102. How to get in the Star-Architect Staffers Club©

Even though it is not defined by brick and morter walls The Starchitect Staffers Club is guarded by bouncers at the gate and is every bit as real as the club that Bruno infiltrated in the clip above. In fact, it is similar to it in more ways than you can imagine.

 

In my previous series, I revealed the existence of the Starchitect Staffers Club©: An inter-star-office-employee-exchange-system where staffers of starchitect firms move easily and exclusively from one starchitect firm to another. A system that rejects employees of non-starchitect firms from entering and selects only people who have worked at other starchitect firms.

As I have mentioned several times in this blog before, the best and easiest path to becoming a famous architect is to work for another famous architect; preferably Rem Koolhaas. This is the forerunner of the old apprentice system. You work for a master and learn the ropes before branching out on your own.

 

The business model of a starchitect firm is extremely different from that of a regular architecture firm.  Don’t be fooled!; the fact that a firm’s name ends with the word “architects” and that they produce drawings for things called buildings, doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the same things. The way a starchitect firm and a regular architect firm works and operates are as dissimilar as the difference between how the company Nike produces a product called a shoe and the way your local shoemaker produces a similar product by the same name.
 

So if you are aiming to become a famous architect, working or interning for a regular architecture firm won't do you any good; you will have to assimilate a very specific system better known as the star-architect system. This effectively means that you have to get into the Starchitect Staffers Club© and work at a starchitect firm before moving up its ranks to become a star yourself.

 

But if your resume will not get past the trash can without another starchitects name on it, then how do you enter this club you ask?

 

Certainly nobody was born into it and you can’t just spontaneously sprout 3 years of experience at Frank Gehry or OMA on our resume!  So how then?
 

Well there are many ways, but the most common way by far is to start as an intern. However, this is not so simple. Is it ever? Interns are often hand picked by a starchitect professor or close associates. The selection criteria are far and wide, both random and calculated; sometimes they pick a person who was just there at the moment when they needed someone, sometimes it is because the student did outstanding work or is duly talented with a specifically needed skill set, sometimes because they choose by carefully evaluating candidates from a pile of CV’s, sometimes they just like they way you look, or speak, or that you come from somewhere exotic or interesting, or sometimes they ask a colleague if they know of anybody, sometimes its because you were bold enough to ask when no one else would.
 

If this sounds daunting and totally random - you are kind of right - it is, but don’t worry. Conrad has some tips on how to increase your probability of getting an internship.

 

Here is one clue:

 

The chart below shows a survey of 16 employees who came directly from collage selected randomly from the Diller Scofidio + Renfero. The primary question of the survey was: Where did you go to school before being hired as an intern at DS+R?

 

 

As stated, a starchitecture school is a school where starchitects are professors:

If you are a non-architect civilian and knew absolutely nothing about the culture of architecture and I showed you this chart, you should be able to tell me with reasonable accuracy which schools have starchitects as professors.

 

In this case Renfero has taught at Rice, Parsons the New School for Design, School of Visual Arts, and Columbia University. Scofidio has taught at Cooper Union since 1965. Diller has also taught at Cooper Union in addition to Columbia University, Princeton University and Harvard University. It is no coincidence that Columbia University is at the top of the list.

 

As you can also see for yourself, basically all Ivy League schools are represented in this tiny sampling of interns. So your chances of getting into the club is significantly increased by going to one of these starchitecture schools. This is regardless if you want to work for DS+R or any other starchitect firm. I am unfairly focusing on DS+R because I have data collected on them from my prevoious notes. However, this is the norm throughout the starchitect industry.

 

This information would be great to know if you were in high school so you can choose the school beforehand. The interesting thing though is that most kids in high school who dream of becoming an architect do not dream of becoming a stararchitect. However, once you are in a starchitecture school you are indoctrinated with the idea that the only honorable recourse after leaving school is to become a starchitect.

 

So this note by default is for students who are already in starchitecture school. The good news is that you are halfway there. The bad news is that you only have a 2% chance of entering the Starchitect Staffers Club and a 0.001% chance of becoming an actual starchitect.

 

You like to gamble?

 

Lets roll the dice then, this is not a game for the cautious and sensible.

 

You are not like the hundreds and thousands who have failed before you. No!

You are special, these stupid statistics and laws of probability do not apply to you.

 

In the voice of the great General Douglas McAuthor - cigar in mouth and all: “I like your spirit lad!”

 

Here are 5 tips to increase your odds:
 

Give up this cock-a-manian obsession most architecture students have about finding and developing your own architectural signature, and style.  
bla, bla, bla. it is stupid! get over it. By the time you wake up from that coma, the train will already be gone. Read my post on starchitecture school. Your sole purpose in starchitecture school is to illuminate your starchitect professor’s ideas and theories and make him look good and proud when he has final reviews and discuss your project with his colleagues. Thoroughly research his every project and theories beforehand and on the first day of class get ready to reinterpret them magnificently.
Read note # 63. What is important in STARchitecture school

Give up this cock-a-manian obsession most architecture students have about designing a functional building that could work in the real world.
This is not what starchitecture school is about. It only has to be functional in proportion of the idea that it discusses or as functional as your starchitect professor wants it to be. You will learn to do all this stuff when you get to work in an office. So just calm your anxiety about this, its not so special. See note #84.You Don't Have to be Good - Part 3: It's about the Idea Stupid! 
and note #86.You don’t have to be good part 4: Form follows Taste.

