#359 - Cormac’s Problem with Corbusier - Archispeak

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Evan Troxel (00:09):
Brutal week, brutal week here in the, Troxel household.
Everybody's been sick, super, super

Cormac Phalen (00:15):
Ah, jeez.

Not

Yeah.

nothing, thank God, but influenza A.
Let's call it what it is.
That's what it is.
And I haven't been sick since I did getCOVID at the AIA conference in Chicago.
That was like two and a half years ago.
and that sucked.
I

That,

like

that damn conference.
Yes.

uh, here we are, like, this was as bad.
It felt like it, it felt just asbad, like night sweats, fever,

Yeah.

like crazy, just major, major unending headaches.
And then my wife caught it acouple days after, after me.
And

so you're just passing it around?

I, well, I, I gave it to her that's for sure.
And then she's, she's just dying upstairs.
So

So do you.

just sat around and done nothing so much as this last week,
because we, we could not do anything.

So do you guys have amplo influenza?

Yes.

coughing your head off?

Yes.
Too much coughing.
Too much nose blowing.
Yeah, stay away.
Yeah, just hold up the Stay away.
Yeah, that's what it's beenlike around here last week.
So it's been brutal.
How are you?

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines,

Look

and then,

you're wearing some crazy Uniform here.
What is going

Sport, Sporting, I am Sporting.

You've are you fanatic ing over there?
You're a

It is, yeah, it's it's playoff season, and for once
in a very blue moon, other thanlast year , my hometown team.
Can't, we get to celebrate thefact that they're in the playoffs.
They're, , they, they're number one seed.
They, , won their division.

(02:08):
, they've had the best season that they'veever had in the history of the franchise.
And what is interesting about it?
so yes, I'm, I'm sporting right now withmy Lions gear and all of this other stuff.
But.

so many questions for the architects in the room just

Yeah.

want to I want to let every give everybody a chance here
for you to tell them What what doesplayoff season mean like for those of
us who don't give a crap about sports?
You

Well, here I'm about to hang up on you real quick.

Don't make me cough.

And we've lost Evan.
He's dead now.
Um,

figure it out.
I think we can

I'm pretty sure you can figure out it's
the road to the Super Bowl.
However, I'm

like some fancy event that's coming up, I assume.

some fancy football event that is, is happening soon.
I know, exactly.
I know you watch football.
I know that you're, I know that you're

this season.
I haven't watched

Well,

I, I

probably not, because I know that you're, wasn't your father
in law a big, um, die hard 49er fan.
Yeah, well, he didn't havemuch to, to watch, exactly.

right?

see, okay, understand that, that is basically what my
life as a Detroit Lions fan hasfelt like the entire existence.

Disappointment.

so, and so when people say, you know, you took
that news pretty, , pretty well,, that was some pretty bad news.
And I don't think that Iwould have reacted that way.
I'm like, well, thenYou're not a Lions fan.
You know, I have been built.

Yeah.

Any type of like, , Hey, you know we're gonna have to let you go.
Oh, okay, , just , well, I mean,it's, it's, it's not like it
wasn't expected, , kind of thing.
It's like, always expect the worst, and ifyou get something better than that, meh.
All right, thanks.

Nice.

gotta, You know, you have to understand that the feeling that I
have right now about this, you, thisweird feeling of euphoria that I have
for the Lions right now, this season, issomething that is so unfamiliar to me.
that I don't really know how to react.

(04:28):
Like even, , even when I'm watchingand I'm sorry for everybody who's
listening, it's like, Oh no, notanother Lions fan talking about a great
season and stuff, blah, blah, blah.
Look, we, we, we've earned this.
Like it, it has been a while.
It is,

get,

it is never in.

here.

It is never, I, I've seen, I've been to one playoff game for the
Lions, and this was, , back in the 90sand it happened to be against Tampa Bay,
and so I happened to be at, you, know,, well, for those of you who know that I
have the dual allegiance between, , my,my place of birth, Detroit and Tampa

(05:07):
Bay, because that's where I was raised.
And so I have this dualallegiance of teams and stuff.
And so, you know, anyway, so whatever,but here, let me, let me try to like
pull this into maybe not architectureper se, but kind of like this,
there is this feeling in the city.
that, again, it's one of these thingsthat nobody's ever felt before.

