408 - Andrew Gould & Michael Diamant - Architecture: The Most Important Art - The Symbolic World

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
City planning and architecture is the most important art. You know,
I'm not an architect, but I can see that because
it fades behind people's perception. It pre models the way
that people understand who they are, what's their relationship to
each other. You know what's inside, what's outside, you know
what is above, what is below. Just basic orientation in

(00:21):
your life is based on city planning and an architecture.
And there's a deep alienation in modern living that comes
from living in these horrible places and these these abstracted
spaces with no center and no community and no sense
of relationships. That's a call for people to take it seriously.
For people who are studying architecture, that you're doing the

(00:43):
most important thing. It's hard right now, It's hard to
do it, but that is the most important thing.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
To be done.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
This is Jonathan Peeshol Welcome to the Symbolic World.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Rapunzel and the Evil Witch is officially available right now.
It is not in pre sale, It is not a
pre order. It is in the warehouse. You can just
go to rapunzelbook dot com and you get the book.
We have a new distribution system which has just been amazing.
People are getting their books in a few days. All
the pre sale and pre order books have already been shipped.
People already have them. And so this is the third

(01:37):
book where a lot of the symbolism is going to
come out. It's our celebratory tone, the third book in
the series of the Tales for Once and Ever, illustrated
by Heather Pollington. This is where the symbolism is going
to start to show, where the characters.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Are going to are going to repeat.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
So I'm particularly excited about this book and the continuation
of this series. And so go to rapunzelbook dot com
now and you can just get the book get in
a few days.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
So thanks everyone. So hello everyone.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I am here with my friend Andrew Gould and with
Michael Dimitt. We are going to talk about urban planning,
about architecture, traditional architecture, about all the projects that are happening.
Michael is an advocate for traditional architecture and for proper
urban planning, and as many of you know, Andrew is
an architect. He's been on my channel a few times.

(02:29):
He is a long standing friend of mine. We started
the Orthodox Art Journal Now in twenty twelve together and
he is one of the biggest reasons why I actually
was able to start icon carving. So I have a
great debt of friendship and to him and so Michael,
thanks for doing this. And maybe you can start by
telling us a bit what you do. It's a very
odd thing to think of a kind of architecture advocacy.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
So maybe you can explain a little bit what it
is that you do.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Well, thank you very much for having the name of
this podcast. Well, some of the concepts may be alien
to an American audience, because I think in the US
you do what you want. If you want to build
a Gothic cathedral, you build a Gothic cathedral. You're much
more free in your mind in the US than were
in Europe. We're always constrained by you know, by both

(03:19):
by our municipalities have much stronger to say what we
are allowed to build and also socially what we are
allowed to do when, so it's a bit different. So
what I do, what I've been doing the last fourteen
years is social media advocacy for new tradition architecture. It
began in my native country Sweden, but now it has

(03:41):
spread to all of Europe. There is an architecture uprising
in every European country. There is in Turkey, there is
in Lebanon, there is in Israel. I was in contact
actually with a woman in Syria, but now everything has
fed away there. There is an uprising in India, and
I'm also in contact with the professor at Hong Kong
University that want to start something similar in China. But

(04:03):
of course you know, they can't call something uprising on
the social Chinese social media. Basically, what the advocacy and
what the uprising movement is about is to make ordinary people,
that is, non architects, realize that we can build beautiful today.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Most people aren't.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
A well majority think that there is some kind of
rational reason why we've been so ugly today. I think
it must because, of course, or because if you won't
hie standard of living, it must be ugly. And that
is totally false. So when dig down into this, you
realize that everything's about ideology and architects. Most architects, not Andrew,

(04:45):
of course, are what we would call modernists, and they
their ideal, actually I would say almost is to be ugly,
because like modernist artists, they feed special if everyone hates
what they're doing. So we do advocacy and we make
ordinary people very successfully in Sweden, in Norway, now Germany

(05:07):
and Netherlands thought very much realize that we cannot build
beautiful if we want, it's a choice. It's not a
necessity to build things ugly. We can build beautiful, and
we also should build beautiful because all of the of course,
you must have all kind of practical reasons today why

(05:28):
promote beauty. You can't just say, you know, it's for good,
it's for a higher ideal. You must promote it as
you know. It's good for health, it's good for well being,
it reduces stress. So of course we talk a lot
about that, but also the democratic orgament.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
If people want it, then we should build it.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
So as said, this has been very successfully in my
native Scandinavia, and it's spread to the other European countries
and now in the public discourse in Sweden, most people
know that that all the ugliness that they see in
the built environment is built on purpose because the architects
wanted to build this way. And that's a success because

(06:10):
then you have a discussion, a proper discussion about urban environment.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, well I guess that there's a I'll be the
devil's advocate for a little because obviously I don't really
don't think this, but maybe Andrew you can pipe in
on this as well, which is, of course, the argument
is that traditional beauty is something either it's arbitrary or
it's oppressive. Right, it's either arbitrary or it's an image

(06:35):
of the old world of hierarchies, of the days when
we had kings and aristocracies, and that modern architecture is functional,
but it's also democratic in the sense that it's equalizing,
you know, it has this kind of this this esthetic
of equalizing equalizing things. And so how do you answer

(06:56):
to those arguments?

Speaker 5 (06:57):
Yes, that's the way they sell, always going to say
that some of some of those things are lies, and
some of them are true. I would the equalizing argument,
I think is is largely true. You know, the communist
governments liked building you know, identical housing blocks with identical apartments,

(07:20):
you know, international modern style, not just because it was
cheap and easy to build such repetitive buildings, but also
ideologically they liked that it was equalizing. M hm, yes, yes,
but of course I mean that that kind of socialist

(07:42):
ideology is mostly out of favor nowadays. You know, the
the the idea that that classical architecture, for instance, specifically
references you know the time of you know, plantation, slaveholding,
or you know, old regime for so whatever your sort
of political enemy might be, that doesn't really hold water

(08:06):
because traditional classical architecture was basically all architecture until the
mid twentieth century. It existed in every you know, in
every type of governmental and political system. You know, places
like the Athens were public or the Dutch were public
used classical architecture the same as you know, autocratic kingdoms

(08:27):
used it. You know, the British Empire used classical architecture
after a freed slavery, you know, just as Americans used
it before freeing slaves slaves. I mean, it just it
does not correlate to politics that way. It doesn't actually
even correlate very well to sort of you know communist ideology.

(08:48):
You know, yes, Communists justified their ugly architecture because it
was equalizing. But Americans were building the very same ugly
equalizing housing blocks in American cities at the same time,
and they justified it because it was you know, of
its time and of the nuclear age and looked.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
Like the future.

Speaker 5 (09:11):
You know, we justified it by claiming it was great
and modern, and they justified it by claiming it was
you know, equalizing and humble, um and you know, appropriate
to the working man.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
But it's the same stuff. Yeah, it is a nouns
an argument.

