92. Zaha & Josephine: A tale of two celebrity women and a notion of evolution

Josephine Baker Multidimensional Celebrity

Do you know what I love best about Josephine Baker? Have you ever read her biography? if you did you would love the same thing I love about her. I love the way she developed as a person. She was human and made her fair share of mistakes, but throughout her life you can see a wiser more mature person developing and it showed in her work on and off the stage. What inspires me about her was not just that she is a brilliant performer on many levels, but also her genius as an image and career strategist. Imagine being a black female performer in the American South in the 1920's. That's a pretty rough spot to be in. Now you can say she was very lucky, but then if you read my post on luck you will realize that she was just an optimist who drank her half full glass of water. It takes a special person to really see the opportunity in a situation like that and make it work for you.

The genius of Baker is that she was able to take all the racist and sexist stereotypes that were prevalent about blacks and women at the time and used them to her advantage. She performed topless, mimicking African dance styles while wearing a skirt made of bananas. Her caricature combined all the sexual fantasies that western males had about an exotic African woman and the 1920s notion of what a sexy woman should look like. Additionally, she amplified it all while fulfilling expectations of how American Negro music and dance should be like. Instead of fighting against these images she played up to the expectations and fed it back to them: In essence she used their own prejudices as a tool for creating her image and career. It was brilliant!

As she became more and more famous, Baker not only became a performer, she became a symbol/ambassador for her entire race (and to a certain extent, her gender). Now I am sure there were many black women at that time and even today who take issue with how she portrayed herself and in turn black women in particular. I can certainly understand that since portraying herself that way helped to reinforce some of those very stereotypes that black women have fought so long to refute. However, if you look at her performance in the big picture; meaning how she performed off stage in the public realm, you will see that she was not just a caricature. Oh she was so much more!

When she moved to France and became a citizen there, she used her celebrity status as a tool to help the French resistance during World War II: She helped by smuggling classified information written in invisible ink on her music sheets, entertain the Allied troops, and assisted people who were in danger of being persecuted by the Nazis to get visas to get out of the country. She later went on to support the civil rights movement in the US; being one of the first celebrities to insist on integrated audiences wherever she performed. Before the end of her career, she had done wonders in the way of positively changing the negative perception western society had of black women and women in general.

After the war, for her underground activity, Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle

I could go on, and on, but I am not here to write a biography about her. I just wanted to point out how three dimensional she was as a celebrity and how she was able to evolve and transcend stereotypes. Not only that, but because she was perhaps one of the most famous black woman at the time she lived, she became a symbol of her race and gender.  That was a responsibility that was placed on her whether she wanted it or not, but she took it and did outstandingly well.

The Munch Museum Fiasco: 

I was in Oslo a few years ago; this was in time for an exhibition of the entries of the Munch Museum Competition. The competition was by invitation only (or pre-qualified, I am not quite sure), and the roster of invited architects were a star-architect studded constellation: Diller +Scofidio, Tadao Ando, Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Foreign Office, REX, Toyo Ito, David Chipperfield, and some local stars. If you were lucky enough to make the roster you would be paid to develop your proposal regardless if you came in first or last. The winner of course would get the commission to develop the project and oversee its realization. The panels for the entries were displayed anonymously for public view at a gallery in the city center.

When I got there to see it, there was a list on the wall saying who were invited, but there were no labels on the panels to say who did what. However, as I walked around to see them, it was painfully obvious as to who did what. It seem as though most of the stars priorities was first and foremost to stamp their signature style on the project. Diller, Scofidio+Renfero’s graphic style was unmistakable, they proposed a building that kind of cropped up out of the water with some cool moments, but looked way out of budget. Their project seemed to say "Hey, this is a really awesome proposal, I know you don't have the money for it, but if you quadrupled your budget wouldn't it be cool to have this. Anyway, fuck you! pay me!"

Ando did pretty much the same thing: "Hey, my project says this was made by Tadao Ando, it would be very expensive, here is a little token bit about solving the program you provided in the brief. Anyway, fuck you! pay me!"

All in all they were all saying the same thing. For the most part it was a beauty contest with token gestures at addressing the issues proposed in the brief. Aside from the obligatory set of plans and sections, most of the entries had models, exploded axons, captions that explain their arguments here and there, and illustrator diagrams explaining the program distribution, circulation, connectivity, alternative uses, etc. to explain their concepts and ideas to the public.

The most shocking one for me was Zaha Hadid's entry. She made a less than an half-assed attempt to solve or explain any of the problems outlined in the brief. Besides a bewildering text (see translation here), there was no attempt to explain to the public what the project was about or how it worked; no axons, no diagrams, no additional helping text, no nothing; just an almost abstracted set of plans and sections with sleek renderings and a model. A diva move if you will. It was basically a centerfold spread of sexy curvaceous forms laid out over several black background panels. It seemed to say: look at me I am a sexy playboy centerfold aint I cute. Feast your eyes on this. Anyway, fuck you! pay me!

The argument Zaha uses here is not all that different from a playboy magazine. Think about it! Buy me not because I am going to solve your problems, not because I am going to save you money, not because I have considered your situation and have some serious ideas about how to help you improve your condition, no! choose me because I am pretty and delicious.

Here we have a situation of mostly male star-architects who are given a fantastic problem to solve. Most of them do a terrible job of trying to solve it, but they tried anyway. The one female star-architect largely ignores the problem altogether and instead offers a pretty object. This to me embodies and just reinforces the dumb-chick stereotype of the cute girl that sits in the back of the class that doesn't do her homework, but flirts with the teacher to make the grade. I am not suggesting that Zaha is flirting with anyone, but the arguments behind her projects almost always come down to the dumb chick/playboy argument: choose my project because it is pretty. The client presents a legitimate list of programmatic concerns and challenges and you basically ignore them and present a pretty object and say - here you go!

It is what I call the dumbing down of architecture.

What she presented at the Munch Museum Competition was the most spectacular and most ill-conceived project in the room.

Perhaps it was the most sincere entry from all the star-architects entries, since it did the least in addressing any of the program, it just acknowledged quite bluntly that she was not there to win or produce an entry that stands a chance of winning. It said: I am submitting an entry because you were dumb enough to ask me and you are paying me to do it. I will use this as an opportunity to make a ton of cash by having unsupervised interns develop the competition entry, pay them some pocket change and keep the rest.

In the end, the jury selected the least spectacular entry that was done by an unknown (to me at least) Spanish architecture firm Herreros Arquitectos. They were one of the few that addressed the site and context in an appropriate manner. This site is located across from the much celebrated and freshly completed Opera House by Snøhetta in the mostly cold and dark Norwegian climate. The Opera house is a building that the Norwegians are very proud of; it is on all their tourist brochures and I believe it has even graced their postage stamps. Herreros’ strategy was not to overshadow or out do it, but rather to complement it by making a quality building that communicated with the form and color of the Opera house. It was a translucent glass mass that resembled a glacier with an oblique angle at the top echoing the slant of the opera house. It picked up on the glacier expression that the Opera House was playing on and made their own interpretation of it. The project also brought to the table some innovative proposals on how to organize the gallery spaces, addressed issues of sustainability, and so on. To be honest, it is not the kind of building that made me thrilled with excitement, but it was the most appropriate and I agreed with the jury's choice given what they had to choose from.

This is what the Herreros Arquitectos’ entry looks like. 
You can see the back side of the Oslo Opera house across on the right.

If buildings could speak this is what I imagine these pairs would say to each other.

The lesson here is that stars tend to end up doing what they do best: Perform and dazzle! So if you give them a problem they will tend to make a theatrical spectacle out of it whether it is appropriate or not. In this case, what was appropriate was a modest complement to the opera house, but it would be demeaning for one starchitect to design a building that played a supporting role to another starchitect's building. No way! it has to be bigger, and more spectacular or nothing else. Star-architects are rather like expensive cats that instinctively need to pee everywhere they go; to mark territory and claim dominance. So I guess Oslo learned this lesson the hard and expensive way.

 

Zaha Hadid the Public Face of Female Architecture

Earlier this year I tweeted the following statement:

It irritates me that Zaha's work is the symbol of female arch. It fits sexists stereotypes : pretty & curvy, but not muchbeyond that.
— Conrad Newel (@ConradNewel) March 23, 2013

…and followed on Facebook with the following statement:

Imagine that we lived in an alternate universe where it were female architects that won all the Pritzkers and were dominating the profession and Daniel Libeskind was THE token male starachitect. His empty pointy prikly forms sticking up in the air, signifying nothing is what the rest of the world looks at when they talk about male architecture. As a male architect you go out and talk to people and you say, "Hi, I am an architect" and they say "oh cool, I know the great male architect Daniel Libeskind, his forms are realy nice"

would that not be hell?

