, will that project be on the cover of a magazine or be featured in a publication? Probably not, although it could be if the editors took the time to discover the story, rather than just focus on what the pictures look like. Because the project story is much bigger than the pictures. And that’s what fun for me. Sancho Pou (to Bjarke Ingels): And do you do marketing research? Ingels: I think we’d rather use the term “communication”. Quite often there’s a disconnect in architectural discourse between what architects say and what they then do. Therefore, one of the most common ways of achieving an identity as an architect is to lock yourself into a limited vocabulary that is synonymous with your style. I really like the idea that, as architects, we’re not necessarily the creators, but rather the midwives that assist a project in giving birth to itself. Gensler: Let me take that a little step further. The corporate, legal name of the firm is M. Arthur Gensler Jr. and Associates, Inc. When I started the firm, other companies included the name of their founder – like Frank Lloyd Wright and John Carl Warnecke.

Interview

I thought a name with “M. Arthur Gensler” sounded more important. Well, that didn’t last. Nobody wanted to write out that whole darn title, although it was still the firm’s legal name. So we changed it to “Gensler and Associates, Architects”. And that’s how it remained for probably 30 years, until one day our branding and graphic design leader came in and said, “Art, I can’t market brand and graphic design, because people don’t think that architects do that kind of design. We should change the name to ‘Gensler’ as a generic name.” After a lot of discussion, we said, “OK, we’ll change it to Gensler.” But it was killing me, because I’m an architect, and I’m proud to be an architect, and I liked having the word “architect” in the name of the firm. What we have become, in my opinion, is much bigger than just an architecture firm; we’ve become a design firm. We design lighting systems and furniture, as well as graphic and communication systems. We publish books on design. We design so many more things than just buildings or interiors, for which are primarily famous. Sancho Pou (to Bjarke Ingels): Your office is BIG as in Bjarke Ingels Group. You also make your name disappear just to be something bigger. Ingels: I think that when you have a baby, you probably spend at least nine months brainstorming a name, and it’s so important, and after the first two months of life, the name starts signifying the person and not whatever was associated with it. In the end, it becomes an entity. I like the fact that BIG is an adjective. So BIG is something that enhances other attributes. Sancho Pou: But what is interesting about Bjarke Ingels is that when he positions an architecture, he positions more of his archi-

tecture or his style, while Art Gensler tries more not to show his style. Gensler: I have a different philosophy. I may not be the greatest designer in the world, but I know when something is right and when it’s wrong, when it works and when it doesn’t. I know how to recruit phenomenal people and support them. I respect them and I trust them. Sancho Pou: Going on to another theme, I think that iconic buildings are buildings that stand out in their surroundings. The building is a slogan, and many companies can use the building as a slogan. What do you think about this? Do you agree or disagree? Ingels: I think first of all the definition of style... Just because the work that we do quite often has a strong identity, that’s not because it has a limited vocabulary. In that sense, I don’t think we operate with style, because when it comes to vocabulary, we’re actually quite promiscuous. We’re prepared to deploy any material or any form that seems to be the most productive one in a certain context. And when it comes to icons, to me iconography is not interesting in the sense that it’s something that stands out because it’s weird or alien; to me, iconography has to do with trying to distil as much effect into as few means as possible. And if you really look at the whole story of iconography, it’s this idea that you try to capture as much identity, as much expression, as much recognizability with as few strokes as possible. Look at the evolution of the alphabet. Each character in the alphabet is like an icon for a sound, and in the beginning, the way it evolved was an economy of means. In the beginning, if you wanted to write “cow”, then you drew a cow, and eventually you found a smarter and faster way of doing a cow, and in the end you could do it with just

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three lines. You could write “cow” incredibly fast instead of painting the whole animal, and then gradually the idea of a phonetic alphabet evolved. So for me, what makes things iconographic is that you distil the maximum effect with the minimum means. You create a maximum of expression with as few moves as possible, and you create as many attributes as possible, as much enjoyment with as little effort as possible. It’s almost like a higher form of simplicity. And that’s essentially what we strive for in architecture. That lends a certain iconography to some of our work. It has a very distinct character, not because it’s muddied with all kinds of superfluous moves, but actually because it’s distilled into the most blatant, straightforward way of achieving exactly this in exactly this situation.

Gensler: I agree with a lot of what you just said, because I don’t like superfluous moves. I don’t like doing things just because I want to do them. Great design at times needs a twist, a sense of uniqueness, a surprise. One of the things that’s unique about what we do is that we recognize that some aspects of a project need to be very repetitive and some things need to be very unique, unanticipated. Ingels: Normally, I say that no client ever achieves a better building than the abilities of his architect. In the case of the architectas-midwife, it becomes a question of unfolding the maximum potential of a client or a situation. Gensler: I often talk about “stretching a client”. I use the example of stretching a rubber band, but not to the point where you break it. As architects, our role is to stretch the client, but not to the breaking point. Many architects stretch and stretch and stretch and don’t know when to stop, and the client relationship breaks and they lose everything. I believe that if I can work with a great client and stretch him and then do another project, the client, like the rubber band, doesn’t go back to where it was originally. It relaxes, and the next time I can take it a little further, and even more the next time. I like the idea of making sure that we do the best we can do on every project. But it’s the best we can do at this moment. The next time we do that project or a similar project, we can take it to another level. Ingels: Speaking of this idea of stretching a client – there is this sort of trilogy of projects for one of our clients. In the first one, the VM Houses, we were interested in the idea of diversity: if people are different,

Interview

then why are all the apartments the same? So, out of 220 units, we did 85 different typologies, like duplexes and triplexes, really an incredible variety. The next project for the same client, the Mountain, was a combination of a parking structure and an apartment block. And then the last project, as we took it one step further, is a 600,000-squarefoot city block that combines shops and offices and kindergartens and apartments. And we exploited the difference in depth of commercial spaces and residential spaces to create a mountain path that actually climbs up and allows the possibility for spontaneous social encounters to extend all from the way from the street. It’s called the “8 House”, because from the sky it looks like a figure 8. We could never have done the 8 House if it had been the first project for this client. But, gradually, through accumulating trust, through past successes, we could gradually take it further. Gensler: It is so discouraging for me to watch architects who push clients so far that they lose them. I can’t afford to do that. I have to live off the reputation of our past work, and I need the references and recommendations of our clients. Sancho Pou: Now to the “throng”. Normally, architects design with a unique context in mind. But is it possible to design for the masses? Do you use models that you are able to apply anywhere? Ingels: I’ve always had a great interest in the “popular” in the actual meaning of the word. Architecture is the art of accommodation, in that we never design another architect’s building. We always work for non-architects, essentially. It would be so interesting and so relevant if people in general were more

engaged in architecture, because it is the art and science of making sure that our cities and buildings really fit with the life we want to live. And therefore, we’re always looking for ways to interest non-architects in architecture. Gensler: What always troubles me is the challenge designers have. The fact is that the average population thinks they know what they know. If you look at their houses and how they’ve furnished them, it’s all very traditional furniture. That’s what they’re comfortable with. So how do we expect them to understand contemporary design? Ingels: You’re right – it’s always Danish modern. Gensler: So how do you take the populace, the average public, and change the level of their interest in architecture? We do it through enhancing the shopping experience, through new approaches to hospitality, and through discovering innovative ways to design a hotel or restaurant. But it can be difficult sometimes to get the new ways accepted. So it’s a real challenge for designers and architects and planners to look at new ways of doing things. We’re seeing more projects that are mixed-use – it’s a broad word – that mix together where people live and play and work. We’re finally changing the concept that the stores are here, the jobs are here, and these are the suburban places where people live, and these are the urban workplaces where they have to commute. Now we’re infilling in the cities and bringing people back into cities, so it’s an interesting time. Sancho Pou: Let’s talk about “the developer”. The developer-type architect plans by thinking of a building’s profitability. What do you do if you propose something and then the clients

