Bonus Replay: Improving the Work of a Legend | Part 2
Transcript
Atif Z. Qadir 00:03
Welcome to American Building. I'm your host Atif Qadir. Join me as we explore the skylines and strip malls, the crosswalks and rail crossings, the balconies, the buildings and the boroughs shaping the next generation of real estate. Let's build common ground.
Atif Z. Qadir 00:22
Four years ago, we sat down with architect and urbanist Vishaan Chakrabarti to explore his vision for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame expansion in Cleveland, then still on the drawing boards. Today, that project is under construction, reshaping Cleveland's lakefront with a bold new cultural landmark. As cranes rise and the tower takes form, our conversation with Vishaan feels more timely than ever. It's a front row seat to how great design can catalyze civic life and spur economic vitality. In this re-release of parts one and two, we revisit visions insights on adaptive reuse, public private partnerships and the power of storytelling through architecture. You'll hear about the challenges he faced, from site constraints to community engagement and the innovative solutions that laid the groundwork for today's groundbreaking construction, whether you're a developer, policymaker or a design enthusiast, this two part conversation offers a rare glimpse into the making of a landmark in motion and where the future of urban creativity may go next. Enjoy.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 01:47
A lot happened to the original building over the course of its history, in part because it was dysfunctional, in part because things like energy code came along, and people had to put like this film on the building because the amount of heat gain that the pyramid was getting and then, of course, the other thing is that late, post modern pay platonic geometry is a closed geometry. I mean, this is, this gets into, like, well, you're sitting in Michael Gray's house. So I think it's okay.
Atif Z. Qadir 02:18
It's a big box.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 02:21
I mean, look, that was a language that was about these closed, platonic forms, right triangle, circle, square, and that each of them was completely self defined and of themselves as as these little objects, and therefore not terribly open to the community. You know, even the big glass pyramid, it's, it's kind of a little wonky how he designed the front entrance, and things, again, got changed over time.
Atif Z. Qadir 02:51
It doesn't seem like the front entrance the way you park walk three quarters of a circle around to get to the entrance.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 02:57
Well, the other thing that's really fascinating when you look at history is Pei designed the building for a building for a different site, and then the site moved, and they basically transplanted the same design to the new site, which is why the plaza never feels right, because the plaza was designed as an outdoor room that was flanked by two buildings in the original site plan. But when the site moved, they moved the plaza, they moved the building, but there were no flanking buildings, and so it never got that sense of an outdoor room. So that some of the things that we're trying to bring back with the new design. And the other thing about all of this, and you can probably tell the site visit, the understanding the history is, we're a deeply fact based firm that needs. We have a process that we call place needs and connection, where, you know, Diana Angus used to say that you have to read a place before you write it. I'm sure she still does. And so you know, understanding the full breadth of the history, the community narrative, what is this place?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 04:09
For this place, before you start setting pen to paper, then you understand needs. What are the community's current and future needs of the place? What are the client's needs? What are the budgetary needs, the schedule needs. And then how, with that understanding of place and needs, do you form emotional and spiritual connection with new architecture? And out of that, forms our sort of motto, which is place needs connection that places like Cleveland, places like Detroit, especially because of the automobile, because of racial segregation, because of environmental injustices, were carved up and purposefully made to be disconnected. You know, the highway that separates you from that community, right? And. So we start as archeologists and end as seamstresses, right? Like we start in a deep, deep dive into what a place is, and try to unearth all of these facts. Oh, my God, the building was designed for a different site, right? Unearth all of these things like an archeologist would.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 05:23
And then understand that with the architecture, it's an act of sewing. We are reconnecting. We are seamstresses, right? And so we then take that archeological knowledge and say, Okay, how do we sew this quilt back together again? We know we found all these pieces. How does our piece form like the missing link in the jigsaw puzzle? Sorry, I'm mixing all these metaphors, but then you sew the pull together. And I think this goes back to what you were saying earlier, that this is, I think, an approach that is new and different and much more to me, it is the exact opposite of Bilbao, right, which is so purposely creating a segregated object that is Instagram ready. And, you know, look, I'm not trying to dis that era. It's just a different era. You know, it's the late 20th century, and we are now well into the 21st Century. We're no longer in that post cold war rational exuberance. We are in the post Katrina, post recession, hopefully soon, post covid, era where architecture and urbanism just plays a different role in our society than simply creating objects and hoping for some economic ripple effect.
