WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.000 To be new at TED -- it's like being the last high-school virgin. 00:00:06.000 --> 00:00:08.000 (Laughter) 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:12.000 You know that all of the cool people are -- they're doing it. 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:14.000 And you're on the outside, you're at home. 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:16.000 You're like the Raspyni Brothers, 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.000 where you've got your balls in cold water. And -- 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:22.000 (Laughter) -- 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:27.000 you just play with your fingers all day. And then you get invited. 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:33.000 And you're on the inside, and it's everything you hoped it would be. 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:36.000 It's exciting and there's music playing all of the time 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.000 and then suddenly it's over. And it's only taken five minutes. 00:00:40.000 --> 00:00:43.000 And you want to go back and do it again. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.000 But I really appreciate being here. And thank you, Chris, 00:00:47.000 --> 00:00:51.000 and also, thank you, Deborah Patton, for making this possible. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 So anyway, today we'll talk about architecture a little bit, 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:59.000 within the subject of creation and optimism. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:02.000 And if you put creation and optimism together, 00:01:02.000 --> 00:01:04.000 you've got two choices that you can talk about. 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.000 You can talk about creationism -- 00:01:07.000 --> 00:01:09.000 which I think wouldn't go down well with this audience, 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:12.000 at least not from a view where you were a proponent of it -- 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:18.000 or you can talk about optimisations, spelled the British way, with an S, instead of a Z. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:20.000 And I think that's what I'd like to talk about today. 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:25.000 But any kind of conversation about architecture -- 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:28.000 which is, in fact, what you were just talking about, what was going on here, 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.000 setting up TED, small-scale architecture -- 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:38.000 at the present time can't really happen without a conversation about this, 00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:45.000 the World Trade Center, and what's been going on there, what it means to us. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:49.000 Because if architecture is what I believe it to be, 00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:53.000 which is the built form of our cultural ambitions, 00:01:53.000 --> 00:02:01.000 what do you do when presented with an opportunity to rectify a situation 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:06.000 that represents somebody else's cultural ambitions relative to us? 00:02:06.000 --> 00:02:11.000 And our own opportunity to make something new there? 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:15.000 This has been a really galvanizing issue for a long time. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.000 I think that the World Trade Center in, rather an unfortunate way, 00:02:19.000 --> 00:02:21.000 brought architecture into focus 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:23.000 in a way that I don't think people had thought of in a long time, 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.000 and made it a subject for common conversation. 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:30.000 I don't remember, in my 20-year career of practicing and writing about architecture, 00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:32.000 a time when five people sat me down at a table 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:38.000 and asked me very serious questions about zoning, fire exiting, 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:41.000 safety concerns and whether carpet burns. 00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:45.000 These are just not things we talked about very often. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:47.000 And yet, now, it's talked about all the time. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.000 At the point where you can weaponize your buildings, 00:02:52.000 --> 00:02:55.000 you have to suddenly think about architecture in a very different way. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:00.000 And so now we're going to think about architecture in a very different way, 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:02.000 we're going to think about it like this. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:07.000 How many of you saw USA Today, today? There it is. Looks like that. 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:09.000 There's the World Trade Center site, on the front cover. 00:03:09.000 --> 00:03:11.000 They've made a selection. 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:14.000 They've chosen a project by Daniel Libeskind, 00:03:14.000 --> 00:03:18.000 the enfant terrible of the moment of architecture. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:21.000 Child-prodigy piano player, he started on the squeezebox, 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:24.000 and moved to a little more serious issue, a bigger instrument, 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:26.000 and now to an even larger instrument, 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:32.000 upon which to work his particular brand of deconstructivist magic, 00:03:32.000 --> 00:03:34.000 as you see here. 00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:37.000 He was one of six people who were invited to participate in this competition, 00:03:37.000 --> 00:03:42.000 after six previous firms struck out 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:44.000 with things that were so stupid and banal 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:46.000 that even the city of New York was forced to go, 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:48.000 "Oh, I'm really sorry, we screwed up." 00:03:48.000 --> 00:03:52.000 Right. Can we do this again from the top, 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.000 except use some people with a vague hint of talent, 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:59.000 instead of just six utter boobs like we brought in last time, 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:02.000 real estate hacks of the kind who usually plan our cities. 00:04:02.000 --> 00:04:04.000 Let's bring in some real architects for a change. 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:12.000 And so we got this, or we had a choice of that. Oh, stop clapping. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:16.000 It's too late. That is gone. 