Latest / The Discussion Podcast / The Lunch Discussion - Design, Dissent & Democracy: Inside Partisans with Alex Josephson

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The Lunch Discussion - Design, Dissent & Democracy: Inside Partisans with Alex Josephson · The Discussion Podcast

• 0:00
  This is the Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell, supported by
• 0:05
  Happy New Year!
• 0:07
  Child-led learning in nature's playground.
• 0:10
  Today in the lunch discussion, I'm delighted to be joined from Toronto
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  by the founder of a company called Partisans,
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  which is an award-winning architectural studio
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  that specializes in design, technology,
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  integration around with culture and creative services.
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  I'm speaking today to Alexander Josephson.
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  Alex, how are you?
• 0:33
  I'm great, Rod. How are you doing?
• 0:35
  I'm very, very good. Very, very good.
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  I'm delighted to be speaking to you.
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  Let's talk about you and your practice, first of all.
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  When did you first think that you wanted to get into architecture?
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  When was your first moment of thinking,
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  yeah, I get this, this is what I'd like to do?
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  Well, it was all about romance and rebellion, the two R's.
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  I was seven or eight years old, and I was very tactile.
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  I wasn't the most academic at that point, as most young boys aren't.
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  So I had a crush on a girl, and I drew her a castle.
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  But I didn't just draw her the castle.
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  I drew the castle, and I drew it in section.
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  I don't know why or how I understood architectural drafting at the time,
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  but I just did.
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  Anyhow, so I guess I got a date out of it.
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  She played snakes and ladders with me.
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  I just remember this vividly.
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  And then maybe I was eight.
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  No, maybe it was, yeah, seven or eight.
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  Anyway, point being, I found out that either my parents or someone else,
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  architects draw castles.
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  And I kept on doing it.
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  No one really tells you anything when you're seven or eight.
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  You're kind of interested in it.
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  One day you want to be a doctor.
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  One day you want to be an architect.
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  One day you want to be a fireman.
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  One day you want to do anything.
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  One day you just want to be a hustler, as Snoop said, right?
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  Yeah.
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  And then when I got a little bit older,
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  I kind of realized that no one else liked architecture around me.
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  No one really talked about it.
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  Well, maybe they did or they didn't, but no one wanted to be an architect.
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  And then I started to get kind of the inkling that my parents were a bit
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  worried that I wanted to be an architect.
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  And then a very successful Canadian architect,
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  I think I was 12, told me,
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  why on earth would I want to be an architect?
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  You should do something else.
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  Interesting.
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  And then I realized, I was like, oh, this is a bit rebellious.
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  I was like, people don't want me to do this.
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  And you tell a young boy not to do something,
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  they go ahead and do it.
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  So the seed was basically formed at that stage of your life.
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  Yeah.
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  It was pretty completely innocently.
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  I had no, come from a family of doctors and entrepreneurs.
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  My mother had a bit of a design background.
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  In fact, she did some design school,
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  but no one was an architect or an engineer in my family.
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  Wow.
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  And at that time in education in Canada,
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  were people able to guide you on what it would take to become an architect?
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  Because there's many, I think the thing about architecture,
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  it's one of the longest degree courses I recall at the university.
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  It's about five years.
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  Interminable.
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  Takes longer to be an architect than certain.
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  A doctor.
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  Specialties of doctor.
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  Yeah.
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  It's crazy.
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  It's changed a little bit, but it's absurd.
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  But back then, there was a structural aspect to it.
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  There's a design aspect to it.
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  There's also an aspect of engaging with people and understanding what they want.
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  Let's talk about you, though, for a second.
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  You're an Irishman, right?
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  Uh-huh.
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  So Canada has a lot of Irish history.
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  It has.
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  And there's a kind of, let's just call it brass tacks when it comes to hardy folk.
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  Yeah.
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  Frugal.
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  Yes.
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  Do a lot with little.
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  And Canada is a conservative place.
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  And in the same way that Ireland, in a way, Ireland's not a colony,
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  but the empire left these countries a little insecure and unsophisticated, frankly.
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  And specifically talk about Canada.
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  And the hangover was don't stick out like a sore thumb.
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  Yes.
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  That's right.
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  Right?
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  That's right.
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  These are real things.
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  And in fact, it affects the way you build architecture.
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  It affects your culture.
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  It affects how many people want to be architects.
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  How many people in Ireland want to be an architect?
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  Very true.
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  And actually, not very much saying about stay in your line, know your place.
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  These were words that you used to hear early in your life.
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  And I'm glad to have this discussion with you because I got a feeling we can talk a lot about Canada and Ireland.
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  Yes.
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  What's happened in Ireland, the history of Northern Ireland and Ireland proper,
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  I think that there's a good discussion to have about that in relationship to Canada.
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  I don't know about Australia, but Canada for sure.
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  Yeah.
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  And how that relates to architecture?
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  Well, it relates.
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  Your architecture is a manifestation of your culture.
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  Well, I remember going to Canada for the first time in 1975 when I was five years of age.
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  And you had an exhibition center there.
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  It was a large golf ball sized dome.
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  I can't remember what it was.
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  I think it was called the Ontario Center or something like that.
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  Ontario Place.
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  That's it.
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  And I remember in those days, as a five-year-old, we hardly ever went to Belfast because of the troubles.
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  So you were living in a very country environment, right?
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  Not many big buildings, no skyscrapers.
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  Belfast didn't have skyscrapers.
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  Suddenly, I'm in Canada and you're seeing a building that was like a golf ball, but the size of a skyscraper, you know, the CN Tower.
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  All these things were just fascinating.
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  Even just going to McDonald's, for example.
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  But all of that was design and all of that was architecture.
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  But to me, it felt like a totally different universe.
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  And the only thing I can relate to today that was similar was last year when I went to Singapore.
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  And I saw the design in Singapore and some of the buildings.
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  And again, it took you back.
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  And it's that impression that it left you.
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  That's what good design and good architecture can do.
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  Well, I'm happy that Toronto, like that impression, I'm happy that those made such a positive impression.
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  Because I'm actually still working on Ontario.
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  I have a big job we want on Ontario Place, which is to do the new amphitheater there, which is just beside the Cinesphere, which is what you saw.
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  And the Metabolist Architecture.
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  That was Toronto's response to Expo 67 in Montreal.
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  And when you came in 1975, you have, of course, the CN Tower.
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  Yes.
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  The great, you know, to this day, really, the biggest buildings, the tallest buildings in the world.
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  Sure, they're tall and you can take an elevator up to an observation deck.
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  But nothing comes close to the experience of taking those elevators up 1,200 feet, 1,400 feet at the CN Tower.
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  Because you're in a glass pod looking at a glass wall traveling at an enormous rate.
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  And you see the engineering.
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  You are in the structure.
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  You are in the engineering.
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  And it's scary because all of that, when you go to this, you know, the Burj in Dubai or wherever it is in Singapore, you get into an elevator in the heart of this building and you don't see anything when you go up.
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  You get up and you're on the floor and you feel like you're high in the air.
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  But the CN Tower to this day retains this incredible optimism of this idea of Canada.
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  Yes.
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  And it's beautiful that you remember that as a kid because I look at those as really important achievements as well.
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  But Canada really lost its edge.
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  You know, we in the 1990s, after that recession, the quality of what was built here after that really changed.
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  Yeah.
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  And we obviously had a condominiumization effect, the financialization of housing, where 99.9% of it wasn't great.
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  And we're paying the price of that now and we're trying to fix that now.
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  But that era of the, you know, late 50s to, you know, really the early 70s, it stopped, is when you had the important bank towers, Banque Vies-Vandero, the CN Tower.
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  You had the AGO expansions and the Cinesphere and Ontario Place.
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  And there are other structures as well from that time.
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  But it was kind of a golden era of architecture.
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  And I was going to say it brings up for me the topic of the value and the role of good design in society.
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  Okay. And, you know, it seems you can design to allow people to share, to collaborate, to feel a sense of belonging.
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  You can design for safety reasons.
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  There's so many different purposes.
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  Well, let's talk about it for one second.
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  You and I started this conversation.
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  You said, hi from Manchester.
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  And I said, hey, from Toronto.
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  And I know Salford because I worked on it when I was living in Italy.
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  We worked on a master plan for Salford City, Manchester.
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  And it was at Fuxus Architects.
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  It was 2003.
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  And I can relate to you because I have been to your city and I recognize its form and its buildings.
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  And you've been to my city.
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  And you recognize its forms and its identity.
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  And not just that, we're part of the empire.
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  Right?
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  Yes.
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  And so the architecture forms a common ground in a way.
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  Or these exclamation marks in our memory.
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  And you talked about your memory and what you've been through.
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  But the architecture is alive in your memory.
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  Yes.
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  And so to that point, architecture is the physical manifestation.
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  The largest investment you can make in anything physical is the built form.
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  Right?
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  It's building your cities.
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  It's your identity.
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  It's your ambition as a society, as a group of people.
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  And so it tells a lot about you.
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  And it brings people together.
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  Especially when it's recognizable.
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  It seems to me, as somebody who has no real knowledge but just is interested in design and interested in buildings,
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  is that I'm sure like everything, you go through different waves.
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  So perhaps in the 70s, there was a style that was more about taking new technologies that were possibly unproven,
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  that didn't always create the most beautiful buildings or the types of structures that would last.
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  So here in Britain, post-war, large-scale council estates, public housing, were built at a rapid rate.
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  And it was all part of a new society, post-war society.
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  Most of those today have either been knocked down or completely changed because they didn't design for community.
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  They used technology or the advancement of technology overtook the purpose in some ways.
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  Or perhaps, actually, it was the cost and the scale at which they had to run at.
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  But they've almost demolished a lot of those establishments because they didn't work for the culture and the development of people.
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  Can you see things today that you sort of think, yes, it's exciting, it's interesting, but I can see where that might cause us problems in the future?
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  Well, let's go back to what you said.
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  I don't totally agree with what you said.
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  If you look at the Barbican and you look at other, what's the name of that Beatles album where you have that housing estate that's concrete in the background?
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  Anyway, it doesn't matter.
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  You're right.
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  The Soviet bloc or the extruded tower in concrete on its own, the tower in the park.
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  Yes.
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  That model failed.
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  But that failed everywhere in the world, that model.
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  And brutalism, the style that you're talking about, the concrete brutalism, that style actually is beautiful.
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  It's beautiful.
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  But the problem is the position and urban relationship that a lot of those extruded towers had with their communities was a failure.
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  It was a mistake.
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  And we learned about that.
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  And yes, a lot of those were demolished.
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  Could they have been repurposed?