Speaker 4 (09:28):
And there is a reason why they use this and
talk about all this nonsense. It's because they don't want
to talk about architecture. They always want to talk politics
because as long as they talk politics, and if you
swallow that bait, then they don't need to talk about
the secture. But also if you put classical architecture of
an acular architecture and modern starchitecture and just would compare

(09:48):
their merits, okay, which one is more climate friendly?

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (09:53):
Then class glossy text of wings, which which one is
more humane? Classic glossy text of wings on every metric,
class clossy textually would win. That's why they never ever
want to talk architecture, and they would go instantly on
politics and talk all this nonsense because the only way
they can win. As soon as they cannot talk politics,

(10:15):
they lose. And that's why that's why you know, I
have Okay, I use maybe offensive terms here, but I
got something called a race card in these discussions. I'm
half Jewish. My mother was born in a refugee camp
in the Soviet Union. Her parents were Polish Jews. So
they can't call me anotherby you know, because texture, And

(10:39):
as soon as they can do that, they're just dumb,
fun everything false. So everything is based on being able
to label people and not talk about architecture.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, I just watched the I watched the Brutalist movie,
which it was unbearable.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
I really did not like watching it. I have to
be honest with you.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
And they have this crazy thing at the end right
where the niece of the architect announces that the secret
like motivation or reason behind the architecture is basically to
recall the Holocaust and to recall the gas chambers. And
I was like, what kind of insane thing is this?

(11:21):
It's like, are you promoting it this way? Are you
promoting it in the sense like like so now you
want us all to live in the gas chambers?

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Is that what you're trying to suggest? It was nuts
because a wild it was a wild argument.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I mean, I don't know how is that what modernism
ends up being?

Speaker 6 (11:37):
Like this this this this nihilistic desire for us to
live in inhumane spaces to remind us of our own horror,
or to remind us of our own death or something.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
But you know it's you know, with beautiful things, you
don't need many words to describe it.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
You know, beauty is instant thing.

Speaker 4 (11:55):
If I look at one of Andrew's works, you know
you don't need to know anything architecture. You don't need
to know anything about symbolism. If you do, you can
of course read a lot of things, but you can
appreciate it instantly just being an ordinary layman. Never ever
open a book about architecture with all this modernist type
of architecture, because it's so empty, just like modernist art.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
You need to invent a story. So what do you
call it? They are snake oil salesman.

Speaker 4 (12:23):
I think that's a word. You see, they have to,
you know, they have to invent all this story. And
they of course very narcissistic because they sell these stories.

Speaker 2 (12:33):
And also they.

Speaker 4 (12:34):
Don't how to say they don't they don't live like
they preach. They made a survey there is probably very true.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
In the US. They made us survey.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
The Union of Swedish Arctics made us survey where Swedish
articts live and overwhelmingly they live in classical architecture, and
they was to work in classical buildings and then they
make modernists for everyone else. And it's probably saying if
you would look up where all these modernist architects live,
you will see the same pattern.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
And so tell us a bit about also city planning,
because we tend to think about architecture at the outset,
because that's our most immediate reference. You know, you see
a building, you kind of see the but it seems
you know what's exciting about what you're doing. And also
with Andrew, what you've been doing, you know, for for
decades is you're not just involved in building, but also

(13:23):
thinking about the environment, thinking about city planning as an
extension of.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
The architectural idea.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
So maybe Michael, if you want to start us on that,
and then Andrew, I love to hear from you as well.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah, well, apartmently, first of all, you know, when building
sick this is we're talking about apartments mostly, but townhouses
of course as well. Apartment living is not very attractive
in the angler world as I understood it, and the
reason for this, and I may be totally wrong, this
is just my outside perspective is because you traditionally, except

(13:56):
for a few places maybe in California, you don't have
what you call it quote your urbanism. You have a
green space in the middle and the building you know,
and rops it, so you don't get greener you know,
just have massive blocks. So that makes that you get
very uneven density in the US. It either gets you know,

(14:19):
townhouses or revealas or high rises. You don't get gentle
density like three to six story buildings that are mixed
use and that are so attractive to live in that
even upper middle class want to live in them, like
in Europe I would say continental Europe.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Then, so that's that's a problem.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
But you have Now there is a woman in Chicago
that does really, really good you should have as a
guest sometime, really good advocacy for quote your urbanism in
the US, just because I think and she thinks as well,
it's only function a way to make it more attractive
for middle class people in the United States in the

(15:05):
angler world to live in apartment buildings because if you
have a family, of course you want the kids to
have some kind of greenery and in the court yard
you have protected private greenery.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
So yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, and then you also have windows on both sides
of the apartment, which is one of the problems of apartment.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Yeah, you have windows.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
What about like the spatial argument, because there's people I
guess will make an economic argument and say that, you know,
it's it's more cost effective to build a high rise
or to build the condos that you take up all
that space. Because you know, there's the density argument are here.
Our city has agreed to a certain density, you know,
for environmental reason and for all these reasons. So because

(15:53):
of it, they're kind of in trouble, like they have
to build these things that have more density in order
to justify their requirement.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
That's a good thing with city planning that it can
be very political. I don't know how it works in
the US, but in Sweden the politicians have the last
world so we can choose the exact amount of density
that we want and there is no goal of having
maximum density. What you want is attractive and livable density.
You want gentle density. You don't want tower blocks with
hundreds of people that live like ants and no one

(16:23):
knows everyone. You want create community spaces and the courtyard.
Urbanism isn't very much. You have not too much density
and not too bitter density. And you also have an
enclosed space where you meet your neighbors because you know
in this closed space the courtyard there it's a.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Close space, so it's not an open space for the public.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Everyone in the courtyard is are the people that live
around the quarter and in the buildings around the courtyard
or their friends. So there you have a lot of
social activities. You have barbequ's birthday celebrations as such. And
the balconies are centered towers quart up, not towers the street,
so people sit on their balcony towers. You also get

(17:04):
a lot of watchful eyes. I would say that you
have architecture of community. You create community if having this
type of a fixed the amount of people not to
man and not to few, and you meet the same
people every day. You don't need to be your friends,
but you see them enough so it becomes, you know,
natural to have conversations as such.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
You also you also get the highest density with midwised development. Curiously,
urban cores that have high eyes, like skyscraper building heights,
they actually don't get more density for that because they
need a lot of space between those skyscrapers. They need
very wide roads for all the traffic and emergency vehicles

(17:50):
that have to access them. They need a lot of
space for all the scaffolding and so forth to build them.
So like when New York City went from mid rise
development in the nineteenth century to skyscraper development in the
twentieth century, it did not actually gain any density for that.
In fact, you usually lose density when you see that

(18:11):
transition because everything's going to office space and to you know,
giant penthouse apartments for the super rich, you know, old
the dark apartments that nobody really lives in that are
just investment property. Is in regular people can't even afford
to live downtown and wouldn't really want to because it
becomes a you know, an inhospitable, wind swept place. Yeah,

(18:34):
so it's true. It's true that mid rise urban cores
have the highest living density, but even that's higher than
we really need. You know, in America, most new development
is not urban at all. It's suburban's ball, which is
very low density single family houses, or if it's apartment buildings,
it's still low density because they have huge parking lots

