 Well, hello, everyone. This is such a joy for us. It's such an important evening and we're so excited to be welcoming all of you here and welcoming. I mean, we don't need to welcome Kenneth Franto. This is his house more than probably anyone else. There are books, this book. There are books that are easy to read but very long and deep or to do. Not because writing and making them are especially complicated tasks, but because they reflect on a long intellectual trajectory both individual and collective. That is the case of this book that I'd say started to be cooked even before 1950 when a younger Kenneth Franton initiated his journey as a student of the Architectural Association with a scholarship from the British Natural Asphalt Council. