 about leadership here on a given Monday morning afternoon here on ThinkTech. And we're talking about architecture. As in humane architecture, Martin Disbang's show on Tuesday afternoon, and we're comparing the elements of architecture as a reflection of our world today. It's true, architecture is an expression not only of art, but of humanity, of society, of our world. If you snapshot architecture through the ages, you see it reflects, usually accurately reflects, how things were going. And so today we're going to take a look at classical architecture and we'll look at what we call cynical architecture, cynical classical architecture, and see what that represents, how it is happening, and what it represents about the direction of the world in general, and leadership, especially leadership, because government always has a lot to do with architecture. Big capital, investment, infrastructure has a lot to do with the way architecture and buildings come out. And for this discussion, you know, our hero in architecture, professor at the School of Architecture here at UH, and our host of humane architecture, Martin Disbang, applause please. Thank you for having me, I appreciate it. Even though this is sort of, well thanks for having me on the other side of the table as a guest, although the reason for this is not so funny as, you know, we will talk about it. So bring up the first slide, please. And I was trying to remember when it was the last time when I was on the other side as a guest, and that was Tim Apicella, who took on with you to report weekly about what our government and our leader is doing, it's called Trump Week. And we thought the news that Trump wants all federal buildings to be of classicist style, so the obviously, the nickname is like Trump wants to make architecture classicist again, made us get our existing or nonexisting hair and get up and wanting to do a show at Trump Week, but Trump is at the end of this week, and so we thought this requires more immediate action. So here we are. So I was at Tim's show four years ago, this is a folding the show, we were talking about a project, the topic, which is transportation, which is another very hot topic on our island. This is public transportation, this is sort of light rail because it's underground, all the things we're not doing here on the island, right? And little did I know that maybe, you know, we could have talked about this project also in the context we want to talk about today, practicing. So let's quickly recap and use Google what classicism is per definition, which is stated here. The style comprises a range of conventional forms, notably columns, known as orders, each with fixed proportions and ornaments, especially Doris, Ionic or Corinthian, proportion symmetry and the relationship of individual parts to the whole also characterized classicism. And if you go to the next slide, what I will talk about what characterizes democracy is freedom. And this project came out of a competition. So you have a non-corruptible jury and that awards what I think is the best, no matter what style or what party you belong to. We won this competition in 2001 and it took a dozen of years to be completed on the next slide. It's basically me having gone back to my native culture over the break and visited my sons and their girls and our capital in Berlin. And at the bottom right, you see one of my heroes in architecture that Lutzi meets from the rower. He was kicked out by this other guy dictating way worse things than style but that too and kicked me out of the country and then luckily we here in the United States got him. This is one of his latest last project, the National Gallery at the very bottom right. It's currently being remodeled by someone who admires me and that is David Chipperfield. David Chipperfield just completed the Simon Gallery, which you see at the bottom left. And you see up there a book that I think I gave you a copy of one of those charms that we were published next to what I look up to, which is Chipperfield. So the next slide and let's quickly look how Chipperfield is sort of implementing constructively critical classicism. You see the old building on the right and when he remodels that he takes the very ornated columns and simplifies that so the column, the second from the right is sort of the remodeled column. When he asked to them, which is the left part, he told him purifies to the most extreme. And next slide is a model picture because again, democracy, this was an architectural competition in 2007. It took another, you know, desert to basically complete the water in front of that. That's interesting because that's a little sort of a canal that's in front of that. And on the other side of that, guess what? There is all German ma a lago and we go to the next slide and I know you're very interested in that topic. Yes. We talked about this before the show. So share with me your reaction. Well, it looks like Mar-a-Lago. It's airsots. That's maybe that's an overuse of the term, but it's airsots. And I mean Mar-a-Lago is. This is the original and Mar-a-Lago is the airsots. And you told me that Angela Merkel has her apartment here. She lives in this building. Hence the policeman out in front. So what does this building tell you on a, you know, on