Be outstanding.
This is the first prerequisite to becoming a star. There is never a star-architect that is just ordinary. If you have a special skill, or talent, or aptitude or whatever that can separate you from the rest of your classmates in a positive way, then use it.

• Are you from somewhere exotic,?
• do you have mad skills in a particular program?
• are you a model making wizard?
• can you speak eloquently about your work?
• have a certain sex appeal?
• an air of sophistication about you maybe?

These are all things that can actually help increase your odds. Use that as your foundation and build from that. As the saying goes: if you got it use it.

Now I know some people are going to write me and say "hey Conrad you mean to tell me that I have to use my sex appeal instead of just making good work?".
Hear me and hear me good. This is not what I am saying; being aware of these things is not a substitute for making the best work you can.

The correctness of the architecture culture would have you believe that a person is evaluated solely on the merits of the work that they produce. This is nonsense!
The work you produce is just the tip of the iceberg. You are evaluated on every aspect of your being that the senses can grasp. Your eye, skin and hair color, your smell, voice, accent, attitude, smile, punctuality, ability to listen and respond to criticism, your learning curve, social skills, economic background, any rumors about you, everything and i mean every gad-damn-thing you can think of.

You have to be aware of these things and project the most positive aspects of them all the time. To ignore this and pretend that it is only what you produce as architecture that is taken in to account when you go forward with your career is grossly naive.  As I am telling you now, your architecture career starts the first moment you walk into the architecture studio and create that first impression on your classmates and professors.
 

Ask!
never mind all your timid stuttering overly childish and critical classmates that might giggle and talk behind your back. Go up to your star-architect professor and ask him for an internship. Don’t wait to be asked, you just might get him on a day when he is in a good mood. If you don’t ask at some point your chances of getting in the club is nil. Remember, if you do it while you are in school, you can apply again and again, if you don't get a yes the first time. However, you only get one chance of applying for internships after graduating.  If you wait until then, your odds become close to nil as well. Do the math!
see note #69. Be Shameless about Asking for things

Work for Free
Give up the idea that working for free at a starchitecture firm or an up and coming firm is a form of exploitation. I will discuss this in more detail in a later note. Take my word on it for now and just consider it an obligatory entry fee into the Starchitect Staffers Club©. See the starchitect business plan at the top of note #100 for some typical contract terms you might expect.

Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT

Liberating Minds Since August 2007

100. Diller Scofidio + Renfro and The Star-Architect Staffers Club

This is a loose working outline for the business model of the star-architect office:

1. Create spectacular head turning projects and publicize them like crazy to get attention and attract clients, but most importantly to attract talented apprentices/interns to work for free.
2. When the resumes start pouring in, negotiate for free labor: make offers along these lines:
• “Help us on this competition and if we win, we will hire you” or...
• “Work for us for free and we will help you get a job at another star-architect firm where we have good contacts”
3. As you will experience high turnover rate on your interns, maintain a small group of partners or loyal employees as the core of the company and use intern help to become the major production drivers.
4. Produce more head turning pieces of architecture to attract more attention, and more interns.
5. With more interns at your disposal, use this resource to increase the volume of competitions that you can enter.
6. At this rate you are almost certain to start winning some of those competitions and your company's star will begin to rise
7. With better name recognition and more experience, you can make better quality competition entries and attract even better talent (preferably from other star-architect offices). This is the tipping point where the table turns. At a certain point you will only look at resumes from people who have worked at other star-architect offices. And if you are really good, you can set the bar even higher.

Here we can see an example of an incredibly high bar: Diller Scofidio + Renfro will not consider your resume unless you have worked on at least 4 museums, or equivalent. This effectively means that if you have not worked for another star-architect then do not apply. Why? There are virtually no non-starchitecture firms in the world today that can offer an employee the opportunity to work on the design of a major museum or cultural projects, let alone 4.

Even more... Lets say you have worked for another star-architect firm and you only did residential work, according to this template you need not apply.

So who should apply then?

The Competition. Trailer from OFFICE FOR STRATEGIC SPACES/OSS on Vimeo.

Most of the employees of the star-architects in this film are eligible to apply to Diller Scofidio+Renfero and likewise DS+R employees are also eligible to work at any of these offices.

 

So what we effectively have here is a kind of a Schengen Zone within the architecture world: a group of elite starchitecture firms that functions almost like a single firm with an interoffice employee exchange.  While most other star-architect offices are less explicit than DS+R about their prejudices and discriminations, they mostly operate with a fairly similar set of qualification criteria.  I like to think of it as the establishment of a Star-Architect Staffers Club©.  By screening resumes in the way that DS+R does, they forge an effective way to identify members of this club and create a kind of inter-office-network with other starchitecture firms, while simultaneously creating a protective buffer against applicants from non-starchitecture firms.

 

The chart below shows a survey of 16 employees selected randomly from the firm. The primary question of the survey was: Where did you last work before being hired at DS+R?

 

 

As you can see almost every last one of them worked at a starchitecture firm or an up-and-coming one.

So what are the implications of a Star-Architect Staffers Club?
 

Luca Silenzi wrote a very interesting article Know your [archi-]meme (published in the March 2012 issue of  Domus) where he describes some of the implications and consequences that results when you have an inbred culture within the architecture world. (Incidentally he references note #73 of this blog Work for Rem in his arguments.) He argues that "Global architecture, is becoming more and more similar to itself." Among other reasons for this, he cites "global network" and "same background" in describing the staffers of these firms. He details how the staff of OMA are directly or indirectly inoculated with encyclopedic amounts of information; approaches, working methods, etc. simply by working in that environment. These ideas or memes move with these staffers when they move on from the parent firm ( in this case OMA) and are replicated elsewhere around the globe.