(18:56):
in between them. Yeah, I was lucky enough to grow
up in one of the few American cities that has
courtyard apartments, Brookline, Massachusetts. It's a beautiful Victorian garden suburb
town of Boston that's a mixture of Victorian single family houses,

(19:17):
attached townhouses, and courtyard apartment buildings that were typically three
or four stories tall. And everybody of every class you
know back then lived or mixed together in this town,
and everybody could walk to corner stores. It was it
was kind of an urban paradise, and there was very
little traffic because of it, and it was very igh density,

(19:40):
so we could really the fight here is increase in
density from suburban density to sort of traditional urban mixed
use density. In America, we have loads of land. There's
no need for people to be building you know, Manhattan
kind of urban core density to house or population. Frankly,

(20:05):
in Europe does not either, because Europe doesn't even have
a replacement birth rate. No, that's not exactly, there's not
there's not a need for new housing in Europe, except
in so far as there's you know, sort of runaway
immigration and need to house you know, foreigners. That's that's
a political problem of its own creation, right exactly.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
And so the.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
I mean, it's so difficult because when I mean, obviously
I'm very convinced by your argument.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
And so what is driving the madness?

Speaker 1 (20:39):
Like what is driving because one of the things that
I get the sense because it's not just about having
courtyard building for example, like one of the problems of
urban sprawl, of a suburban sprawl especially, is the kind
of specialization of space where you have you have highways,
and then highways connect huge shopping centers to like huge

(21:00):
living areas, and there's this kind of disintegration of space. Right,
people take their car, they drive forty five minutes to work,
then they drive forty five minutes home, and there's all
this kind of fragmentation. You know, is there is there
a way to discuss because Andrew, you were involved in
the building of of Ion, which was a very kind
of experimental new urbanist project near Charleston where they tried

(21:25):
to recreate this sense of you know, like a little
market with housing and a few churches, this sense of
a of a center of a city center, and and
and it's been very successful. Like obviously it made the
prices of those buildings like just skyrocket, Uh, and so
you know, is it possible to recapture that today there

(21:46):
is a five minute city, like there's there's that people
are talking about that. So maybe I'd like to hear
your opinions on the basic problem of urban planning right now.

Speaker 5 (21:56):
Well, well, yeah, well I think that's that's mostly true, Michael.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
I mean in.

Speaker 5 (22:07):
America, I would say, you know, it's been proven that
new urbanist developments are politically popular, good for real estate value,
good for the developer's bottom line. The things that stand
in the way of it bad zoning. You know, these
kinds of developments are typically in suburbs of older cities,

(22:31):
and suburbs tend to have low density zoning, and they
tend to still be sort of holding on to this
this fear from the nineteen sixties that high density means
poor people and chaos, and it still tends to be
old people who are you know, sitting on town councils

(22:51):
in charge of zoning and they just you know, they
like their ranch house on a three acre lot, and
they just can't picture why anyone would want to live
in a high density, mixed use kind of neighborhood because
they remember when they you know, left that kind of
neighborhood in nineteen sixty five. Yeah, so that's that's a

(23:12):
big part of the problem is outdated zoning. Another big
part of the problem is just regulatory regulatory stuff. You know,
rules from traffic highway departments, traffic departments, fire departments, rules
that require really wide roads, really easy vehic you know, access,

(23:35):
really high parking to dwelling unit ratios. Yeah, these bad
regulations make it really difficult to do urban urban density
or urban type walkable design. And then another big hindrance
is is a talent deficit among the designers. You know,

(23:57):
there's not that many classical architects or traditionalist urban planners
or traditionalist traffic engineers to go around. So a developer
who wants to build something that looks like a traditional
town may have a really hard time finding local consultants
who have the skills of the knowledge to do that.

(24:20):
They might they might find people who say they can
do it, but the results are often very poor because
there are people who are trained at modernistic design schools. Yeah,
that's been my observation.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Rethink Michael.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
I completely agree with everything he says, because we are
having that problem now in Sweden. Real live so now
we have a political will for more traditional projects. The
problem is that we have we have in a count
of ten million, we have five classical artiticsts, so we
really you know, they can't do a lot the works.
So it is you know, the sorry for butchering English.

(25:00):
I think you call it ox Sam's razor. You know,
if you if you deep dive in, everything's about the
ideology that they teach at school. In architecture schools, most
architecture schools, percent of all architecture schools, they will not
teach anything about classical addition, classical city planning, classical architecture.
They will label it some kind of history lesson. But

(25:22):
it's not so all the you know, all the things
that we appreciate about the classical city and the classical
city planning or the cities that we visit. You know,
when your tourist in Savannah or in in Charleston, it's
not by accident that they are so good. Everything's very
well planned. So you need to know these things to

(25:44):
be able to do them. And because overwhelming majority of
our architects are not educating this, they are even ideologically
against to learn. You know, they have been ideologically conditioned
to never look past, never look to the past, because
the past was you know, we already talked about the
classicist racist slavery. You know, they will label it in

(26:06):
our way, and if something is you know, labeled that way,
it makes people less curious to open a book because
why should I learn from these racist slavery owning.

Speaker 2 (26:16):
Et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (26:18):
So everything starts and begins at architecto school because all
these regulations that are bad, of course they are very bad,
but they are not written in Stolle. If all architects
were educated classical, you could have meaningful lobbing to politicians
and we could.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Change the regulations.

Speaker 4 (26:34):
But you know, I would say that most architects don't
know what regulations that should be changed make good city planning.
So that's the basic problem. So so you will always
come back to that. You know, people want to blame
capitalism or you know, capitalism built you know, one hundred
years ago the world was more capitalistic and it built

(26:55):
marvelous cities. So that hasn't changed. The only thing that
changed is the or the texture profession that changed, and
then suddenly the more whole world became ugly.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
I've had so many it's so weird, Like I've had
so many architects come up to me in conferences at
different speaking events.

Speaker 3 (27:14):
They come up to me in this kind.