(05:32):
Nobody's ever felt the kind of optimismand it does sort of reflect what
is going on in Detroit right now.
You know, this kind of like rebirth ofthe lions, , coming from, , basically
just abject failure all the time.
You know, it's just like, uh, how doyou think the lions are going to do?
Well, you know, they're going tosuck, , we're going to start off with

(05:53):
hope, but then it's going to go awaylike game two, three, four, , it's
gonna gone and, you know, it's just,it was just the, the, the pact that
we've made with ourselves, right.
But the effect that it's had onthe city and not just the city of
Detroit itself, but the, , the greatermetro area and stuff like that.
, it's, it's really amazing to see it,the, the team itself somewhat embodied,

(06:18):
like this, you know, gritty natureof like, , we're just going to pick
ourselves up and we're going to do ourbest and it's going to, , we're going
to keep doing it and keep doing it untilit like, , becomes something better.
And then like the city of Detroit,you drive around and you look at
like, I remember when we first startedcoming back here way, way, , decades

(06:40):
before we even decided to move here.
and you would drive through and youdidn't drive through Detroit at night.
You drove through during thedaytime at best and you would
see like, , vacant buildings,vacant shops and things like that.
Things.
boarded up, things dilapidated, the,, I'm sure if you've probably seen any
, design magazine, you'll see that theMichigan Central Station was completely

(07:04):
completely restored, , renovated,restored, historic preservation.
It was you know, this fantasticMichigan Central Station.
Michigan Central Station.
basically rebirth of a building that youlooked at and you said, yeah, there's no
way in the world that this is going to, that this building should survive because
it's just been abandoned for so long.
And if you go and, , everybody who waslike, captivated by, , ruined porn.

(07:30):
most of the time that ruinedporn was in Detroit somewhere.

right.

and Michigan central station was, you know, front
and center and a lot of those.
And now there's been such A hugeinvestment in the city that old buildings
that you thought, yeah, there's noway that they can bring them back.
I'm driving past, you know,I dropped my son off at Wayne
state university every so often.
And to drive down Woodward Avenue,which is kind of like the main

(07:59):
thoroughfare bringing you into the city.
It, there's these buildingsthat you look and, , they've got
construction fencing around them.
And the, the conventional thought is, ohyeah, they're going to just, , demo that.
No, they're restoring that.
You look at that building,you're like, there's no way
that that building can survive.
Yeah, that building will come back.
And that's actually, and so, the,lions themselves are sort of like

(08:23):
they've, they've embodied thatkind of like, you know, rebirth.
Um, which

the rising

exactly, which is, , which is why, , we are getting
behind them so much and like,you know, you know, loving them.

story, yeah.

Everybody loves the comeback story, And I'm sure people
are probably, Oh, we're just gettingso tired of like, , the Lions fans.
Just, , they're annoying and stuff.
I hear that all the time.
And I'm like, you know,

It's almost over.
Season's

We look at it this way, and it's not, to be quite honest with you, for
us, it's really not just about football.
It really is the story of the city.
And, , I find it amazing, I mean, if youthink about it, like, where I was born
in Pontiac, that's where the old stadiumwas, , and they, you know, they demoed

(09:10):
that and they moved it into Detroit.
They moved, , the TigerStadium into Detroit.
They moved, , like all of these differentsports teams were in, , Metro Detroit
area, but not necessarily in Detroit.
I mean, the Tigers were in Detroit andthe Although the stadium, and I know

(09:31):
that this is going to be sacrilegiousto say, sort of looked like a barn.
You know, but um, but now everything'skind of come to the center of the city
and it's in downtown and so, , they,they're building an entertainment
district around it and, you know, that is,, spawning other developments to happen.
And now there's an investment of,you know, a couple billion dollars

(09:55):
worth of innovation centers.
University of Michigan, Michigan State,Wayne State University, the three, , R1
institutions in the state of Michigan,all are investing in downtown Detroit
to have downtown campuses and downtowninnovation districts and stuff like that.
And it, it is kind of amazing to see.

(10:15):
And so you see all of theselike, , people who talk about,
you know, this kind of likeotherworldly thing that the lions are.
It's all about kind of like this,this I'm going to, there's going
to be some groans on this one,but they say restore the roar.
It, , we're restoring the roar, notjust of the lions, but of the city.

(10:40):
And so it is really kind of cool.

could happen because it got so bad?
Like, is it, is it because it wentto total ruin that it could be
rebuilt with innovation centersand all of this investment?
You know, because like,

Well,

it doesn't get to that point, Like, the stuff is not bad enough to

Oh

and you

yeah.

using it, right?
And, and it's really interesting to see,like, that transformation happen, but
that transformation seems like it onlycould have happened if it got so bad

Yeah, well, if,

rebuilt, replaced, restored, whatever.

if, if you know the city, then you know that there
was a lot of dilapidated buildingsthat, , they were just caving in
on themselves and, , ultimatelythe city started to demolish them.
And so then you'd have vacant lotafter vacant lot, after vacant lot.
And so, you know, just those vacant lotsstarted to create other opportunities.

(11:33):
And, , those opportunities arestarting, , it's like, so basically
they've got, I don't really want tocall it a blank slate per se, but it's
kind of a, there is somewhat of a blankslate in some of these where you've
got such a patchwork of what was thereis, has given way to what can be there.

Yeah.

And now everybody's embraced the, okay, what's next?

Mm hmm.

know.
And so it, I, I totally agree withyou that it, it, I definitely think
that, as you said if it didn't get sobad, we couldn't be where we are now.
That's also somewhat a badgeof shame as, as much as it is
kind of this, , Ooh, look at us.
We're, you know, coming upfrom the ashes kind of thing.

go through

Right.
Exactly.

but, it happened,

However, it could also be, , this template for other cities who've
somewhat suffered that as well, so thatthey can say, okay, what is Detroit doing
right that, you know, we could learn from?
right?
I mean I mean, they're even lookingat, , things like the Renaissance
Center, which was a John Portmanbuilding in downtown, where they're

(12:44):
looking to kind of like redevelop thata little bit, , potentially even remove
some of the towers that are there.
This is all speculation.
I mean, it was just came out as a Ican't remember which architecture firm.
Did this proposal and, and itseemed to gain some traction and
some people were like, no, don'ttouch the Renaissance Center.
And I, I look at theRenaissance Center all the time.

(13:05):
And again, a little bit moresacrilegious here, but as a dog, I
mean, architecturally, it's like, Ilove the actual main tower, , like it,
it feels like silo, the movie area, theTV show, you know, it, it sort of feels
like that when you go inside there.

think a

Um,

Portman does, right?

Yeah.
exactly.
Yes.
Yes.

Every time I see that show, I'm like, I did, is it, are
they, they're totally got somestrong John Portman energy here.

I, I heard rumor that the set of, and, and I, I, I could be talking
out of, you know, my, my backside here.
because, but I heard rumor that they hadused the Renaissance Center main tower
as inspiration for the, inspirationfor the silo, which, , I mean, if it's

(13:55):
true or not, , I'm going to live by itfor a little while, you know, why not?

You heard it here first.

I heard, Yeah.
exactly.
And even if you guys find thatit's absolutely bunk involves,
don't send anything to me.
I.
I want to live.
I'm a Lions fan.
I want to, I'm a Lions fan.
I want to live in a fantasy land,but you know, they're talking about
removing, , a couple of the, thetowers and redeveloping that whole area

(14:22):
and, and creating a real waterfront.
I mean, the one thing that Ifind, , really, no, now, If you
look at all the historic photographsof Detroit, Detroit built all
the way to the edge of the river.
So there's the Detroit River, there's, Windsor, Ontario's right across the way.
You know, basically closer than you canimagine of how close Windsor is to us.

(14:45):
But and so, , you've, you've,it, it was so developed all the,
literally all the way to the water'sedge that there was no real like
downtown parks and things like that.
So now they've been developingit where they're creating
some, you know, downtown parks.
They're, , starting to try tolike redevelop some of the areas
that were these vacant lotsthat are becoming more green.

(15:07):
And they're just trying to makethis, , more of kind of a modern,
like riverfront city that you wouldthink of when you think of it.
I mean, you know, Baltimore is goingthrough this, the same thing where
they're starting to kind of likerethink and redevelop their waterfront.
And, and, and so Detroit'sdoing the same thing.
And I got to applaud them becauselike, , growing up in, , the city of St.

(15:29):
Petersburg , we had thisbeautiful, like City of St.
Petersburg reminds me a lot of whatI've seen, and I'm going to say what
I've seen pictures wise of, like,say, the, the waterfront of San Diego
you know, where it's just, Yeah.

say the

uh, where, exactly, where there's just a lot of, , like, Urban
parks and things like that, but there'sa lot of green along the water's edge
and you just sort of wish that, , someof these other cities like these rust
belt cities would do something similar tothat when they're doing their development
instead of like building all the wayto the water's edge, let's make it an
amenity rather than, , something thatjust says, Oh, we got to build Right.

(16:08):
up to it.
Like, no, do you?