a classical basis? What does it tell you? You know, it's a historic building. It's classic, but more importantly, again, is democracy behind styles, architectural styles, because she is not an owner. She's a renter in there. And recently she was inspired by young people who said, you know, I don't think our generation is listening to politicians anymore. And she said, well, let's get this going. And she started a little bed and breakfast at the bottom of the place that she's running with her, with her professor husband up there, right? So she's living downtown. She's living in a very humble way. And that's, that's a symbol for democracy, rather than being sort of the emperor who lives in a big castle, right? Of pathetic nature, which we're going to talk about further on down the road. What is the difference between this building and Mar-a-Lago? I mean, in terms of architectural elements and in terms of its faithfulness to true classicism? Well, stylistically, I guess we need to stop for historians, but I think, you know, this is an urban building. Trump's big thing is a sub-urban thing. This is climatically appropriate, because this is wall architecture. There's this temperate climate, so it has, you know, thick walls and a few windows. Trump's thing is in the tropics. It shouldn't be hermetic, right? So this one is right. The other one is wrong. Let's just say that. Right, right. And let's go to the next slide, because talking about wrong, you know, we have these very dark days where, where Islam was prescribing, ironically, sarcasticly, the same style. And then his architect, Allah Shahr, you see at the bottom right, was coming up with these megalomantic visions of supersize everything and everything in that kind of old style. And while on the left side is the brighter side, which is always, you know, pokes me and says, you guys have started this new business thing. And so the architecture that you see up there is gropeyos in 1926 with a foggy factory where he was about modern. It was about democratic, bringing light and air to the people, carter of absence, right? All these things. So both things I have, you know, as a baggage, obviously in my culture, both the bad and the good. And the next slide is how I deal with that. This is a project from our firm. It's a public building. There we go again. It's not federal, but it's a state building. It's a state school building. And I was once giving a lecture, a guest talk at the nearby when I was still in the prairie at K-State. And the colleague said his TA made this poster and he couldn't resist to make this reference to the third rise at the top left. Next slide. One of my mentees became a writer and he was a little bit more mild. He called this article that he wrote about at the dining temple out of concrete. And he refers to the very sort of initiating style of classicism is the Greek and the Mormon architecture with a sort of similar kind of syntax, but more importantly a very civic nature. I mean, this is architecture for the people, right? Which Trump's Mar-a-Lago is not. That's just for him or the few rich people. Oh, by the way, in Andrews, the bread and breakfast, you can sign up for that. Everyone can. Of course they do some security check, but it's for very little money you can live with a president and talk. Isn't that great? It is great. As you say, very democratic. And that's the nature of true classicism, you know, to be open to the people, to be the people's place. Exactly. Yeah. And so you're right. You take the same elements and you put them in a very private place only for a few rich people. You're violating the spirit of classicism as originally existed in Greece and Rome. Absolutely. You kind of gentrified it, right? And we go to the next slide. This is our talking hero. Thank you for the nice words. But my true hero is your other host, you know, Howard Wade, Mr. Code Green. He's here. And we will, when doing a show, we have the building as a demonstration of how you might want to build, you know, in this art climate and in my climate. And this building is probably the closest. If you take out the fixed glazing and replace it with jealousies, it would very much work here too. It shakes itself, and then it would be easy to breathe in. And it is frankly, as you can see. And the temper climate, it left the sun deep in. This is the winter situation. And you've got the young kids dating there. So how much more frankly could you be? So with that, Jay, you know, let's go back to our country and culture and the dilemma we're facing. You go to the next slide. One last time going back at the very bottom, the two pictures. This is how George W. Bush thought America should be represented with its embassy in the, you know, old and new capital of Germany and Berlin again. This is the American embassy. I always thought it's an embarrassment. And I don't think the style was mandated, but the architect, actually, nice architect. You remember C-Range, the old hippie day of Jay, at the very middle to the left, you can see C-Range. This is an icon of hippie architecture. And I once was on a very memorable spring break trip with a lovely mentee. And we gave a presentation of what's now called the More Rubel Udel. And one of the principles proudly showed the pictures