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:19.000 This was a scheme by a team called THINK, a New York-based team, 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.000 and then there was that one, which was the Libeskind scheme. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.000 This one, this is going to be the new World Trade Center: 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:30.000 a giant hole in the ground with big buildings falling into it. 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.000 Now, I don't know what you think, but I think this is a pretty stupid decision, 00:04:34.000 --> 00:04:39.000 because what you've done is just made a permanent memorial to destruction 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:43.000 by making it look like the destruction is going to continue forever. 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:45.000 But that's what we're going to do. 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:48.000 But I want you to think about these things 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.000 in terms of a kind of ongoing struggle that American architecture represents, 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:54.000 and that these two things talk about very specifically. 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:59.000 And that is the wild divergence in how we choose our architects, 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.000 in trying to decide whether we want architecture 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.000 from the kind of technocratic solution to everything -- 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:10.000 that there is a large, technical answer that can solve all problems, 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:14.000 be they social, be they physical, be they chemical -- 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:17.000 or something that's more of a romantic solution. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:21.000 Now, I don't mean romantic as in, this is a nice place to take someone on a date. 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:27.000 I mean romantic in the sense of, there are things larger and grander than us. 00:05:27.000 --> 00:05:29.000 So, in the American tradition, 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:31.000 the difference between the technocratic and the romantic, 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.000 would be the difference between Thomas Jefferson's 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.000 Cartesian grids spreading across the United States, 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:40.000 that gives us basically the whole shape 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:42.000 of every western state in the United States, 00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:48.000 as a really, truly, technocratic solution, a bowing to the -- 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:54.000 in Jefferson's time -- current, popular philosophy of rationalism. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:01.000 Or the way we went to describe that later: manifest destiny. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:06.000 Now, which would you rather be? A grid, or manifest destiny? 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:08.000 Manifest destiny. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:09.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:09.000 --> 00:06:13.000 It's a big deal. It sounds big, it sounds important, 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:19.000 it sounds solid. It sounds American. Ballsy, serious, male. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:24.000 And that kind of fight has gone on back and forth in architecture all the time. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:27.000 I mean, it goes on in our private lives, too, every single day. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:30.000 We all want to go out and buy an Audi TT, don't we? 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:33.000 Everyone here must own one, or at least they craved one 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:35.000 the moment they saw one. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.000 And then they hopped in it, turned the little electronic key, 00:06:37.000 --> 00:06:41.000 rather than the real key, zipped home on their new superhighway, 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:46.000 and drove straight into a garage that looks like a Tudor castle. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:48.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:48.000 --> 00:06:50.000 Why? Why? Why do you want to do that? 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:56.000 Why do we all want to do that? I even owned a Tudor thing once myself. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:56.000 --> 00:06:57.000 (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:06:57.000 --> 00:07:01.000 It's in our nature to go ricocheting 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:06.000 back and forth between this technocratic solution 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:09.000 and a larger, sort of more romantic image of where we are. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:11.000 So we're going to go straight into this. 00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Can I have the lights off for a moment? 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.000 I'm going to talk about two architects very, very briefly 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:18.000 that represent the current split, architecturally, 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:20.000 between these two traditions of a technocratic 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 or technological solution and a romantic solution. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.000 And these are two of the top architectural practices in the United States today. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 One very young, one a little more mature. 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:31.000 This is the work of a firm called SHoP, 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:35.000 and what you're seeing here, is their isometric drawings 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:39.000 of what will be a large-scale camera obscura in a public park. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 Does everybody know what a camera obscura is? 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:44.000 Yeah, it's one of those giant camera lenses 00:07:44.000 --> 00:07:46.000 that takes a picture of the outside world -- 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:49.000 it's sort of a little movie, without any moving parts -- 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.000 and projects it on a page, and you can see the world outside you as you walk around it. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:53.000 --> 00:07:56.000 This is just the outline of it, and you can see, 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:58.000 does it look like a regular building? No. 00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:00.000 It's actually non-orthogonal: it's not up and down, 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:02.000 square, rectangular, anything like that, 00:08:02.000 --> 00:08:04.000 that you'd see in a normal shape of a building. 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:07.000 The computer revolution, the technocratic, technological revolution, 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:10.000 has allowed us to jettison normal-shaped buildings, 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.000 traditionally shaped buildings, in favor of non-orthogonal buildings such as this. 00:08:14.000 --> 00:08:16.000 What's interesting about it is not the shape. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.000 What's interesting about it is how it's made. How it's made. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:22.000 A brand-new way to put buildings together, 00:08:22.000 --> 00:08:25.000 something called mass customization. No, it is not an oxymoron. 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:28.000 What makes the building expensive, in the traditional sense, 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:31.000 is making individual parts custom, that you can't do over and over again. 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:33.000 That's why we all live in developer houses. 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:37.000 They all want to save money by building the same thing 500 times. 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:39.000 That's because it's cheaper. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:43.000 Mass customization works by an architect feeding into a computer, 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:46.000 a program that says, manufacture these parts. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:48.000 The computer then talks to a machine -- 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.000 a computer-operated machine, a cad-cam machine -- 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:55.000 that can make a zillion different changes, at a moment's notice, 00:08:55.000 --> 00:08:57.000 because the computer is just a machine. 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.000 It doesn't care. It's manufacturing the parts. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:03.000 It doesn't see any excess cost. It doesn't spend any extra time. 00:09:03.000 --> 00:09:07.000 It's not a laborer -- it's simply an electronic lathe, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.000 so the parts can all be cut at the same time. 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:12.000 Meanwhile, instead of sending someone working drawings, 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:15.000 which are those huge sets of blueprints that you've seen your whole life, 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:20.000 what the architect can do is send a set of assembly instructions, 00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:22.000 like you used to get when you were a child, 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:26.000 when you bought little models that said, "Bolt A to B, and C to D." 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:30.000 And so what the builder will get is every single individual part 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.000 that has been custom manufactured off-site and delivered on a truck 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:38.000 to the site, to that builder, and a set of these instruction manuals. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.000 Just simple "Bolt A to B" and they will be able to put them together. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:44.000 Here's the little drawing that tells them how that works -- 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:46.000 and that's what will happen in the end. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:49.000 You're underneath it, looking up into the lens of the camera obscura. 00:09:49.000 --> 00:09:54.000 Lest you think this is all fiction, lest you think this is all fantasy, or romance, 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:57.000 these same architects were asked to produce something 00:09:57.000 --> 00:10:01.000 for the central courtyard of PS1, which is a museum in Brooklyn, New York, 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:03.000 as part of their young architects summer series. 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:05.000 And they said, well, it's summer, what do you do? 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:07.000 In the summer, you go to the beach. 00:10:07.000 --> 00:10:09.000 And when you go to the beach, what do you get? You get sand dunes. 00:10:09.000 --> 00:10:12.000 So let's make architectural sand dunes and a beach cabana. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000 So they went out and they modeled a computer model of a sand dune. 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:19.000 They took photographs, they fed the photographs into their computer program, 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.000 and that computer program shaped a sand dune 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 and then took that sand dune shape and turned it into -- 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:30.000 at their instructions, using standard software with slight modifications -- 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.000 a set of instructions for pieces of wood. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:35.000 And those are the pieces of wood. Those are the instructions. 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:38.000 These are the pieces, and here's a little of that blown up. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:40.000 What you can see is there's about six different colors, 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.000 and each color represents a type of wood to be cut, a piece of wood to be cut. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:47.000 All of which were delivered by flat bed, on a truck, 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:53.000 and hand assembled in 48 hours by a team of eight people, 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:56.000 only one of whom had ever seen the plans before. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:59.000 Only one of whom had ever seen the plans before. 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:02.000 And here comes dune-scape, coming up out of the courtyard, 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:05.000 and there it is fully built. 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.000 There are only 16 different pieces of wood, 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:12.000 only 16 different assembly parts here. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.000 Looks like a beautiful piano sounding board on the inside. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.000 It has its own built-in swimming pool, very, very cool. 00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:24.000 It's a great place for parties -- it was, it was only up for six weeks. 