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Of spirit of desperation, as if they feel lost, you know,
they they have this desire to connect with ancient wisdom,
but they feel as if there's no room for them,
and that there's no like you said, there's even a
difficulty in learning how to do it, like it's even
finding the skills, it's difficult. And so it feels like

(27:36):
the people are there, right, that the people who desire
to learn these skills exist, and that they're kind of
they feel disconnected and alone, And so is there an
option for them? Like, is there is there a place
that they can go? Is there groups that they can
contact so that they can at least form networks, you know,
in order to have some kind of strength.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yes, they count. First of all, there's never been more
talent in the world than there is today. The problem
is that all this talent is directed wrongly. So we
probably have, you know, at least a million potential michel
Anulos in the world, but none of them are directed
to do author architecture. They probably do computer game graphics
or something. So's it's we have to have talent. We

(28:21):
have talent. You know, I say that number of people
in the world that have accessed to, you know, higher
education is very very large today compared to one hundred
years ago. But they're just directed wrong. There are places,
there are a few places. There are a few places
in the US. You have a Notre Dame University where
you can and now I think there is at least

(28:42):
four or five colleges where you can starty to become
a Classicologitecht. And there's of course social media in the Internet,
so there's a lot of you know, different groups on Facebook,
on Instagram, on Twitter, on red Ditch, every political spectrum,
you know, would you prefer them? And you can find
like minded of course, you know, there is no really

(29:04):
there is an English speaking architectu uprising, but there is
no specific US architecture rising. There is a small Canadian uprising,
but with the US it's it's hard to begin. Because
the US is a continent. You would need as with Europe,
you would need one for every each and every state,
just for people to connect with like minded and there
you find each other and there you hear you know

(29:26):
what options there are. I know in Europe, I get connected.
I get a lot of students reach out to me
and I direct them to the study of options that
there are. You know, the summer schools now you can
do a monster and a doctor's degree in class glog
texture in Trondain's University in Norway. And I think almost
every European country now has a summer school. And they're

(29:47):
also talking now about creating a permanent class CLASSI texture
education in Paris.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
So there are.

Speaker 4 (29:54):
Things going on now, but most important is that you
just connect with like minded because then you do self
study a lot of you can you can study yourself
and then of course you can take contact with people
like Andrew and you can do have an exchange. Well
what books can I read? Where can I learn the simpleness?
How can I learn the craftmanships? What students order to

(30:16):
work with these kinds of things.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Hmm, Andrew, you you're in the US, you've seen I mean,
it seems like there is some change in theory. Trump
was supposed to pass this classical architecture bill for these
federal buildings, and so it feels like there's that leads
a little bit of wind in the sales.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Maybe you can tell us yes.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yes, there is.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
You know, my my experience is that outside of academia,
outside the university, is the modernist ideology no longer has
very much of a hold on architecture. I most most
architects that I have interacted with who are working on

(30:59):
you know, projects around the US, most of them are
pretty willing to do classical architecture in theory. They just
don't really know how to do it well. Most developers
would prefer to do it in theory, but they're a
little They know from experience that it doesn't usually come

(31:19):
out very well and that it's kind of complicated finding
finding all the right people to get it done well.
And so there's a lot of sort of you know,
path of least resistance inertia that's perpetuating modernism. My personal
feeling is that a really big problem is that because

(31:42):
we've had you know, one hundred years now where architecture
schooling is treated as as a technical scientific field in
to engineering, it's ended up being a field in which
people with a sort of engineer's mindset, the a the
people who are attracted to the field, those are the
people who excel in architecture jobs, because architecture is not

(32:08):
a very artistic discipline for the most part. Now, it's
mostly a matter of understanding immensely complicated building codes, understanding
immensely complicated mechanical systems, dealing with banks, dealing with money,
dealing with business stuff, keeping on schedule. It's all.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
You know.

Speaker 5 (32:27):
The kind of guys who have you know, you know,
masters of Business administration degree is actually do pretty well
in the architecture field. Then they know how to keep
you know, money correctly categorized, They know how to keep
things flowing, they know how to communicate with the lawyers.
And that's mostly what architects do. And so I often,

(32:49):
I often interact with architecture firms. Sometimes they're firms that
are have been asked to collaborate with me on projects
where the developer would like a more classical result in
the project. And often the guys in these firms, you know,
they've really gotten over the ideology stuff. They're totally on
board with new urbanism and you know, new classicism in

(33:11):
the theory, but they have no artistic skills with which
to do it. They might they might stick some classical
columns on the building, but they just don't. They don't
have they don't have the eyes to see that their
work just is not right. And and when I tell
them it's not right, here's how you make it right,
they get kind of defensive because they think classical architecture

(33:34):
should be like a couple of rules you follow, like
like following.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
The building code. But it's not. It's art.

Speaker 5 (33:40):
And art art can be partially reduced to rules, but
not entirely. And you know, guys who just don't have
an artistic temperament aren't going to be able to do it. So, yeah,
we really need to find a way. A long term
solution to this is going to involve finding a way
to get people with artistic temperaments into architecture. And it's

(34:05):
not going to be by making them, you know, learn
all the building codes and deal with all the bureaucracy,
because people of an artistic temperament don't do well with that.
It's going to have to be a system where like
there's some people in charge of the artistic part of
architecture and other people in charge of the technical part,
and figure out a way for those types of people
to collaborate productively.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
Yeah, there are two I have two things that pop
up in my mind when listening to you. One is
that most of the architecture that we see is just horrible,
Like it's just boring and horrible and just.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
And then what they seem to exist is a.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Few flagship, like wild projects that always kind of push
towards this futuristic image of the skyscraper or this really
deconstructed image of the building. And those are the ones,
those are the architecture projects that get the attention. So
you know, Google ham Bilbao and all of these, or

(35:02):
the Shard or all of these kind of wild, crazy
projects that that that get the attention. So those look
to people, they that's what creativity looks like. That's creative.
That's that's the artistic part. Like look at all this
really creative architecture. That's one like And the other problem is,
like you said that most of the buildings that try

(35:26):
to look classical today they look like caricatures. And and
it's hard because you go into these sometimes you go
into these neighborhoods of mansions, right, these mansion neighborhoods, and
although the buildings are trying to look like classical, they're
just hard to look at because they look like a joke.
They look like someone took a classical building and made

(35:48):
a joke with it. And this is a this is
like a this is millions of dollars in these buildings.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
So I don't know what you think about those problems.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Let's say, well, the two separate problems.

Speaker 4 (36:03):
How do you say that the buildings with strained shape
is their result of the modernist mindset, because you know,
it began with pure rational buildings. You know that the
sixties billions, the seventies building you know, the one that
you see in Washington, those that the brutalist one that
people hate. But now it mutated to you know, narcissism.
So the only thing that matters, that is the promote

(36:26):
the n architecture education and among modernist architects is novelty.
It doesn't matter if the building is good, it doesn't
matter if people like it, doesn't matter if it's beautiful,
it doesn't matter if it's functional.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
The only thing is novelty. So how to create this novelty.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
They use computer programs because they can instantly calculate so
the building, you know, won't fall down, and then we
can create all these strange shapes and then they win
prices because no one has ever done this before. So
that's the crazy buildings, when architects get a free hand,
it's based on you know, this insane ideology. The other
the boring ones that we very boring boxes, they are

(37:00):
also because of modernism. They are because you know, when
developers in in every field, when you profit maximize, you
do do it in two ways.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
One is to cut costs.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
The other is to add a value that people are
ready to pay more for. If we take you know,
Apple smartphones, they cost one hundred dollars to produce, and
people pay one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars for it
because it has a value that people are ready to
pay more for. In architecture, very few people are ready
to pay more for modernist architecture. So the only way

(37:36):
for developers to profit maximize is to cut costs. Why
the architects are uprising, we can show so many projects,
is because those developers that try class C architects here
in Sweden, in Germany and France everywhere, they notice, oh,
it's profit maximizing to build this way. Maybe we can
cut cost, but also let's say we add let's say