Atif Z. Qadir 06:42
I think, in particular, what you're describing is this, this difference in perception of what an architect or designer's role is, and I think for previous generations, is the idea that a successful architect was the amazing soloist that everyone could listen to. And now it feels much more like that's a very lame approach, and it's actually much more about the architect being conductor or organizer or coach and many different things, but that they're not the star themselves. It's actually the team or the orchestra that's the star.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 07:14
And the thing is, that piece is maybe it's a newer approach, but we should fair. Is fair. There's a whole lineage in modern architecture. So there's this lineage that goes from Frank Lloyd Wright to core to Gary and so forth of that soloist idea. But it's never been true. First of all, I mean, like, right? It's just never been true. But second of all, there's a whole other team, 10 alto, Aldo Van Eyck. How broken that you now see, like re emerge again in this world of Tatiana, Bilbao, of Naravana Doshi and you know, in the United States, we have to play a different game with this. How one does it is very different than these other countries that you spoke to, Alia and others about right? But it is possible, and so I'm excited about this. I mean, so I think it's, I think it is important to say that, yes, it is a sort of newer generation of architecture firms that are approaching communities and cities this way, but it's well embedded in a DNA that was the humanist strand of modernism.
Atif Z. Qadir 08:31
Yeah, and I think that I have a feeling that a newer generation of architects will vote with their skills and no longer decide that working for a starchitect firm where the the one is the one that stands above everyone else and takes praise for a team's work, they don't have to work there. You don't have to work in a situation that perpetuates the idea. So I hope there are many, many more people than, say, my generation, that stood out and said, like, No, I'm I'm not going to do that, to say I'm not going to vote for someone, or I'm not going to work at a firm where their values don't align with life.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 09:08
Yeah, look, I'm a big believer in individual choice, and people should vote with their feet and do where they want to work. And people have different kind of exigencies in terms of how they work and where they work. But I know on our team, you know, we're about 30 people, and the size is great because we're a community. We know each other and trust each other. And you know, from the outset, we had this thing on our website, what we do and what we don't do, and we set apart this kind of stuff that we don't really feel that we should be, and that's not a holier than thou thing. It's just like what we don't do. And I think that's attracted a lot of people to our office. I think your generation is looking to our generation and saying, okay, you know, put up or shut up. You know, tell me how you're really different, which is, look, I want to be you. Really honest about this. This is not an easy conversation.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 10:03
We still live in a capitalist paradigm, right? I've got to pay everyone. I've got to, you know, we have good benefits. Those are expensive, right? I've got to make a living. So, for instance, we work with developers who are well intentioned. Some people think you shouldn't work for developers at all. I think that is maybe not the right line to draw in the sand. I would rather work for an enlightened developer than work for a dictator. And so, you know, when you see people show up in images with Bolsonaro or whatever I mean, I always find that stuff both predictable and shocking, if that's that makes any sense. Welcome to 2021. Right? Yeah. So look, we each have our lines and our boundary conditions. Some people have no lines or no boundary conditions whatsoever. And I think for your generation, you know, people are asking this question, like, are we really the second oldest profession of the world? Will we really do anyone for anything.
Atif Z. Qadir 11:01
Even like a consultation, right?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 11:05
That's, I mean, we had it from the outset, six years ago, in our kind of firm manifesto that we would never design correctional facilities. That's now, obviously, in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd and so many others become a huge deal in the architecture profession. You know, it's interesting, like, if you've been following New York politics, there's this whole thing about closing Rikers Island. You close Rikers, there are people who say, just don't build any more prisons. There are other people who say, Look, you need some community based jails, right? But the problem is, you look at the design standards, which I did, and it's like you still have to have an exposed stainless steel toilet in the center of the cell so the guard can see you. This is not true in many, many countries, and this stripping people, and especially people of color, basic human dignity, and the fact that an architect draws those things.