I would also add that it spreads a certain culture with its own set of values, procedures and norms that are accepted globally within these firms. This is not dissimilar to the codes of conduct and corporate culture you may find across both Wall street and the London stock exchange-  the main visual difference here is that the formal corporate garb of the suit and tie are replaced by black or hipster clothing. The values are similar;

-to become a lean well oiled machine for making the most money in the case of wall street and
-to become a lean well oiled machine for winning the most competitions in the case of DS+R and others.

 

It is interesting to look at the values professed by the founding partners as late as 2009 in contrast to the values they have absorbed up till now. The statements below are taken from an interview that they did with Charlie Rose that year (the full video and partial transcript can be found in note # 59 of this blog Take a Lesson from Diller+Scofidio+Renfero:

Scofidio: Before Elizabeth and I started working together, I had been at another practice, and I had been really sour with the way the profession of architecture was approaching jobs, work and getting commissions. It had nothing to do with issues of architecture. It had to with: I have to produce an income, I have to get work, I have to stay alive.

Diller: We were always a research studio. We were always interested in research whether the outcome was in the form of an installation, in the form of a book, or ultimately in the from of a building. They were just iterations of different forms of the same ideas.

By hiring only people who can demonstrate that they have designed museums and cultural buildings says more about what DS+R has become than any of the two statements above. For one thing it says:

"we are an organization that is about getting museums and cultural building commissions"

or 

"We are a machine for doing that and there is no place for you here if you can not be a gear in this engine".

 

I hate to point out the obvious, but isn't that exactly what Scofidio claimed to have been soured by in the statement above?

Secondly, if you are a research studio and you are interested in research whether the outcome is in the form of an installation, a book or ultimately in the from of a building, then why are people that are particularly skilled in the design of museums and cultural buildings better qualified for these diverse outcomes?

The best explanation here is that DS+R are in the latter stages (stage 7 ) in the star-architect business model that I described in the opening statement of this note. Gone are the days of crazy experiments, exploring the boundaries between art and architecture, high employee turnover, etc.  This has become a firm almost entirely dedicated to one highly specific commercial purpose: winning starchitecture competitions.

Now don't get me wrong, winning competitions is not a bad thing and being efficient at it by hiring people that are experienced and proficient at it is certainly a good idea. Who doesn't want to work with good experienced people?

My critique of this practice is the exclusivity, not in quality, but in the lack of diversity. Here is another statement they made in that same interview:

Diller: Sometimes we were thought of as just wanting to be on the periphery; a decision to want to lob grenades from the periphery at architecture critically...
when we had a chance to do this building, (the ICA Boston) for many people it was a kind of a wake up... for us it was a kind of validation.

Scofidio: Before that we did theater, performance, installations, and a lot of architects accused us of not being able to deal with compromise, not being able to deal with difficult issues of construction. They thought we were taking the easy way out. They kept saying "wait till you do a building... you will see".

Charlie Rose: And what did you find out when you did a building?

Scofidio: The problems are there in everything you do whether you do a drinking glass (which we have done for water), there are complex problems.

Do you see the perplexity and contradictions in their hiring practice?

It becomes even more pronounced in contrast to statements like the ones above. If the problems are the same from a drinking glass to something as complex as a museum why not hire a diversity of quality people. It would follow that your website would say something like:

 "we are interested in quality people from all disciplines; industrial designers, architects, costume designers, artists, etc"

Where is the compromise? Where is the middle ground between being a critical practice and being an established firm? Shouldn't your hiring and staff constitution reflect that?

To me the ominous voice of your critics saying "wait till you do a building... you will see" seems to be particularly prophetic. The validation here seems to be now a validation for the critics not the other way around.

Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT

Liberating Minds Since August 2007

PART 2 OF THIS SERIES CONTINUES HERE >>> 

90. The deceptive paradox that is the Zumthor brand

Deception and paradox is the touchstone of Peter Zumthor’s branding strategy. By that I mean that he blatantly goes around promoting himself as a reclusive non-promoter. He goes on television, radio, interviews, films, etc only to then say that he does not believe in promoting himself. Its like a commercial advertisement saying “look at our product, it is so good we don’t have to advertise it” 
.


I had written an article about this exact same thing some years ago (you can read it here), then at the Venice Biennale I was confronted by it again via the Wim Wenders film about Zumthor “NOTES FROM A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ARCHITECT”. There it was again,  plain as day staring me in the face: Yet another blatant self promoting stunt, this time in the form of a film, placed in the middle of the Venice Biennale (the biggest, most eventful architectural spectacle in the world) targeted to a specific architecturally interested group. What is the main argument of the film you ask?:

"Peter Zumthor [is] an architect not driven by the need to make a name for himself ".



For a guy who is not driven by image making or doesn't believe in self promotion, this is an awfully promotional thing to do. You simply can not get more promotional than that.



What’s interesting is that this is a film not so much about Zumthor’s work, but more about Zumthor the man himself. He is presented as this great master architect: a made to order genius who has all the answers figured out; a deity ready to be worshiped. I was expecting the film to end with the narrator urging the audience to take a "pilgrimage" to his studio at least once in their lifetimes and lay at his feet and absorb his infinite wisdom.  



Without any critical perspective, the film turns 5 minutes into one long masturbatory monologue of lustful admiration. It just showers a lot of praise on him personally, not so much his office or the people working for him (though they were mentioned and shown peripherally) but on him, his traits, his personal habits, his hands, his feet, his unstyled style white beard, his purposefully unkempt eyebrows, his black plastic framed glasses, etc.