Right.

do you?
But I mean, it was interesting.
It's like looking at somehistoric photographs.
In fact, I actually just boughtone because it had a picture of
the Bablo Island I think they'relike riverboats, , kind of thing.
But basically Bob LoweIsland was a amusement park.
And basically if anybody who grew up inkind of like the, you know, the seventies

(16:34):
, possibly even eighties, I'm not surewhen it closed down, but I know that
when we left in, in 75, that was, thevery first amusement park I ever went to.
Because, , that's just what you do whenyou're here, , we didn't have like, , like
Six Flags or Disney or things like that.
But you saw, , that photograph thatI, that I bought showed development

(16:56):
literally right to the water's edge.

Yeah.

And there was like no room for anything.
It was just a complete, justurbanization to the edge.
And of course, you know, made it nasty.

Yeah.
Right.

And now, and now people are kayaking in the river.

people

Yeah.

It was just

Yeah,

right to the, right to the water

exactly.
And, and now people are kayaking in theriver, which is, if you think about it,
pretty unheard of when, , almost allof that like industry was like dumping
into the river and everything else.
So, you know, again,

Yeah.
Progress.

some, yeah, progress.

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(19:04):
Our thanks to TimberTechfor supporting this episode.
Now let's get back to the conversation.
Well, I, I want to make an announcementhere about our, our new little
website that we threw together.

Oh yes.

And the reason I did this was because we actually
have been getting some questions.
We've been answering afew here on the show.
But just

Yeah.

some new ones have been coming in our
feedback page on our website.
But we made it even easier.
And so I want to Throw itup on the screen here now.
There's a QR code that you can use yourcamera on to go to askarchispeak.com.
We bought a domain so that we could handlejust questions for the show, and that's a

Sweet.

you have questions, it's Better to go there than
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If you're listening, justhead over to askarchispeak.com
and ask your question anytimeyou want, 24 hours a day.
They go into the queue

Oh, just real quick though, just for everybody, just kind
of like round out that, that thingis, , you Can ask the questions 24
seven and Evan is patiently waitingand will be there standing by.
He'll be

are standing by.

exactly gets a ping.
Here's that, you know, Ooh, a questionwakes up in the middle of the night.

goes off in the bedroom if it's in the middle of the night.
If it's

Womp, womp, womp, womp.

Yeah,

Exactly.

on it.
It's like the bat phone.
It's like the bat signal.
uh, I have a question for you, Cormac,and this did not come in via the
QR code or via askarchispeak.com.
This came from my ownQuestion generating mind.

Oh no.

with Corbusier, just so the listeners know, Cormac has

preface.

with Corbusier and I thought this would be a fun topic

Alright.

to jump

It's not

this

It's

a glorious rant, I believe.

It's Ah, you're going to put me on the spot here, aren't you

you on the spot

So, to preface all of this, Evan knows that I, have as, as much as
I listened or do, as we saw in the lastshow CEUs, I like audio books as well.
A lot of times it was cause, , Iwas commuting all the time and so
I've got a pretty good library.
Well, I've been building that librarywith a lot of architectural audio books.

(21:33):
And, , I've bought one onMeese, bought one on, on Corb
and write all sorts of ones.
So, , I mean, in what's interesting aboutthis, and so this, this is going to expand
this, this conversation will expand beyondjust Corb because those three that I just

(21:59):
named all have very similar traits whenit comes to like their finished work.
And that finished work is.
if we can call it finished work,and I'm going to do like the little
air quotes here, finished workleave something left to be desired.
Not in aesthetics, not in the avantgarde way that they changed the
design language of architecture.

(22:21):
None of, I'm not disputing any of that.
I'm just disputing the fact that Youknow, maybe, just maybe, when you're
designing, say, like Villa La Rocheor Villa Savoy, Villa Savoy is this
great one where I'm sitting here andlistening to this and they're talking
about it and they're talking aboutthese, that it came down to litigation

(22:47):
between Corp and, , the Savoy family.
where they didn't really occupy thebuilding because It was moldy, it was
drafty, it was leaking, it, you know,there was moisture in the, the thing.
And they claimed that it was becauseof the architectural details.

(23:09):
He claimed, Oh, it wasjust bad construction.
Fast forward to thingslike, you know, Mies.
Similar things with the Farnsworthhouse, , I went through the tour when I
was in bed and you've heard, Very similarstories about like basically all of these
things now here are people now Let meback myself out of a corner for a second

I want you to back up even, even further and just say, like, what
is the name of this book that you're

Well, it's

of an idea of what the narrative, position is.
Is it, is it like touting Corbas God's gift to architecture?
Is it a historical account of certain

it's

Like,

No, it's, it's,

about what your, what the material is, the

so the, the, the title is Modern Man by Anthony Flint and, you
know, essentially it's, it's basicallyjust more or less a biography of Corp.
And it goes through and ittalks about certain projects.
It talks about relationships with clients.
It talks about, , his kind oflike perception of himself.
You know, where, when hearrived in America, he was very

(24:18):
disappointed that there wasn't.
Like paparazzi waiting at the, you know,gangplank when he came over on the boat.
And the publicist that they broughthim over had to pay a photographer.
You're going to love this.
Had to pay a photographerthat he saw taking.

(24:39):
like pictures of someone else.
He, he walked over them and said, , Hey,can you take pictures of this guy?
And the, the photographer wasjust like, I just ran out of film.
I can't help you.
He's like, just pretend, just strokehis ego and pretend that you're
here to take photographs of him.

Wow.

and so, he, Corp kept looking in the papers to look for
this article with his, , this, hewas doing these like, , nice little
historic, , architecture poses, handon hip, , chest out kind of thing.
And he was just like, well, , whenis my article coming out?
You know, I'd love tosee these photographs.
And, and the guy just kept kindof stringing him along until

(25:25):
basically, , like there wasno more conversation about it.
But That's a different story altogether.
But what was interesting in, in this,I seem to find as a, as a constant kind
of like thread between a lot of thesedifferent early avant garde architects,
core current just happens to be the, thecurrent one is because They believed that,

(25:49):
, architecture school and architecturaleducation wasn't for them because it
was rooted in, , classical architectureand things like that, and they were a
visionary, they were an artist, you know,this was the same thing with Wright,
, that they didn't have to go throughthat, and the one thing that suffered
from that Wasn't the adventurous spiritof design and, , this, this avant garde

(26:13):
nature of, , like turning the, the, , likewhat we would conventionally see up on
its head and doing, , and creating acompletely new language of architecture.
But what it, what it didn't, what, whattheir lack of education created was a
fact, you know, this lack of understandingof how buildings go together, how

(26:33):
to actually keep the water out, howto actually keep walls from molding,
how to actually keep it habitable.
You know, one of the things that wewere actually, like, what we today get
paid for to do is, , health, safety,and welfare of it, and health is one of
those, and when you have, when you'recreating buildings, and almost every

(26:53):
one of his buildings have suffered thissame problem, is, it's this level of
arrogance that Don't worry, who cares ifit rains, but look at the, architecture.
And can you say, is it reallyarchitecture if it just looks
pretty, but doesn't actually doits job of like providing shelter?

(27:17):
You know, and that's the same thing thatI have with Wright, is that, , here I
am standing with a friend of mine andwe're, you know, we're in Taliesin.
And.
, we're talking, you know, we're, we'rein this group and they're talking about,
all of these like, , These cutting edgelike design trends and all of this other
stuff and it's pouring down rain outside.

(27:39):
And I'm just looking over at awindow and it's pouring inside.
And I'm just like looking athim like, Hey, uh, anybody
gonna like deal with that?
There's like, you know, a wholelot of water coming down and just
pouring all over this wood sill.
And I just, , see, it's justlike, yes, , get some caulk.

(27:59):
Like.
Plug all those holes, dosomething, do something, please.
Like, I loved the build.
I love all of this architecture.
But I also, but I have this issuewith, let's just call it disdain for
this arrogance of like, well I don'tneed to worry about, you know, like
construction methods and things like that,

(28:20):
.It just has to look pretty.
Like, that's not thefunction of architecture.
is just to look pretty.
I mean,

that the,

I want all architecture to look pretty, but I also want it to work.

well, yeah, it has to work.
I mean, architecture is not art.

Right.

does have to function, right?

It's a functional Art, right?

Well, art doesn't have to function at all.
I mean, that's the

But architecture.

but architecture does, right?
I

Yes.

what I'm saying.

Yes.

is not art, right?
It

Right.

it has to work.

Yeah.

doesn't have to.
I mean, art has a very special.
meaning behind it, right?

Yeah.

is that it doesn't have to do anything.