Atif Z. Qadir 12:06
And specifies the toilet.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 12:11
Right, like draws the sight lines for the guard. Okay, if that's what you want to do, that's your prerogative. But as you say, the question for young people isn't just architects, that term, I think, is a dying term, right? But it's not just whether you work for, like, world famous architects or not, what do you do all day? Yeah, right. Like, what do you do all day? Now, look, that doesn't mean that you sit in the office and write academic treatises all day. Like architecture is hard, and still have to learn how to draw a toilet partition, and you need to understand Ada and you need to, you know, like there are these things that you need to learn if you're going to be an architect, which is this thing.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 12:51
Let's say a 28 year old is an apprentice. That's not a pejorative. That shouldn't be an insult, you know, but I think some people do take it as a pejorative. Unfortunately, it's hard work, but what does it work towards? And I do think people have to make those judgments for themselves, and it's hard in a world of like, you know, I was being at Berkeley for a year and a half at 41% of our undergraduate architecture students are first generation college students, a third are underrepresented minority. You know, people have student loans and they have to pay off this is why I worked very hard to get scholarships to alleviate student loan debt, because loans hamstrung to end up being a real problem for young graduates who have to go work in corporate architecture to pay off their student loans. I worked in corporate architecture to pay off student loans. And, you know, the academy needs to do a lot more to deal with the debt crisis in terms of this. So, yeah, I mean, yes, people need to think about their choices, you know? And yes, we all have constraints and exigencies on our choices, right? But even within that context, there's latitude.
Atif Z. Qadir 14:11
I want to talk about the freedom that you had in terms of responding to the brief that the owners gave. So in this kind of did you talk through what specifically the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was looking to accomplish in this renovation, and then the major scope elements that you delivered in response to that.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 14:29
You know, we're still under a non disclosure agreement. So if there's a limited amount, I want to say, but there's an established site, there's an established site that is roughly to the south along the lake of it's the big lawn directly adjacent to the pay building. That lawn sits between the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Great Lakes Science Center, which also is kind of an object building. It has this old planetarium, like form that's an IMAX theater now. And so sites there, and they needed a number of things, a new lobby. The Multi Purpose facility, some debate about performance spaces, new office space and things that alleviated pressure in the existing building. So when you talk about the freedom we had from the brief. So to me, design freedom and architectural freedom is a great topic, and we don't talk about it. So I'm glad you used that word, because to me, it is very different than artistic freedom, right? I'm a writer. I like to draw. What you do as an artist, and the freedom you have as an artist is very different than the freedoms you have as an architect. Design, of course, requires freedom and free will at the same time. You know, famously, it is not the sculpting of an object in space because of building codes.
Atif Z. Qadir 15:49
ADA codes, practicality costs.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 15:53
That place needs connection thing. So if connection is the manifestation of freedom, that freedom is leavened with the qualities of place and the details of need and need includes, again, community needs, client needs, code, you know. Ada, all of these things that say, you know, your freedom is constrained right by the fact that we have a set of needs, and so therefore it is not just a pure sculpture in space. And so your challenge is to make something. Use your freedom, use your talent, to create something that is connective, leavened by place and needs. So for example, I have had good, healthy arguments with Pritzker laureate, friends who say that they are tired of working in the United States and in the West more generally, right? And you know, like to go off and work in the United Arab Emirates or in China, because they have freedom. They have freedom to design in a way that you don't hear to which I respond, what kind of colonialist bullshit is that?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 17:09
Yes, this is Korb and Algiers all over again. You know, if you look at the history of that plan, of plan OBS, and there's several versions of it, Korb was a big fan of the colonial project. He loved the French colonial project. He thought it would educate the Arab there's quotes to that effect. And it is this notion that if you go to these other places, that you can experiment right, as if the rest of the world is somehow the laboratory for your ideas, because somehow, in the Western world, we become smart enough to not let people build things that are either unsafe or don't allow equal access for wheelchairs or don't really respond to community needs, or, you know, whatever list of constraints that people find problematic. This is a debate that we don't have enough of in architecture circles, and this is why we're working in the Rust Belt in what, like a lot of people call flyover country. I've always found that incredibly I find flyover country as offensive as I find the term heartland, which implies that we on the coast are art less. But you know the problems we have in our politics today, the rise of fascism all over the world. Architects get to decide whether we're going to be part of the solution or part of the problem. Yes, me, we're part of the problem if we go serve fascists in other places, because they let us quote experiment, right?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 18:43
Or we work in the Hurly burly of democracy. And in the Hurly burly of democracy, you know, your show is called American building. You know, building in this country is getting more and more complicated for all sorts of reasons. And you know, our project at Princeton, Princeton is in the middle of an extraordinary reconceiving of itself, of a place that was a kind of epicenter of white privilege, and turning into this place that is really trying to guide its resources to become a place that fosters equity and really questions a lot of racial practices, right? And it's very palpable when you're with Princeton to understand that this transformation is taking place. The College we're designing is the replacement college for the college that was named after Woodrow Wilson, now called first college, right? That is, you know, is now going to be named after Mellody Hobson, one of the most prominent African American business women and alumni from Princeton. And so this is a sea change, and architects get to decide whether they want to be part of that sea change leaders in. That seat change or picking up the rear guard.