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  And if the groundscape, the way its relationship to the street could have been fixed, perhaps.
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  Jury's out on that.
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  But a lot of those buildings have been destroyed.
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  One, I got to say, I think that that's sort of like the equivalent of the adolescent in architecture from a style perspective.
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  When you're an adolescent, I don't know about you, but I had like bad acne.
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  And I looked pretty awkward.
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  I still have a pretty big looking nose.
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  So when I was an adolescent, my nose and my acne, I was an awkward looking guy.
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  And just because I was awkward looking, my parents didn't put me out to pasture.
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  They were like, he's just awkward looking.
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  He'll grow out of it.
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  He'll grow into it.
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  You know, like whatever it is.
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  The problem with architecture or style of architecture is that for a period of time, it will look very awkward.
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  Yes.
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  Because it's in that adolescent stage architecturally.
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  Like you're talking about architecture in England or in Ireland.
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  You're talking about 500,000 year old buildings.
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  OK.
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  Older.
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  Roman ruins in certain circumstances.
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  Your collective memory of the qualities of architecture spans millennia.
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  And so these brutalist buildings, which are genuinely trying to mediate the issue of craft, beauty, and efficiency in a post-war, post-economic meltdown era where you don't have labor that's cost effective.
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  All those old buildings had essentially either guild labor or slave labor or worse.
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  So we forget that the classic buildings that we see in the most ancient cities were built on the backs of pretty terrible environments.
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  So modernism had to mediate being responsible again.
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  Economically responsible.
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  People had to make a living wage.
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  There had to be safety.
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  The cost of building a classical ornamented building in classic authentic stone was simply not possible anymore for everybody.
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  And concrete was an efficient tool to get to scale really cost effectively.
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  And then brutalism extended from this idea of the Breton Brut from France.
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  And really, unfortunately, is misunderstood in the same way adolescent awkwardness is misunderstood.
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  Because it's young.
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  And it hasn't been there for so long.
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  But I tell you, in 100 years, people are going to look back at Marina Place in Chicago or Robarts Library in Toronto or Grosvenor Square and the Barbican and others around the world as being masterpieces.
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  But right now, it's a misunderstood thing.
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  And that's because people don't have the perspective to really appreciate them.
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  Now, some people might say, well, there's such thing as objective beauty.
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  I shouldn't need to know anything about it to appreciate it.
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  It should be self-evident.
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  And that's an interesting way of looking at things.
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  I sometimes want to believe that there's such thing as objective beauty.
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  Laugier, one of the great architectural scholars of the Renaissance.
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  Well, I guess that later than that, you know, describe this idea of objective beauty unto itself in architecture.
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  But I think you have to have a more open mind about it.
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  And stylistically, architecture changes so much over the millennia.
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  So you bring up an interesting point in all forms of art and culture.
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  You always need those people who are the adventurers, who push the boundaries.
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  Because by pushing the boundaries, then you push the norm.
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  But the norm will never go as far.
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  But at least you're doing that.
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  Today, is the drivers of that push as much about environmental purpose and how a building sits in the environment,
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  as much as it is about its pure form and actually its beauty?
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  Or is it actually also about adopting certain techniques and fabrications that are trendy, if you like?
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  It's all of the above, really.
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  Architecture is a very insular little community.
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  You're talking about, I don't know, around the world, hundreds, maybe a few hundred thousand, hundreds of thousands, maybe.
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  It's not a very prevalent.
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  You wouldn't call that a very large number.
• 19:40
  Maybe that's wrong.
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  Maybe it's a million.
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  I have no idea.
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  It's not a lot.
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  Less people that have an architecture degree have a license to practice as a professional.
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  Many may work in an architecture firm, but they may not even have their own license to practice, which is another thing altogether.
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  But the point being is all the things that you're saying, technology trends, material trends, the push for environmental sustainability,
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  that's been going on for 50 years, since the 70s, really.
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  Architecture has always sort of...
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  I see architecture as the prince that really sat on his own sword for the environment, for the world.
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  And buildings have always been understood as energy guzzlers.
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  And not for lack of architects wanting that to be better.
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  But the architects aren't inventing the HVAC systems, the elements of the building that consume the most energy.
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  And we're not inventing the facade.
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  Well, we're starting to...
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  To be honest with you, a lot of architects are now starting to want to invent these systems,
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  because we see ourselves as the stewards of the world's safety environmentally in the future,
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  because buildings consume so much energy and carbon.
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  But ironically, architects don't necessarily receive any compensation for trying to save the world.
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  And right now, the entire industry is so focused on decarbonizing buildings.
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  And I sometimes laugh, because I want to do well for the world.
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  I want to leave the world a better place.
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  But I sometimes wonder why architects are doing it for free.
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  Yeah, I mean, like...
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  Are you?
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  We get paid to design buildings.
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  And in the end, we're serving our clients, whether they're public projects or private projects.
• 21:45
  We are providing a service, right?
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  And many architects are advocating incredible solutions, mass timber, systems that are amazing.
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  But in a way, we're brokers for companies that are making a fortune.
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  And we see nothing except, well, maybe we'll get more projects out of it.
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  And I find it hilarious that a real estate agent makes more on average than an architect.
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  With no education whatsoever.
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  It's a ridiculous fact.
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  And I was just at a conference, and I said, you know, it's one thing to be part of the trend and want to save the world.
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  It's another thing to do it for nothing.