Right, right.

it art.
But, but I think it is interesting that.
my response as you're sending methese, these you know, you're,
you're, you're translating

I was, I was,

into your, into your phone device that is then sending

yeah,

me as you're

yeah,

And, on one hand, yeah.
And on the other hand, like, we wouldn'tbe where we are without those things.
And, I mean, that, and that wasmy response to you too, right?
It's like, well, would,

true,

even be where it is without These so called masters, right?
Because of pushing form and functionbeyond what was possible, right?
Obviously, because I mean,it was, to failure, right?

right,

and there are still architects today that practice like this.
And

yes,

it's, a spectrum, right?
You get

right,

pushing the limits, beyond the limits, breaking the limits, what's

yeah,

down to like the totally mundane, boring stuff that shouldn't
be considered architecture, right?
And that, and there's everything inbetween in the built environment.
And, I just wonder if, if we as asociety of, , practicing architects
in the built environment would Bewhere we are today without those rule

(30:22):
breakers, because that's really what

no, no,

breaking the rules.
Like they,

right,

the rules with what was conceived of as an education
and architecture all the way tofinding people to pay for these

right,

uh, you know, we're going to call them sculptures, right?
That, that.
That still stand today, andmoney continues to be poured into

yeah.

to keep them standing,

Those are the,

a failure on many levels.

I will say that those are, that's, that's one thing
to me that really kind of justlike, , chaps my heart, you know, is

of money that it takes to keep these

the, the amount of,

yet, they're still

Yes,

fundamentally.

amount of money and I loved the experience of the
place of the Farnsworth house.
Don't get me wrong, But I just like tensof millions of dollars over the course
of its life have been poured into theFarnsworth house to basically Keep it

(31:27):
alive to constantly keep rebuildingit, to constantly keep doing it.
And in a way, it great, you know,because, , we need to hold on to,
, these, , these, these masterworks.
But then, there's also the, well, whatcould we have done with all of that money

(31:50):
to possibly further advance architecturein a different way or, or something else,
or, , so it's just, it's, it's interestingbecause the amount of money that it took
to, , repair falling water so that itwasn't falling in the water the amount of
money that it's going to take to repairTaliesin Wisconsin Taliesin and I'm sure
Taliesin West, which still on my bucketlist to go to , are just these things

(32:14):
that it's like, okay, they're great.
So here was the thing that I wasthinking about, and this is just a
complete side note, so I apologize.
But As I'm, , this, this drive that Idid looking at all sorts of different
architecture I, I was thinking tomyself, how could you do these, these

(32:37):
exact buildings, like the FarnsworthHouse, like Taliesin, in modern day
construction, meeting modern day codes?
And the question first was, can you?
And, , if you could, or if you couldmake a, an attempt to, what would
it, how would it change what it was?

(32:58):
Because, like, the Farnsworth Housecould not be built the way it is now.
Not the way, and people are, and I,, Guarantee, I'm going to hear somebody
say, Oh yeah, you can, you can do this.
You can do that.
Look at the details.
Look how thin they are.
Look how delicate they are.
Look how like there's a simplethin transition between like,
say the window and the floor, thewindow and the columns and things.

(33:19):
It's so minute because it, because ofa very intentional design decision.
Can you still do that?
In today's codes, where you needeither like continuous installation
or thermal breaks or things likethat, that, , there's absolutely
nothing about that, that holds upto, , today's codes and, you know,

But they didn't have to back then, right?

they didn't have to back then.

yeah, you've already answered your question.
The answer is

Oh, I know.
I know.
I know.

it depends, maybe, where.
But in those locations, no.

Yeah.

I mean, to, to, to your point about building codes,
there actually are places thatdon't care about building codes.
right?

Well, yeah.

you could build those things in those locations

Yeah.

similar manner it's like, not consulting a
structural engineer, you're just,

Yeah.

just doing it and, and

Yeah.
Yeah.

what happens.
I mean,

Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

what they did back then, right?
It's like, let's build

Right.

it looks, seems like it'll work.
Let's see what happens.

Exactly.

about it a hundred years later and what it was going to take to
maintain it through throughout that time.

So that's exactly like the point of my, my pro for all of
these, , is they were adventurous.
They wanted to push the envelope.
They wanted to, you know, takethings and it's like, okay,
here's your standard detail.
How can I, , turn it on its head?
How can I make it something different,something special, something unique?
How can I further, , thinkoutside of the box?

(34:51):
And that to me, so, , now I get to like,, back myself up and say, okay, you know,
you've, you've, , you've made the projectmanager complaint about does it work?
No.
And all that other stuff.
Well, now it's thearchitect side of things.
It's just like, I want them.
I need them.
I want them to exist because Iwant to see and feel and have other

(35:12):
people see and feel and experience.
This.
all of these different periodsof time where, , architecture was
pushed to its limits and then beyondand coming up with creative ways
of talking about , how we addressshelter and all of these other things.
And I want them to continueto keep pushing them.
And so examples like these are thoseexamples, examples like, you know,

(35:37):
say, , Gary's Guggenheim or, , big, , skislope , energy plant and things like
that, , all of these are things thatwe need to continue to keep pushing
architecture and, , you're going tohave those people who say, , we don't
need to push architecture, , it was,it was good the way it was, and we can
state that, , we need to stay that way.