Atif Z. Qadir 20:07
If you appreciate thoughtful design forward jewelry, you'll love The Mira Shoppe. It is an ethical fine jewelry brand that offers artisan crafted pieces from developing countries. From its sales, it supports educational opportunities for girls worldwide. I shop there myself and can personally recommend their unique, beautifully made products. Check them out at www.TheMiraShoppe.com, and that's spelled T, H, E, M, I R, A, S, H, O, P, P, E.com, American building podcast listeners get a complimentary gift with their first purchase, just email info at the mirror shop.com to receive your exclusive code and treat yourself to a piece you'll cherish while supporting a brand that gives back.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 21:06
Right and longing for the late 1990s that's the decision before us, you know, and I think that the firms that are succeeding are the ones that are taking On and it's not like we're virtue signaling. We've got the flag. It's incredibly hard. Everything about it's incredibly hard because you're and you're still engaging capitalism, you're still engaging a lot of rules that were written before we got here. But that's the choice.
Atif Z. Qadir 21:37
I think. What you're describing is this idea that architects that choose to focus more on themselves than the people around them essentially draw this caricature of this villainous, arrogant person or this arrogant actor that doesn't necessarily imagine that their work has to be perceived in a context of something else. It's this thing that is delivered upon people, and I think that there is a big generational difference that is going to come very soon now that millennials and Gen Z are half the US population, and I think pretty soon will be half of the US electorate as well. So, yeah, I look forward to that change.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 22:20
You know, the way you phrase that, to me, raises this question of, what is the role of the self? What is the role individual? Because I believe that, you know, architecture is not a science. It is both art and science. And you know, if you read Bucky Fuller, or you look the rock and roll, Hall of Fame has completely invaded my dreams. I dream about the project. I wake up in the middle of the night and I send a sketch to the team at four in the morning, and.
Atif Z. Qadir 22:48
It's not a vocation. It's your calling. Then, if that's what happens?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 22:52
Well, sure, but my point, though, is that there's still in everything we've said, I'm not trying to obviate the role of design, of an individual's kind of agency in design, and as a firm leader, someone who sure there is my imprimatur on these things, right? I'm not trying to deny that, or deny the strength of the power of that. You know, people hire us with that expectation. It's how that imprimatur, it's how heavily it's manifest. Is it bold, 48 point type, or can it sit there, as you know, 12 point and kind of just live on the strength of the substance of the words rather than the size of the font? And does it provide room? You know, one of the first decisions I made was to not put my name on the front door and to call the firm something that is somewhat generic, a practice, architecture and urbanism, but substantively meaningful, because that's what we are. We are a practice, and we are focused on architecture and urbanism, and it shortens to power, which is fun, because it's about the desire for impact, right? And, you know, I'm not trying to take away that role of someone who wants to sketch and furtively model, and it's not some mechanistic thing that can just be taken over by robots someday. But that doesn't mean that it's all about the individual at the name is on the front door. There's just a nuance in there that is hard sometimes to it's impossible to quantify and hard to qualify.