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  And the way I see architects right now is, what a funny situation where you're saving the world and not being respected in the process.
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  Is that not where the client is coming in, first of all?
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  No, it's architects.
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  It's architects.
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  We're in charge of our dignity, not our clients.
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  But surely you're only as good, or you can only push as far as your client has got the imagination and got the money to do it.
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  Yes, but I don't think that being sustainable or trying to do energy efficient architecture is only more expensive than traditional architecture.
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  It actually has lower operational costs in a lot of circumstances.
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  So what I just find funny is like, architecture as a profession, this is a segue.
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  So many other fields have found ways to monetize doing good.
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  Architecture is still figuring that out, I think.
• 23:39
  Prince Charles, or King Charles, now, in the UK, is somebody who's taken a great interest in architecture.
• 23:49
  He hasn't been quiet in his criticism, if you like, of some of the more, let's call them avant-garde, more progressive designs in London.
• 24:02
  In some ways, there's a real balancing act.
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  Well, wouldn't it be nice if we had a bunch of slaves still carving stone to make his architraves and columns?
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  Come on, let's be serious.
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  The amount of labor that went into building classical architecture was nothing short of awe-inspiring.
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  And when you look at Westminster, or you look at these buildings, these were made by hand.
• 24:32
  Exactly.
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  At back-breaking wages.
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  Come on, sir.
• 24:38
  And actually, the number of people who were injured or died trying to make these classical buildings without the modern techniques today.
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  And ironically, we just won the commission to design and build the Construction Workers Memorial in Queen's Park in Toronto.
• 24:59
  Really?
• 25:00
  And I take this very seriously.
• 25:02
  Now, that being said, I don't think the King really understands contemporary architecture.
• 25:09
  I think that he, at one point, was a huge proponent of Leon Creer and what you'd call a post-modern approach to classical architecture.
• 25:19
  That's fine. It's familiar.
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  His position as a monarch, it's about conserving that relationship to the state and conserving that status.
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  And of course, familiarity is absolutely central to that.
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  And so, if anything looks unfamiliar, of course, it wouldn't be something that they would necessarily support.
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  So, while on the one hand, I have great respect for the monarch and the tradition of the monarchy, but on the other, I call the bias out.
• 25:58
  And say, well, you know, on the one hand, you're an environmentalist, but you don't like the aesthetics of the highest-performing architecture in the world.
• 26:07
  I find that interesting and strange, but it's a position.
• 26:12
  But the reality is, buildings that are constructed today, the best buildings constructed today, are incredibly efficient.
• 26:23
  Especially when you're talking about mass timber, hybrid mass timber.
• 26:27
  Obviously, you can't talk about office towers.
• 26:31
  If you talk about office towers in London, no.
• 26:34
  I mean, every facade in triple-pane glass, very difficult.
• 26:40
  London's in an environment that, actually, it's a bit easier.
• 26:44
  It doesn't ever get really, really, really cold.
• 26:47
  But it does get hot in the summer.
• 26:50
  So, that glass, you've got to air-condition that all day long.
• 26:54
  Obviously, office towers, you've got to take those and put it in its box.
• 27:01
  But everything else, you have to understand that there's a reason that we build architecture the way it looks today.
• 27:08
  And it's not that it can't have ornament.
• 27:10
  I love the idea of ornament.
• 27:12
  We did the Rolex facade in Toronto, which is this extraordinary carved stone.
• 27:18
  And stone is actually very sustainable, too.
• 27:21
  It's been fired by the earth.
• 27:24
  Its energy is already embodied, except for bringing it to the site or using machines to carve it, which you can use today.
• 27:30
  But this idea of ornament, that, I think, is wherein lies the dissonance between classical architectural styles and people who appreciate that versus contemporary.
• 27:44
  Because there's that missing level of detail in ornament that is familiar and, at the same time, very satisfying.
• 27:51
  And I actually believe that there's room for ornament to be re-emerged through technology.
• 27:56
  Because technology is now allowing that detail and that fine-grain experience and tactility and authenticity of materiality outside of just glass.
• 28:06
  So, to the king, maybe have a more open mind about it.
• 28:15
  He's a big listener of the podcast, so I'm sure he'll get in touch with us.
• 28:20
  I'm sure he's listening.
• 28:22
  So, there's so many things that we could talk about.
• 28:26
  I'm actually interested in, if you take the community you mentioned of architects across the world, where would you see the most advancements happening?
• 28:39
  Who are pushing the boundaries?
• 28:41
  Well, it's funny.
• 28:43
  London has always been.
• 28:45
  You have the Architecture Association School, which is the oldest architecture school in the world.
• 28:51
  Well, one of the oldest, if not the oldest.
• 28:53
  Where some of, if not all of, the most revered architects in the world have either gone to school or had intimate contact with.
• 29:03
  And then there's the Bartlett, which is at UCL, which is right up there.
• 29:09
  Then you have ETH right now in Switzerland, ETH.
• 29:14
  And then you have Stuttgart, ICT, IKT at Stuttgart.
• 29:19
  There are other architecture schools across, obviously, North America.
• 29:22
  You have the usual suspects, Harvard, Columbia.
• 29:25
  SCI-Arc in Los Angeles is pushing the boundaries, as it always has.
• 29:31
  Frankly, if you're going to spend that much money on an education to get a Master's of Architecture, you should be going to one of these schools.