(37:56):
five percent cost. Then we can sell it for fifteen
percent more So the way to profit maximize is different
in the classical market than a modernist market. But with
that said, you can make a very cheap classical building
that's very beautiful because the classical is not in the materials,
it's not in the ornament, it's in the facade division.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
You have this.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
If I should explain classical beauty, Andrew will probably angry
at Mehannah. And now it's from an outside, non artitic view,
So is it. Basically you have this three part facade
division of almost every classical building. You have a base
with a baseline, then you have a mid section, and
then you have a roof section. And this three part

(38:38):
division is like the human body. If you go out
and look at an old even if you can look
at a classical skyscraper in New York and they will
have the same division. You know of the building. So
the base is a bit, it's the highest part because
psychologically it makes us feel safe. Then you have the
mid section and the roof section is the smallest part.
So then instantly our brain can read this building and

(39:01):
understand this building. And because the baseline is the highest line,
then it feeds that the building is stable, it will
not fall upon us, so our mind's relax of it.
The second part of classical beauty is how you place
the windows. So you don't have one set of windows,
one row of windows like you see on the sixties building,

(39:22):
or like random like you see now or more contemporary buildings.
You have how to say, symmetry pairs. You have part symmetries,
so you have many different symmetries on the facade. So
what you get is a building that is instantly readable
for our mind, so you relax at the same times.
It's the gentle stimulation with these part symmetris, not one

(39:44):
symmetry on the facade, but parts symmetries. So here you
have the if I would say, the key for why
we find classical architecture beautiful, if we just reduce remove
all symbols or ornamental or materials, it would be this
ability and the gentle stimulation.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
The proportions is what you said proportions as well. Yeah,
and you see that. Like I was looking at your
Twitter feed, Michael, and it was interesting because you had
several projects. Because when we think of classical architecture, obviously,
like you said, we think.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Of an ornament.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
We think of of you know, columns with but you
had several buildings that you know, we're quite we're not
didn't look antique and finished like they they had a
basic a simple not modern, but like a simple finish.

Speaker 3 (40:30):
But because of the proportionality, they still read.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
And because of the relationship between symmetry and variation, where
you have love variation, but you also have a sense
of symmetry, then you can you feel like you said
that you have something that's both really something that's both
relaxing but interesting at the same time, that doesn't doesn't
threaten you, like like it looks like the pieces of
the building are attacking you, uh, you know, uh, but

(40:55):
but it's also like it has this kind of solid
and do do you want to comment on this? And
also I still need I still need to comment on
the McMansion like problem, like the you know, this kind
of fake class that every bad.

Speaker 5 (41:08):
It's true that bad Classicism is even worse than modernism
in most cases because because classical architecture does have traditional
order to it, like it's a classical building is very
recognizable how all of its elements are ordered in relation
to one another. They are partially answopomorphic. They also they're

(41:32):
also fractal. Like the proportioning, the proportioning rules that apply
to the whole building tend to apply to the individual
parts of a building. You know, the whole building has
a base, middle, and top, but an individual column also
has a base, middle, and top. An individual window has
a sail at the bottom and a projecting head molding
at the top. So every every part of the building

(41:54):
is like the whole and that that kind of that
kind of order, which which mirrors the sort of order
that we see in natural forms, in trees or mountains
or living things. That kind of order is mostly what
makes classical buildings so beautiful. But it also means that
a disordered classical building is grotesque looking. You know, it's

(42:18):
like a creature. It's like a creature with two heads
or something, you know, or something with one arm chopped
off or something you know. A a So.

Speaker 3 (42:27):
Right, I think what you said is exactly right.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
And now that I can picture these these horrible mac
mansions in my mind is that one of the things
that happens is that they take the trapping, so they'll
be like molding, and you know, there'll be all of
this architectural uh, you know, exteriority, but the proportions are wrong,
and so you have to thing with the wrong proportions
that look completely out of scale, and the windows are

(42:52):
completely wild, you know, Like the lady was just like
I just want to window there.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
I don't care what it does to the building.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
And then what it and then in the end it
looks like like like a yeah, like someone with too
much makeup on something like.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah it could, I mean.

Speaker 5 (43:04):
The most common mistake with ignorant classical architecture is that
the columns are too skinny for what they're holding up,
like like you've got a little column with a capital
and then there's this big fat beam or this big
fat pediment on top of them, you know, and then
then it looks like you know, somebody wearing a you know,
a big a big clown head, or you know somebody

(43:26):
with a head too big for the body. Yeah, or
you see like some missing element to the moldings. You
have like the column and then you have like the cornice,
but there's no entablature in between, so it like looks
like somebody with no neck. It's it's it's a grotesque effect.
The nice thing about Modernist architecture is in its in

(43:46):
its lack of order, in its total abstraction.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
It is kind of anything.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Goes, you know, the building.

Speaker 5 (43:53):
The building might not have anything appealing about it, but
it might not have anything grotesque about it either, because
it just kind of unrelatable. You don't really have any
emotional reaction to it in many cases, and.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
That's the reductive part of it. You know, when modernism
has spread all around the world, it reduces everyone to
a global consumer. There's no difference between a skyscraper and Stockholm,
one in Bangkok or one in Seattle, no difference at all.
You can't see where it is, there's no cultural expression,
and it's not even adapted to the climate. So this

(44:28):
is also something that's you know, very important of classical
architecture does right, is that it's adapted to the local climate.
And there are millions small details that classic dog They
are found depending on where where where the building is built.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
You know, does it drain much? Does the rain come
by wind sideways? So does it come upward?

Speaker 4 (44:49):
You see all kind of these small solutions that are
in different places. And you know, when you haven't he
an illiterate architect that does this classical you get a
lot of problems as you have with modernist architecture because
it's not adapted for climate. And then you get all
kinds of things that you didn't know what happened because
you never learned, you know, about the tradition.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
I can give you a very good example.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
I live in Sweden where it rains and snows a lot,
Yet our modernist artists build flat roofs, so we get
building leakage, We get leakage and all water because you know,
it creates a pool on top of the floor. For
thousands of years, we built, we know, with broken rules.
But suddenly we should be modern and now we build
with flat roofs, and now we get all these kind
of problems. And you can multiply this a million times

(45:37):
for every country. You know what we lost when we
are abandoned traditional architecture.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah, I think, I think this is really what you're
saying is so powerful because in some ways, what you
realize is that modernism and modern architecture it really is
an abstraction on human experience, like it's a it's a
deep abstraction. Whereas all of these solutions that our ancestors
came up with their you could see that they're evolved

(46:04):
with time, like they're just iterations on iterations. You can't
find the person responsible for them. They're almost organically adapted
to the human body. But then, like you said, in
some places actually organically you know, embedded in the landscape.
You know, they they they were developed by the people
there to adjust to their to their lifestyle. And of

(46:24):
course you know, doesn't mean that we have to build
like our ancestors, but we to forget, like to just
simply throw all of that almost like Darwinian work that
was done, like to just throw it out and say, okay,
now we're just going to create these abstract buildings. Is
crazy that we thought that was a good idea, Like

(46:45):
the abstracted human, this international this international human that has
no that doesn't have their feet on the ground.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
You know, there's no culture, no nothing, no human expression.
It's just a global consumer.