This is how I think it would feel to be a female architect today.

It has reached a point that just looking at her work irritates me. This is also because I think of her career as having the potential to follow Josephine Baker's arc. Zaha has come so far, and she could be so much more. She is settling for good when she could be great. Now I am using the word good in a very specific way here and perhaps I should explain myself . When I say she is a good architect, I am taking into account the total architect not just her “work” or building projects, but I am including Zaha the business person/CEO, Zaha the self promoter, etc, etc. In this point of view, she has done quite a remarkable job. It’s extremely hard to take a career to where she has taken hers so far and she deserves a lot of credit for that. Notwithstanding that, it's is tough being a woman in a man's profession. So even though I am irritated by the sight of what she makes and calls architecture, I maintain she is a good architect, even dare I say it “ a very good one”, in the broader view.

By achieving this success, she has been unwittingly placed in the position of being the face of female architecture. She did not ask for it. I know, it’s unfair, who wants that pressure of representing your who gender, race or whatever? Judging by what she produces, and what she does (and most important what she does not do) outside of architecture time and time again, it seems quite evident that she does not want to be in this position, and she does not want to accept this challenge.

Instead of using the status that she has to somehow debunk some of the negative tropes about women, she seems to be reinforcing them. I know! I know! There is a paradox here. On the one hand she is making a positive change simply by being a female starchitect since stereotypically women are not supposed to be architects, let a lone starchitects. On the other hand, she is using the spotlight to reinforce a slew of other negative stereotypes. In my view, the net result is a negative.

Firstly, as I have just shown you, she is reinforcing the dumb-chick stereotype when she comes up with entries like the Munch Museum which by and large skips over the clients problems and just makes pretty curvy stuff that leaves you wondering:

Why make the dumbest entry in a contest of starchitects?

Secondly, she cultivates a diva image, feeding another negative trope about women: When you give women power they will become difficult temperamental bitches. Here is an urban dictionary definition of Diva:

A bitchy woman that must have her way exactly or no way at all. often rude and belittles people, believes that everyone is beneath her and thinks that she is so much more loved than what she really is; selfish, spoiled, and overly dramatic.

You just need to ask people who work in her office and you will find this definition well substantiated. It is perhaps unfair to single her out in this way, because her male counterparts are no different, but when a woman in power does so she gets this label. However what I am discussing here is how she is carrying the burden of representing her gender and changing perceptions. This is unfair, I know, I have said this several times now, but that’s life. Jackie Robinson was the first black baseball player to play in the American major league. He was called names, harassed, embarrassed and insulted, and had every right to punch someone in the face in retaliation, but if he expressed anger he know very well it would reinforce the negative trope of the angry black man. He knew that he was carrying the burden of his race and so he sucked it up held his head high and carried on. Believe me; Zaha does not have to play Diva!

Why cultivate the image of Diva?

In an interview on Charlie Rose with Pritzker Prize Winners Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and herself (see video for yourself: link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uppP9LxCuV0 ) Zaha makes the following statement:

I mean...I think... if we all go into a competition...you know...we know, one of us would win...you know...unless it is very unfair or it is very political and so on...aaaahm... you know...it is acceptable.

What she does here is basically insulate herself from self-criticism. If she believes what she is actually saying here, then she will never be able to come to terms with the horrible failures and shortcomings blatantly apparent in the catastrophe that she submitted for the Munch Museum. She will never acknowledge the merits of Herrero's proposal. She will never understand why she lost and they won because the only reason in her mind is because it was “unfair and political and so on”.

This is the typical behavior and rationalizations of a diva: If you criticize her, then you must be either sexist (if you are male) or jealous (if you are female). No criticism is valid! She is just fantastic!

With this attitude how can you learn or improve on the next competition? If you don’t accept criticism then you how can you grow?

Finally, she reinforces the prettiness-obsessed-female stereotype (similar to the dumb-chick trope) where women are supposedly obsessed with prettiness; Not beauty, but outward appeal that is the domain of fashion, fads, makeup, perfume, jewelry, lipstick etc: Things that are pleasing or attractive to the eye, skin deep and ornamental.