• 29:39
  Because the pedigree within the profession, that importance is significant.
• 29:46
  I can say that I'm like a half-breed.
• 29:50
  I went to Waterloo in Canada, which is famous because it's a computer school.
• 29:54
  It invented the Blackberry, the smartphone.
• 29:58
  And in JavaScript, as well as other amazing things, the Perimeter Institute for Astrophysics is there.
• 30:05
  But I did end up at the AA, and I dropped out.
• 30:09
  So, technically, I went there for a semester.
• 30:14
  Can I ask, because it's something I ask a lot of people, which is,
• 30:19
  when it comes to good design and being a good architect,
• 30:25
  what do you think is the number one characteristic that you have to have?
• 30:30
  If it was, for example, listening, curiosity, freedom of mind, if you like, not seeing boundaries,
• 30:41
  what do you believe is one of the most important characteristics that something in your practice or something that you look for would be?
• 30:50
  Throughout the ages, there's two things that have dominated, and they're inseparable.
• 30:59
  Just raw talent of expression, either drawn or communicated, and massive charisma.
• 31:05
  Wow.
• 31:06
  Yeah, you have to have enormous charisma because you have to convince extremely powerful people and organizations and large groups of people to see your vision.
• 31:20
  That's why we called our firm Partisans, because I believe in the political impact, but also relevance to architecture that politics plays.
• 31:33
  Building great architecture is a political act, fundamentally.
• 31:36
  You may have to have this extraordinarily charismatic, talented architect, be they as they are,
• 31:43
  but you also have to have other extremely charismatic people, leaders on the political side, leaders on the institutional side,
• 31:50
  and you all have to work together and believe in one another, because to get those kinds of things done requires nothing short of a religious affiliation,
• 32:00
  because it takes time, and time, as you know, is the death knell of anything.
• 32:07
  Yes.
• 32:08
  And if things take years, the idea of something being finished the way it was envisioned, almost unfathomable.
• 32:15
  So architecture is a highly political process, and you have to be an extraordinary communicator, visually and verbally.
• 32:27
  You have to have that talent, you have to have that aesthetic vision, and you have to be charismatic.
• 32:32
  In the past, when people didn't move so quickly, communication was less.
• 32:39
  You had international or regional styles, and some of that was necessity because of environment, some of it was the materials they had available to them.
• 32:50
  But in the last 20-30 years, I would say that you're seeing a more universal style of architecture.
• 32:58
  The homogenization, the smoothification, the synthetic quality of things.
• 33:04
  And in some ways, that means that the modern city, whether you're in the Western US, for example, or North America,
• 33:15
  whether you're in Europe or whether you're in Asia, sometimes you wouldn't really be able to determine the difference.
• 33:22
  Also, with certain architectural groups working globally, that is the case.
• 33:27
  Do you think that's a good thing? Do you think it's homogenizing things a bit too much?
• 33:35
  I think it's homogenized things enormously, at the benefit of very few people.
• 33:40
  Interesting.
• 33:41
  Yeah. So, there's very few, very large organizations around the world, architectural firms.
• 33:51
  Maybe there's a hundred, and they are doing the vast majority of this work globally.
• 33:58
  Fifty. I mean, I'm talking about rarefied space.
• 34:02
  These businesses are the businesses doing multiple projects around the world.
• 34:08
  And you're right, there's a homogenizing effect.
• 34:12
  And for a country as young as Canada, it's a terrible, insidious thing.
• 34:20
  Because the problem is that for decades, we've been trying to figure out an identity.
• 34:27
  And our former Prime Minister, bless him, he had this crazy idea that we're a post-national state.
• 34:35
  A post-national state?
• 34:37
  Yes, a post-national state. That we are a kind of cultural free-for-all.
• 34:45
  Ah.
• 34:46
  Identity-less. And that's a good thing.
• 34:50
  Can you imagine that? I was like, that's ridiculous.
• 34:54
  Canada is a group of people with indigenous cultures, with incredibly unique aesthetic and really philosophical relationships to the earth.
• 35:07
  It's a country with vast landscapes and vast differences in the list.
• 35:13
  All sorts of beautiful landscapes around the world.
• 35:15
  But there's very few countries where the citizenship has a relationship to such broad landscapes.
• 35:21
  And feels connected to such broad landscapes and experiences such broad landscapes in such extremes.
• 35:29
  Yes.
• 35:31
  And of course, naturally, there should be architectures and cities and urban designs that responds to those very unique Canadian cultural realities and physical realities.
• 35:44
  But instead of allowing Canadians to figure it out, we're outsourcing it.
• 35:50
  You are a consultant. You know how it works.
• 35:52
  Let's hire Anderson. They'll come, or PwC, and they'll tell us how to do it.
• 35:58
  And that is exactly, and in a way that comes back to the mothership in England, they created these consultancies.
• 36:06
  McKinsey, you can go on and on and on, right?
• 36:09
  And they went around the world and told people how they should run their businesses in countries.
• 36:16
  And this is the same thing that's happened with architecture.
• 36:20
  Canada is outsourcing our most important cultural projects to international companies.
• 36:26
  I'm a global traveler. I respect and admire the freedom I have to wander the world and see the world.
• 36:37
  That doesn't mean that I'm qualified or educated enough to be able to do that job everywhere without enormous study.
• 36:49
  And I think there's a sort of superficial triviality that a lot of this international architecture is homogenizing things with,
• 36:56
  because it's not really examining the local, the culture of the people.
• 37:03
  I'm being general.
• 37:05
  No, I understand. I understand.
• 37:06
  There's exceptions to this, but that you are a human and you have noticed the homogenization.
• 37:12
  I am calling it out for why it is and how it is, and you are recognizing it.
• 37:17
  And you weren't an architect.
• 37:18
  So if there's any architects listening, there's a reason this wonderful man Rod feels like everything is starting to look the same.
• 37:28
  It's because they don't care.
• 37:31
  They don't care if it doesn't respond really to the...
• 37:37
  That is where, if you like, arrogance can always come in, can't it?
• 37:43
  And, you know, you're not really thinking about culture and you're not thinking about the society in which you place something.
• 37:53
  But at the same time, you don't want to become too conformist.
• 38:01
  I can imagine.
• 38:02
  I've got a quote here.
• 38:03
  I think one of your guys might have given it.
• 38:05
  Beauty emerges when design misbehaves.
• 38:08
  I'm wondering whether people who commission are allowing enough misbehavior and allowing enough adventure.
• 38:19
  Some are.
• 38:20
  Are they?
• 38:21
  Yeah.
• 38:22
  I mean, look at all the buildings that you think about.
• 38:24
  You think that those were trivial and not controversial?
• 38:29
  Yeah, true.
• 38:30
  I think that the most controversial buildings are the ones that are the most memorable and the ones that we celebrate the most.
• 38:36
  Be it as they may, controversial for the reasons that they are.
• 38:41
  But I think this question of misbehavior...
• 38:46
  Let's say you're a real estate developer or a museum director.
• 38:49
  You want to differentiate your product.
• 38:52
  Of course.
• 38:53
  You want to deliver something different, something special, something that drives an understanding of your values and what you want to bring through your business, whether it's a condo tower or an art gallery.
• 39:11
  And if it just looks like everything else, then you've got a problem.
• 39:16
  You're either going to be a commodified experience and therefore irrelevant, or you have to embrace that uncertainty.
• 39:25
  You have to embrace misbehavior.
• 39:27
  You have to embrace the journey.
• 39:29
  And most people don't embrace the journey.
• 39:32
  And most institutions won't embrace the journey.
• 39:36
  And what they will get is spin on whether they have something that's thoughtful or not.
• 39:45
  But they will get the marketing people to spin it as if it is.
• 39:48
  And they can believe it is.
• 39:49
  But the devil will be in the detail, right?
• 39:52
  On the housing side, will it have positive resale values?
• 39:58
  Will it have higher rents or better rents?
• 40:01
  Will people be happier that live there?
• 40:04
  Will your institution drive traffic?
• 40:06
  Will people fly around the world to see it?
• 40:08
  If they don't, then you have your evidence.
• 40:10
  It doesn't matter what you paid the reporter to write what they did.
• 40:15
  Right?
• 40:17
  And what would you say, from a Canadian point of view, is driving the requirements and driving the principles of design today?
• 40:28
  Is it, for example, about repurposing?
• 40:31
  Is it about environmental priorities?
• 40:37
  Is it about thinking about the relationship between people, society, culture, etc.?
• 40:43
  What do you think is driving, in your locality, the sort of design decisions that people are making?
• 40:50
  In Canada, it's risk management and financial pro forma.
• 40:54
  Risk of the development?
• 40:57
  Yes, delivery and financial certainty.
• 41:03
  Canada looks...
• 41:06
  Listen, I'm a huge patriot, but I do this and I say this because I love Canada.
• 41:13
  You know, when you're friends with someone or you love someone, you tell them the truth.
• 41:18
  And to my Canadian friends, sorry, you've got to do better.
• 41:23
  Because no one's flying around the world to come to see these cities for their architecture right now.
• 41:31
  They're not.
• 41:33
  And no, we don't have an autocratic culture.
• 41:35
  We're not building 176 kilometer long pipe dreams in the middle of the desert.
• 41:41
  But the things that we are building need to be better.
• 41:45
  And yes, we have a different economic and rational framework of pragmatism in Canada.
• 41:50
  But we have to find the exceptions or we will be everything except exceptional.
• 41:55
  Interesting. And where would you say the opposite of that?
• 41:58
  Which country or region?
• 42:00
  China, Japan, United States somewhat, yeah.
• 42:04
  Are they?
• 42:06
  I mean, like, when they go big, they go big.
• 42:09
  Is big always beautiful?
• 42:13
  No, I don't mean big.
• 42:14
  I mean, metaphorically, when they, their cultural projects are major achievements.
• 42:18
  All right.
• 42:20
  Yeah.
• 42:22
  But they also support their own.
• 42:24
  Americans are extremely patriotic.
• 42:26
  They're very global.
• 42:27
  And yes, there's many examples of international architecture firms doing the work that they're doing in the United States.
• 42:35
  But they also have given incredible opportunity to American firms all over the United States.
• 42:41
  They really believe in themselves.
• 42:46
  No, just to switch mode a little bit, Alex.
• 42:49
  Because I know your company, Partisan, is currently engaged in working on two auditoriums, music venues.
• 42:58
  I believe there's one in San Juan and then one in Toronto.
• 43:03
  And as somebody who plays a lot of music and is very interested in music,
• 43:09
  I was very keen to understand the challenges today of building for that type of purpose,
• 43:17
  where the sound, the auditorium is one of the most important things,
• 43:23
  as well as sight lines and as well as versatility of venue as well.