Speaker 1 (46:58):
Yeah, it's interesting that it's even more like it's even
more diverse to think this way. It is to say,
you know, it's like I love Chinese architecture. I think
it's beautiful, but it hasn't It would be weird if
you just prop that down in in.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
In Sweden or you know, in certain places like that.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Every every place has its own beautiful things that they've developed,
and so we should we should be able to say, yeah,
that's what we're going to do because that's where we
are and that's the tradition we have. We can also
then appreciate Turkish or Syrian architecture, all the different ones.

Speaker 5 (47:31):
For people, For people who have a normal love of
their own culture, there's nothing more satisfying than seeing new
new or new buildings being done that is in the
tradition specific to their own nation. It's a tremendously satisfying
thing to see when you see that. However, I'm afraid
nowadays it's it's very fashionable to not have a love

(47:54):
with your own culture, you know, among among you know,
among liberal europea, and it's fashionable to despise your own country,
to think that your own culture is garbage.

Speaker 4 (48:08):
You must different between the populace and our elos. Of course,
the elights of Western Europe are totally They are more
loyal to each other than the country they represent the whole.
That's the horrible situation that Western Europe is in. That
previously the Swedish elits were loyal to Sweden. The French
Elogs were loyal to Sweden. Now they are loyal to

(48:28):
each other and not the people that they represent. So yes,
and they are very post national and everything, and that's okay.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Now we go into politics, but I keep it short.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
But that's the funny thing now that we need to
you know, we need to put more expenses on our
defense in Europe. But money is just one equation. If
you for fifty has told us that nationalism is bad
and white men are bad, who's going to defend the country.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
Who's going to volunteer to fight for.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Britain or Sweden or France when all these things that
you want, you know, you need the young white man,
I would say in Western Europe, if you want a
defense and you have your bashed, your bashed.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
Did you have bashed?

Speaker 4 (49:12):
These people not for fifty years, So they are not
you know, they are not raising their hands to to
to defend the content. Yeah, sorry that to never to
want to defend something, you have to be able to
celebrate it.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
You can't defend your homeland, your traditions, your you know
everything about it. If you're asked to despise it, then,
like you said, it means that ultimately will just be
taken over by whatever. There's no there's no inner glow,
there's no inner uh, there's no inner light. And so
but it's it's it's exciting to hear that there is

(49:43):
a bit of this this architectural uprising. In the United States,
it's more complicated because it's younger, right, It's the same
in Canada as well. One of the things for people
who are listening or watching, you should see what Andrew
has been doing. One of the one of the great
things that Andrew has been doing is is really searching
out local styles when he builds churches, where where he's

(50:05):
going to build them, and then adapting let's say, the
traditional shape of an Orthodox church to a you know,
a New England uh style building, or even to an
Adobe style uh you know, yeah, you know, kind of
Mexican or or or Californian style. And so that's been
a way in which to kind of give a sense

(50:25):
to architects of what's possible and what The thing. The
thing about your work, Andrew, that's amazing too, is that
the buildings don't look there's they don't they're not nostalgic.
And this is the problem with the classicism sometimes that
you see so sometimes the classicism just it just looks
like a copy of an old building, Whereas what you're
doing in some ways is extremely creative because you are

(50:48):
you're you're you're looking into the local styles and you're
fusing it with you know, with the different purposes of
the building.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
So there's a lot of possibility there.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Yeah, you're right, You're right.

Speaker 5 (50:59):
So I have well, I have a very interesting niche
that I work in in that Orthodox churches in America
are not a very traditional typology. We don't have a
lot of old ones here. So yeah, it's kind of
a case by case invention what should an Orthodox church
look like in each region of America? And that's a

(51:22):
way of making them fresh and new. But also, I
in addition to that, I really do want my buildings
to each look fresh and new. I don't want them
to look like copies of old buildings. I think any
good traditional architect does not want their buildings to look
exactly like it's eighteen fifty or exactly like it's seventeen fifty,

(51:43):
because in doing that would not itself be traditional, because
you know, classical architecture looks a little bit different in
every century through time. It always it always had a
sort of fashionable evolution that made the people of any
given decade like they were building something fresh and new

(52:03):
that was important to people then and it's important to
people now. So I you know, it's I would not
say that my work is utterly uninfluenced by modernism. There
are aspects of the sort of clean, crisp, sparsely ornamented
modern esthetic that I that I do imitate in my
work where I find it helpful, where I find it

(52:28):
beneficial in the traditional mode in which I'm working at
the time. So you'll notice that my buildings are not
you know, dripping with ornament like an eighteenth century building.
You know, they do have a certain they do have
a certain clear rationality, a certain sort of you know,
predilection towards clear glass and bright crisp light that you

(52:50):
know appeals to modern people who are used to modern buildings.
So yeah, in their way, my buildings are are of
their time and appealing to the modern eyes of contemporary people,
whilst also being completely vooted in millennia old tradition of
classical architecture.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Yeah, there is also in your work a in the
There is a kind of minimalist tradition of an emphasis
on materiality, which I find in your work, where you
have a kind of great joy in the materiality of
the things you're presenting, because in some ways you're presenting
them in a world of glass and and gypsum and

(53:31):
you know, fake walls. There's a there's a man in
which you you're able to say, hey, this is a
real thing, and and kind of feature that as part
of it, because an ancient world they wouldn't have had
to think about that, right, It's like, well, this is
a build. You in some ways are saying, I'm doing
this on purpose, and I'm featuring it as a as
a part of the Yeah.

Speaker 5 (53:48):
And that partly comes from medieval architecture, which tended to
show off stone as stone and timber is timber and
so forth. But that's also a harrormark of good modern architecture.
You know, the the really good modern architects, the famous ones.
They loved authentic materiality, you know, they loved showing off

(54:09):
steel for what it was and blondze for what it was.
And Yeah, I was taught in my very modernistic architecture
education to really, really emphasize authentic materiality. You don't see
that much in one of the male modern building because
one of the male modern building is just is just

(54:29):
cheap building. It's not really artistic design.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
But yeah, that is.

Speaker 5 (54:34):
That is a certain place where you can find a
sympathy between good modernism, medievalist church architecture, and Asian architecture.
Of course, you know Japanese Chinese traditional architecture has a
very authentic expression of materiality.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
Doanchael You've been dying to say something.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
Yeah, yeah, really, I just want to say, you know,
the difference between Andrew's architecture a firm like you know,
Robot am Stern or most classical firms, I would say,
is that Andrew create buildings with a soul. You really
see that there has been a craft man's hand on
that building. It's so you know, you feel it when
you see them. That's different if you look at a

(55:16):
building by Robot i'm Stern, the big firm, or and
if the most European classic large texts. It's a shape,
they have a classical shape, but there is no you
don't feel that there has been a hand, a craftsman's
hand and touched it and have to say, and live
in the building. So they are beautiful buildings, but they
are a bit soul less. So when I see you know,

(55:38):
when I of course I have not had the privilege
to visit your buildings physically, but I only see them
on all the photos that you publish on the internet.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
It's way better when you're there, by the way. Yeah, yeah,
really amazing.

