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[music] Bianca, welcome back to Giant Ideas.
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Last time we talked a lot about your vision for architecture, hydonic, sustainability, all sorts of interesting stuff.
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This episode is all about the man behind the idea.
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So, we ask all our guests, if you had to define your life in three photographs, what would those three snapshots be and why? >> Interesting.
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I have a handful of photographs as of myself as a kid uh drawing uh because I I I very early fell in love with with drawing and and you know in my in my daycare there was a this young pedagogue assistant I think he was 17
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uh and he didn't really have any training and he was one of the few few um men in the uh in the daycare and and the way the way he would entertain the the kids would be he would sit and draw while telling stories about what he was drawing. And uh and he was so captivating that
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And uh and he was so captivating that just with a with a with a pen and a piece of paper and a and a truckload of imagination and a little bit of voice over.
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Uh it it was the most incredible thing to do an entire afternoon.
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and and I started like draw drawing with him and um and and eventually I I realized that I had a gift for drawing that was different than any of my my my peers or my friends, even the older kids.
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Um and and that gave me sort of um an anchor that no matter what I I felt I never really had to live up to anything because no matter what my my superpower was my ability to draw.
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So I you know it was fine.
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It was always good in school or in sports or whatever but I but it didn't really matter because my superpower was my ability to draw.
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And and I think that that kind of anchor definitely meant also when when I graduated from high school and I had no idea what to do.
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Um I somehow knew that no matter what it had to do it it needed to have something to do with drawing.
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Then maybe a second postcard to could be uh maybe from the the top of Sigra Familia that interestingly is just finishing right now.
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But like I end up in the first month of architecture school I go on this study trip to Barcelona. This is in 1993.
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Barcelona just hosted the Olympics uh in ' 92 and it's one of the most successful Olympics and one of the most successful transformations of a city for an Olympic but then of course there was also Gaudi. >> Sure.
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>> And I I had I had started architecture school because there was no cartoon academy in Denmark.
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So architecture school was part of the art academy.
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So it smelled a little bit like drawing.
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Uh but I didn't know that that architecture could be interesting.
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I was probably also subscribing to the idea that modern modern buildings were boring. >> Yes.
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[clears throat] >> And and then I discovered Gaudi and and suddenly, you know, my mind is blown that I realized that architecture can actually be incredible.
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It can almost be like physical threedimensional storytelling uh uh forms and and also like of all of his like incredibly organic architecture.
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It's also super scientific.
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Everything is made from pure geometry.
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Some of them complex, you know, ruled surfaces, cinary curves, etc.
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But so what but what really seems like freehand and uh and and artistry upon closer inspection is rooted in deeply rational, rigorous scientific structural geometric logic. >> Love that.
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What would your third photograph be bi?
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It would probably be somehow uh arriving maybe maybe arriving to the TWWA uh terminal in uh in New York when I when I when when I uh went to New York for the first time. I was 20 four maybe.
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Uh and um and the TWWA terminal by Rosarin and was was still in use.
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But but somehow like arriving to New York, this mythological city, the you know, I'm looking out at the skyline, this kind of man-made mountain range of of the raw accumulation of of of architecture that is maybe special or generic in itself, but together it becomes this manifestation of the collective uh power and ingenuity of uh of of mankind.
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Uh and that definitely also moving here definitely became another um another step.
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>> So before you moved you're you're originally from Denmark.
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Uh the Danes typically is you doing anything at a massive scale and there's a bit of a tall poppy syndrome in the country.
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On the other hand to do some of the stuff you do in architecture you need such massive self-belief.
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So how have you navigated that and how has your work been received in the Nordic community?
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>> I mean we we definitely have a tall puppy syndrome issue.
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Um I would say in the beginning because because Denmark is one of the most egalitarian countries in the world.
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Um and to to the point where disagreement is almost embarrassing.
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Uh that's why we have so many political parties because as soon as there's a little bit of disagreement they they they split up in two new parties.
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Uh but but um but I think one one one method we invented uh was um and and and we try to formulate it as yes is more but but but that you can actually create radical architecture not by resisting all of the different voices and contradicting demands but by actually saying yes to them.
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And and and one example of it is >> if you know the game of Twister. >> Yeah.
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>> The kind of family game >> where and and you start and you put your foot there and you put your other foot there and it's kind of easy and boring.
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Uh but then when you as the game progresses and you get more and more unreasonable demands, uh you find yourself in back bending configurations with your face rubbing up against body parts or family members and becomes more fun.
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And and I think in some way in architecture you have to remember the standard solution is very good at at what it's doing.
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So it's hard to beat the standard solution if you only have to solve for the for the standard problem.
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problem. So by actually piling on more demands, by saying yes to what the neighbors want and what the client wants and what what the city wants and what uh you know what what the birds want or the sunlight or the the shelter from the wind by by adding more demand, suddenly
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the the standard solution doesn't cut it any longer and and you force the architecture into something more backbending um interesting maybe sculptural uh different and and in in some way by getting the client to agree that that this is not enough. We have to
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We have to solve for this and this and this they somehow become committed to um an answer that is more interesting because it's an answer to a more complex problem or question.
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I think I think unlike a lot of the guests that we have on Bianca who uh your ideas are physically manifested in the world for decades and decades and I'm really interested in asking you about the confidence that that requires you.