• 43:28
  And I was struck by the thought that a lot of the materials that are used in,
• 43:34
  if you like, commercial or even residential buildings are very reflective
• 43:40
  and may not actually work very well in a sound environment.
• 43:44
  What are some of the trends in auditorium and music related venues?
• 43:51
  And what are some of the challenges today?
• 43:54
  So it took, I've been in business now 12 years,
• 43:58
  and it's taken that long to get to a point where we had cobbled together,
• 44:05
  hacking away, putting our noses in places that didn't belong to finally get these incredible music projects.
• 44:11
  So the RBC Amphitheatre in Toronto, which is a 20,000 person amphitheatre that closes for 9,000 people in the winter.
• 44:19
  And we're doing that in collaboration with Gensler.
• 44:22
  And we won an incredible commission to design a music foundation called Omelas in Puerto Rico
• 44:30
  for an incredible visionary who studied classical guitar.
• 44:35
  And to make ends meet during his university days of studying music,
• 44:40
  he traded stocks and he ended up basically becoming a phenomenal globally relevant trader.
• 44:47
  And at the ripe old age of 38, he's retiring.
• 44:50
  And going back into music and he's building a foundation.
• 44:53
  So we've come around to these commissions through smaller projects,
• 44:58
  a temporary Shakespearean theatre in the Herne,
• 45:01
  which is another reference to English architecture, Cedric Price's Funhouse,
• 45:06
  but inside a rehabilitated decommissioned coal power plant, the largest one in North America.
• 45:14
  So we did that and there was an acoustic issue there.
• 45:18
  And we had to build this theatre.
• 45:20
  And so we built that.
• 45:22
  And then we've done a lot of hospitality projects like restaurants and event spaces and stuff like this.
• 45:29
  So we sort of through cobbling together of different scopes and then winning a festival plaza in a city called Windsor in Canada,
• 45:41
  we kind of cobbled together the experience over the last 12 years to understand the components of an incredible cultural music center.
• 45:52
  And the reality is it's the architecture.
• 45:56
  Obviously, you need the home, you need the space, the right space.
• 46:00
  And then you need the right programs.
• 46:03
  You've got hospitality programs.
• 46:05
  You've got F&B programs.
• 46:07
  And obviously you have the stage and you've got the audience and the space in which the audience sits.
• 46:12
  And the acoustics is so important.
• 46:16
  One of the reasons that they're doing this new venue at the Amphitheatre in Toronto on the Lakeshore,
• 46:21
  right beside the Sinosphere where you remember,
• 46:24
  is because what was built there in the 90s to replace the original dilapidated one,
• 46:30
  sounds like a tin can.
• 46:34
  And so they want the acoustics to be amazing.
• 46:37
  And so we're working with acousticians.
• 46:39
  And in the case of Omelas, which will have a 600 person venue and a state of the art listening room and a music archive and lounge spaces,
• 46:50
  that will be one of the most acoustically high performance projects in the world ever built.
• 46:56
  It's meant to be one of the most ambitious offerings of acoustic and cultural experience and experimentation and research in the world.
• 47:07
  There'll be two residency units in the building as well as a wellness component,
• 47:12
  so that artists from around the world, musicians, composers, apply and want to be there for six months at a time.
• 47:20
  And that project itself also has Ethan Bordeaux working on it,
• 47:26
  who is probably the Yoda of acoustics around the world.
• 47:31
  He's the next generation genius of acoustics.
• 47:35
  And the acoustic function and prioritizing the acoustic function,
• 47:38
  which would be one of the key things, I guess, in a music venue with the form and the beauty.
• 47:45
  Are those two things you can balance?
• 47:48
  Yes. In the case of acoustics, form has a massive impact.
• 47:54
  Smooth, hard surfaces create echoes and refractions and interferences.
• 48:02
  So you have to be really careful.
• 48:05
  These aesthetics around form and organic sinuous shapes actually, when it comes to acoustics, is very difficult to manage.
• 48:14
  So we've learned a lot in the process over the years about how not to do things and we've made some mistakes, of course.
• 48:22
  But in this case, we've learned from them and we're doing some amazing things and I'm excited about it.
• 48:29
  As somebody who goes to lots of music festivals, I am sometimes quite aghast at how these multifunctional big hangers can work and don't work sometimes,
• 48:44
  in terms of your distance from the performer, even with videos, etc.
• 48:51
  It seems to me I'm never quite sure if this desire to be multifunctional and all things to all people and be able to accommodate concerts and be able to accommodate exhibitions, etc.
• 49:04
  really fundamentally still is working at the moment.
• 49:07
  I don't know if you've got a view on that.
• 49:09
  I do. Listen, everything is part of the journey of civilization.
• 49:15
  Spaces of the past, we learn from them.
• 49:18
  It doesn't mean that they're bad experiences, it just means that they're maybe not optimized.
• 49:22
  They didn't have all the information or they didn't have the budget.
• 49:25
  There's so many interesting places to go and see a concert, whether you're going to the Black Rock Desert to experience Burning Man,
• 49:35
  or going to the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, or going to Roy Thompson Hall in Toronto,
• 49:42
  which is a notoriously bad acoustic experience.
• 49:46
  Better these days, but it wasn't designed properly, and we celebrate the architect nonetheless.
• 49:54
  So there's all sorts of things.