Zaha is branching out into this domain; it is the domain of Paris Hilton: The dumb diva female appropriating the prettiness-obsessed-female stereotype. I do not for one second doubt the intelligence or tenacity of Ms Hadid or of Paris Hilton for that matter. However, I think by clinging to the curvy, “pretty” forms, and branching out into the stereotypical female markets (fashion, perfume, handbags, shoes, etc) she reinforces this stereotype; A stereotype that the feminists movement have fought long and hard to extinguish since before the 60s and 70s.

Why design high heeled shoes, perfume bottles and cosmetic jewelry?

I can understand Zaha and Hilton using the strategy of empowering the negative trope in a positive way to launch their careers as Josephine Baker did. However, after a while Baker gave it up and transformed into a much more interesting person. She evolved! She used her celebrity status to take on a political and humanitarian stance and became a force for the ideas she believed in. She became useful to society beyond just accumulating wealth, status and personal gain.

I am not suggesting that Zaha should become an activist; I just think that she is squandering a golden opportunity to be a gender leader for women. She doesn't have to be an activist like Baker was, but she could at least set an example like Jackie Robinson by being aware of her position as a symbol of female architecture and so avoid reinforcing any negative stereotypes.

This shtick of using the same tired curvy female eye-candy form on every single project, on every single site no matter what the program, size, or location has run its course and now its just plain silly. Her work has become somewhat of a one trick poney caricature; There are no surprises.

Evolution: Branding Form vs Branding Ideas: 

Great artists (I am expanding the definition here to include architects) evolve and are more than just a shtick. If you think of Pablo Picasso, he is the opposite of Zaha in this sense, because once he perfects something, he realizes it's time to move on and then goes on to another thing. This is why we can now talk about Picasso’s blue period, or his cubist period, or this period or that period and so on. The same for Frank Lloyd Wright, he started out with the prairie houses and by the end of his career you see something like Falling Water, or the Guggenheim. These kinds of evolution suggest a critical mind, a curiosity, a willingness to question your-self and develop. This trait is largely missing in Hadid’s work. If you compare her early works with her latest works there are no substantive differences (The formal jump from angular to curvy is not of any significance as far as I am concerned). Where is her critical mind?

If you look at the portfolio of an architecture firm’s work you will often notice a certain quality or set of characteristics that is always present. This idiosyncrasy is what primarily defines the brand of that firm. In some cases this is shaped by a set of ideas, principles, or a method of designing for eg. Zumthor argues that his work is about“atmospheres”, for Bjarke Ingels it is “architectural alchemy”. These are examples of an idea based brand. On the opposite side are Form Based Brands where it is a certain form or shape that is present throughout most of the architect’s work. Here the work is easily recognizable as belonging to this or that architect. Great examples are Frank Gehry’s curves and Daniel Libeskind pointy angular forms. No architect is purely form based or purely idea based; there is always a ratio. In this diagram I have placed a few current star-architects along the scale. As you can see, Zaha Hadid, along with Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry, are (in the red zone) almost off the scale on the form-base branding side

The problem starts with how she built her brand. A decent architect builds his or her brand around a set of core ideas which are tested, sculpted, shaped, questioned, worked-on and reworked over a lifetime-career. Zaha, like Libeskind and Gehry, however have built her branding around a formal quality: A form fetish if you will. Building a brand or career on a formal quality is problematic on so many levels I don't even know where to begin. On the first level, it is wrong because it always forces you conform to that formal quality whether it is appropriate or not: No matter what the demand of the site, or the condition of the program that you are working with, you are always forced to apply that same rigid formal condition to it. If the form is your brand, it inevitably has to become your ending point. So what do you do? You make a sculptural form that fits your formal trope and then you are left with an uphill task of forcing the program and the problematics of the site and all the other challenges you are faced with to fit nicely into your sculpture. Alternatively, you can work out the problematics of the program and then plaster on the formal condition on to its exterior like shrink wrap and hope that it works with the site and context. Either way, to me this is an aberration!

It’s like having a dressmaking business that makes everything only in polka-dots in a world where consumers come in all different shapes, colors, sizes and preferences. Your daily challenge then is to constantly confront the fact that not everybody looks good in polka-dots. The question with every customer that walks through your door becomes then:

How can we make him or her look good in polka-dots?

not

What is the clothes that work best for this customer? or makes this customer feel most comfortable, or what is right for this customer?