in the hallway of that project, the embassy. And I didn't know where you look at it, because I find it pretty embarrassing. And the only good thing about it is at the top left that the facade is very good as a canvas that some people who want to voice their democratic opinions are projecting onto it. And this was projected when Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement. Total losers, so sad. So that was a projection of the public onto the building from the outside. The top left one I pulled out, because in the better days under Kennedy, where by the way, there's some research, also they were thinking about that federal projects should be special and mandating some sort of standards, but they intentionally didn't prescribe a style. So this guy here at top left is Edward Durell Stone. This is the American Embassy in New Delhi built in 1959. You know, as you can call this neoclassical, I mean, you've got all the elements, you know, everything about plasticism. The top right, we have the Edward Durell Stone building as well on New Age. And unfortunately, then our university decided to jam this sort of horrible, we call it the microwave banana in front of it, which is a modern building. So again, you know, style as we're talking doesn't mean we're a bag, right? It's about your intentions and your talent. And talking about that, the next slide is probably the most shocking. And I have to thank my dear Mihaara, who was sensitizing me about the topic, and we're probably all doing the show about this to her, because she was sending this to me and she said, this reminds her of the darkest moment of her death practice back in the early 90s, where a campus architect who is now still the principal of one of the biggest architectural firms on the island played Trump and basically said the School of Architecture building should be neoclassical in style. And he said two other things. One was ground floor parking, and the third one was central axis in the quads. And that killed what you see at the very bottom, John Hara, beautiful design, democratic design, moving the School of Architecture out of this sort of pretty too strict sort of axis, moving out of it, open the quads. And at the bottom right, you see, he made a little sort of a therapy, you can call this classicist, postmodernism, that was in postmodernism at the peak of it, picked up, but he's a modernist, so he interpreted and, but he was shut down by the, by the Trump of our university at that time, and now we're left with that piece of pathetic homo-case, right? Yeah, the School of Architecture much less. Exactly, and I boycott, I don't teach in there, because I teach easy breathing in other buildings and often called Saunders Hall, which is an easy breathing brutalist. People might not like brutalist building, and this reminds me also of, Prince Charles was another one who was trying to do something with what Trump is doing right now, and he was lobbying against modernism and brutalism, but again, there is no, there is no, you know, bad or good, it's just how you do it. And go to the next slide. We are thinking about our most classicist architect in the best sense on our island, and this is someone who is going to be with us in many shows in the recent past and in the future. This is Ronald Lindgren with his partner at what Killingsworth, and the buildings at the top are references to shows with the Kahala Hotel, the Seaside Airlines Hotel, lastly shows were by Harvard Square, his Kapaluah Hotel on Maui, which shame on the people who were privately, you know, again, reaction is tore down. And I was sharing here what Ronald certainly recently, this is what looks the most classicist, this is what should have been the case study house number 26 in the, in the legendary case study house. And again, once again, a very democratic, a very fresh, a very American in its best sense of the word. You know what strikes me as a German, as an Americano is of course, you know, our ancestors came here, mainly from Europe with the wagon trains and all that new and how they build when they were built was what they remembered some way back, right? The old European style. But then postmodernist basically came and said, oh, we need our first own style and never mind they stole it from the Italian, or the Russian brand, but they, they pretend that that's the first truly American style, which I think is BS, excuse me, because modernism is the thing that once, you know, the new American, you know, settlers had felt comfortable. They looked back at Europe and modernism had come up and they basically, while German glossed the war, luckily, and were after that traumatized, the modernism became very stiff while Americans picked it up and made it fun. And I think this feeling is worth project again. Everyone in Germany looked up to the case study how serious back in the mid-century that was the coolest, the best stuff and everyone wanted to be like that. So let's go to the concluding slide, which is a compilation of many things. This slide and the one about the Zonner and the naked, I stole from the most ambitious show that the soldier and I have been in the making for years now and it will be about skins. It will be about the relationship of the first skin, the human skin, the second, the