• 49:58
  We did a restaurant once that has these cast panels,
• 50:04
  and we didn't understand that we were going to create these moments where there'd be focal points of sound,
• 50:08
  that if you put your head in the right spot, it's just really disorienting.
• 50:15
  Unfortunately, you either learn the hard way and never do it again,
• 50:22
  or you're taught and you have all these experts around you.
• 50:25
  What we're lucky about on all these projects is we're working with the best people in the world,
• 50:29
  and they are really passionate.
• 50:31
  They have new technologies and new ways of thinking about acoustics and performance spaces and sound.
• 50:40
  The world isn't just calcified into stone.
• 50:45
  Our understanding and our techniques for how to solve these kinds of problems,
• 50:50
  especially in the case of music and acoustics, are always evolving and getting better.
• 50:56
  So as a music fan, you'll really probably appreciate the things that are getting built right now
• 51:01
  because they're seeing things in different ways.
• 51:05
  Time's nearly up. I want to ask you one wider question.
• 51:10
  It's more a question of your own development and your own inspiration
• 51:15
  because as somebody who leads a large practice and a very advanced practice in architecture,
• 51:23
  where do you get your mentorship and where do you get your drive and your energy
• 51:31
  to keep pushing and to keep pressing on, if you like?
• 51:36
  How easy is it for you to access that?
• 51:42
  It's funny that you ask that. I don't know.
• 51:45
  Maybe back to your question about how you have to be able to take a beating.
• 51:53
  You have to put yourself out there and fail.
• 51:56
  Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you win.
• 51:59
  But if you don't put yourself out there and take the risk, you never know.
• 52:03
  As much as there are these amazing things we're doing,
• 52:06
  we've also failed at a lot of things or not won a lot of things.
• 52:11
  The problem with marketing these days is everything's peachy.
• 52:16
  Why don't you talk about when it wasn't peachy?
• 52:19
  The best businessmen in the world say that they are where they are
• 52:24
  because they made huge mistakes.
• 52:27
  Look at Bill Ackman in finance. He lost $5 billion.
• 52:32
  Now he's got an IPO. He's on top of the world.
• 52:35
  He's proven everybody wrong.
• 52:37
  To get through that, listen, it's a silver spoon story.
• 52:41
  But I'm just saying you have to put yourself out there.
• 52:46
  There are so many people that are hungry because they're born with nothing.
• 52:51
  Some people are born with something.
• 52:54
  But you have to stay hungry.
• 52:57
  I don't know.
• 52:59
  It's this energy to survive and to achieve.
• 53:04
  I always have this idea that I have no time.
• 53:07
  My time is limited here.
• 53:09
  I think about the universe.
• 53:11
  I'm very interested in astrophysics and the meaning of life.
• 53:16
  I look at my two young daughters, six months and two years old,
• 53:19
  and my wife, and I'm just like, gosh, every moment counts.
• 53:22
  These molecules in our body were at the center of a star once, somewhere.
• 53:28
  When I think about that, I go,
• 53:30
  I've got to really make this a better world for everybody around me,
• 53:33
  be as good as I can,
• 53:35
  and try not to fight.
• 53:39
  But it's hard. The world's a tough place.
• 53:42
  One last question.
• 53:45
  Given that a lot of what I do is a music show,
• 53:52
  if you could only take one album from one artist with you
• 53:58
  to a new environment,
• 54:02
  and that's all you could have,
• 54:05
  do you have one in mind that you would actually take?
• 54:08
  And also, I'll say, one implement, one gadget, if you like.
• 54:14
  Oh my lord, a music album and a gadget?
• 54:17
  Yeah.
• 54:18
  Ugh.
• 54:21
  Gosh.
• 54:23
  I'm sure everybody says Pink Floyd, The Wall, or something like this.
• 54:26
  No, not necessarily. Not necessarily.
• 54:30
  You know, I'd probably take...
• 54:36
  I don't know, maybe I would...
• 54:38
  I remember Daft Punk was like my...
• 54:43
  It was my first concert, Daft Punk.
• 54:45
  Right.
• 54:46
  And so I just think of my first concert,
• 54:49
  and I love Daft Punk,
• 54:51
  so I'd take them and...
• 54:55
  An object?
• 54:56
  Yeah.
• 54:58
  Hmm. Where am I taking these?
• 55:00
  You're taking them to a place where that's where you're going to be.
• 55:06
  Imagine a desert island or somewhere else,
• 55:08
  a universe somewhere else.
• 55:12
  Ugh.
• 55:14
  I'd probably take, like,
• 55:18
  a picture of my family.
• 55:20
  Interesting. Interesting.
• 55:22
  Well, look, unfortunately, we're out of time,
• 55:25
  but it's been fantastic to talk to you about a wide range of things.
• 55:29
  We've covered culture, design,
• 55:32
  we've covered society and many other things,
• 55:36
  and we haven't actually talked about one of your other interests,
• 55:40
  which is Cumulus, a digital experience,
• 55:43
  which would be very interesting to talk about at some stage.
• 55:47
  But for now, Alex Josephin,
• 55:49
  partner at Partisans in Toronto-based architecture studio.
• 55:54
  Thank you very much indeed.
• 55:56
  Rod, thanks. I really enjoyed it and hope to be back soon.
• 56:00
  This is The Late Late Lunch Show with Rod Maxwell,
• 56:04
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• 56:05
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• 56:07
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