If your brand was based less on a form and more on an idea instead (for example a kind of quality, or the idea of organic like Wright, or about timelessness and the immeasurable as with Kahn, or about Atmospheres as with Zumthor, etc ) then it opens up potentials and possibilities to solve problems more effectively. If we go back to the dressmaker example, and lets say this time your brand is about an idea (take the idea of quality for instance). In this case, when a customer walks through your door the first question then becomes:

What kind of clothes suits this customer best? Lets find out what will make this customer satisfied?

...and if that customer values quality in the same way that you do then the next logical question should be:

How can I make what this customer wants in a “quality” way?

Idea based branding also opens up the potential for development and growth; things like quality, and organic, timelessness, atmospheres, etc are subjective and therefore subject to change. As a young architect starting out you could have a certain idea of what quality is and over the course of your career you most likely will have experiences, and realizations, discoveries, and so on that will allow you to see things in a different way: It can be developed on; someone can argue with you and change your mind. It is something that is partly logical and intuitive, so at the end of your career you could come away with an opinion of quality that is much more informed than when you started out. And that is a wonderful thing.

Think about it! if your brand is based on a formal trope your argument almost always comes down to “I am for this formal trope because I like it and I think it is cool”. However, if you ask Zaha what is the principal ideas behind her work, she will probably spit out some fancy words and phrases with some of the usual key terms that she or nobody else really understands; like morphologies, shapes derived from processes, distortion, concave-convex configurations, fluidity, mathematical constraints, concealed nature interwoven with strands of culture and fluidity within the constraints of traditional geometry.

Below is the text for her Munch Museum design proposal that I mentioned earlier ( The text on the left is taken directly from her website and on the right is my translation ). As you read this, keep in mind that it was displayed for public view in Oslo, Norway whose inhabitants first language is Norwegian and second language is mainly English:

click image to see larger view

To this day, I absolutely can not keep a straight face while reading this:

What was she thinking?

Mathematical constraint? MATHEMATICAL CONSTRAINT!!!?

"Our proposal was based on superimposing a mathematical constraint onto a new city vision"?

Did she just use the term mathematical constraint to mean a cool new curvy form?

Where do people come up with this stuff? the landscape urbanism bullshit generator?

Zaha Hadid uses this kind of language of course to make herself sound very sophisticated, and because the architecture world frowns on simple honest language, but when all the fancy words are deciphered, what it all comes down to mean is “I am for this formal trope because I like it and I think it is cool”

There is nothing wrong with that except that it is purely based on your taste and no one can argue with you about it. That’s just the way it is and that’s that. What's worse is that you yourself can’t question it or reason with it. It’s like your favorite color: I like blue, and no argument in the world is going to change that. My favorite color was blue when I was 5, it is still blue now and for all I know it will still be blue when I am 90. So there is not much potential for growth or change in that, is there?

Zaha likes her curvy forms because she likes them and she hires people who likes them and she attracts clients who likes them. There is no argument that can change that; her forms, are not something one can reason with, either you like it or you don't. End of story.

The positive aspect of this model is that clients know exactly what their building or end product is going to look like if they choose Zaha as their architect. There will be no surprises, it is safe, and you are guaranteed to be satisfied if you like that kind of stuff. This is the mark of a good brand. Its the McDonalds model in fact; no matter where you go in the world, a big mac will taste like a big-mac whether you get one at a Mickey dee’s in New Jersey, Los Angeles, Canada, or the one directly across from the Pantheon in Rome. This model builds strong brand identity, guarantees you a steady customer supply and stable income. If you have that, then why in sweet Jesus’ name would you want to change it?

A future with Zaha Hadid as your Gender Leader?

So if you are a female architect who is waiting for Zaha to somehow evolve into the Josephine Baker of architecture and transform into a champion of women rights or be the kind of perception changing icon that Baker was, then I am afraid you will be in for a disappointment. Zaha isn't coming to save you!