More correctly this is Zumthor porn. 



It had nothing whatsoever to do with the theme of the Biennale: Common ground.



This was just a downright blatant self promotional stunt. In the context of the biennale, it felt like  an outright infomercial. 



The film starts off with the master making a cup of coffee, in his kitchen as Wim Wender’s narrator voice gently chimes in:

...He is a man who is very adamant about his morning coffee. 


We were able to spend a couple of days with him in his atelier and get a look at two of the projects Peter Zumthor was working on right now with his team of mostly young architects. I was most impressed by the sense of place in the buildings of his that I have seen so far and in the sites that I have visited in the past: museums, public structures, chapels, private houses. 
But meeting Peter Zumthor here in the apartment and office space he had built for himself and watching him work, I was even more impressed... 


Below are some screenshots from the film:  




Here is the great master making coffee barefooted. If you are a seasoned publicist such as the ones working on political campaigns styling the candidate for the right look to convey the right message, then you will know that showing barefoot in such a context is meant to soften the image and show him as a man connected to the ground, in touch with the earth, a sensitivity for the materials and the architectural surfaces around him. This was no accident. Though I have no doubt that this is how he normally goes about his studio, showing him like this adds to the theatrics and reinforces the image of him as the materially sensitive reclusive: That is the Zumthor brand.   




This is how Peter Zumthor drinks his morning coffee  




This is Peter Zumthor after drinking his coffee  




Here is a shot of Peter Zumthor's masterful hands as they draw

 


And this one...this is the money shot right here: the centerfold spread. As Peter reclines in his Le Corbusier chair with one leg over the armrest, the narrator's voice gently says: 

I was even more impressed by his sense of time, how much he is at ease and relaxed, cool, calm and collective, well spoken and most of all how he refuses to be rushed: He lets his projects ripen and mature like good wines so that they reveal themselves more and more to him and his team. So then he keeps mulling on the goodness he wants to do so that he can actually improve on them layer after layer, until he feels that they can't be built better. Only then he goes ahead: A procedure that would be considered an outrageous luxury not only in my own profession... 

Besides the sexual overtones, the suggestion here is that Zumthor is never stressed out about deadlines, client pressure, etc. He does the project fully on his terms. A man at ease with himself and the world: a Don among architects if you will. 



This kind of reminds me of someone I know:



 "I am a passionate architect, I don't always work for money, but when I do, I prefer Deception and Paradox." ..."Stay foolish, my friends."


When you have a statement like the following (this is the parting words of the film):

 Peter Zumthor an architect not driven by the need to make a name for himself or constructing as much as possible, but driven by the urgent desire to improve his buildings so that the lives of those people using them or living in them will become better 


It implies that he is an exception to the norm, that most other architects are overly driven by making a name for themselves, that we just want to build as much as possible, that the majority of us are not interested in improving the lives of our clients through our work. But Peter Zumthor is one of the rear bread that does care and have integrity.



This just does not hold water. 



I have traveled around the world and I have met architects from all corners of the planet and in my experience, as a group, architects are by and large very decent people that come with a lot of integrity and passion for what they do. I have yet to come across an architect who really does not give a shit about his/her clients. Even the dirtiest scums at the bottom of the profession who take advantage of interns, etc, generally tend to want to make their clients satisfied.

It is the first principle of being in and staying in business.  



Making a name for ourselves?


...OK, guilty as charged.


If I am correct, most architects with any ambition or simply a desire to stay in business, want to make a name for themselves. Like making the lives of their clients better through their work, this is a primary principle of any successful practice, making a name for your self is also a rule of survival for every architecture firm.

Some firms do it better than others.

Star architects do it best.
Peter Zumthor is no exception, in fact he does it extraordinarily well, he puts more effort and energy into image making than most architects out there; otherwise you would never have heard of him.



When I traveled to Switzerland to see Therme Vals (which was pretty much just as nice in reality as in the pictures by the way), I went around to see some of his other works as well. As I drove around the Swiss countryside, namely in Chur, Vals, and the surrounding regions, what I noticed was that Zumthor's kind of work (or at least works that were highly detailed with special sensitivity to materials) was not particularly unique in that region where he is from. There were a lot of other contemporary Swiss architects there doing work that was just as good as Zumthor’s and a good deal of them were even more impressive. They were all drawing on the historic character and sensitivity of the old stone and wooden architecture that define the region. And so I thought to myself, why have I not heard more about these other architects and why have I heard so much about Zumthor?

It could not be the work, because if it was just based on the merits and quality of the works, Zumthor probably would not be number one. It has to be something else.



So just the other day I came across an article titled "Me, Peter Zumthor, and my broken sandal" on BDonline written by Amanda Baillieu. In it she described an encounter she had with Zumthor where she, along with several other British journalists, were invited to Switzerland by the Swiss Embassy to visit its national exhibition expo there. On the itinerary of the trip, the press corp was to meet and have dinner with Zumthor after visiting Therme Vals. 



She described a meeting where all the reporters (except for one) were basically in awe of the great master who stayed and conversed with them late into the evening, keeping the beer and wine coming, and even inviting them to come and visit him at his atelier. Baillieu took him up on his offer and took the “pilgrimage” to see him. On her way there, her sandal broke and when she arrived, they took note of it. She was allowed to take the sandals off and have the meeting with the great master barefooted. At the end of the meeting her sandals were returned to her repaired.