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ask for more profitability? They want less detail or they want more? Gensler: One of the things that 50 years in the business has given me is a little bit more leverage. Experience does help. I know how to read a financial statement. I know how to read the client’s business journals. I know where they make money and how they make money. Sancho Pou: How the client makes money? Gensler: We say that when we speak with a client, we have to speak legalese, or developer-ese, or hospitality-ese, or whatever. Each client industry has a special vocabulary, style and approach. For example, “RevPar” is a word used in the hospitality business that refers to the revenue per unit according to how many hotel rooms you have. Clients may be juggling to put more hotel rooms on a floor, but they also have to weigh that number against all sorts of factors. For example, in towns where unionized people clean the rooms, they clean 13 rooms in a day. So in a town that is heavily unionized, like San Francisco, you would ideally have units of 13 hotel rooms on a floor. When we design a hotel, we need to know how many rooms should be on each floor. We have to understand the client’s business and how each client generates revenue. Ingels: To me, the developer is no different than any other client in the sense that each client needs to achieve something with a project. So if you’re a doctor and you’re making a hospital, then you have a lot of requirements, a lot of parameters, a lot of criteria that have to do with trying to get people healthy as efficiently and as well as possible, and if it’s a hotelier, they have the whole logistics of…

Gensler: I call them developers, too. We typically think of developers as people who build office buildings or something, but hotel companies are also developers of hotel buildings. Ingels: I know, but in that case, you also have developers who develop for hoteliers. I’m just saying that there are always certain success criteria. That’s one of the interesting things about working with really professional people: the more professional they are, the more experienced they are, and the more they actually know about their criteria. And they have very specific ones. So then, for the architect it becomes a question of trying to turn those criteria into the driving forces of the design rather than encountering them as obstacles later on. If you work from a preconceived idea or design, you are bound to bump into these parameters eventually – at which point it might be fatal. Gensler: It’s interesting you say that, because I think the really good ones want to stretch themselves and you. The developer can be an organization or an individual, but you need people who know what they know. But the critical thing is that they know what they don’t know. Ingels: Speaking of developers, we are doing a project in Vancouver for a developer. It’s right next to the Granville Street Bridge that goes into downtown. The city is imagining two towers: one on our client’s property and one next to it to create a sort of an arrival gate, if you will. Another parameter is that in Vancouver the real estate value goes up the higher you go. If you take a 850-square-foot [79-square-metre] apartment and you move it one floor up, it’s $15,000 more value. And then there’s a park right next to the site where they don’t want shadows after, like, 10.30 in

Interview

the morning. So this is the site, and then there is a series of parameters. There are some setback requirements. There’s a setback requirement for the bridge when it splits up, and there’s another setback requirement: you’re not allowed to build something that looks out on the highway closer than 100 feet [30 metres] from the highway. So that wipes out almost this entire site for building, except this corner. And we don’t want to cast shadows in the park. So, finally, we’re left with a tiny triangle, 600,000 square feet [55,700 square metres] to build. It’s actually almost too small to make a good development. Our proposal was that, since our client owns the entire land, as we clear the highway and get more than 100 feet above the highway, we can come back out. As a result, we end up getting this building that actually maximizes the real estate; it goes from a triangle to a rectangle. So you see, at the top, it’s actually twice as big as at the bottom, and the resulting architecture is basically a triangle that bulges out and becomes a rectangle. It’s 12,000 square feet [1,115 square metres] on the upper floors, which are the most valuable, and only 6,000 at the bottom. Gensler: I always said that the Transamerica building in San Francisco is upside down. The rents increase the higher you go up in the building. Ingels: So in a way it takes all the parameters of the developer, all of the value and criteria, all of the limitations of the site, and actually turns those into the driving force of the architecture. Sancho Pou: What defines Number One? I wrote in the book that Gensler is Number One in terms of economics. And I compare you [Ingels] with Koolhaas, who is the Number

One academically. Both of you are interested in the unbuilt. In your work since the 1980s, you have been doing project management, but also a lot of consultancy work. This is something Koolhaas has also done; Koolhaas began in 2000. One of my conclusions is that now that architects have no work; that in the future we will be working in consultancy, providing advice, providing solutions. I’d like to know your opinion on this, especially now at a time of crisis, when everything is in flux. Gensler: The answer is that architectural training requires three-dimensional thinking, and I’m convinced that is something you have or you don’t have. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at architecture schools, and they’re much better now at selecting the students they accept. They’ve learned that if a student doesn’t have a capacity for three-dimensional thinking, no matter how hard the school pushes them, they’ll never be good architects. But what is also interesting is that, as you noted, Charles Luckman was an architect, but also ran a big company – Lever Brothers. There are a number of architecturetrained people who have become very, very successful business people. Architecture school provides really good training for thinking. More people who are involved with creative thinking now have architectural training and have also gone to business school. So they have a balance between the design side and the business side. That helps them to be good consultants. I was always nervous about saying I was a consultant, although we were in fact doing a lot of consulting. So, I think that it is very valid to say that architects are consultants. But you have to be smart and you have to be articulate. Fortu-

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nately, the most successful architects I know are very articulate and can communicate their ideas verbally. They don’t just hold up a picture and ask, “How do you like it?” They explain what they’ve done and they use short, understandable words. So I do think that consulting is a part of the profession. Ingels: I think the question is what, if anything, is interesting about the question of Number One. One thing that might be interesting, as an architect or as anyone passionately involved in some pursuit, is this idea that architecture is the art and science of making our citizen buildings better suited for accommodating the life we actually want to live. And in that sense, if you believe, as we also do, that we contribute ideas and concrete examples of how to translate how life evolves into how our cities evolve, then you can achieve this influence on the world in different ways. One of them is that you can find ways of scaling up your effort to the point where you have 3,000 people do what you do. Another way, which would be a more plausible direction for a company like ours or an architect such as myself, is to try to focus on ideas that have a certain innovation. You take a careful analysis of how life is or how business works or how medicine or learning works, and then you translate that into consequences, where the conceptual breakthroughs or the ideas are so simple that they can be copied. What makes our work significant or characteristic is not my signature; it’s the fact that each project tries to take a set of parameters and then take the consequence of that in a way that’s reproducible. And I think that putting examples out there that can be copied or transformed or sort of mutated by others, is a way, without scaling up yourself, to start waves that can become a movement of their own.

Gensler: I couldn’t agree with you more. One of the beauties of architecture – or any profession, for that matter – is that there’s no right way or wrong way to do it. And I don’t think there’s a Number One. If you want to talk about a firm’s size and volume in dollars and construction space, then we’re probably the largest. But that doesn’t make us the best or the worst; that’s just one of the ways a firm can be measured. It’s also about who architectural students vote as their most admired architect, or what the general public thinks. I can’t remember, but I think the public’s favourite building was the US Capitol, and a contemporary building was so far down the list you could hardly find it. Ingels: Jørn Utzon managed to make the world’s most universally recognized building, which is not the Eiffel Tower nor the Pyramids. It’s the Sydney Opera, which is a contemporary building. Gensler: I’m a great believer in the opportunity of choice. I think each of us wants to make a choice where we feel our skills are best used. Clearly, you do beautiful, wonderful, exciting work. I have designers who do that as well. But I also have people who just love to manage complicated things. We just finished CityCenter, which is a $7 billion project in Las Vegas. We managed the whole thing, but we also designed a portion of it. Sancho Pou: But you also managed other architects there. Gensler: We managed seven other architects – Foster, Pelli, Libeskind, Kohn Pedersen. I loved it. I got to know them, and we all worked together. One of the things we as the client made clear at the start was that we’re not