Atif Z. Qadir 24:35
I think this might be an appropriate point to mention to our listeners that one of our upcoming guests in season two is architect Pascal Sablan of at J associates. So Pascal was also the founder beyond the built environment, and her work on social justice and design was one of the reasons that she was awarded the 2021 Whitney Young Jr award by the AIA. So. Subscribe to the American building podcast so you don't miss any of the spectacular episodes, like this one or the one coming up with Pascal. So I was a tour guide at MIT, and I had the opportunity to give a tour of the campus to the family of I.M. Pei, because one of his family members was actually my classmate. So siblings of I.M. Pei, extended family members of a large group, and I believe, because I was a course for architecture undergrad, I was the guy that was selected to take them around. So during the course of their project, you've become much more familiar with the legacy of I.M. Pei and him as a person. So what would you say are your strongest impressions of him now at this point in your design process?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 25:45
Well, so first of all, I have an obsession with Pei that dates back well before winning this building, which I think showed up in our response to the wrong call. My wife and I, our first apartment was in kips Bay towers, which is a pay project. And this relates back to what I was talking about earlier in my own experience and the experience of many others who are not part of the dominant culture. Harry Cobb was a friend of mine, and I used to ask him about this, and it was a different generation, so I think it was a little harder to talk about. But you know, Pei, famously, Pei did his urban planning work. You know, he worked as the house architect in the development firm for Bill zeckendorf. I would have to imagine that when PEO was coming of age and coming out of Cambridge, that he was not easily accepted among white shoe architecture firms as their next, you know, great designer. And usually, I mean, you know, even a place like som, you know, you had partners like Imran Khan, but they were structural engineers, like it was ever, you know, there was always this notion that design was meant for the Blue Bloods, right?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 26:51
And I.M. Pei might have been a blue blood in the Chinese context, but not in the American context. So, what are my impressions of Pei, that he was an extraordinarily agile, nimble thinker that brought to the rigidities of modernism a certain sense of whimsy, along with order and the Rock Hall, which is sort of late pay you really, really feel this, there are moves, especially on The lake side of the building that show a master architect with a great sense of license and belief in himself to make these free, non orthogonal, not rigid kind of design moves that show his own confidence in himself. You know, Pei was obviously, famously, like a consummate gentleman. I've never heard anyone speak an ill word of him always, you know, kind of the soft spoken, but die hard getting what he wants. Kind of architect, that's funny. I'm reading this book the house the rock built. That's the history of that building. And Pei was selected by the chair of the board of the New York foundation of the Rock Hall, who was also the founder of Rolling Stone. And there's this thing about, well, you know, I am Pei also stood. There was a, I guess there was a kind of colloquialism with pay that I m Pei could also translate to you will pay, the buildings will go over budget, and the guy never heard and I thought was really funny. That's hilarious. You know, we don't have enough figures like pay anymore. We don't have enough figures like Norman Foster anymore. Norman Foster was a cop 26 he was he did a breakfast with John Kerry and mayors from around the world. You know, like these people again, who can think so precisely about design and esthetics and material logic and structural logic, and then expand their world out. Pei, I don't know if, while you were at MIT, and while you're giving the family the tour, if you saw Pei's thesis from MIT.
Atif Z. Qadir 28:59
Is it in the Roche library?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 29:02
Yes, and it is worth looking up. It is much more radical than you might expect from what feels like a career of an establishment architect. So I hope a lot more is written about him over time. I don't think we fully understand the man, you know, I do a lot of photography, and the famous French photographer, Henry Cartier Bresson, was someone who was very influential for me. And there was a show at MoMA, you know, that was about Cartier persons early work, and his the influence he both felt and had on the surrealist movement, and cardio person goes on to become one of the world's most sort of establishment photographers, in the way that pay is an establishment architect. But I think just a millimeter under the surface, there's the much, much more complex individual there, and I think Pei is of that same ilk.
Atif Z. Qadir 30:00
Hmm. So then, in terms of being able to understand someone that is different at heart than perhaps anyone else of his contemporaries, you talked about reading a book in history of his. You talked about visiting his building and understanding it in the context of where it's located. Were there any other tools that you had at your disposal and understanding the designer and his intent in that duration of that building?