clothing we put over and the third, the fenestrations, the windows we put around us. And we compare these. The very academic subtitle of the show will be address codes, address codes so the relationship between, you know, enclosures. So here you see obviously at the top right, well starting at the bottom left, there we see the guy who was trying to mandate classism and theirs was canceled, Mar-a-Lago. And how is he dressed? Well, his wife and his son, luckily, are sort of easy breezy dressed, but he's totally inappropriate dressed, right? And so are his building and that's why we have to assume so will be what comes out of his mandate. Not that it's classism, that it's bad, as I hopefully made my case, but that Trump made his mandate because I'm sorry while his early buildings in New York City as a developer were sort of okay as modernism and recently the way the ties he wears and then he wears them too long and the suit he wears, I'm sorry, there's a lack of sense of taste and that's why this humanly architecture he wants to mandate will be all the same. While our local boy, Barrick, when he was running the country and you see him at the top right back home, he's more appropriately dressed, right? Easy breezy, but you know, at top left, as we actually did a show you might want to revisit that guy's disorder and I would look into the subject sort of and it was called presidential paradise flesh, paradoxical presidents, and we went through each and every, well not every, but you know, significant presidents and while obviously Reagan in the 80s had started the whole thing with a reactionary, but you see him at the top left after his presidency stopping by in Hawaii with Nancy and taking it back and you know, we're appropriately dressed for that and we looked into that actually his architectural way, but the house he lived in was actually a modernist house still and so you know, his architectural taste or mandate wasn't as bad as his political one, but now we have, you know, this gets more extreme and worse, now we have someone who's political taste is really bad and so will be his architectural one and so I don't think, Jay, it shouldn't be in these days about style anymore, that S, there are two other S's that important, the other one is solar, this traces back to our friends, Howard, to saying, you know, we have this energy crisis in global warming and buildings contribute to the majority to that so we should first of foremost not think about how buildings look like, but how they perform, that's one thing and the other thing I think challenge is and this is what the pictures referred to on the right side in the middle, this is where Obama just bought the former Magnum T.I. has stayed down in Waimanalo and this is going to be very challenging for him, although, he's considered to be more democratic and more empathic in many ways, but there is what I call suburban nomads trying to avoid to say homeless encampment in front of his yard and I'm sort of talking cynical or ironically or sarcastically hoping that he hasn't, while he has torn down the main mansion down but he has kept the guest house and this is where Thomas Magnum was scripted to live in to crush in that little place and he rinsed this out to suburban nomads because otherwise you see the picture on the right and I'm driving by there every other day you see these, you know, flipped on the side cars this is what happens so this is the next I think big challenge for architecture as you perfectly say doing nothing less but nothing more than portraying zeitgeist is to address these issues of being biasplomatic and of being socially appropriate and I threw in at the very left from Ron Lindgren again maybe the most relevant feelings with projects amongst all the great work he's done on Ireland is this one here which is a solution for a new favelas in Latin America way back which are very simple courtyard houses we feel sympathetic with that because picture, to the right of that the smallest picture unfortunately is a project we're having with the emerging generation that we call CCC Cargo Courtyard Cabanas and it's shooting for the $3,000 home that then everyone to afford especially the ones that need and you line up what we call Cargo Steel to avoid say shipping containers in a row so that due to the all-American principle of buy one get one free you get the courtyard for free all lined up in a row that looks very militaristic and we can call that classes but again it's very it has an obligation it's not about how it looks it's about that you feel cool in there and then it's affordable that's what it is and these are more than many more than two cents to this subject Well, if you talk about certain elements so I guess classicism of these columns but I think modern from what you say modern classicism would be reminiscent of the columns but it would be in an appropriate place appropriately functional and it would speak again to the people rather than to some rich guys or some guys in power and so what we have today under Trump is we have architecture that he encourages and builds Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere including the government I suppose government buildings and the like that's classical or I don't know the difference neoclassical