Interview

going to fight. There were no property lines, even with everyone working on one site of 56 acres [22.7 hectares]. All the utilities, all the infrastructure, all the underground parking had to work. And yet, there was only one contractor and there was only one executive architect: Gensler. We managed the whole thing. There were three production architects. Ingels: I think it’s kind of funny – from the themed casino now the contemporary urban experience becomes a theme. Gensler: A lot of people said, “You are out of your mind,” because it was so contemporary. The theme wasn’t a pyramid, or Venetian gondolas, or a circus or that kind of thing. It was contemporary architecture. It involved a $50 million private collection of art – Henry Moore sculptures and the like. Ingels: I think one thing – if anybody was

absent in a book about architectural strategies, obviously, the coach is missing: Le Corbusier. The reason was that Eduard didn’t want to walk into a crowded territory that has already been investigated. Sancho Pou: Yes. Ingels: Speaking of the whole Number One thing: in one of his first books, Le Corbusier writes that one of the primary challenges for architects is to invent new typologies that can then be presented for the forces of competition and refinement. That by inventing a new typology, that new typology will be taken on by all other kinds of architects and will gradually evolve into a refined product. In his last essay, “Nothing is Transmissible but Thought”, he again says that as architects, you don’t necessarily leave buildings behind, because they will get bombed or fall down or whatever, but what you do transmit is ideas or thoughts.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION Amis, Martin: Visiting Mrs Nabokov and Other Excursions. London 1993 Arden, Paul: It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be. London 2003 Ballesteros, Mario: Verb Crisis. Barcelona 2008 Bayrle, Thomas: Diria que ja no som a Kansas. Exhibition catalogue, Barcelona 2009 Beigbeder, Frédéric: 13,99 Euros. Barcelona 2001 Crimson: Profession Architect: de Architekten Cie. Rotterdam 2002 Echevarria, Ignacio: The Paris Review. Barcelona 2007 Eco, Umberto: Cómo se hace una tesis. Barcelona 1997 Feld72: Urbanism – for sale. New York 2007 Fernández Güell, José Miguel: Planificación estratégica de ciudades. Barcelona 1997 Ferré, Albert et al.: Verb Connection. Barcelona 2004 Ferré, Albert et al.: Verb Matters. Barcelona 2004 Ferré, Albert et al.: Verb Conditioning. Barcelona 2005 Golzen, Godfrey: How Architects Get Work: Interviews With Architects, Clients, and Intermediaries. London 1984 Hollein, Max; Grunenberg, Christoph (ed.): Shopping. Exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt 2002 Inaba, Jeffrey; C-Lab: World of giving. Baden 2010 Kim, W. Chan; Mauborgne, Reneé: La estrategia del océano azul. Barcelona 2005 Kwinter, Sanford: Far from Equilibrium. Barcelona 2008 Larson, Erik: The Devil in the White City. New York 2003 Mau, Bruce: Massive Change. London 2004 Miessen, Markus; Basar, Shumon: Did someone say participate? MIT, Cambridge 2006 Moneo, José Rafael: Inquietud teórica y estrategia proyectual. Barcelona 2004 MVRDV: Farmax: excursions on density. Rotterdam 1998

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MVRDV: Costa Ibérica. Barcelona 2000

CHAPTER 1 – MARKETING

Neumeier, Marty: The brand gap. Indianapolis 2003

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Bouman, Ole (ed.): Power building, Architecture of Power. Part 2. Volume 6 / 2006 Bouman, Ole (ed.): Power logic, Architecture of Power. Part 3. Volume 7 / 2006 Dunlop, Beth: Building a dream: The art of Disney architecture. New York 1996 García Muñoz, Gonzalo: Marketing para arquitectos. Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid. Madrid 2000 Hardingham, Samantha: Cedric Price Opera. Chichester 2003

Appendix

Harrigan, John E.; Neel, Paul R.: The executive architect. New York 1996

The Garden Grows Again. In: Time, 4 August 1961: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895530,00.html

Luckman, Charles: Twice in a Lifetime: From Soap to Skyscrapers. New York / London 1988

The Man with the Plan. In: Time, 6 September 1963: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870487,00.html

Mastenbroek, Bjarne (ed.): SeARCH. Barcelona 2006

The Second Time Around. In: Time, 30 March 1962: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,895997,00.html

Nash, Eric P.: Manhattan Skyscrapers. Princeton 1999 Obrist, Hans Ulrich (ed.): Re:CP by Cedric Price. Basel 2003 Remaury, Bruno: Marques et récits. Paris 2004 ARTICLES A New Garden. In: Time, 14 November 1960: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,711979,00.html Arenas. In: Time, 5 January 1968: http://www.time.com/time/ magazine/article/0,9171,712095,00.html City in the Sky. In: Time, 9 March 1970: http://www.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,878815,00.html Exit the Old Master. In: Time, 9 June 1952: http://www.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,806484,00.html Fun in New York. In: Time, 1 May 1964: http://www.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,870963,00.html Luckman has bought out Pereira. In: Time, 8 December 1958 Madison Square Garden: the building the people love to hate. In: Everderame, 25 January 2008: http://everderame.blogspot. de/2008/01/madison-square-garden-building-people.html Moving Day. Real Estate. In: Time, 17 October 1949: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,853984,00.html Muere Charles Luckman. In: Abc, 29 January 1999: http://hemeroteca.abc.es/nav/Navigate.exe/hemeroteca/ madrid/abc/1999/01/29/060.html

The World of Already. In: Time, 5 June 1964: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,938607,00.html Time Clock: Business. In: Time, 19 October 1953: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,823098,00. html Town-Gown Triumph. In: Time, 2 February 1962: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,828987,00.html Unilever corporation. In: Newsweek, 6 June 1949 Western Approach. In: Time, 24 November 1952: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,817394,00.html Wonder Boy Makes Good. In: Time, 27 February 1956: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,866825,00.html Carr, Richard: Phyllis Lambert and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. In: Studio International, 22 September 2008: www.studiointernational.com/index.php/phyllis-lambert-andthe-canadian-centre-for-architecture Field, Marcus: Modernist homes in Palm Springs. In: The Independent, 18 June 2006 Meller, James: Cedric Price: Whatever happened to the systems approach? In: Architectural design, May 1976 Rappolt, Mark: The Power 100. In: Art Review, November 2008: http://www.artreview100.com/power-100-lists-from-2002through-2008/2008/

New Boss for Lever. In: Time, 15 May 1950: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,820616,00.html

Von Eckardt, Wolf: Saving the Unfashionable Past. In: Time, 21 February 1983: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,925920,00.html

Of Fat Cats and Other Angels. In: Time, 29 November 1971: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877421,00. html

Baudrillard, Jean; Nouvel, Jean: Les objets singuliers. Paris 2000

CHAPTER 2 – ICONS

Old Empire, New Prince. In: Time, 10 June 1946: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,793010,00.html

Boyer Sagert, Kelly: The 1970s. Westport 2007

Progress Report. In: Time, 8 February 1963: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,829839,00.html

Ingels, Bjarke: Yes is more. Cologne 2009

Ready to Soar. In: Time, 28 April 1952: http://www.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,816383,00.html

Smedt, Julien de: Agenda. Barcelona 2009

Hughes, Robert: Nothing if Not Critical. New York 1990 Oosterman, Arjen: Ambition. Volume 13 / 2007 Steele, James (ed.): William Pereira. Los Angeles 2002

Reunion in Los Angeles. In: Time, 21 August 1950: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813036,00.html

ARTICLES

Safeguarding a Symbol. In: Time, 25 April 1969: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840096,00.html

Art: Mellowing Modernism. In: Time, 21 August 1944: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,932709,00.html

Sliding on Air. In: Time, 22 September 1975: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,917886,00.html

Bold, Beautiful, BIG. In: Designbuild, 22 May 2008: http://www. designbuild-network.com/features/feature1976