Vishaan Chakrabarti 30:26
Getting dressed in the dressing area he designed in our little apartment in Kips Bay, which, of course, and I'm sure Pei designed, I think those are just literally his apartments. A one bedroom has a foyer, it has a dressing area. It's so civilized, and there's this way in which pay defined space. So you understood that even though it was an open plan setting, there was this area that had a sense of privacy where you got dressed. And it's amazing how much we've lost this in like apartment design. But the larger point is he has a strategy for defining. In other words, it is not the museum kind of liquid space where you know space is flowing in every direction, broken, undefined, infinite. Pay spaces tend to be quite finite. And they do, of course, dance with each other in this way that the you know, breaks them open and gives them fluidity, but not in a messian way. And in fact, it like again, if there's any to me, that the predecessor of pay is Khan, because Khan also tends to work with finite volumes of space, and so that is a big influence for us.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 31:51
We've thought about this issue a great deal, and how much we're going to play the pay game versus the power game of again, how do we be reverent to this great architect, but irreverent in the sense that it is a different moment, a different time in a musical genre that has rapidly, rapidly evolved the chair, the current chair of the Rock Hall. You know when you induct Jay Z and Todd Rundgren and LL Cool J and Carole King all at the same time. You know, people might rightfully ask, well, what is this rock and roll? What is the Museum of like rock and roll, if you define it that broadly, right? And Dave Chappelle, when he introduced Jay Z, said, You know, it's great that Jay Z is being inducted, but you have to understand he belongs to us. When he said that, I realized part of what he was saying was an assertion about the fact that, you know, rock and roll had historically been too often understood as a white genre. That's what he was saying.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 32:58
And he was saying like, look, does Dave Chappelle, I'm paraphrasing, but he basically saying Jay Z is hip hop before he's rock and roll in all circumstances. And I get that, but what the current chair of the Rock Hall Foundation says is that what rock is, it is what moves the spirit of young America. And that is, and it's interesting, because you've chosen to use the word American in your podcast, and I'm really glad you know, and there are people in my office who are like, spirit of young America. I mean, at this point, isn't rock roll, rock rolls. It's international genre. How can it just be the spirit of young America? And again, there's the British invasion and, like, how can you possibly but I do think that for this young country, it is important, if we're going to hang together and be a country, which is a big question mark right now, that we need cultural anchors. We need cultural definition that says this is who we are, and that doesn't mean that it's not simultaneously International, but there are things that ground us, you know, as Americans and you know, look, I'm an immigrant.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 34:13
I was born in Calcutta, you always feel like the only place you're ever truly welcome is on an airplane. You know, right? Like, you know, you show up in everywhere in a word, and say, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, you show up in India with the American accent. It's like, Who's this guy? You show up here and, like, anyway. But, I mean, I certainly feel very at home with rock and roll. And, you know, there's that great movie about, I think the young I think he's Pakistani who like and Bruce Springsteen like, gets him through life. He's like a Londoner, you know, young Londoner, and like Bruce spring blinded by the light. That's the name of, anyway, my point is just that to say that rock is about the spirit of young America, I think, is critically important. Important, because what it's saying is that whether it's Jay Z or, you know, much newer artists or much older legacy artists, that the continuum, the through line, is about this way in which youth change the culture. And America is a place that has a history of the youth changing culture and demanding things of the establishment that creates very, very high speed evolution, and that is something that is endemic to this country, but is spreading.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 35:37
I mean, I think when you look at like the gay rights decision in the Indian courts that's coming out of an American sense of activism that is now very alive in a country like India and certainly the climate movement is is all about this. Youth Activism is critical. And so I really like this. I really like this notion that the building now has to be this channel, this conduit, for the spirit of young America. And that brings into question, is it a series of finite, established forms that Pei was so fond of, and does that? Is that really the right formal language for the spirit of young America? That's the question mark that we are heavily into right now.
Atif Z. Qadir 36:23
I think what's so fascinating, what you described as the this inspiration for your firm, and the way that you approach projects, in terms of jobs, justice and joy, is something that is so in its collection, so uniquely American, this idea that through hard work, you gain freedom, and you're able to have the ability to start anew anything that you want in this country, that traditional idea of America, this idea that despite X, Y, Z, you can pursue your dreams here, the founding ideas of our country, and this idea that America does things just a little bit differently than the rest of the world, which often is a often is a reason for joy for a lot of people. So I feel like this, what you kind of described is this, this America, in a nutshell, the America in its purest, distilled form.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 37:12
As a set of ideas. I mean, the problem is that so many things are broken. Of course, the equal opportunity in the education system, the housing system, the healthcare system, the transit system, that's all broken. The idea that I mean even capitalism, pure capitalism means that you pay for your negative externalities. You pollute a river, you clean up the river, right? So the fossil fuel companies and the fossil fuel subsidies and the fossil fuel lobbyists, we don't have pure capitalism, we have a completely, completely warped form of capitalism that allows that to happen. So my point is, yes, those things that you all stated, those are things I celebrate as well. I mean, my parents came here with $32 and look it up may right? But the thing is, is that, as immigrants, especially, it's incredibly important to not get lulled into the narrative of the American dream without understanding all that's wrong with it, all it's doing to fail people instead of empower people. And so to me, I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. It's like reading about Jefferson and your mind just gets blown. You know, this guy that was so important.
