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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Joe, you know I spend a lot of my time doing interior design. Yes. I've bored you, I'm sure, with a lot of thoughts on this topic. But then it struck me recently that actually what I'm doing is not really interior design. It's actually just interior decorating. Because I'm not really changing the structure of a particular house. I don't like doing that in part because I'm lazy and I hate construction mess, but also because it's a lot harder to change the particular design of a house than it is to just get new fabric for the windows or new paint color. There are more real-world constraints.
Yeah, that's an interesting way to put it. I can confirm, having looked over from time to time, you know, we sit next to each other. I can confirm having looked at you say like looking at wallpaper and very vintage wallpaper that you might be acquiring. But no, I have not heard of you sort of talk about, you know, knocking down big walls or whatever inside your home. Although I certainly, you know, in New York City, you know people who do that. And they hire an architect as part of they'll buy two condos or something like that and can join them and hire an architect and so forth. That's a different level. It's a different level of constraints and obligations.
This is the other thing I've been thinking. Am I a product of my time? Because so much of the cultural emphasis nowadays seems to be on interior design and what the inside of a building looks like versus the exterior. And I think if I had been, you know, thinking about these things in like the '90s or the '80s, I would be much more into architecture.
It's really interesting thought and I hadn't really thought of it that way. But that makes a lot of sense and my uninformed gut is like, oh, does social media make it so that people are just much more obsessed with the interior design of a building, the specific aesthetic choices that are made? But, of course, on the other hand, you know, we work at Bloomberg, we have a big office in London.
Many beautiful buildings.
Many beautiful buildings, lots of glass, the new one new London HQ, absolutely gorgeous building, etc. And so, you know, we do live surrounded in this world that the world we live in is one that was built by architects or designed by architects.
Absolutely. And this was the other thing I was thinking about architecture in relation to economics is when it's done well, a beautiful building ends up being a public good, right? It can boost an entire neighborhood, it can revive a particular city, it can improve the flow of traffic, improve energy efficiency, do all these things.
Yeah. But, so many buildings are still designed by private developers, and I'm not sure they're always incentivized to do beautiful design in that way. Like, how do you incentivize a private developer to do something that ends up being a public good? It's a fascinating question. I hadn't really thought of it framed in that way, but like for example, again, like the new JP Morgan building in New York City, I like it. I don't work there, but I think it's like a cool addition to the skyline, it blinks, etc. There's a lot of cool things. But, how do you design, how do you incentivize a public good is a good way to frame it. Well, since you mentioned the JP Morgan building, that is a big
Purposely dropping breadcrumbs.
Yes. Uh a huge clue. So, we do in fact have the perfect guest for today's show. We are going to be speaking to a very famous architect, Lord Norman Foster. He is of course the founder of Foster and Partners, and we are here with him in Madrid. In his studio and his foundation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you.
So, how much of architecture is about dealing with real-world constraints? Because I always think there's not just physics and finance, but you're also dealing with things like zoning. And I guess in the UK, you're also dealing with listing requirements and things like that. How much does that constrain you?
It's totally rooted in the process of design. So, you cannot separate. Design is really a response to constraints. And whether those constraints come from the codes, whether they come from the requirements for the building, because a building is a response to a need. It then takes on more layers, yes. It's in the public domain, but it's shaped by constraints, by needs. It's a response. So, if you don't have those constraints, if you don't have those demands, if you don't have to meet certain requirements, performance, some of those are tangible, you can measure them. Some less obvious, more subconscious, perhaps below the surface, but nonetheless. So, design is a response to needs.
We're in this gorgeous building of yours, and we were just looking that, you know, over there on the shelf there are a series of wood samples, for example, different types of wood from different trees.
plum wood. At the highest levels of architecture, to do a great building, how much does the architect really need to know? I guess maybe material science, or at least the true nature of specific materials. I think the more that you know about the issues around any assignment,
the more you're empowered as a designer. So, that has led me over decades to promote a particular way of designing which is counterintuitive. It's against everything that we're taught in a school of architecture or engineering. And that is you bring all the disciplines together around a table and you work from the outset together. Now, a critic of that will say that sounds like committee architecture. It's not. I mean basically the team is going to be involved in that project. So, if the architect designs and then hands it over to the engineer to make it stand up, to make it hot when it's cold outside and the reverse, you lose the opportunity of the feedback. If you get that at the outset, the designers are more empowered. And the designers are really a wider team. But that needs a process of reeducation because engineers have been taught 'Show me what you want. I'll make it work.' Architects have been taught that they should design in isolation. It goes further. Architects are taught about doing a building in isolation. A city outside is a street. You could argue the street is the essence of the traditional city. Architects and urbanists are not taught about designing streets. So, planners are taught in terms of zoning, in terms of the legalities. Architects are taught about individual buildings. So, in a way, we have to reassess how we educate and in our terms, we reeducate, whether it's here in a foundation preparing civic leaders for the future, enabling them to be able to tell the difference between fashion, prejudice, style, and data and evidence. And the same is true in terms of a building or a city plan.
Joe brought up the wood samples. I can't help but notice that the majority of items in this room are related to transportation. So, cars and jets and trains as well. I also read in an older interview, I think someone asked you your favorite building and you replied a jumbo jet. Do you have an interest in engineering? Should you have been an engineer instead of an architect?
I love flights. I love automobiles. And I think that as designers we get our inspirations from many different directions. I was deliberately being tongue in cheek in terms of the jumbo jet. But what I really wanted to do was to get the audience thinking in a different way about a jumbo because when you think about it, it's a restaurant, it's a cinema, it's a hotel, and all the while it's moving from one place to the other. And also to start to think about the miracle of flight. I mean, there's still an extraordinary magic that these machines, which are weighing tons, can somehow by lumbering along the runway, suddenly levitate and then transport us vast distances. And I think there are also a lot of lessons in terms of the built world. In other words, how can we harness technology to improve the quality of life?
I'm really fascinated by this idea of, okay, so one might think that an architect is someone who draws lines, draws sketches on a piece of paper, and then maybe there is an engineering firm, and then there's a construction firm, and then so forth. I'm fascinated by this idea, and it rings true with other discussions we have. You know, we talk to traders, for example, and there's obviously a difference between thinking in your head on a good trade versus what it actually
Literally this morning I was sitting around a table with a group of us as architects here in the foundation on a project alongside the individual who will be going to build that building, and we're saying, 'Well, the next stage is to do this, we really have to have the environmental engineer. We have to have this structural engineer.' And that will be the next meeting. So, that was the first meeting. Now, we were able to go so far, but only so far, and we recognize the need to have those other skills on board. Now, we could have and it would have been absolutely traditional, we could have just collectively designed that building, and then just passed it on. But there would be so many lost opportunities because if you think of a building as an integration of systems, I mean, if I try to bring this back to the world of automotive design, and I found myself trying to communicate this principle to a group of automotive engineers, not just the engineers, but those who are making the cars. And the example that I took was a point in time in the 1930s when pretty well all of the cars, any production car followed a certain pattern. It was a chassis and then a body on top of that, which was a shell to enclose and protect the occupants from the rain, the elements, from nature. And then at one point a car emerged. It was the Chrysler Airflow. And the body became not just a shell, it became an integral part of the structure. So, the car was lighter and the car was immensely stronger. The promotional video of that time, they pushed the car off the top of the mountain and it kind of rolled and rolled and landed four square. Somebody comes out of the bushes, demonstrates that the door opens, gets in and drives away. The point is then that the two separate systems of the shell and the chassis have merged into one element, which is doing both jobs better. So, it's doing more with less. Now, imagine that we're talking about the exterior of a building, heating and cooling it. If you think of integrated design, then you're going to end up if all those skills are working together, you can really do a system approach to design. You can start to get things doing double duty, performing more, less components, higher performance, more quality and better quality of life. So, that principle, whether it's in a city or a building, is all of that is to a social end.
How do you think about the social end of buildings when you're given a particular project? So, I know that you often do public buildings and I imagine that you are in dialogue with cities and states around the world when you're doing those. But when you're given a private assignment such as a JP Morgan building or a Bloomberg office, how do you think about the public good aspect of design?
You're thinking simultaneously of how that building works from the inside out. And you're also thinking simultaneously from the outside in. Because arguably there're two completely separate groups of people. Private inside, public outside, but the building is in the public domain. So, if I took the headquarters of Bloomberg, then an early decision was to intersect the building with Watling Street. Watling Street was the old Roman road opposite. If you acknowledge that and you continue that and it became an arcade through the building and you had connectivity over that arcade, then simultaneously you were breaking down the scale of the building. It was then more human. And the public space is bringing in an artist to create water, benches. That was also double duty, the systems approach, providing security. But it wasn't an ugly bollard. You didn't know it was providing security. It was also bringing people together. Then the arcade is an opportunity to introduce shops and so on. That is working with the Bloomberg philosophy of encouraging the neighborhood to benefit from this private entity coming into the community, rather than it being an island and killing off the traders. It's encouraging local traders. Now, everything I've described then is working to the benefit of the interior of the building. And the facades are starting to be able to breathe and pull lots of fresh air into the building. So, it's making the building a healthier building. But, it's also on the exterior not another glass box. It's a combination of bronze and the local stone, local stone, the stone of the adjoining buildings. So, it's working environmentally in terms of sustainability, it's reducing energy, it's creating a healthier building for the occupants. And then, because it's deep and low, it's not pushing into the sky. So, it is reverential to the historic buildings around it of a same mass. But, at the same time, it's creating horizontality, and horizontality is good for communication. And Bloomberg is about communication. Now, I could describe another kind of building for a completely different kind of client body also in the high-tech business. So, if I go to Beijing, if I talk about a building there, the company ethos is totally different. It's about competition between groups. So, it's the polar opposite, and I could describe that in detail. The point that I'm making is that as I take you through these decisions, the way that they overlap and interact, you start to realize that the process of design is about balancing. It's about reconciling. It's about creating something which is simultaneously working in the public domain, working for a visitor, working for those inside when they come outside.