Soap Opera. In: Time, 30 January 1950: http://www.time.com/ time/magazine/article/0,9171,856536,00.html

Julien de Smedt. Interview. In: Designboom, 3 July 2009: http:// www.designboom.com/interviews/julien-de-smedt-designboom-interview/

The Circle & the T Square. In: Time, 21 September 1962: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,827556,00.html The Conglomerates' War to Reshape Industry. In: Time, 7 March 1969: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ 0,9171,839805,00.html

Luckman has bought out Pereira. In: Time, 8 December 1958 Reunion in Los Angeles. In: Time, 21 August 1950: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813036,00.html

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The Man with the Plan. In: Time, 6 September 1963: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,870487,00.html

MacLean, Alex S.: La fotografía del territorio. Exhibition catalogue, Barcelona 2003

WhATA Interviews Bjarke Ingels from BIG. In: WhATA, 20 March 2009: http://whata.org/blog-en/whata-interviewes-bjarkeingels-from-big

Moore, Rowan: Building Tate Modern. London 2000

William L. Pereira. In: IMDbPro 2009: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0673233/ Aurele, Ricard: Bob, the lost dog building for shanghai 2010 by aurele. In: Designboom, 8 January 2009: http://www.designboom.com/architecture/bob-the-lost-dog-building-for-shanghai-2010-by-aurele/ Ferrari, Felipe de: Bjarke Ingels interview. 0300tv, October 2007: http://blip.tv/0300tv/entrevista-bjarke ingels-1-2-05-10-07-594104 Inaba, Jeffrey: Inaba rooftop. In: Designboom, 25 June 2009: http://www.designboom.com/architecture/inaba-inaba-rooftop/

Strachan, Hew: Von Clausewitz’s On War. London 2007 ARTICLES A Fighting Irishman at the U. N. In: Time, 26 January 1976: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,913933,00.html Brief encounter: Ricky Burdett. In: Riba Journal 112, August 2005: http://www.building.co.uk/brief-encounter-rickyburdett/3055396.article Light in the Frightening Corners. In: Time, 28 July 1967: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,837080,00.html Sir Stuart Lipton. In: The Guardian, 21 December 2001: http:// www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/dec/21/2

Ingels, Bjarke: The Denmark™ Organization. In: Archinect, 2 October 2007: http://archinect.com/features/article/65415/ the-denmark-organization-bjarke-ingels-group

To Cherish Rather than Destroy. In: Time, 2 August 1968: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838498,00.html

Johnson, Scott: William Pereira. In: Los Angeles Forum for architecture and urban design 2007: http://laforum.org/content/ articles/william-pereira-by-scott-johnson

Baillieu, Amanda: Design is at the heart of what we are doing here. In: bdonline, 1 December 2006: http://www.bdonline.co. uk/news/%E2%80%98design-is-at-the-heart-of-what-we-aredoing-here%E2%80%99/3078218.article

Kurzweil, Ray; Punset, Eduard: El futuro: la fusión del alma y la tecnología. Redes. TVE2, 23 June 2008: http://www.redesparalaciencia.com/80/redes/redes-10-el-futuro-la-fusion-del-almay-la-tecnologia Ohtake, Miyoko: Bjarke Ingels of BIG. In: Dwell, 23 July 2009 PLOT; Mau, Bruce: Too perfect, seven new Denmarks. Denmark's Official Contribution to the 9th International Architecture Biennale. Venice 2004 Riley, Terence: This will kill that: architecture and the media. In: Hunch 10 – Mediators. The Berlage Institute report. Rotterdam 2006 Seiler, Michael: Pereira, architect whose works typify L. A. In: Los Angeles Times, 14 November 1985: http://articles.latimes. com/1985-11-14/news/mn-2250_1_master-plan/2 Westerstad, Elsa: Can you be young and good-looking – and successful? In: Forum Aid, February 2008 Zaera-Polo, Alejandro: La ola de Hokusai. In: Quaderns 245 / 2005 CHAPTER 3 – POLITICS Burdett, Ricky (ed.): The endless city. London 2007 Dean, Penelope (ed.): Hunch 10 – Mediators. The Berlage Institute report. nº 10. Rotterdam 2006 Easterling, Keller: Enduring innocence: Global architecture and its political masquerades. Cambridge, MIT 2005 General Service Administration: Vision + Voice, Design Excellence in Federal Architecture: Building a Legacy. December 2002 Glazer, Nathan: From a Cause to a Style: Modernist Architecture’s Encounter with the American City. Princeton 2007 Jacobs, Jane: The death and life of great American cities. New York 1961 Katzmann, Robert A.: Daniel Patrick Moynihan: The Intellectual in Public Life. Washington / Baltimore 2004

Blitz, Roger: Prescott challenged on high-density living. In: Financial Times, 11 January 2005: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0eb19484-6375-11d9-bec2-00000 e2511c8.html Brûlé, Tyler: New designs on diplomacy. In: Monocle 18, November 2008: http://monocle.com/film/design/new-designs-ondiplomacy/ Crawford, Leslie: Guggenheim, Bilbao and the hot banana. In: Financial Times, 4 September 2001 Diamond, Ros: Tracing 9H. In: Architectural Research Quarterly, September 2005, pp. 304–306 Fairs, Marcus: Ricky Burdett. In: Icon 29 November 2005: http://www.iconeye.com/read-previous-issues/icon-029-|november-2005/ricky-burdett-|-icon-029-|-november-2005 Finch, Paul: Mysteries of the organizer. In: Architect’s Journal, 3 November 1994 Forgey, Benjamin: Senator of Design. In: Metropolis, December 2000: http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_1200/ moy.htm Forgey, Benjamin: The Senator Who Paved the Way. In: The Washington Post, 27 March 2003 Foster, Phin: Let the Games Begin. In: Designbuild, 1 August 2007: http://www.designbuild-network.com/features/feature1199/ Gonzalez-Foerster, Dominique: Which Tate Modern Turbine Hall installation gets your vote? In: The Guardian, 13 October 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/poll/2008/oct/13/tatemodern-turbine-hall Hamilton, William L.: A Global Look at Urban Planning. In: New York Times, 12 January 2006: http://www.nytimes. com/2006/01/12/garden/12venice.html?pagewanted= print&_r=0 Heathcote, Edwin: Living for the modern city. In: Financial Times, 21 August 2006: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ef35cb1a-30b0-11db-91560000779e2340.html#axzz2S3XJsHAL

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Helfand, Margaret: Sex and the City Part 1: Field Notes from the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale. In: ArchNewsNow, 12 September 2006: http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/ Feature204.htm Kanal, Chris: Urban Sprawl. In: Designbuild, 14 July 2008: http://www.designbuild-network.com/features/feature2100 MacLeod, Scott: Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. In: Time, 30 April 2006: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/ article/0,28804,1975813_1976769_1977374,00.html Meryman, Richard: Daniel Patrick Moynihan Interview. In: Playboy, September 1998, pp. 51 –  64 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick: Introduction, 8. Act P.L. 102 – 204. ISTEA – Intermodal Surface Transportation 1991 Moynihan, Daniel Patrick: New roads and urban chaos. In: The Reporter, 14 April 1960, pp. 13 – 20 Muschamp, Herbert: In This Dream Station Future and Past Collide. In: New York Times, 20 June 1993: http://www.nytimes. com/1993/06/20/arts/architecture-view-in-this-dream-stationfuture-and-past-collide.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Nayeri, Farah: Olympian Task: Can Burdett Turn a London Dump into Barcelona? In: Bloomberg, 15 June 2005: http://www. bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a0U9MZbvT QiM O’Connor, Mickey: The View from the Hill. In: Architecture, July 2000 Sudjic, Deyan: Power point. In: The Guardian, 1 May 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2005/may/01/art1 CHAPTER 4 – THRONG Beck, Ulrich: Risikogesellschaft. Frankfurt 1986 Beck, Ulrich: Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London 1992 Bouman, Ole (ed.): Ubiquitous China. Volume 8 / 2006 Fernández-Galiano, Luis: China Boom: growth unlimited. Madrid 2004 Jian, Shi: Commune by the great Wall. Tianjin 2002 Koolhaas, Rem; Bouman, Ole; Khoubrou, Mitra (ed.): Al Manakh. Volume 12 / 2007 Qingshuiwan, Xuhui: Shangai Elite Propierties. Kesum 2004 Rowe, Peter: The Chinese City. Interview with Peter Rice, held on 29 October 2008 (http://movingcities.org/interviews/ the-chinese-city-in-the-east-asian-context/)