00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:27.000 It's got little dressing rooms and cabanas, 00:11:27.000 --> 00:11:30.000 where lots of interesting things went on, all summer long. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:37.000 Now, lest you think that this is only for the light at heart, or just temporary installations, 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:40.000 this is the same firm working at the World Trade Center, 00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.000 replacing the bridge that used to go across West Street, 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:46.000 that very important pedestrian connection 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:52.000 between the city of New York and the redevelopment of the West Side. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:55.000 They were asked to design, replace that bridge in six weeks, 00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.000 building it, including all of the parts, manufactured. 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:01.000 And they were able to do it. That was their design, 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:03.000 using that same computer modeling system 00:12:03.000 --> 00:12:06.000 and only five or six really different kinds of parts, 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:10.000 a couple of struts, like this, some exterior cladding material 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:12.000 and a very simple framing system 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:14.000 that was all manufactured off-site and delivered by truck. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:17.000 They were able to create that. 00:12:17.000 --> 00:12:19.000 They were able to create something wonderful. 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:22.000 They're now building a 16-story building on the side of New York, 00:12:22.000 --> 00:12:24.000 using the same technology. 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:26.000 Here we're going to walk across the bridge at night. 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:28.000 It's self-lit, you don't need any overhead lighting, 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:31.000 so the neighbors don't complain about metal-halide lighting in their face. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Here it is going across. And there, down the other side, 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.000 and you get the same kind of grandeur. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:40.000 Now, let me show you, quickly, the opposite, if I may. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.000 Woo, pretty, huh. This is the other side of the coin. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:46.000 This is the work of David Rockwell from New York City, 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.000 whose work you can see out here today. 00:12:48.000 --> 00:12:51.000 The current king of the romantics, who approaches his work 00:12:51.000 --> 00:12:53.000 in a very different fashion. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:12:56.000 It's not to create a technological solution, it's to seduce you 00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:00.000 into something that you can do, into something that will please you, 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:02.000 something that will lift your spirits, 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:05.000 something that will make you feel as if are in another world -- 00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:08.000 such as his Nobu restaurant in New York, 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000 which is supposed to take you from the clutter of New York City 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:17.000 to the simplicity of Japan and the elegance of Japanese tradition. 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:22.000 "When it's all said and done, it's got to look like seaweed," said the owner. 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:26.000 Or his restaurant, Pod, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:29.000 I want you to know the room you're looking at is stark white. 00:13:29.000 --> 00:13:32.000 Every single surface of this restaurant is white. 00:13:32.000 --> 00:13:37.000 The reason it has so much color is that it changes using lighting. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:41.000 It's all about sensuality. It's all about transforming. 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:44.000 Watch this -- I'm not touching any buttons, ladies and gentlemen. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.000 This is happening by itself. 00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.000 It transforms through the magic of lighting. 00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:51.000 It's all about sensuality. It's all about touch. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:56.000 Rosa Mexicano restaurant, where he transports us to the shores of Acapulco, 00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000 up on the Upper West Side, 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:03.000 with this wall of cliff divers who -- there you go, like that. 00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:05.000 Let's see it one more time. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:08.000 Okay, just to make sure that you've enjoyed it. 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 And finally, it's about comfort, it's about making you feel good 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:14.000 in places that you wouldn't have felt good before. 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:16.000 It's about bringing nature to the inside. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000 In the Guardian Tower of New York, converted to a W Union Square -- 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:25.000 I'm sorry I'm rushing -- where we had to bring in the best horticulturists in the world 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:28.000 to make sure that the interior of this dragged the garden space 00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:32.000 of the court garden of the Union Square into the building itself. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.000 It's about stimulation. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.000 This is a wine-buying experience simplified by color and taste. 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:45.000 Fizzy, fresh, soft, luscious, juicy, smooth, big and sweet wines, 00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:49.000 all explained to you by color and texture on the wall. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:53.000 And finally, it's about entertainment, as in his headquarters 00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.000 for the Cirque du Soleil, Orlando, Florida, 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:57.000 where you're asked to enter the Greek theater, 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:00.000 look under the tent and join the magic world of Cirque du Soleil. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:03.000 And I think I'll probably leave it at that. Thank you very much.