and it's cynical classical because it fails to it fails to accurately represent the feeling at the time that classical architecture was developed that is that it belongs to the people it's public space it's all about public space and public space is part of government if you want to have a decent government you have to have public space and the architecture can either do that and so when I get out of this is you as architects I would not include myself there you as architects you're observing what is going on and you're saying here's a building let me evaluate it from all of those points of reference and analysis and see where it fits is this true classicism is it neoclassicism is it cynical classicism is it Trumpian classicism and then that will help us understand the way our society is working what I'm missing on that and I hope you'll discuss it for a minute anyway is how much influence the architect has on what the the capitalist, the capital concentration or the government does in other words can the architect actually influence the design that is coming up these are expensive projects you can go to your clients I'm sure you've done this and say look, don't do it this way do it that way, do it democratically do it with liberty and equality and justice and all that and you can do that for him you know how to do that for him but if he says no or if Trump says no and Trump would say no or if the government under Trump says no where are you, you don't have influence on it you can only be an observer and you can tell me and the world that this really doesn't measure up against the true standard of our of our time how far off am I when I say that to you no you're right on it again I'd like to respectful disagree you're more architect than many other architects I know here on the island so let me tell you that first of all and then secondly I think it's again and I have the privilege to become American as well on top of my German nationality so I would say and I have to learn my heart we the people, we the people, we the people so as tragic as it might be if he mandates but he mandates only where he can so what private developers do he can't mandate so I think it probably puts more pressure or responsibility on the private sector to step up to make up for the decisions we might be getting in sort of this prescribed architecture that the private sector steps up but that's you know they're not really living up to where they what they should I mean we keep talking about Kakaako and hard use and Kamehameha schools maybe then they should kick in and then do much better if the government might fail on that sector and when we hopefully again get a good government again I hope that as coming full circle to the beginning the best tool to basically institute good architecture no matter what kind of I would say you know the way it looks like is again basing it on a democratic process and the most democratic is which is very common in Europe not very common in America is a competition where you either have it open to everyone to apply to submit their proposal and you have a jury that I said at the beginning is non-corruptible right and they basically don't pick by name they pick by which is so perfectly put by making sense in terms of the budget, the program and in that way they may have some influence but let me close with this comment you know if I build a big public building and it's it's Airsoft's classic classicism if I build something that is not democratic that is not for the people is not an accurate reflection of our time but is an attempt to do as in Mar-a-Lago to serve only a few people the rich on the other side the other side of the equation and that building has a useful life of 100 or 200 or 300 years my last question to you Martin doesn't that building have an adverse effect on us, our society for the life of its useful life it's telling us something it's not what we want to hear but it stands there as a monument to the wrong principles doesn't that hurt us doesn't that affect us for the life of the building it certainly does but let's just try to end on a positive note I think that's the good part of architecture is that it certainly survives and it embodies the life guys from the days but you can see wonderful conversions for example let's go back to my original native culture again the big stadium in Berlin that I happened to be there and revisited a few years ago over the summer and that was built for the worst of ideology for the worst of mankind you could think of what Reich and Hitler embodies and it has then been converted successfully to an architectural competition one of the big architects in Germany have converted it into a beautiful arena there you have it Martin the takeaway of all of this is that you can convert the building you can convert the building and thus the message of the building to go back to our title all about leadership you can convert the leadership too and if you convert the leadership and the building you can reach a better place Martin we're out of time thank you so much for this discussion I would like to do it more with you I would like to hear more about this it is a fundamental aspect of our life together in these islands and in the world thank you so much Martin thank you Jay