news-culture/shows/design-and-architecture/the-wild-westmeets-the-wild-east Goldberger, Paul: Shanghai Surprise. The radical quaintness of the Xintiandi district. In: The New Yorker, 26 December 2005: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/26/051226crsk_ skyline Jeevanjee, Ali: Qingyun Ma: The Idea Behind s.p.a.m. In: Archinect, 10 December 2007: http://archinect.com/features/ article/68561/qingyun-ma-part-i-the-idea-behind-s-p-a-m Keune, Eric: Qingyun Ma: Accommodating Resistance. 2007 Knott, Simon: The Architects Show 147. Critical Visions, 15 April 2008 Lacayo, Richard: Suburban Legend William Levitt. In: Time, 7 December 1998: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,989781,00.html Lee, Don: Global as a matter of course. In: Los Angeles Times, 28 January 2007: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jan/28/entertainment/ca-ma28 Leibowitz, Ed: The Great Mall of China. In: Time, 26 April 2004: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,629436,00. html Manaugh, Geoff: Dean’s List. In: Dwell, June 2008: http://www.dwell.com/house-tours/article/deans-list Miranda, Carolina A.: Asian Designers Are Schooling American Architects – Here’s How. In: Fast Company, 25 November 2008: http://www.fastcompany.com/1093669/asian-designers-areschooling-american-architects-heres-how Muynck, Bert de: Architect in China. An interview with Qingyun Ma of MADA s.p.a.m. In: Ubiquitous China. Volume 8 / 2006 O’Dell, Jason: Qingyun Ma. In: Fast Company, 25 November 2008 Rodriguez, Gregory: A City Built on Impermanence – And That’s OK. In: Los Angeles Times, 4 August 2008: http://articles. latimes.com/2008/aug/04/opinion/oe-rodriguez4 Serra, Catalina: El joven arquitecto de Xi’an. In: El Pais, 14 June 2004: http://elpais.com/diario/2004/06/14/cultura/ 1087164003_850215.html Wilson, Lizette: The art of architecture. In: San Francisco Business Times, 28 October 2005: http://www.bizjournals.com/ sanfrancisco/stories/2005/10/31/focus1.html?page=all CHAPTER 5 – DEVELOPER Bulfinch, Ellen Susan (ed.): The life and letters of Charles Bulfinch, architect. Boston 1896

ARTICLES

Fajardo, Julio (ed.): Mega malls: centros comerciales. Barcelona 2009

Interview between Xintiandi architect Ben Wood and Ma Qingyun talk. Shanghai Art Chase, 12 December 2006: http:// shanghaichase.blogspot.de/2006/12/architects-ben-wood-andma-qingyun-talk.html

Jerde, Jon A.: The Jerde Partnership International. Visceral reality. Milan 1998

Liang Sicheng. Wikipedia, April 2008

Mansbridge, Michael: John Nash: a complete catalogue. London 1991

McKinsey and Company: Preparing for China’s urban billion. March 2008

Ocaña, Manuel: Manuel Ocaña, risky business. Excepto18. Madrid 2008

Red China’s economic planner Li Fu-Chun. In: Time, 1 December 1961

Oosterman, Arjen (ed.): Unsolicited architecture. Volume 14 / 2007

Anderton, Frances: The Wild West Meets the Wild East. Radio programme KCRW, 17 July 2007: http://www.kcrw.com/

Portman, John; Barnett, Jonathan: The architect as developer. New York 1976

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Rothman, David J.: The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the New Republic. Boston 1971 The Jerde Partnership: Jerde Partnership, reinventing the communal experience. Tokyo 1992 Venturi, Robert; Scott Brown, Denise; Izenour, Steven: Aprendiendo de las Vegas. Barcelona 1978 Wolfe, Tom: The Right Stuff. New York 1979 ARTICLES Building Fantasies for Travelers. In: Time, 8 March 1976: http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879632,00.html Earth Movers and Shakers. In: Time, 1 October 1973: http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,942726,00.html Gateway to greatness. In: San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, 11 May 1969 Rockefeller Center West. In: Time, 24 February 1967: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899449,00. html Villages in the Sky. In: Time, 15 March 1968: http://www.time. com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,838037,00.html Anderton, Frances: At home with: Jon Jerde; The Global Village Goes Pop Baroque. In: New York Times, 8 October 1998: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/08/garden/at-home-with-jonjerde-the-global-village-goes-pop-baroque.html?pagewanted= all&src=pm Boyer, Paul S.: Charles Bulfinch. The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001 Campbell, Robert; Vanderwarker, Peter: Tontine Crescent. In: The Boston Globe, 22 July 2001 Carrier, Lynne: A 20th Anniversary Tribute To Horton Plaza And Ernest Hahn. San Diego Daily Transcript, August 2005

Muschamp, Herbert: The Thrill of Outer Space for Earthbound Lives. In: New York Times, 20 September 1992: http://www. nytimes.com/1992/09/20/arts/architecture-view-the-thrill-ofouter-space-for-earthbound-lives.html Muschamp, Herbert: Who Should Define A City? In: New York Times, 15 August 1993: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/15/ arts/architecture-view-who-should-define-a-city.html Ouroussoff, Nicolai: Fantasies of a City High on a Hill. In: Los Angeles Times, 9 April 2000: http://articles.latimes. com/2000/apr/09/entertainment/ca-17467 Ramirez, Anthony: Jay Pritzker, Billionaire Who Founded the Hyatt Hotel Chain, Is Dead at 76. In: New York Times, 24 January 1999: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/24/us/jay-pritzker-billionaire-who-founded-the-hyatt-hotel-chain-is-dead-at-76.html Rybczynski, Witold: The Pasteboard Past. In: New York Times, 6 April 1997: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/06/books/thepasteboard-past.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Sancho Pou, Eduard: Pin-ups, Racetracks and Baby Elephants, or How to Develop an Artificial Island Strategy. San Rocco 1: Islands, 11 March 2011 Schipper, Henry: Christopher Reeve. In: Playgirl, December 1982: http://www.chrisreevehomepage.com/sp-playgirl1982interview.html Silver, Allison: Jon Jerde. In: Los Angeles Times, 20 December 1998: http://articles.latimes.com/1998/dec/20/opinion/ op-55888 Von Eckardt, Wolf: A Festive Moment, Not an Epic. In: Time, 6 August 1984: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,921760,00.html Wilson, Mark R.: George A. Fuller Co. In: Electronic Encyclopedia of Chicago’s Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses 1820 – 2000 (2004)

Cullen, John: GM Renaissance Center. Hines 2006

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AMO; Koolhaas, Rem: Post-occupancy. Milan 2006