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You know as a 30-some year old when you broke through as a very young man um your your ideas are suddenly being imprinted from Manhattan to Baton and they're going to last in some cases for over a century.
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Does it require enormous confidence that you have a point of view that should be there for people to see and live in and work in every day?
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And do you have to kind of top that confidence up, that creative confidence up occasionally?
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>> You need a certain conviction that uh that what you're doing um is is for the better, right?
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And um and I think one one way to to build that confidence is to be very uh vocal about the critique of the status quo.
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So to be um to be very specific about all the things that you would like to to to do better.
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uh like so so in that sense like to really have a well identified criticism or well identified problem that you're trying to solve for right so that that's one way to build up your confidence say we we might not come up with the perfect or final answer but we can at least do it better than this
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so therefore it it deserves to it deserves the try and then I would say then yeah sort of sex so so in that sense there is a that's maybe the pragmatism in the pragmatic utopian right um but then I think a lot of it is also like I I I always like to remind the team that of course we have to make sure that the
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client is happy and the users are happy and the city architect and the neighbors but we also have to make sure that we are happy so uh there has to be something in for us which is not like you know monetary gain cuz like architects are not very good at that but it's it's really there has to be some
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you can say in a way we are artists and our canvas is a very large and very expensive one but but as an architect you you need someone with a budget sometimes of billions to to make something happen right so Um so in that sense you have to make sure that everybody's happy but we also have to make ourselves happy. And then
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And then finally I would say each project and we try to say this each project has to give a gift to the world that is in addition or beyond the brief.
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Uh so it's and it and and and it's not philanthropy.
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It's just like it should somehow offer something that in the process of solving solving all the other things that we have to solve.
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We also do this and you know a very straightforward example is for instance Copenh Hill the way power plant that was so clean that we could actually turn the roof into a a park and a ski slope and a climbing wall making it blatantly obvious for everybody that this is a different kind of technology a different kind of power plant.
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You know, we did a museum that is a bridge.
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We did a parking structure next to apartments where we put the apartments on top of the parking structure and the parking structure became almost like a man-made mountain that transformed all of the the apartments into pen houses with houses with gardens because they could sit on top of a bedrock of of parked cars.
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So, so in every case it's somewhere there is this ingredient and once you identify it once you have the hureka moment where you understand what the project is all about once you know what gift you can give then in in some way back to this idea of the confidence then you know that the world will be an incrementally better place because of that of that offering that that you uh that you bring to the table.
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And what do you think it is about UB that's enabled you to succeed as one of the world's top architects?
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architects? I think I am it's almost back to your uh form of function or art or or technology kind of question is that I I think I'm very left and right brain and and I have found that at least some of the some of the leaders that I've had the
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the joy to to collaborate with like uh Renee Ritzeppi is a good friend of mine um the chef of uh of NMA and and he is incredibly intuitive, incredibly sensitive, but he also has the ability to put into words uh that which matters to him so that he can mobilize an army. And and I'm not a
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And and I'm not a I'm definitely not a good cook.
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I'm uh I'm I'm pretty good at at eating good food, but uh uh but he can speak about food in such a way that I fully understand everything he's saying.
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and and like another friend of mine, Jason Ballad, he's the founder of Icon, a 3D printing company that we're working we're collaborating to do this first building on on the moon uh as part of the Olympus project.
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and and he he wanted to be a a priest, but his um his uh his father like he's a his priest um at the seminary sort of took him aside and and and dissuaded him and said, "You can probably do more of of that which is your mission in in another field."
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Um but but again he has this incredible technical uh ability, incredible sort of like um you know mathematical engineering intelligence but at the same time this ability to elevate everything to a a higher level.
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So also he he can definitely uh g give a speech that feels like a sermon uh and and and that get gets everybody excited about what whatever practical part they have to play in this in this puzzle of of reimagining construction.
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So, so I think this to to be equally at home in both halves of the brain, the sort of the the intuitive uh and the experimental combined with the analytical and the um also to be both visual and and audio at the same time.
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>> Well, when with a bit of architectural digest for our listeners, um what makes for a great home?
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I think a great home should be I mean from the architect's point of view I would say architecture and especially when we design we haven't designed that many homes for for people but um architecture is like portraiture that and you can say because I often get the question isn't it annoying to have a client uh because they have opinions and you know but actually the client is somehow the subject of the portrait.
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So, when you're designing a home for someone, is is it is it about their their demands as a as a resident or is it about your expression as an architect?
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Just like you could say like and without without any other comparison, but like is the Mona Lisa an expression of Da Vinci as a as an artist or Mona Lisa the woman uh that is being portrayed?
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And the answer is of course both.
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that by capturing the likeness, not only the likeness, but actually the the character, the soul, the aura of the woman that was Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci expresses himself as an artist.
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And in that sense, so the home should really be about the resident and and and what makes it it should be a portrait.
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It should be almost like um drawing the contours of the kind of invisible uh lifestyle uh of of this particular family or or resident.
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It should somehow make tangible and visible an an aspect of their life that hasn't been prioritized or is somehow neglected in a kind of conventional uh uh confine.
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And so, so in that sense, it should be a kind of canvas for people to populate it with with with their life.
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>> I think that's the most joyful home renovation advice I've ever heard and a fantastic place to end our second part of Giant Ideas with you, Baka.
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Thank you so much for [music] joining us.
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Attack, >> it's been a pleasure. [music]