(35:57):
And there's going to bepeople who want that.
But there's going to bepeople who want that avant
garde, , that, that change in it.
And so you, then you look at it, it'sjust like, well, look at, , what they
used to do here and how adventurousthey were in pushing the envelope
and all of that other stuff.
And, , they were like, well, you know,it didn't really work like, well, , we
still keep that spirit of pushing.

(36:18):
But then try it our way.
, now we now, because we still have a bookof constraints that we have to conform
to, but how can, how creative can we get?
And you can, you see like all ofthese people, all of these, , Gary
and, and big, and, Caltrava and,and, , Renzo, all of them push the
envelope of what it is, but they stillhave to conform if they want to build,

(36:41):
they still have to conform to codes.
They still have to conformto everything that they do.
They just do it in the most creative way.
And those are the things that, , and soas much as I, , kind of dump on them about
like what they do, you, we also need them.
To do what they've done so thatwe can continue to do what we do,

(37:05):
which is try to innovate, right?
So

Yeah.

you can't come back at me and like say, , Corbyn's gonna
just like take crap all over Corb.

the crap

Look

though, like, like the, the sentiment, sentiment

Yes,

you, you hear like the cheerleading for,
and, and you just kind of get

yeah, oh that that whole

God's gift to architecture, to the

yeah

to the world, and you're just like, come on, it doesn't
even keep the water out, right?
And,

The, the, exactly, exactly.

but at the

Yeah.

like you do recognize that the percentage of these.
buildings is so small on the

Yeah.

of things.

Yeah.
Yeah.

0001 percent of all the built environment that is

Right.

lot of work inspiring, pushing the envelope, you know, the

Yeah.

words that you're using, right?

When,

they are doing a lot of work for a very small number of

yeah.

projects.

When we went on tours for all of these different, like, masterworks,
you know, Mies' works you know, Frank'sworks, and all of these other stuff.
Wright's works, whateveryou want to call them.
Everybody's just like, Mr.
Wright.
Like, I'm just, it's frank to me.

You're frank

We were, yeah, we were, , we were homies.
But, um, but it's,
The thing that I found so amazing was,is that when they were like, , do we have
any architects in the group and, youknow, you'd have Like one or two people
hold their hands up, but then you'd havelike a group of 50 and maybe you'd have

(38:46):
like two or three that are architects.
And then the other ones were nonarchitects and they would be coming
from all over the place to seethese, Who, who travels to the
middle of nowhere to see these

I'm

Illinois,

projects are

see, yeah,

And an

exactly.

amount of work,

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

like them or not, right, as an individual,

Right, right.

are doing quite an

Yeah.

incredible job

Yeah.
Oh yeah.

how long have they been around?
Right.
So it's, it's, it is interestingto kind of think of it in that way.

Yeah.
Yeah.

they are

Right.
Exactly.

right?
And, and some level.

You know, I just, it so, okay, now back to the, , bagging
on him, , part of things is thewhole book, the whole, the whole
book is cheerleading for Corp.
And what is, , amazing about Corpis he was master at selling himself.

(39:51):
The interesting thing about it was, isthat he was not very technically inclined.
He, he didn't do the, the actual, like construction documents and
things like that for his buildings.
He would come up with like the, , theconcept, the idea, , the, this thought
of like, you know, minimalism andall of these other things were, you
know, things that, , he came up with,but like, , he had, , his cousin

(40:14):
was, , his structural engineer that,, ultimately made the things work, , the
way they were and stuff like that.
And, you know, it was just like,we hear Corp, Corp, Corp, Corp,
Corp, but Corp's work would notexist without, , his partnership,

Yeah.

know, and, and it was just so interesting.
It was just like, Oh,

it

yeah,

as a single, sole practitioner.
You know this.

Oh, I, yeah, but I mean,

is though, like, all the name recognition is
there in the branding, and it's

all, exactly,

person's pen that

exactly, It's Corp, Corp, Corp, Corp, Corp, but, but,
we would not have those buildings.
It, you know, we would have the idea ofthose buildings for Corp, but we wouldn't
have those buildings without, what is it?
Pierre Jeanneret.
Why am I blanking on his cousin's name?