Goldberger, Paul: The Portman Formula in Miniature. In: New York Times, 10 January 1988: http://www.nytimes. com/1988/01/10/travel/the-portman-formula-in-miniature. html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Heathcote, Edwin: A luxurious space that’s out of place. In: Financial Times, 15 January 2004 Heathcote, Edwin: When good things come in mall packages. In: Financial Times, 20 August 2001 Hughes, Robert: White Gods and Cringing Natives. In: Time, 19 October 1981: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924965,00.html Latham, Aaron: Walking The Walk In L.A. In: New York Times, 11 September 1994: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/11/travel/ walking-the-walk-in-la.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Leitner, Bernhard: John Portman: Architecture Is Not a Building. In: Architecture 1973 McLendon, Sandy: The beginning of now. Jetsetmodern, April 2007 Meda, Maria Grazia: Rem Koolhaas. In: L’Uomo Vogue 390, 2008

Arnell, Peter; Bickford, Ted: Frank Gehry: Buildings and projects. New York 1985 Colenbrander, Bernard: Referentie: OMA. Rotterdam 1995 Gargiani, Roberto: Rem Koolhaas, OMA: The construction of Merveilles. London 2008 Harrigan, John E.; Neel, Paul R.: The executive architect. New York 1996 Koolhaas, Rem: Projectes urbans 1985 – 1990. Barcelona 1990 Koolhaas, Rem; Mau, Bruce: S, M, L, XL. New York 1995 Koolhaas, Rem (ed.); OMA / AMO: Projects for Prada Part 1. Milan 2001 Koolhaas, Rem; Chung, Chuihua Judy (ed.): Great leap forward, Project on the city 1. Cologne 2001 Koolhaas, Rem; Chung, Chuihua Judy (ed.): Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping, Project on the city 2. Cologne 2001 Koolhaas, Rem (ed.); OMA / AMO: Content. Cologne 2004 Patteeuw, Véronique (ed.): What is OMA: Considering Rem Koolhaas and the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. Rotterdam 2003

Appendix

Saunders, William S. (ed.): Commodification and Spectacle in Architecture. A Harvard Design Magazine Reader. Minneapolis / Bristol 2005

Castells, Manuel: Communication Power. Oxford 2009 Davies, Mike: Ciudad de cuarzo, arqueología del futuro en Los Ángeles. Madrid 1990

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Friedman, George: The next 100 years. New York 2009

Apple has a list of 100 Potential Store Sites. ifoAppleStore April 2004: http://www.ifoapplestore.com/stores/risd_johnson.html

Gausa, Manuel: OPOP!: optimismo operativo en arquitectura. Barcelona 2005

Breaking out of the box. In: Success, 1 November 2008

Houellebecq, Michel: El mapa y el territorio. Barcelona 2011

What’s in store for the future? WWD, 29 March 2002

Ibáñez, Mike: Ultrabrutal, una novela tabloide. Barcelona 2009

Capps, Ronald: Flying with Eagles. In: SMPS Marketer, August 1999

Kwinter, Sanford: Requiem for the City at the End of the Millennium. Barcelona 2010

Clark, Ken: Next Act for Apple: Stores. In: Chain Store Age Executive with Shopping Center Age, July 2001

Martin, Reinhold; Baxi, Kadambari: Multi-national city, Architectural Itineraries. Barcelona 2007

Frantz, Joe B.: University of Texas Oral History Project 76-5. General Services Administration National Archives and Records Service, March 1970

Mozas, Javier: Hybrids II, híbridos horizontales. Vitoria 2008

Jopson, Barney: New dog, old tricks. In: Financial Times, 13 April 2013 Lohr, Steve: Apple a success at stores. In: New York Times, 19 May 2006: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/19/ technology/19apple.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&gwh= CAC6B4A636AA6CC824F4ECAFA7E26C70 Matussek, Matthias; Kronsbein, Joachim: Das Böse kann auch schön sein. In: Der Spiegel, 27 March 2006: http://www.spiegel. de/spiegel/print/d-46421577.html McGregor, Jena: The Architect of a Different Kind of Organization. In: Fast Company, 1 June 2005: http://www.fastcompany. com/52933/architect-different-kind-organization OMA / AMO; Koolhaas, Rem: Rem Koolhaas in conversation with Beatriz Colomina. In: El Croquis 134/135, 2007 Sigler, Jennifer: Rem Koolhaas. In: Index Magazine 2000: http://www.indexmagazine.com/interviews/rem_koolhaas.shtml Slavid, Ruth: Leader of the pack. In: Building Design, January 2009 Stross, Randall: Apple's Lesson for Sony’s Stores: Just Connect. In: New York Times, 27 May 2007: http://www.nytimes. com/2007/05/27/business/yourmoney/27digi.html?pagewante d=all?pagewanted=all Tischler, Linda: Target Practice. In: Fast Company, 1 August 2004: http://www.fastcompany.com/50058/target-practice Vanderbilt, Tom: Chairman Now. In: Artforum, September 2004: http://www.mutualart.com/OpenArticle/CHAIRMANNOW/02FBC8547B1B5AD1 Wilson, Lizette: The art of architecture. In: San Francisco Business Times, 28 October 2005: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/10/31/ focus1.html?page=all Wolf, Gary: Exploring the Unmaterial World. In: Wired, June 2000: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.06/ koolhaas.html OUTLOOK

Price, Richard: La vida fácil. Barcelona 2010 Till, Jeremy: Architecture depends. Cambridge, MIT 2009 Vanstiphout, Wouter; Provoost, Michelle: WiMBY! Hoogvilet: The Future, Past and Present of a Satellite Town. Rotterdam 2007 Verdú, Vicente: El capitalismo funeral, la crisis o la tercera guerra mundial. Barcelona 2009 Yoshida, Nobuyuki (ed.): Architectural transformations via BIM. Tokyo 2007 ARTICLES McKinsey Global Institute: Preparing for China’s urban billion. March 2009 Anderson, Chris: Free. In: Wired, August 2009 Collis, David J.; Rukstad, Michael G.: Can you say what your strategy is? In: Harvard Business Review, 1 April 2008: http:// hbr.org/2008/04/can-you-say-what-your-strategy-is/ar/ Immelt, Jeffrey R.; Govindarajan, Vijay; Trimble, Chris: How GE is disrupting itself. In: Harvard Business Review, 21 September 2009, p. 3 Mann, Charles C.: Beyond Detroit: On the Road to Recovery, Let the Little Guys Drive. In: Wired, May 2009: http://www.wired. com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_ auto?currentPage=all Rowe, Peter: The Chinese City in the East Asian Context. FUIUF Conference Shanghai, November 2006 Viladas, Pilar: Advertisements for Myself. In: New York Times, 19 September 2004: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/ style/tmagazine/MAN4.html?_r=0 Woodman, Ellis: Alsop’s 20-flavour housing. In: Building Design, 28 September 2007: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/ alsop%E2%80%99s-20-flavour-housing/3096247.article EPILOGUE Rowan, David: Inside Google: Eric Schmidt, the man with all the answers. In: Wired, 30 June 2009: http://www.wired.co.uk/ magazine/archive/2009/08/features/the-unstoppable-google

Abalos, Iñaki: La buena vida. Barcelona 2000 Casavella, Francisco: Elevación, Elegancia y entusiasmo. Barcelona 2009

All Internet addresses provided were verified in March and April 2013.