To a non-publicist, this is a nice story that shows the kind of guy Zumthor is and nothing more. To a media savvy strategist there is a whole lot more to this than what’s on the surface. It gives a direct window into Zumthor's brilliance as a self-promoter.



This story squarely answers my question about why I have heard so much about Zumthor and why I have never heard about any of the other Swiss architects that were doing comparable work. When it comes to managing his image and promoting himself, he is just flat out better than his competition by far. 



First of all, he has a head start, given his stature and the breadth of his network.  With the exception of maybe  Herzog and De Meuron, no other architect in Switzerland today would be given the opportunity to meet with an international press corp after visiting your signal work. That is golden: money cannot buy that. But lets say one of these other unknown Swiss architects were given this opportunity, I don’t think they would have a clue how to handle themselves let alone the press, but Zumthor is a master at this.



For one, he makes time for them: I am sure he has a very busy schedule and even though he publicly professes that he doesn't believe in publicity or promoting his work, he sets aside several hours for this. He was even there outlasting at least one of the journalists who went to bed leaving old Zumthor still up working the room. That is what it takes to make it in the starchitect business.



Any publicist will tell you that the first rule of making a name for your self or managing your image is:

Be nice to people, but bend over backwards for the press. 


When Zumthor turns up, he turns on his charm, prepared to wine and dine, he is patient, he listens, generous with the alcohol, and he was sure to extend an invitation to those willing to break away from their scheduled itinerary to come and meet him at his office and see more of his work. And when a journalist comes to your door with a broken shoe, you understand this as good luck. You see the glass half full and you drink it; ie you see the opportunity and you make sure to mend that shoe. It is as simple as that.



The journalist goes back to London and write about how nice and charming you are. The best and most flashy, most advanced, most exquisitely designed website with the most expensive graphic designers and best marketing experts can not parallel the publicity you get from one article like this: Plain and simple.


In the article, Baillieu also mentioned how Zumthor explained to the reporters why he does not accept architecture prizes. 



No seriously!!...he did say that..I can’t make this stuff up.


This is a direct quote from the article:

 Zumthor turned up at the spa after dinner. All of us save a well known architect who’d be sent by a magazine were rather in awe of  Zumthor and listened dutifully as he told us the story of Vals, and why he didn’t accept architecture prizes. 

I asked Baillieu about this and she confirmed that he did indeed say this: arguing that he believed the way architects garland themselves with awards and prizes were a distraction.  It is also alleged, she continued, that he had even turned down a Pritzker some years before accepting it in 2009.



This statement was made back in 2002 mind you, and a man has a right to change his mind, but to be fair a Pritzker prize and its $100,000.00 prize money can be very persuasive even for a man who doesn’t work for money.



Furthermore, (...and this is where it gets really interesting) it seems like even before he changed his mind in 2009 (like a great general switching sides in an ideological war) he was already actively assaulting his own publicly professed position: Before accepting the Pritzker, he accepted the Carlsberg Architecture Prize in 1998, the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture in 1999, and the Praemium Imperiale in 2008 among several others.


To this day, I have not heard any statements from him reversing his position. So I can only assume that what he publicly proclaims about his beliefs and what he actually does are two entirely separate and unrelated things: So saying that he changed his mind after accepting the Pritzker is like saying that Lance Armstrong changed his mind after winning his third Tour de France because he told reporters on national TV that he doesn't believe in using steroids. Zumthor has recently been named the recipient of The Royal Gold Medal award from the RIBA and if my assumptions about him are correct, I believe he will be accepting it in February of 2013 as well.  


Given this information (readily available to all on Wikipedia), Baillieu could have written a critical piece discussing both his virtues and his conspicuous duplicities, but she did not. Put yourself in her shoes for a moment; even the most hardened investigative reporter would find it difficult to write a critical piece on a charming old guy who went out of his way to have your broken sandals repaired: You would have to have a heart of stone to do so. Besides, what architectural journalist would want to risk their own popularity, not to mention the backlash from criticizing one of the profession's most favorite starchitect?  


Still not convinced he is astute when it comes to his image? Here is another case in point. If you are a fan of Zumthor or just a person interesting in finding out more about him or his work, you will no doubt have noticed his conspicuous lack of a company website. If you are running a company in this day and age, no less a Pritzker award winning international architecture firm and you don’t have a website, this is not a mistake. It is a deliberate statement about you and your brand. It says I am not like other architects, I am above the fray, I am reclusive, mysterious, I reject the mainstream ways, I prefer the old fashioned methods over new technology, and as I have just shown you, he does very well without it.



So early in 2012 someone (an adoring fan I suppose) started a tumblr blog dedicated purely to Zumthor and his work: An attempt to fill the gap in his online presence. It was an adoring tribute of sorts to Zumthor; flattering pictures of the old master and his works, new projects etc, only Wim Wenders could have topped it.   


After some time, the blog began to gain a little attention from the networks of other architecture blogs and became a bit popular. I used to check it out every once in awhile myself. It was to my surprise that I noticed some time later that there was a post containing what was an apparent letter from Zumthor’s office asking him to change the name of the site and not to further publish any copyrighted material without his permission. Here is a copy of the letter below:

Dear Sir or Madam, 



Thank you for your interest in Peter Zumthor's work. This site appears under the name of Peter Zumthor, although it is not authorised by him. In the past we also found a lot of copyrighted material here without any captions. 



Therefore, we would like to ask you to change the name of the site, so it becomes clear who created it. And, of course, to not publish any copyrighted material without permission. 



You can contact me at XXX XX XX XX. 