Atif Z. Qadir 38:23
He was a rapist and a slave owner, a lot of all your bad things.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 38:27
But also the establishment of a lot of the enlightened, Enlightenment principles that you just espoused. And so, you know, you have to deal with this constant, constant sense of contradiction, right? And so when you say things like, this, is the American building podcast, The Rock Hall channels the spirit of young America. You can't just hold up the flag as this rah rah thing without acknowledging those contradictions at the same time, we can't seed the flag to the fascists who will claim that it is theirs and only theirs, and only they are patriots, and so forth. So that, to me, is the challenge. That's the mix that we are all in. And architecture is the manifestation of that. And an architecture about a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is really the manifestation of that. And so it's an exciting moment, if you're willing to kind of grab the uncertainty of this time.
Atif Z. Qadir 39:26
Let me ask you this. Then, given all of the complexities, the values and the needs that are going into this building and its renovation, how would you want i m Pei to react to your renovation and be the opportunity to walk in through your work when you're done.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 39:43
Boy, that's a tough one, you know, and it's hard. I mean, I wonder how his family will feel about it. We are trying our best to honor his legacy while understanding that the building. Thing, the genre of rock and roll, the times we live in have moved past that moment. You know, these things are terribly hard. You know, I was asked to speak years ago at the Sydney Opera House, and it was one of the most moving things I've ever had to do. I could barely get through the talk. I was very emotional about it. And when you go there and you realize that you're not saying never saw the completed building, that it was completed on his behalf. In some things were absolutely brilliant. Like a lot of what overep did as the engineer was absolutely brilliant. Other things that, like the local chapter of you know, their equivalent of the AIA completed the base of the building. Really tough. These things are hard, you know, but it's so one of our first projects of how is the dominant sugar refinery? And that was not designed by a famous person, but it's a landmark. It's a heritage building. And palimpsest, you know.
Vishaan Chakrabarti 40:57
I think, is one of the most important things we can explore as architects today, everything's a palimpsest, because there's layers of history everywhere. There is no tabula rasa. And this is why, of course, again, people love working out in those desert sites, but even those desert sites have no tabula rasa. There's a climate, there's indentured slaves as workers. There's a context. There's always a context. So this sense that working with a historical artifact, whether it's a landmark for a building run by a very famous architect, and how you layer, as opposed to just again, that myth of the solo artist conjuring the object out of thing to me is that, first of all, it's harder. What I like to say, this is more sauce for the goose. You know, there's junk. There is no sport in just going and playing on an empty field. My grandfather always used to tell me that you should never play chess with someone who's worse than you. And so when you're playing chess against the context of a site, a famous architect, incredibly rich musical genre, this is what you're playing chess with and like, that's only gonna tune your mind and challenge you and try to make you better, as opposed to just this thing where some shake says, Build me an icon out in the desert. I really gonna, can you birth this icon? Is that really gonna challenge your mind that much when there's so little pushing against you? All you're pushing against you is yourself at that moment, and that is, to me, not a terribly attractive thought.
Atif Z. Qadir 42:40
I think that's a wonderfully appropriate perspective to take so you produce something that is going to be iconically beautiful, as well as respectful of the of the legendary architect that prepared the original building. Thank you so much for joining us today on the American Building Podcast.
Atif Z. Qadir 42:56
I'm Atif Qadir, and thanks for joining me on American Building. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe on your favorite listing app and leave a rating and review. America's housing crisis is one of our greatest challenges. But what are the real solutions? Hear from the developers and other industry experts driving meaningful change. Get our exclusive guide housing in America eight ways we could. Solve our way out of a crisis at americanbuildingpodcast.com.