13. Take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas

Dear Architects, I Am Sick of Your Shit,

Once, a long time ago in the days of yore, I had a friend who was studying architecture to become, presumably, an architect.

This friend introduced me to other friends, who were also studying architecture. Then these friends had other friends who were architects - real architects doing real architecture like designing luxury condos that look a lot like glass dildos. And these real architects knew other real architects and now the only people I know are architects. And they all design glass dildos that I will never work or live in and serve only to obstruct my view of New Jersey.Do not get me wrong, architects. I like you as a person. I think you are nice, smell good most of the time, and I like your glasses. You have crazy hair, and if you are lucky, most of it is on your head. But I do not care about architecture. It is true. This is what I do care about:

* burritos
* hedgehogs
* coffee

As you can see, architecture is not on the list. I believe that architecture falls somewhere between toenail fungus and invasive colonoscopy in the list of things that interest me.

Perhaps if you didn't talk about it so much, I would be more interested. When you point to a glass cylinder and say proudly, hey my office designed that, I giggle and say it looks like a bong. You turn your head in disgust and shame. You think, obviously she does not understand. What does she know? She is just a writer. She is no architect. She respects vowels, not glass cocks. And then you say now I am designing a lifestyle center, and I ask what is that, and you say it is a place that offers goods and services and retail opportunities and I say you mean like a mall and you say no. It is a lifestyle center. I say it sounds like a mall. I am from the Valley, bitch. I know malls.

Architects, I will not lie, you confuse me. You work sixty, eighty hours a week and yet you are always poor. Why aren't you buying me a drink? Where is your bounty of riches? Maybe you spent it on Merlot. Maybe you spent it on hookers and blow. I cannot be sure. It is a mystery. I will leave that to the scientists to figure out.

Architects love to discuss how much sleep they have gotten. One will say how he was at the studio until five in the morning, only to return again two hours later. Then another will say, oh that is nothing. I haven't slept in a week. And then another will say, guess what, I have never slept ever. My dear architects, the measure of how hard you've worked and how much you've accomplished is not related to the number of hours you have not slept. Have you heard of Rem Koolhaas? He is a famous architect. I know this because you tell me he is a famous architect. I hear that Rem Koolhaas is always sleeping. He is, I presume, sleeping right now. And I hear he gets shit done. And I also hear that in a stunning move, he is making a building that looks not like a glass cock, but like a concrete vagina. When you sleep more, you get vagina. You can all take a lesson from Rem Koolhaas.


Life is hard for me, please understand. Architects are an important part of my existence. They call me at eleven at night and say they just got off work, am I hungry? Listen, it is practically midnight. I ate hours ago. So long ago that, in fact, I am hungry again. So yes, I will go. Then I will go and there will be other architects talking about AutoCAD shortcuts and something about electric panels and can you believe that is all I did today, what a drag. I look around the table at the poor, tired, and hungry, and think to myself, I have but only one bullet left in the gun. Who will I choose?

I have a friend who is a doctor. He gives me drugs. I enjoy them. I have a friend who is a lawyer. He helped me sue my landlord. My architect friends have given me nothing. No drugs, no medical advice, and they don't know how to spell subpoena. One architect friend figured out that my apartment was one hundred and eighty seven square feet. That was nice. Thanks for that.

I suppose one could ask what someone like me brings to architects like yourselves. I bring cheer. I yell at architects when they start talking about architecture. I force them to discuss far more interesting topics, like turkey eggs. Why do we eat chicken eggs, but not turkey eggs? They are bigger. And people really like turkey. See? I am not afraid to ask the tough questions.

So, dear architects, I will stick around, for only a little while. I hope that one day some of you will become doctors and lawyers or will figure out my taxes. And we will laugh at the days when you spent the entire evening talking about some European you've never met who designed a building you will never see because you are too busy working on something that will never get built. But even if that day doesn't arrive, give me a call anyway, I am free.


Yours truly,

Annie Choi

from www.partiv.com. originally published in Pidgin, a Princeton School of Architecture Publication under the title “Dear Architects, I am sick of your shit.” Annie Choi is an independent writer, you can visit her website at www.annietown.com.