(41:07):
But anyway, , we wouldn'thave them without him.
You know, and so itwould be like, you know,

The other person's name is

Sadly, it is become forgettable.
Sadly, that is the reason why is becauselike we're saying Corb, Corb, Corb all
the time, but we're not saying the guywho actually made all of his stuff work.
, it's just kind of a shame.
It's just, , a lot of times, sometimesin my career I felt like, I've
referred to myself a few timesas king builder, Never a king,

Hmm.

know, whereas like, , I'll do all the work and somebody
else gets all the glory kind of thing.
And we've all felt that, , on,you know, on occasion, , it's just
like, , Hey, we won this, , bigaward and all of this other stuff.
And, and they're just like, , Hey,Evan, pat yourself on the back.
You know, you did such a great joband everybody else behind Evans is
just like, wait, what do you mean?
Evan on the back.

(41:57):
Well, there's a whole lot ofpadding that needs to go on here.
And, you know, it's just or, or ifyou think about it, would we do like
groundbreakings or like, , ribboncuttings and stuff like that?
And everybody, the the backpatterns that I think you and I've
talked about before, , that that.
, we're a client side and all of thisother stuff, but the actual building

(42:18):
itself, the design of the buildingand all of that, , was the, , like
the architects sitting off, , on theside, just, you know, like clapping.
It's like, yeah, well done,well done kind of thing.
And we were never mentioned.
So

of the Uninvolved.
Yeah.

that's right.
That I remember that's what you,

ha ha ha.

you've said that numerous times and I just forgot, but.

Yep.

But Yeah.
so, so I mean, it is a good read, agood listen, it is interesting because,
you know, I find myself more and morewanting to go back and I don't know
if you recall, like, , towards a newarchitecture, was it was in that Korb's
book or was that Rasmussen's book?
Anyway, but I mean, like all ofthese different books that we

(43:01):
were assigned in Korb's book.
in college that we read, and I'm goingto use air quotes here, that we read

that

Or,

read those.

yeah, I'm going back and I'm like, you know, I want, I want to
reread this, , Kevin Lynch's image of thecity, you know, things like that, , and
I'm going to go back and reread them.
I've, you know, I will say that there isa tough audio book and that's uh, great.
I just blanked on it.
And that's sad that I justbring up Christopher Alexander's
books this one is like the,

Pattern Thinking,

, Cormac Phalen (43:34):
the pattern language and I've got both pattern language and
the timeless way of building on audio.
They're sort of a hardread or a hard listen

I

because they don't

but I'm looking over here and actually found Pattern Thinking on
my bookshelf because you, you were, youwere referring to Pattern Language, right?
But,

Right.
Yeah.

Buckminster Fuller, another

Yes.
Yeah.

he, he's,

Yeah.

his books are.

About as technical as the work he does.

Right?

Yeah.
There is one that I'm probably never goingto read and that's anything about Johnson.
Because I have a moral dilemma with him,

Yeah.

you know he like, , they're like, Ooh, the glass house, the glass
house is a copy of the Florence Worth.
But, you know, One, Maybe, maybe Ishould read, , about it, but, , one
was done by, , somebody fleeing,, Nazi Germany, and one was done by

(44:40):
somebody who, , liked Nazi Germany.

Well,

We,

question that nobody asked.
So,

exactly.

asked

nobody wanted, nobody wanted to know the answer.
Yeah.

a couple of questions in the queue and we will be addressing
those on upcoming episodes.
So listeners who have sent inquestions know that we have
received them and we will betackling those in upcoming episodes.
But remember the website,askarchispeak.com.
All it is is a place for you to

Yeah.

It's nothing else.
If you want the podcast, goto archispeakpodcast.com.
You can check out all the episodes, allthe show notes for all those episodes.
over there but a whole newwebsite, askarchispeak.Com,
and you can give us somethingto talk about here on the show.

Yeah.
And I will say that, , yes, I have theaudio books, but I do have book books.
And this is something that youand I are going to talk about.
The 250 things thatarchitects should know.

Alright.

That'll be a future episode.

homework,

Yeah.
I'm going to, I'm going to give you a,it's, it's, it's an interesting book
too because it is just, it's prompts.
It is not , an actual like, , youshould know this and this is,
you know, why you should know it.
It's literally prompts.
And if you don't know it,

is what you're

yeah.
And if you, and if you don't know it, then

Then you're in trouble.

then

number

one of the 250 things that you should know.
Like number 47, I'm going to give you, Iwill, I will leave you with this everyone.

here we go.

Straight to number 47, what the brick really wants.

Oh, a little Louis Kahn reference, nice.

Exactly.

Excellent.

So,

uh, that'll

so we'll talk about that a little bit more.

Alright, sounds good.
Go

All right.
Go Lions!

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#359 - Cormac’s Problem with Corbusier

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