Thank you, 

Barbara Soldner 


So later on, the name of the site was changed to ZTH instead of Zumthor, the words NON-OFFICIAL SITE was placed below it, and many of the images removed.



Now, this is fair and well enough, as I said, any and every architect wants to make a name for himself and its only natural that one would want to protect it. Peter Zumthor however, consistently goes out of his way to publicly make the point that he is not interested in this sort of thing, but then quietly sends his image handlers out to do the exact opposite. If he does not feel the need to make a name for himself or does not care about his image, then why harass adoring fans who blog about his work?  This is not the behavior of someone who is not interested in their image or not interested in his own self-promotion.



So when I hear statements in the film like:



 Peter Zumthor an architect not driven by the need to make a name for himself 

 

I say: What kind of baloney is this?  


That is an outright lie!


It feels like watching the debates between Obama and Romney where at one point Obama was repeatedly saying.



Not true Governor Romney....Not true Mr Governor....Not true Governor....Not true... 



I think I need to do the same here 



Not true Mr Zumthor....Not true Mr Zumthor....Not true Mr Zumthor....



Lets be clear here, I am not making Zumthor wrong for marketing himself. As architects, we have to have our feet in at least two worlds at the same time: one is the world of architecture and one in the world of business. 



The business side requires us to have strategies for marketing ourselves. However we learn in architecture school that things like branding, image making, self promotion, and networking are dirty words. We should be disciples to architecture and focus on making good work in a bubble and if you do that well, then you will be noticed, the work will come and you will be successful. This is nonsense and Zumthor knows this more than anyone else. However, he insists on saying these ridiculous things at every opportunity he gets and thereby perpetuating these destructive myths. 



What's more, he is in a position of influence; he has a huge following of young adoring fans who swears by his every word. They believe this stuff and so they go out starting off their young careers believing that this is how the world works. Its difficult enough to make a living as an architect, and with the backdrop of the financial crisis it's even worse, so feeding this nonsense to young folks in my view, is a little cruel. 



As I have said before on this blog. I like Zumthor’s work a lot, but when he comes out with these promotional antics claiming that he is not a networker, he is not into self-promotion, he does not work for money, and that he does not accept architectural awards, I come away with a little less respect for him as a person every time.



In a way, he is kind of the opposite of Phillip Johnson: Johnson would come right out and say stuff like “I am a whore” when talking about what he does as an architect: Implying that we architects are all whores. It doesn’t sound very nice. It is offensive, its not an easy self-image to digest. But in a way he was being honest, he was acknowledging a reality that as architects we sometimes find ourselves in positions where we have to make ethical compromises in order to keep ourselves afloat. 



To me there is a certain humanity in that, it acknowledges that there is a working conscience in there somewhere.  A flawed human-being with a conscience, I can identify with.  I personally don’t find much to admire in Johnson's work, but even as a next to raving fan of Zumthor’s work, I have to say I have much more respect for Johnson as a person than I do for Zumthor, because he is much more honest. 

 




Here is a picture of Zumthor NOT POSING for a promotional press photo that will NOT contribute to his image making or publicity whatsoever. Zumthor only chose to accept the commission to design a pavilion for the highly publicized spectacle-event called the Serpentine Gallery because...he had one too many Dos Equis after the happy hour. 


Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT 

Liberating Minds Since August 2007

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ADDENDUM : 1/20/2013
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From the man who made the following statement:

That a body of work as small as ours is recognized in the professional world makes us feel proud and should give much hope to young professionals that if they strive for quality in their work it might become visible without any special promotion.

Yet another promotional film, this time from cultural-celebrity video-biographer Micheal Blackwood. A copy of this piece of architectural heritage can be yours for only $115.00 and can be ordered directly online at Blackwood's webstore.

88. What is the Venice Biennale of Architecture?

 ...As well as addressing the academic side of architecture, the Biennale is an occasion where big-name architects and designers can showcase new projects, arranged in different pavilions, each with different themes. The Biennale is currently held in the Biennale Gardens.

-crowdsourced / WIKIPEDIA

...the Biennale offers an incredibly diverse and dense display of ideas and responses that aim to provoke us to reconsider the role of the architect and the ways in which we create public life for citizens of the contemporary environment.

-Linda Taalman / DWELL

The Venice Architecture Biennale is the world’s most important celebration of contemporary architecture.
The Biennale is a unique insight into what is happening in the architecture profession around the world at this moment in time.

-Jonathan Davies and Anna Meyer / DESIGN WEEK

If one did not know that the media constantly exaggerates, one could almost conclude ... that the Venice Biennale of Architecture really is the world’s most important architecture exhibition.
... let us not deny the truth. This event is an expensive danse macabre. In a city of plunder (an exhibition of plunder) hordes of tourists (architects) roll along broken infrastructure in order to satisfy their petit bourgeois desire for education (in the case of the architects: vanity, envy, schadenfreude, suspicions). Even the glamour that the visitors are supposed to feel is staid and faked by the media for whom a star architect is like a film star.
In truth it is all hollow, arduous, exhausting, bleak and boring. It is no longer about lively discussion and criticism of topics in contemporary architecture, but rather about empty, conservative and perhaps populist shells that are charged with feigned meaning.

-Wolf D. Prix / COOP HIMMELB(L)AU

If we are to accept a certain validity in Prix's remarks, it is important not to attribute special privilege to the Venice Biennale — it is only indicative of a more widespread political naivety in contemporary architecture, and the ineffectiveness of its various governing institutions. The failure, if you will, is endemic. However, unlike Prix, I don't think the starchitects are at the heart of the problem. I would prefer to lay the blame elsewhere.