Zaha sits on the Pritzker prize jury at a critical moment in the history of the Prize for women. As a world famous architect with high name recognition value, sitting on that jury she has a lot of power. If she wanted to, she could wield that power to support her fellow women in a major way. She was silent when her very own jury awarded Wang Shu the Pritzker and snubbed his wife and design partner Lu Wenyu. If I were her, I would not want my name to be associated with that decision. I would have simply resigned from the jury in protest. If she had simply done that, then a lot of fucking heat would be on the remaining male jurors. Wouldn’t it? So her silence here equals guilt or complicity as far as I am concerned.

When Denise Scott Brown asked to be retrospectively recognized by the Pritzker Organization for her contribution to the work that her husband and design partner Robert Venturi got the award alone, Zaha didn't do much either. As a sitting member of the Pritzker jury, her protest came in the form of signing a change.org petition that any old Joe can do. An editorial in a major newspaper voicing her disgust for what happened and her support for Brown is the least that I think she could do?

So I will say this again: Zaha isn't coming to save you! For all I know she did not stand up for Lu when her jury dissed her, she is not doing much more to stand up for Denise Scott Brown, and for all I know she won’t be standing up for you. So if you are a female architect under Zaha’s reign and looking at her as a role model then “shut up and make pretty” is going to be your motto for the next few decades. Say cheeez!

Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT

Liberating Minds Since August 2007

91. Pritzker Talk

In October last year (2012) I was contacted by Martha Thorne, Executive Director of the Pritzker Prize. Apparently she came across the blog and was reading my notes and criticisms of the prize. She was kind enough to leave a short note to let me know that she enjoyed my articles which she considered thoughtful. She also asked me if I would like to nominate any architect(s) for the 2013 Pritzker Prize. Below is my response to her:

I decided to release this note now because I think it is particularly relevant given the discussion that was set off when Denise Scott Brown asked to be retroactively recognized (after 20 years) by the Pritzker Prize since her partner Robert Venturi was awarded the prize alone for a career and body of work that they built together.

You may have also seen a growing petition to Martha supporting Denise Scott Brown’s request. (You can sign the petition here)

In this letter, you will aslo note that this is something that I had cautioned Martha about: That the Pritzker can either adopt and partake in shaping a new reality of inclusiveness or face backlash and/or irrelevance.

Hi Martha,

Thanks for visiting the blog and thanks for being a good sport and writing.

While I wouldn't go as far as nominating anyone I would say that if you are relying solely on nominations, then that's your first mistake. If the Pritzker has the means to give away $100,000 every year and a network spanning the most prestigious institutions around globe, not to mention the world wide reach of the Hyatt Hotels, then its a safe assumption that you also have the means to assemble a team dedicated to research and intelligence gathering on architects around the world that are doing work that genuinely contributes to humanity.

As I mentioned in one of my articles on the Pritzker, The Nobel Prize in Literature is pretty successful at combing the globe and picking out individuals that are making worthy contributions to the world through their writings.

What's really cool about the Nobel is how unpredictable they are. Take the Peace Prize for example (withstanding this year’s bizarre pick of the European Union): their recipients are wide ranging and could be anyone from the president of the United States one year, a Chinese political prisoner sitting in jail, the next year and three local freedom fighting women from Africa and Yemen the following year. The only criteria is that they are doing something to make a significant contribution to peace in the world.

Does giving the Nobel to these relatively unknown people struggling to make a difference, advance their cause in any way. You bet! That's what the Nobel prize does.

Since, you often refer to yourselves as Architecture's Nobel, I would suggest that as a start, you invite someone from the Nobel's Literature prize selection committee to come over and meet with you and exchange notes over coffee. Find out how they do it! I am sure they would be obliged. Seriously. If you are going to call yourselves Architecture's Nobel, then why not go all the way?

I sometimes talk about how every year around springtime starchitects of the first world get a little anxious and jittery in the belly because they are wondering if you are going to call. I implore you to imagine a world where absolutely any architect in any part of the world who have been genuinely doing work that makes a significant contribution to humanity feel jittery in their bellies around spring time too. Think about how many architects would seriously consider how their own work contributes to humanity? How many architects would make more ethical choices in their practices? How many more architects would strive to be more socially conscious than they normally do?

There are not that many institutions out there that can do this, but yours can. You have the ability to influence the world in this way. Consider that for a moment.

The sleek forms, and spectacular spaces that some of your recipients make and were selected for are nice. Really nice. I admire them, and some of your laureates are my greatest architectural heroes. I don't want to take away anything from them or what they contribute to architecture, but I think that great forms and spectacular spaces are not the only measure of an architect's qualities of talent, vision or commitment to the built environment or the profession.