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INDEX PEOPLE Armstrong, Neil 40 Alsop, Will 169 Architektenteam Multipack 72ff. Armstrong, Ken 83 Barnett, Jonathan 120 Beck, Ulrich 94f. Bouman, Ole 103 Box, Cloyce K. 120 Brin, Sergey 9, 59 Bronfman Jr., Edgar 149 Bronfman, Samuel 44 Bru, Eduard 83 Bulfinch, Charles 112f. Bunshaft, Gordon 19, 26 Burdett, Ricky 71, 82ff. Burnham, Daniel 17ff., 81, 121 Caccia Dominioni, Paolo 83 Childs, David M. 78, 82 Chipperfield, David 12f., 83 Clark, C. E. 121 Coop Himmelb(l)au 72ff. Crantonellis, Cleon 83 Crow, Trammell 116f., 120 de Smedt, Julien 59f. Diller + Scofidio 72ff. Disney, Walt 35f. Döllgast, Heinz 83 Eames, Charles & Ray 124 Edwards, Griffith 115 Eliasson, Olafur 85f. Ferris Jr., George Washington Gale 18 Fisher, Carl G. 133 Fisher, Don 145 Follet, Jim 144 Ford II, Henry 121 Foster, Norman 12f., 22, 144 Franco, General 34 Friedrichs, Ed 144 Fuller, George A. 120 Gehry, Frank 9, 126, 136ff. Gensler, Art 9, 21, 135, 143ff., 157ff. Gensler, Drucilla 144 George, Prince Regent 114 Goldberg, Arthur 75 Gore Jr., Al 79 Gore Sr., Albert 79 Graves, Michael 139 Gray, Eileen 83 Hadid, Zaha 12f. Hahn, Ernest 126 Hayden Sophia 18 Hentrich, Helmut 120f. Herzog & de Meuron 16, 84, 85 Hilton, Conrad 117 Holabird & Roche 121 Hyatt (von Dehn, Hyatt R. ) 117f. Ingels, Bjarke 59ff., 174ff. Isozaki, Arata 12f., 83 Ito, Ora 167f. Jefferson, Thomas 82, 115 Jerde, Jon 9, 111, 124ff., 151, 152, 154 Jobs, Steve 9, 139f. Johnson, Lyndon B. 39, 77

Johnson, Ron 139 Kapoor, Anish 16, 17 Kennedy, Jackie 77ff. Kennedy, John F. 39f., 75ff. Koolhaas, Rem 48, 59, 100ff., 136, 147f. Kurzweil, Ray 62 L'Enfant, Pierre Charles 76 La Rue, John 116 Lambert, Phyllis Barbara 44 Langenheim, James 54 Levitt, William J. 95ff. Loewy, Raymond 24 Luckman, Charles 9, 19, 21ff., 51f, 54, 135f, 138, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149, 158f., 162, 173, 181 Ma, Qingyun 100ff. Macon, Randy 116 Martin, Herbert 116 Mariscal 12 McConnell, Margaret 51 McKim, Charles Follen 18 Meier, Richard 75, 83 Morabito, Ito 167f. Moussavi, Farshid 48ff. Moynihan, Daniel P. 71, 74ff., 87 MVRDV 14 Nash, John 113ff. Netanyahu, Benjamin 22 Nielsen, Arthur Charles 23 Noguchi, Isamu 122 Nouvel, Jean 12f., 72ff. Olmsted, Frederick Law 17 Owings, Nat 78 Page, Larry 9, 59 Paley, Bill 31 Partridge, General Patrick 35 Pawson, John 12 Pereira, Hal 51, 56 Pereira, William 9, 28, 51ff., 119, 144, 159 Petschnigg, Hubert 120 Piano, Renzo 22 Portman, John C. 111, 115ff., 159 Price, Cedric 22 Pritzker, Jay 117f. Reich, Lilly 83 Rockefeller 119 Rouse, James 126, 136 Siza, Alvaro 83 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) 144f. Souto de Moura, Eduardo 83 Sullivan, Louis 17, 135 Sussmann, Deborah 124 Tata, Ratan 22 Temko, Allan 58 Venezia, Francesco 83 Victoria, Princess of Sweden 65 Vittorio & Lucchino 12 Wang, Wilfried 83 Webb, James 39f. Wright, Frank Lloyd 18 Yang, Jerry 59 Young, Coleman A. 122 Zaera-Polo, Alejandro 48ff.

KEYWORDS 9H 82f. Alcoa Building 144 Aloha Stadion 41f., 158 Apple Store 139ff. Banana Republic 145 Architecture Foundation 83ff. Atlanta Merchandise Mart 116 Avery Library 18 Bank of America 144 BBC building (design) 50 Belle Isle Building 116 Canal City Hakata 130f. Cape Canaveral 35f. Capitol (reconstruction) 113 Casa da Música 148 CBS Television City 30ff. CCTV-Building Beijing 100, 151, 159ff. Central Park 18 Chicago 18ff., 34, 51, 78, 83, 117, 121 Columbia 18, 136 Disneyland 35f. Disneyworld 36 Dubai 128, 132 Edward Air Force Base 33ff. Eiffel Tower 18 Embarcadero Center 119ff. Epicenter 154 Expo Shanghai (Concept) 105 Expo.02 in Switzerland 72ff. Faneuil Hall 113 Fat Eddie's 117 Fifth Avenue 142 Flatiron Building 121 Fremont Street 130 Fuller Building 120 GAP 139, 145f. Geisel Library, UCSD 56f. Glendale Gallery 141 Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao 137f. Horton Plaza 126f., 131 Hotel Marriott Marquis 123f. Hotel Puerta América 12f. Hotel Zouk 13f. Houston Space Center 39 Hyatt Regency Atlanta 118 Islands off Miami 133 Interstate Highways 79f. John Hancock Center 78 Jumeirah 132f. Kansai International Airport 127 Lever House 19, 25ff., 135ff., 156, 162 Levittown 93ff. London 12, 16, 22, 27, 50, 57, 83ff., 114f., 143ff., 165 Los Angeles 30ff., 51ff., 88, 118, 117, 124ff., 149, 154, 167 Los Angeles airport 37, 53f. Madison Square Garden 43ff., 81f., 142 Marineland of the Pacific 40 Massachusetts State House 113 Motion Picture Country House 53 Moynihan Place 79

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PICTURE CREDITS New York 16ff., 43ff., 50ff., 75, 78, 81, 87f., 90, 95ff., 100, 116ff., 141ff. New York Times Building 121 Old Sheffield Milk Barn 31 Olympic Games in 2012 90f. Olympic Games in 1984 124ff. One World Trade Center (design) 50 Pasadena 36, 141 Pennsylvania Avenue 76ff., 153 Pennsylvania Station 43f., 82, 143 People's Building 64 Prada Store 154ff. Prada Transformer 158f. Prudential Tower 40 Red Star Harbour (design) 64 Regency 118 Regent's Park 114 Renaissance Center (RenCen) 121 Rinku Town 127f., 133 Rockefeller Center 119 Ronald Reagan Building 78f. Royal Pavilion Brighton 113 San Francisco 9, 33, 57f., 69, 118ff., 143ff., 154 Santa Monica 9, 126, 136ff. Santa Monica Place 136 Seagram Building 26, 75, 121, 149 Seattle Central Library 59, 148 Silodam 14f. Sony Style 142 St James's Park 113 Stockholm airport hotel 65 Superharbour (design) 63ff. Tacoma Building 121 Tate Gallery of Modern Art 84f. The Mayor's 100 Public spaces 85ff. The Mountain Copenhagen 65ff. Theme Building, LAX 54 Thyssen-Haus 120 Tontine Crescent (design) 112f. Toys “R” Us 157 Transamerica Pyramid 57f., 119, 144 Tutti Frutti 169 Tysons Corner Center 141 United California Bank 40 Universal City Walk 128ff. Urban Age 87ff. Vanderbilt House 18 Wuxi Campus Center Zhejiang 101f. Xian Centennial TV and Radio Center 103ff. Zira Resort 67ff.

COVER John Loengard / Getty Images INTRODUCTION p. 10: Sean Gallup / Getty Images p. 11: Bloomberg / Getty Images p. 12 (top): Hotel Puerta América, Madrid pp. 12 (centre), 12 (bottom), 13: diephotodesigner.de p. 15: Richard Wareham Fotografie / Getty Images p. 17: Herzog & de Meuron, Basel CHAPTER 1 p. 23: TIME Magazine p. 24: May 2013: http://gogd.tjs-labs. com/show-picture?id=1170279742& size=FULL p. 25: Ghirardo, Diane: SOM journal 4, Ostfildern 2006, p. 148 p. 29: J. R. Eyerman / Getty Images p. 32: CBS / Getty Images p. 38: Beth Dunlop: Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture. Disney Editions 2011 p. 43: Andrew G. Clem p. 44 (top): Seymour B. Durst Old York Library Collection, Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University p. 44 (centre): Courtesy of the Pennsylvania State Archives p. 44 (bottom): Detroit Photographic / Detroit Publishing collection at the Library of Congress p. 45: Courtesy of nyc-architecture.com CHAPTER 2 p. 49: Forrer, Matthi: Hokusai. Munich 2010 p. 50: Satoru Mishima, Tokyo p. 51: TIME Magazine p. 55 (top): Getty Images p. 55 (bottom left): Warner Bros. / Getty Images p. 55 (bottom right): Michael Zara p. 57: Steele, James (ed.): William Pereira, Los Angeles 2002 p. 58: Alan Becker / Getty Images p. 60: OMA, Rotterdam P. 63: May 2013: http://www.big.dk, BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group pp. 64, 65: PLOT, Copenhagen p. 66: BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group: Yes is More. An Archicomic on Architectural Evolution. Cologne 2010, p. 178ff. p. 68: Jens Markus Lindhe, Copenhagen CHAPTER 3 p. 73: Diller & Scofidio, New York p. 74 (top left): Coop Himmelb(l)au, Vienna

p. 74 (bottom left): Architektenteam Multipack, Neuenburg p. 74 (right): Jean Nouvel, Paris p. 74 (bottom): TIME Magazine p. 77 (left): Carol McKinney Highsmith, Leaksville, North Carolina p. 77 (right): United States Geological Survey (USGS) p. 78: TIME Magazine p. 79: Ltljltlj / Wikimedia p. 82: Friends of Moynihan Station p. 86: Philipp Ruault, Nantes p. 89 (top): Frank Kaltenbach, Munich p. 89 (bottom): Christian Schittich, Munich p. 91: London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games CHAPTER 4 p. 95: Margaret Bourke-White / Getty Images p. 96: TIME Magazine p. 97: Tony Linck / Getty Images p. 98: Architectural Forum, New York, April 1949 p. 99 (left): Joseph Scherschel / Getty Images p. 99 (right): ssguy / shutterstock p. 102: MADA s.p.a.m. p. 104 (top): Jin Zhan p. 104 (centre): MADA s.p.a.m. p. 104 (bottom): MADA s.p.a.m. p. 107: Pavol Kmeto / Shutterstock.com p. 108: MADA s.p.a.m. CHAPTER 5 p. 114: Mansbridge, Michael: John Nash: A Complete Catalogue. New York 1991, pp. 220, 221 p. 116: Portman, John Calvin; Barnett, Jonathan: The architect as developer. New York 1976 p. 118: May 2013: http://hammondcast. files.wordpress.com/2013/01/p1100197. jpg p. 119: May 2013: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=150970 p. 120 (left): Postcard Düsseldorf, 1960 p. 120 (right): de Young, M. H.: The San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, 11. May 1969 p. 122: spirit of america / Shutterstock. com p. 123: HolidayCheck p. 125: Jon Jerde, 1984 p. 126: TIME Magazine p. 128: Jon Jerde, 1988 p. 129: The Jerde Partnership, Inc. pp. 130, 131, 132 (top): Jerde, Jon Adam (ed.): The Jerde Partnership International. Visceral reality, Milan 1998 pp. 132 (centre), 132 (bottom): Reuters / Innovation Platform / Handout p. 133: Alex Quesada / The New York Times

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CHAPTER 6 p. 137: Christian Schittich, Munich p. 143: apple, inc. p. 146 (top): Gap Inc. p. 146 (bottom): AP Images p. 152: Rem Koolhaas, Rotterdam p. 155: OMA / AMO , Rotterdam p. 157 (top): Erm Simox / Panoramio.com p. 157 (centre): Northfoto / Shutterstock. com p. 157 (bottom): Wallpapers76.com p. 158 (bottom): OMA / AMO , Rotterdam p. 159 (top): Juliane Eirich, Munich / New York p. 161 (top): Nathan Willock / view / arturimages p. 161 (bottom): Ben McMillan, Beijing OUTLOOK p. 165: Autodesk / Tech Data INTERVIEW p. 175: David Paul Morris, 2011 p. 178: Nicklas Rudfell, Malmö

EDUARD SANCHO POU Eduard Sancho Pou, PhD, studied architecture and building engineering and completed his doctoral dissertation in 2010 at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), receiving a grant from the Graham Foundation, Chicago. In 2002 he opened an architecture and strategic consultancy in Barcelona. In addition to his projects, he conducts academic research at the Cercle d’Arquitectura Research Group at UPC. Currently he is working for the Secretariat of Habitat & Inclusion of the City of Buenos Aires and is Professor for Strategies at the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was undertaken with the support of many people, who contributed to giving me the opportunity and the time to write it. My thanks go to Dr Eduard Bru for believing in the book and letting me write such an atypical doctoral dissertation; Dr Ricardo Devesa for helping me formulate the topic of my enquiry and for giving it weight; and Maricruz Arroyas for bringing flow and style into the work. I would like to thank Qingyun Ma, Bjarke Ingels and Art Gensler for sharing their architectural knowledge and strategies with me; the Graham Foundation and its director, Sarah Herda, for their grant in support of the first English version of the original work; the jury of the “Fad de Teoria y Critica” Awards and their head, Dr Manuel Gausa, for their recognition; Dr Xavier Costa and Martha Thorne for the invitation to the ACSA International Conference and the presentation of my ideas; Lidia Sarda and Irene Garcia for turning my dissertation into a book and for their help in promoting it; DETAIL publishers, Munich – above all Cornelia Hellstern and Dr Katinka Johanning – for their professionalism and care; Noemi Quesada and Irene Medina for enabling me so many times to escape the office to be able to reconcile my working and academic lives. I wish to thank my parents for the many books they bought for me, the many exhibitions they took me to, and above all for giving me the feeling that anything is possible. My thanks go as well to Isabel for showing me that there a life beyond architecture and books. Thanks for keeping me company on this path with its many sleepless nights. Thank you, Lola, thank you, Clara – this book belongs to you. Eduard Sancho Pou May 2013

The doctoral dissertation was supported by the Graham Foundation, Chicago, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya and the Cercle d’Arquitectura Research Group (UPC).

For the past several years, architects have found themselves confronted with a changed market, novel projects and unprecedented demands – and the insistent question: What strategies can I employ to win commissions and spark interest in my work? Building on a comprehensive analysis of articles in the international business press going back to the 1950s, the author looks at the various strategies and approaches used by individual protagonists. His fresh and often startling analogies and anecdotes span almost seven decades, taking the reader from the beginnings of marketing in post-war America to the present day. Political and social transformations, new client expectations, and financial and economic pressures have transformed the architectural profession. Where once the actual process of building was at the forefront of their work, architects today are expected to take on a variety of roles for their clients, functioning as consultants, mediators and even brand designers. This book aims to inspire architects to entertain new possibilities and venture off the beaten track. Eduard Sancho Pou, PhD, studied architecture and building engineering and completed his doctoral dissertation in 2010 at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), receiving a grant from the Graham Foundation, Chicago. In 2002 he opened an architecture and strategic consultancy in Barcelona. In addition to his projects, he conducts academic research at the Cercle d’Arquitectura Research Group at UPC. Currently he is working for the Secretariat of Habitat & Inclusion of the City of Buenos Aires and is Professor for Strategies at the Faculty of Architecture, Universidad de Palermo, Buenos Aires.

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