-Jack Self / DOMUS

Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Wolf D. Prix came under fire for this attack (especially when it was realized he didn’t even set foot at this year’s Biennale). And yet, had he written this critique for any other Biennale, he wouldn’t have been so far off. The Biennale is, after all, an expensive affair of prosecco-filled parties and, often, inaccessibly esoteric exhibits
Prix hedged his bets that this Biennale, with its fluffy-sounding name, “Common Ground,” would be just like its precedents. Unluckily for Prix, it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably the most politically-engaged Biennale yet.
...that is exactly what this year’s Venice Biennale was – and should be. Not just a display of architectural ingenuity but a “fresh look, from the [common] ground up, at what architecture really is.” Even if was at times reductive or idealistic, the Biennale grappled with our political reality, reflected our cautious optimism, and put forth the question of our decade: what purpose do we serve?

Vanessa Quirk / ARCH DAILY

Biennales by their nature are sprawling, skin-deep omnibus festivals, contrived above all for tourism and congenitally awkward as a medium for architecture...
It (This year's Bieannale) pays almost no attention to the developing world, to designers from Africa or China, and precious little to female architects, aside from Zaha Hadid, who, like Peter Zumthor, Renzo Piano, Peter Eisenman, Bernard Tschumi and a surprising number of the old boldface names, hogs much of the spotlight.

-Micheal Kimmelman / THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Bieannale is a typical gossip place. "who slept with whom?,Who drank too much? Who is on their way down because they drank too much?"..."His last project wasn't very good, he must have been drunk all the time. Maybe he is going blind?" Its a lot of personal gossip.

-Kjetil Thorsen / SNØHETTA 

But the exhibition itself, despite that determinedly optimistic and wide-ranging approach, feels limited, exclusive, stiff, starched and a bit cloistered. And for a show that is so keen to question the value of architectural celebrity — Chipperfield writes in the catalog that he wanted it to "emphasize shared ideas over individual authorship" and reject "solitary and fashionable gestures" — this biennale includes an awful lot of stars, many of them longtime friends and colleagues of Chipperfield's.
Though Chipperfield makes a big show of casting a wide net with this biennale, mostly what he's caught with it are the kind of big fish immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the architectural scene of 20 or 25 years ago. The architects featured most prominently include Norman Foster (given two separate rooms to work with), Renzo Piano, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Peter Eisenman, Rafael Moneo, Alvaro Siza, Peter Zumthor, Bernard Tschumi and Jean Nouvel.

Christopher Hawthorne / THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

69. Be Shameless about Asking for things

I am going to tell you a story which may disturb you, or even more, completely discourage you from what I am about to argue for, but its a good little story and I will tell it anyway. Who knows, if you are still convinced of my argument after this story then I believe you are truly material for being a famous architect.

Back in the days when I was in collage, I had an interesting classmate named Andrew. Almost everyone in the studio seemed to have a certain aversion towards him. Very few actually described him as a friend, and even these so called friends of his always seemed to have a problem with him. It is difficult for me to count the amount of times a friend of his would come up to my drafting table and start a conversation that begins with the phrase "Andrew is my friend but..." and then continue on to tell of the latest conniving thing that he did to them. The other problem with Andrew was that he walked around the studio with a certain air of superiority about him. If you met him at a party and had a brief conversation with him, chances are you would walk away with the impression that you are somehow beneath him.

The most interesting thing about Andrew though is that he always seems to have people granting him all kinds of favors, or doing something on his behalf, or giving him something. Even me!. The lesson of Andrew is that he was never afraid to ask for help or for anything. In fact he was downright shameless about it. It would not matter if you were laughing with him or arguing with him, there was no wrong time to ask in his view. If he needed help with anything he would just come right out and ask. If you just bought the latest CD, he would ask if he could copy it. If you just bought the latest gadget, he would ask if he could borrow it. If a starchitect was teaching the course, or visiting for a lecture, and he wanted a job at that office, he just went right ahead and asked.

I remembered Andrew because I had a realization just the other day, and that realization this:

Famous Architects are unashamed to ask for things.

They are not afraid to pick up the phone and ask. They ask of their employees, they ask of their colleagues, they ask of their friends, they ask whoever they see fit and they do it all the time. They do not hesitate, they do not waste time agonizing over it, they just do it. When ever they need something, they make decisions quickly, pick up the phone and get on with it.

So you might say “oh, they are used to it, because they have many people working for them so its just something they got used to doing”.
Well, I am not so sure about that. In fact, I don’t think so. I think they got an office, and employees, and became famous because they had no issues with asking for help or for anything.

I had the great fortune (or great misfortune, depending on how you look at it) of either being taught by or working with quite a few famous architects. I also know quite a few rising stars.

I can say with complete certainty that this is one of the few traits that connects all of them, no matter how different their works or philosophies.

One friend of mine whom I worked with on a project some time ago is a rising star. For reasons of privacy I will simply refer to him as Joe. Joe learned through a friend we have in common that I was working on a project that was potentially beneficial to his office and would give him some free promotion. Immediately he contacted me:

“Hey Conrad, how is it going?

I had a conversation with Jenny, she said you guys are working on this project... bla bla bla bla ...

Of course I suggested my office could be involved as a participant.

She suggested I talk to you.

Maybe you could work out something for us?

And here is how it could benefit you too... bla bla bla ...

What do you think?”

“Yeah, sure” I answered,

“I will just suggest it to the rest of the guys on the team and see what happens”

Reflecting on the conversation some time later, I thought about how it would be if it were the other way around? What if Joe was working on a high profile project and I saw that there could be some free publicity in there for me? What would I do?