Speaker 4 (55:50):
Yeah, they are amazing because they have even if you
think that don't have that much ornament, they have much
more ornament the most classical new classical buildings. And they
have this small dealerty this I think of a a
townhouse that you build on Cannon Street in Charleston, and
you have these small wooden cannons, you know that like
columns that lifted the balcony. These things, you know, make

(56:12):
all the difference this and lived in a building with soul,
And I've seen small ornamental details on almost all your
buildings that you do. And of course the interiors are
amazing or all, you know, the craftmanship that is the
difference between your architecture and ninety five percent of all
classical architecture. And that's a problem that we have in

(56:34):
general in contemporary classical architecture, and that we discuss a
lot that they make the shapes, but they are too
afraid or maybe they lack the artistic scales to create
meaningful ornament and how the craftmanship details like the work
of love. But how to say, I work with love?
Not not just real estate.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Because architecture is the place to be. It has this.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
It is a participative space. It's not it's not just
a place to put things in. And so you know
when you sense the participation of the person that made
the building, it increases also that sense in you, that
the sense that you are inhabiting a purposeful place, right,
not just not just a building that could not just

(57:18):
a space, It could be anything that it could be
kind of moved from one thing to the to the next.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
Yeah, well modern the whole way.

Speaker 5 (57:24):
Modern architecture works as a as a business practice. It's
extremely divorced from the construction site and from custmanship. Architect
architecture offices produce a set of drawings, it goes out
the door. Somebody else who has no artistic sense it
all typically interprets the drawings and builds the building, and

(57:45):
their goal typically is to make the building as flawless
as possible in the sense of making plastered and stockard
surfaces as perfectly flat at corners as perfectly crisp.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (57:57):
So the few a few contemporary architects whose buildings do
seem to have that human touch. They tend to be
the sort of artisanal designer builders who are in charge
of their own construction sites and really, you know, hire
their own guys and pick up the trail and show
them what to do. And I do a fair amount
of that myself. Most of my buildings are built close

(58:19):
at hand, and I'll go on the site and I'll
just grab a paint bush or grab a trail from
the workman and show him how I want it. I also,
I also experienced it building things myself, so I know
how to do that. I know how to make most
anything on my own buildings.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Yeah. You know.

Speaker 5 (58:37):
Interestingly, America's you know best architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, who
falls in this interesting place sort of in between traditional
and modern. His buildings have a tremendous amount of human touch,
soul to them when you visit them in person, a
very small scale, very handmade. I meant, every little detail
on them just seems like beautiful, little handmade and polished thing,

(59:01):
and he he was very much on his construction site,
very very particular with showing people how to build every
little thing.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Well, one of the problems is also the people that
have the money, you know, don't necessarily have that attention
as well, Like they wouldn't maybe not have the capacity
or the desire to see that because they're basically making
something to sell most of the time.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Anyways.

Speaker 5 (59:27):
Well, a lot of Americans with money have that sort
of you know what I would call, in a derogatory sense,
a bourgeois or new money taste, where they want the
look of things that are traditional as a as a
you know, as a branding thing, as a sort of
virtue signaling you know, something to something to instagram, as

(59:50):
it were. But they don't actually really like old stuff
for old buildings, Like a lot of a lot of
the people who commission the classical McMansion, You take them
to an actual historic building and they think, ooh, it's dirty,
there's mildew on it. You know, the plaster is cracked.
You know, it doesn't have a giant, luxurious closet for

(01:00:10):
me to you know, put my shoe collection. Is I
couldn't live in this you know they actually there at heart,
they're really modernists who want a very modern building that's
entirely designed around modern conveniences. They just want it to
have a look that is reminiscent of the aristocracy of old.
So it looks good on Instagram, it's worth.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
It's equally bad. In Europe, everyone is new how to
say that. There are money, you know, upproming people that
have the committed class the last fifty years, and they're
so afraid to be labeled having bad taste. So they
open a magazine and they feel, I should like this today. Okay,
I like this today. I should drink this wine today. Okay,
I drink this wine today. You know, there's no individuality

(01:00:54):
at all. It's just, you know, the magazine tells them
what they should like and what is considered a good taste,
and then they will follow us slavishly.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
One of the things that I'm curious what you think,
because this is something I've seen here and it just
drives me crazy, is in some ways architectural fashion shifts
where all of a sudden that we have had this
I think it was about twenty years ago we had
this crazy shift which went from a weird kind of
neoclassical not like almost kind of like castle looking houses

(01:01:25):
where that a lot of you know, a lot of
fancy stuff. And now it's every single house has the
same design here all through the province. It's like black
with like maybe some graystone and maybe brown with like
black windows.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
And that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
And they're like kind of new modern, like kind of
low grade modern modernist style with the kind of flat
roofs maybe but or a very little roof and everywhere,
all of a sudden, it just like and these houses
just take over. Every single development has the same style everywhere.
And the thing that is that that is actually what

(01:02:03):
I described. It's people are afraid.

Speaker 3 (01:02:05):
They're going to hate them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
They're going to think, oh, these are the houses in
my parents, because it's just this horrible fashion that goes
through the population.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Because people are afraid.

Speaker 4 (01:02:16):
It's because people are afraid because the lifestyle magazine told
them that this is what they should like. And if
you are, you know, being middle class or upper middle
class or striving, it's not about the money, it's about,
you know, the culture. So you don't dare to trust
your own eyes, you don't trust your own taste, if
the magazine tells you that this is what you should have,

(01:02:38):
you buy that because we communicate in that way. So
then other people who recognize that here leaves a sophisticated
upper middle class person because he lives.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
In a black box.

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
So even if they don't like it, they like what
it communicates to other people that have read the same
magazine and then understands, ah, this must be a sophisticated
middle class person that lives in this pinion because it's
a black villa. So it's we are social creature. Unfortunately,
we are social creature that makes us do bad choices
because we want to be like everyone else.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
And it's and it's weird because we you know, we
had to make our house about five years ago because
we had our houses flooded and you know, everybody's doing
one thing here. We actually had to bend the rules
of the city in order to be able to rebuild
the house the way we wanted to. And Andrew helped
us a little, you know, he designed the facade and
kind of helped us to get the proportions right and everything.

(01:03:31):
And it's a very simple, like wooden house, you know,
with with the very kind of symmetrical windows and a
nice like port with the and everybody stops in front
of our house. There's nothing special about it. It's just
it's just has a normal human proportions, like it just
looks like a normal house the houses should look. And

(01:03:52):
then everybody stops in front of our house and everybody's
surprised to see and it's just so funny. But it's
it's a little bit as a sore thumb because it
sticks out of all of these these brown like weird
houses that are that are are being built.