The mission statement of the Pritzker also asks that the recipient should be making significant contributions to humanity. This is the aspect that you have consistently overlooked. It is really hard to see how any of the past laureates have made any consistent contributions to humanity.

Perhaps there is no one architect that fits both criteria at once (making significant contributions in each category) so perhaps it is worth alternating between architects that meet major parts each year.

Here is another thing to consider, the Pritzker is a very prestigious award, and it will probably remain so for a long time. However, it is quite obvious that a lot of the long held attitudes toward celebrity culture in architecture are changing . A single minded focus on the celebrity class is kind of lopsided. Most of the architects I know (and I know quite a lot) are not just interested in the sleekest building and the latest spectacle from about Zaha, Rem, etc. We are also interested in the multitudes of innovative ways in which many other architects around the world are contributing to the profession and humanity.

I am sure you are aware of the TED organization. They have a platform that gives attention to people from a wide variety of communities that are making innovative contributions to their communities a chance to be seen and heard. They have people ranging from the likes of former president  Bill Clinton to William Kamkwamba (an African teenage boy who built his family an electricity-generating windmill from scrap parts). I believe this is the model of the future: It is indiscriminately merit based, and inclusive. The Pritzker was perhaps born in a time and place where prestige and exclusivity was seen as the highest virtue in the profession. That time has come and is slowly fading.  The way I see it, you guys are at a crossroads: You can adopt and partake in shaping this new reality or you can cling to your name and prestige and hope that history swings back in your favor.

I understand that the committee is constrained/obligated to follow certain rules stipulated by the Pritzker mandate. However, even the greatest constitutions are meant to be broken, literally. The U.S. constitution, for example, was intended be dismantled and rewritten every 19 years. The authors realized that they would not be around to foresee all the changes that the world will undergo long after they died and I suppose they trusted that the keepers of society's laws would be thoughtful, morally cognizant and intelligent enough to make good decisions. Even though no one ever did do it, it is true. Just ask justice Breyer next time you see him.

I brought this up because, this is perhaps the obvious obstacles to some of the suggestions I am making. For example, I thought your choice of Wang Shu this year was a pretty decent one, however, I felt you should have included his partner Lu Wenyu as well. The argument presented by you (perhaps shaped by the forces in the Pritzker organization) was basically to point to the rules, precedents and procedures of the Pritzker mandate. However, I would bet that if you put all the bylaws and regulations aside, took a deep breath and asked yourself the question:

Do I feel in my heart that this is the right thing to do?

I think you would have agreed that Lu should have been included as well. While I understand that you are the executive director and not a voting member of the committee your influence on the jury is of significance. Think about it, would it be so bad to bend the rules a little bit (as you have done before in the cases of Herzog & De Meruon and SANAA) to do what you know in your gut is the right thing? The Nobel Prize does it all the time. The Nobel Peace prize mandate for example, stipulates that the prize should be given to a person (singular). However, they have given the prize multiple times to organizations such as the United Nations, The International Red Cross, and several other organizations over the course of its history.

In the end, they have chosen to award the prize in line with the intent and spirit of the mandate rather than the rules that bound it.

I think you should consider my suggestions in the same spirit.

If I were to have it my way, I would not have prizes and awards at all. However, if we must have them, then I would award them to design teams and not so much to individuals. It is very rare that a single architect can work alone to develop a masterpiece from start to finish. If architecture was compared to a sport it would be more like basketball, or football and less like tennis, or golf. Imagine giving the world cup to Andrés Iniesta, not Spain or the NBA championship trophy to Lebron James alone while his teammates and the whole Miami Heat organization watches on. It would be ridiculous. When an NBA team wins, the whole organization gets a ring; this means that aside from the starting players, the reserve players, the coaching staff and the administration for the organization receive a ring. The intent is to recognize everyone who contributed to the success of the team.

Speaking of intentions, I must apologize for this long tome of a letter, it was not my intention to outline a bold new vision for the Pritzker, but I felt this was important to at least try to persuade you. After all, it's not everyday one gets contacted by the executive director of the Pritzker Prize. :)

Respectfully Yours,

Conrad Newel

NOTES ON BECOMING A FAMOUS ARCHITECT
Liberating Minds Since August 2007

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.