12. You dont need to be Born Rich

The architect of his own fortune;

HOW MANCHESTER LAD NORMAN FOSTER BECAME A VISIONARY BUILDING DESIGNER.


HE IS the man behind the new design for Wembley Stadium - which controversially scraps its famous twin towers.

But whatever your opinion of Sir Norman Foster and his futuristic visions, no one can deny that he has become the style guru of modern architecture.

Clients around the globe are queuing up for a Foster "signature" building with its trademark sleek, smooth lines.

Today Sir Norman, 64, employs almost 500 people, has offices in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong and a business that enjoys a pounds 20 million turnover. He even owns his own fleet of aircraft.

That's not bad for a working-class lad from Manchester who left school at 16 and drove an ice-cream van to get himself through university.

What makes Sir Norman's story all the more remarkable is that he is the only British architect of note who comes from such a modest background.

An only child, he left school for the traditionally safe white-collar job in the local town hall - but he wanted so much more. As a boy, he had read books about the designer Frank Lloyd Wright in the public library and was gripped. But the odds were against him.

"The idea that anyone in the neighbourhood where I grew up would go to university was like saying: `I'll be the next Pope'," he recalls.

"I wasn't able to get a grant to go to university so I paid my own way. I sold furniture, worked in a bakery, a cold store and drove an ice-cream van."

He also applied for every scholarship and drawing competition he could. In 1959, his hard work paid off and he won pounds 100 and a silver medal from the Royal Institute Of British Architects for a measured drawing of a windmill.

SIR Norman says: "I took off to Scandinavia to look at the new architecture and I haven't stopped travelling since."

His current portfolio includes a transformation of the British Museum, building the first new bridge over the Thames for a century and, of course, the hottest job in the industry - the design of the new Wembley Stadium, which he unveiled on Thursday.

His previous projects have moved from being architectural talking pieces to household names. The Reichstag Building. The Hong Kong And Shanghai Bank. Stansted Airport.

He has also designed the huge new Canary Wharf Jubilee Line station and HSBC tower, a proposed assembly building for the new Lord Mayor Of London and a plan for a Millennium Tower in the City. The London headquarters of his firm Foster & Partners, in Battersea, is a modern riverside palazzo overlooking the Thames. Rows of architects toil on long tables in a room like a railway terminus. At the helm sits Foster himself, notorious for his high standards and drive.

One visitor described it as a cross between a Manchester cotton mill and the headquarters of IBM.

Poised and perma-tanned, Sir Norman - a quiet man whom some regard as cool and detached - looks more like a pop star than an architect. And he has the accessories to match.

A keen flier, he jets around Europe in a white Cessna Citation - one of several planes he owns.

He is a regular on the well-heeled party circuit and in 1990 was embraced by the Establishment when he received a knighthood for his services to architecture.

His private life has ensured him constant media attention. His first wife, architect Wendy Cheesman died of cancer in 1989, leaving him devastated. After a brief liaison with Anna Ford, he married Sabiha Malik, the flamboyant ex-wife of Andrew Knight, chairman of News International.

His current wife Elena Ochoa, whom he married three years ago after meeting at the University of Barcelona, is a psychopathologist known in her native Spain for presenting the hit show Hablamos De Sexo (Let's Talk About Sex). The pair have been seen together on the pages of Hola! magazine, that bastion of celebrity life.

But the publicity surrounding Sir Norman's professional endeavours has not always been flattering. Many of his most daring designs such as the Millennium Tower have been ridiculed.

BUT his commitment to his work has never been in doubt. Many say it borders on the manic. "I don't know how to stop," he agrees. "Like a child's toy, I keep spinning. If I stopped, I'd fall over.
"I took my son to Scandinavia and we went sledging with teams of huskies. At first I thought the dogs were being overworked, but I quickly learnt that they are never happier than when pelting flat out.

"I'm not very different."

When the architectural historian Charles Jencks asked him whether his working-class background had been a disadvantage he replied: "Not in the least."

"It gave me a single-minded vision as I sat in the public library as a boy reading about Frank Lloyd Wright.

"None of those middle class kids knew what they wanted from life."


Further Reading:
Lord Foster: Stormin' Norman
Norman Foster - Architect

See Also: Note #7. If you've got "it" use it!

11. Understand The Laws of Epidemics

At first glance this would seem extremely off subject. For haven’s sake, what does an epidemic have to do with becoming a famous architect? Well, everything actually. Fame, is really a social epidemic. We threw Mancom Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" in here because we thought it was a very practical guide to becoming famous. The following is an excerpt of wikisummaries' synopsis of the book. As you read it think of it in the context of architectural fame.

Gladwell asserts that most trends, styles, and phenomena are born and spread according to routes of transmission and conveyance that are strikingly similar. In most of these scenarios, whether the event in question is the spread of syphilis in Baltimore’s mean streets or the sudden spike in the popularity of Hush Puppies sales, there is a crucial juncture, which Gladwell terms the “tipping point,” that signals a key moment of crystallization that unifies isolated events into a significant trend. What factors decide whether a particular trend or pattern will take hold? Gladwell introduces three variables that determine whether and when the tipping point will be achieved.
The three “rules of epidemics” that Gladwell identifies are:

the Law of the Few,
the Stickiness Factor,
and the Power of Context.


the Law of the Few

noting that the origins of most major epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases can be traced back to the disproportionate influence of a few “super infectors” who are personally responsible for dozens, or in some cases, hundreds of transmissions. This role is analogous to the category of people that Gladwell identifies as “Connectors,” who play an inordinate role in helping new trends begin to “tip,” or spread rapidly.

The attainment of the tipping point that transforms a phenomenon into an influential trend usually requires the intervention of a number of influential types of people. In the disease epidemic model Gladwell introduced in Chapter 1, he demonstrated that many outbreaks could be traced back to a small group of infectors. Likewise, on the path toward the tipping point, many trends are ushered into popularity by small groups of individuals that can be classified as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen.
Connectors are individuals who have ties in many different realms and act as conduits between them, helping to engender connections, relationships, and “cross-fertilization” that otherwise might not have ever occurred.
Mavens are people who have a strong compulsion to help other consumers by helping them make informed decisions. Salesmen are people whose unusual charisma allows them to be extremely persuasive in inducing others’ buying decisions and behaviors. Gladwell identifies a number of examples of past trends and events that hinged on the influence and involvement of Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen at key moments in their development.



The Stickiness Factor:

Another crucial factor that plays a key role in determining whether a trend will attain exponential popularity is what Gladwell terms “the stickiness factor.” This refers to a unique quality that compels the phenomenon to “stick” in the minds of the public and influence their future behavior.
An interesting element of stickiness, as defined by Gladwell, is the fact that it is often counterintuitive, or contradictory to the prevailing conventional wisdom. To illustrate this point, Gladwell undertakes an in-depth discussion of the evolution of children’s television between the 1960s and the 2000s.
The PBS show Sesame Street represented a vast improvement in the “stickiness” of children’s television, in large part because it turned many of the long-established assumptions about children’s cognitive abilities and television-watching behaviors on their heads. These changes, based in large part on extensive research, resulted in a show that actually helped toddlers and preschoolers develop literacy.
Years later, the television show Blue’s Clues applied many of these same techniques to Sesame Street itself, resulting in the development of a program that research has shown can generate significant improvements in children’s logic and reasoning abilities. The attribute of stickiness, Gladwell argues, often represents a dramatic divergence from the conventional wisdom of the era.




The Power of Context

Clearly, in order for a trend to tip into massive popularity, large numbers of people need to embrace it. However, Gladwell points out that groups of certain sizes and certain types can often be uniquely conducive to achieving the tipping point. He traces the path of the novel The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood from regional cult favorite to national best-seller. Gladwell notes that the unique content of the novel appealed strongly to reading groups of middle-aged women in Northern California, and that these women were uniquely well-positioned to catapult the book to national success as a result of an informal campaign of recommendations and advocacy.
Gladwell also remarks upon the unusual properties tied to the size of social groups. Groups of less than 150 members usually display a level of intimacy, interdependency, and efficiency that begins to dissipate markedly as soon as the group’s size increases over 150. This concept has been exploited by a number of corporations that use it as the foundation of their organizational structures and marketing campaigns.

an edited summary from wikisummaries.org