Speaker 5 (01:04:07):
Well, you know, sort of fashionable house buildings has always
been with us. You know, if you consider you know,
walking around London, you know every every Georgian you know
block of townhouses in London, they all look much the same. Yeah,
I don't. I don't necessarily think having a sort of

(01:04:28):
a strong fashion of the decade is always bad in architecture.
It's it's just a question of is their quality there.
It's like, did the did the trendsetters who promoted that
fashion and do the architects and builders who you know,
materialize that fashion? Are they are they up to the
task and are they doing good work? In nowadays they're

(01:04:51):
not just because the entire culture of architecture and building
is pretty bad right now. And of course that's not
true of all the arts. You know, obviously there's other
areas in which contemporary art you know, has has much
better talent, you know, movie making, for instance. But it
just so happens that there's a there's a talent, there's

(01:05:13):
a talent that's movie making. That might be, that might
be true, that might be true, maybe it may bee. Well,
where do you think the talented artists are going?

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
Then?

Speaker 5 (01:05:22):
I mean, where are they going to find their home? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Exactly, there's they're all terrified of ais but it was
going on. But I mean, I think people, I think
the idea of people moving into architecture and too and
to thinking about the environment, that's the if we want,
if we want the change to be deep, that's where
it has to happen first. Because I've said this several times,
but city planning and architecture is the most important art.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I'm not an architect, but I can see that because
it it is because it fades behind people's perception. It's
actually it pre models the way that people understan and
who they are, what's their relationship to each other. You
know what's inside, what's outside, you know what is above,
what is below. Just basic orientation in your life is

(01:06:10):
based on city planning and an architecture, and there's a
deep alienation in modern living that comes from living in
these horrible places and these these abstracted spaces with no
center and no community and no sense of relationship. And
so to me, that's a call for people to take

(01:06:31):
it seriously. For people who are setting architecture, that you're
doing the most important thing. It's hard right now, it's
hard to do it, but that is the most important
thing to be done.

Speaker 5 (01:06:41):
You know. It's interesting the people who design movie sets
and the Disney imagineers who design the theme park stuff.
Those are people who have very good architectural skills and
who would have become traditional architects if they lived in
the nineteenth century, but they into the sort of virtual

(01:07:01):
reality of you know, movies and theme parks because it
was an outlet where they can really do artistic work
in a traditional style. But maybe maybe maybe what you're
describing is that we're going to see We're going to
see that invert that people are going to start saying,
you know, I'm through with working for Disney, I can't
really put my talents to good use. There's too much

(01:07:22):
bureaucratic and political crap. I'm going to go back to
the real world and where I can do real art there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Yeah, we would see that planned city that they have
a Disney's Well it's not bad.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Like I haven't. I've seen a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:07:34):
I I I you know, having spent almost my whole
life vowing that I'm never going to Disney World, I
actually did end up going to Disney World because my
children forced me. And you know, I have to say
the the the Victorian style architecture at the Magic Kingdom
is really good. It's like, it's really really good. It's
total the detailing is totally correct, the materiality is authentic.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
I was amazed.

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
It's it doesn't I'm we're going to let anybody get
away with the like the phrase like the Disney effector
that's Disney World architecture meaning it's faky I speaking, because
the actual Disney World architecture is actually really good.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
As Disney collapses, all you did the architects go back
into the world and make make beautiful things for real people.

Speaker 4 (01:08:19):
I must also add, you know, it's the film industry
that saved classical musical So because if you want to
hear good contemporary classical music, that's from movies. You know,
the jingle of Indiana Jones Stall was all that is
classical music. No one listens to contemporary classical music because
it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
A bad noise.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
But in the movie industry you've really got some very
good new classical masterpieces.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
So yeah, that's fun to talk.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
All right, So I think we're I think we're going
to wrap up.

Speaker 1 (01:08:47):
But I would say, Michael and Andrew, you know, to
other people listening. You know, Michael, you described yourself as
an activist, so I would say, what's your pitch?

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
What do you what do you want people to do?

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
Like, what would you like people that are watching to
to to do?

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Well?

Speaker 4 (01:09:01):
Okay, I self promotion is never beautiful, but for people
that are interested, I can There are two web pages
that one can use. I created them both. If you
go to wwwneutrat dot org. There you find a directory
of class clarchitecture schools of class clarchitecture firms divided by country,

(01:09:25):
and also you find an AD class. It's a Google
map players the AD class of New traditionality section.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
We can find a lot of Andrews work there.

Speaker 4 (01:09:33):
It's a complete Google at class and you can find
thousands of beautiful new classical projects. And you can go
on a discovery over the world and see what's happening,
you know, in different countries and through the you know,
through the through this web page, you can also connect
to the different social media pages and then you just
can connect with like minded because the most important thing

(01:09:54):
is for you, as a non architect, you just know
that beauty and uglies is a choice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:59):
There are no rational reasons for all the ugliness. It's
a choice. We can shoose the beauty if we want to.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
That's how about you, Andrew, Well, yeah, I would say.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
You know, if you're a young person who has an
interest in going into artistic architecture, you know can consider
going to school for it. There are some classical schools
in America now that that train classical architects, you know well,
and you might even be able to partner with a

(01:10:30):
licensed architect the way I often do, so that you
can do projects without having to go through all of
the the sort of bureauatic hell of getting licensed and
so forth. There are definitely partnership arrangements that allow people
to concentrate on the art side of architecture. And you know,

(01:10:50):
if you're if you're a patron, if you're if you're
somebody with money and you want to do something about
the ugliness of the world, you can you know, become
a developer. You know, find find a talented designer who
can do beautiful buildings, and you know, think up a
project that you could do, you know, not one integated
community that no one will ever see, but one that's

(01:11:12):
like you know, in a in a town. You know,
find old find a beautiful old town that's got like
an empty corner lot, and build the best building in
that town on that lot and put the place on
the map. You know, find find a little project with
a big impact that will really make thousands of people
wake up and say, wow, we can build beautiful things again.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
Hm hmm. That's great.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
That's a great call, you know, especially the one about
because I know a lot of very wealthy people are
building these these houses for themselves, like you said, you know,
behind gates and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
And that's fine.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Obviously if I had the money, that's what I would
do for myself too, But doing it out in the
community and waking people up to the effect that beauty
has on our perception of ourselves, of our space, and
the people around us. I think that's a wonderful call.
So Andrew, thank you for what you're doing. Michael as well.
You know, I think this is great, important work, and
so everybody, I will put a bunch of links also

(01:12:07):
to Michael's social media, to the website you mentioned to
Andrew as well, and so you can check it out
and follow through.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
So thanks everyone for your attention. Thanks thanks both of you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Thank you than Jev.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
If you enjoy these videos and podcasts, please go to
the Symbolic World dot com website and see how you
can support what we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tires
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408 - Andrew Gould & Michael Diamant - Architecture: The Most Important Art

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}408 - Andrew Gould & Michael Diamant - Architecture: The Most Important Art