Well before I figured out how to ask, before I learned what I am about to tell you, my train of thought would have looked something like this:

• Oh, I wouldn’t want to be a bother or impose on him.
• I wouldn’t want to be patronized, I don’t need that, if I want publicity I will get it when I need it, on my own.
• He is probably not going to do it anyway, so why bother?
• That might be too much to ask... I don’t want to put him in an awkward position.
• What’s this going to cost me? Am I going to be indebted to him... I don't want that.
• If I ask him, it may seem like I am begging and gosh I don’t want to come off as weak or needy or even worse: desperate.
• I am a giver; I am a kind giving person and I would much rather give to others than to go around begging and leaning on other people.

In short, I probably would have talked my self out of doing it. I think most of us would too. I think most people simply don’t know how to ask and that’s a problem. We don’t want to be demanding or leaching like Andrew on one hand and on the other we don’t want to appear weak, especially guys; you know the proud smart self-reliant type that drives around in circles and would not ask for directions because they don't want to come off as incompetent or stupid. I don’t know about you, but driving around in circles with your head stuck up your ass is not exactly my idea of strength, competence or self reliance. From where I stand, it looks more like an image of insecurity and cowardliness, not to mention stupidity. Yet we do this with our careers, and worse we do this with our lives.

But I have news for you. There is a vast difference between people like Andrew who goes around and take, take, take and never give back and the so-called proud-independent who drives around in circles for hours afraid to ask for help. There is a middle ground between these two extremes.

Joe is a good example. I learned a lot during the short time I worked with him. Like any emerging firms we usually worked very long hours. Joe would spend the better part of the days on the phone making calls negotiating with people (That's archispeak for asking for help). He did this constantly for hours and hours, it was only later in the evenings that he would seriously switch his focus on to architecture. The other thing that really surprised me was that for a relatively young guy who have worked for some of the most celebrated starchitect offices around the world, he did not have some basic skills that you would expect from a person with that caliber of experience. For example, he did not know how to render and his photo-shop skills were a bit shabby. But that did not seem to get in his way. He was adept at delegating and readily acknowledged when he did not know something instead of pretending to be an expert. He was driven and motivated and when things got tough he asked for help right away.

What Joe lacked in photo-shop and rendering skills he more than made up for in asking skills. This is the single most important skill I learned from him and I would like to share it with you. You can look at that conversation I mentioned I had with him earlier as a case in point. It has all the ingredients of a good way to ask for help.

Firstly, make sure the person you ask is actually in a position to help you.
I had a project that could give him publicity and I had some influence over who could be involved in it. So naturally Joe came to me.

Secondly, Be confident and straightforward
No I did not say cocky. You should not go around expecting people to do you a favor or help you no matter how much you have helped them before or how good a friend they are or for any reason. Remember you are asking not demanding. At the same time don’t grovel or be wimpy about it. If you go and ask in the tone of voice of Doubtful Tom: “uhm... ahh... you wouldn’t want to help me on this would you?”
That’s not asking for help, that's a weak prayer or kind of a little psychological trick to prove to yourself that at least you tried. That is not a sincere effort, that’s a cop out. If you are going to do it half assed don’t bother wasting your time. Neither should you try to drop hints and expect the other person to kind of read between the lines. Then what you are doing is trying to make the person you are asking feel guilty and help you out of pity. That’s just lame and manipulative.
Just get to the point and state in no uncertain terms what you are asking for. You can explain why or argue your case later in the conversation as necessary.
When Joe asked me, he simply and directly stated what he wanted “could you work out a deal where my office is a participant in your project” no demanding, no guilt trip hints, no groveling, just a clean, clear, honest question. Then he went on to explain how it could benefit me, in other words how this could be a win-win situation. This brings me to the third point.

Look for ways to reciprocate: read the tone of voice and body language of the person you are asking. Is there a hesitation or reluctance in their answer? If so respond accordingly, remember you are really negotiating a win-win situation. You want to come out with an amicable outcome for yourself and the person you are asking whether you come away with a yes or no or a counter offer.

Of course there will be occasions where there is no point in offering something in return. Now at the risk of sounding superstitious, I will say this: what goes around comes around. You will find that people will come to you to ask for favors too; maybe not that same person that helped you, but someone else. Help them. Get in the habit of helping other people. Not because you want to build good karma or because you expect something back, but because it is fun. Do it to train your brain that its about giving and receiving. Develop that reputation. Think about the kindest, most helpful or generous person you know. How would you respond if they came to you for a favor?

Recalling the days I was working with Joe and hearing him “negotiate” on the phone, these three principles were always present in those conversations, whether he was talking to a potential client, another firm he was seeking to partner with on a competition, a contractor, or student he was asking to intern for him.

And by the way, when the time came that I needed a favor from him and I asked, he was very accommodating and even went out of his way to make sure I got the proper help that I asked for. In fact this is what defines our relationship. Even though we live in different countries now and we don't see or hear from each other for long periods of time, I have no reservations about picking up the phone and asking him for help and he of-course doesn't either.

Anyway, I will leave you with the final scene from one of my favorite movies: My Cousin Viney. Its about an inexperienced lawyer who has a lot of raw talent but wanted to win his first trial on his own; without asking for help from anybody. In short he wanted to do things the hard way, and unnecessarily hard it was. In the end he begrudgingly received a lot help along the way from his fiancée and others to win his first trial case.



Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT
Liberating Minds Since August 2007