Well, since you alluded to it, and now I'm now I'm particularly curious about it, I imagine that in the decades ahead, you know, there will still be new JP Morgan headquarters, new Bloomberg headquarters, etc. But there's probably going to be a lot more mega projects still coming out of Asia or Beijing or China specifically. And so when you describe that environment as different, what should the architects of the future know about working in these markets?
First of all, I mean, I took the example of the building in China. That same need could be anywhere. So, you could have in China exactly the same requirements as a building like JP Morgan or Bloomberg. Although, of course, no two buildings are alike. I mean, each is specific to its own organization, the values of those organizations, the aspirations of those who've created them, whether they're an individual like Mike Bloomberg in Bloomberg, whether it's Steve Jobs with Apple, or whether it's much more corporate, more anonymous, but nonetheless, there are those values. I would say that common to any building anywhere is how do you anticipate the future? So, if I go back to an early building which recently celebrated its half-century, and that was the Willis Faber building in Ipswich, an insurance headquarters. And in the life of that building, that building had a high degree of flexibility. And nobody in their wildest dreams anticipated that that flexibility would be used. But in no time at all after it opened, it opened with typewriters. And in no time, that building, and it was the only building in the insurance industry which was as a headquarters able to adapt, it adapted to the digital revolution, to screens. And the same was true of the Hong Kong Bank. The Hong Kong Bank, which I also recently went to their 40th anniversary, as opposed to Willis Faber and their 50th anniversary. So, literally a few weeks ago I was there at that celebration. And the same thing there, that building, quite radical at the time, and still in many ways radical, took the traditional central core of a tower, which contained the structure, the vertical circulation, the bathrooms, mechanical plant, took all that, fragmented it, put it at the sides of big open loft things. Nobody anticipated that in the life of that building, the early life, there would be something known as a trading floor, where you need clear line of sight. That wasn't a need in the late 1970s when the competition for that building, but it was able to absorb that. So, I think that the whole thing about the future is that by design you can, if I say that you create a building for the needs of today with an awareness of the past, but to as far as you're able to anticipate a future which is largely unknown. But perhaps in terms of infrastructure, having been backwards and forwards to Asia, and if I say China more specifically, over the last 30 years, I mean the changes that I've seen, which interestingly I was communicating earlier this week to the Bloomberg event audience here and sharing that experience with them and showing them the China when I first went there and it's foggy, it's misty, you can't see. The cities now unbelievable. I mean cleaner, 90% of the vehicles electric and extraordinary amount of green. I mean Shanghai is 50%, Beijing 50% green. That's happened over the last few decades and in terms of connectivity, just over 54,000 kilometers of high-speed train. 220 miles an hour, 350 kilometers an hour connecting by this 97% of Chinese cities. On a peak day, 13 million travelers. Achieved in 16 years. And in the UK, they gave up on the London to Manchester. It goes as far as Birmingham. Short-termism. They have a department for leveling up. The ultimate leveling up is connectivity. They just didn't get it. And that 54,000 km is more than the rest of the world put together by a huge margin.
Why do you think certain countries, and you brought up the UK there, but you could possibly say it the same for the US as well. Why do you think certain countries struggle
Because at every stage in the emergence, the emergence of a nation, whether that is the United Kingdom in its empire days, the industrial revolution, it led the world. We're still trading right now on that. I mean, the Thames Embankment was a response to cholera. It created, if you like, systems thinking and you know, doing more with less. It also introduced below-ground high-speed public transport. It cleaned up the Thames. So, that period, you had the expression of that civic pride. I started work at the age of 16 in Manchester Town Hall, which was the ultimate statement of civic pride. And it was competition. And Waterhouse won that competition. That was my first experience of architecture. Took me a little longer to eventually discover that I could study architecture. So, I was a late starter at the age of 21. But I can remember vividly right now details of that building. I mean, that really lifted my spirit. So, that whether it was the great train stations, and of course, today is the great airport. So, if you really want to see the most advanced airports in the world, where do you go? I mean, it's obvious. Where we know where you go.
Right. There's a huge model immediately behind us here.
The Beijing airport was built in 5 years. Now, at the same time I drew a parallel with Terminal 5, which I think took 20 years and was a fraction of the size and is really a sort of band-aid on top of Heathrow, which is still embedded in the heart of you overfly metropolis together. So, now there are a lot of messages perhaps mixed up in these analogies and comparisons.
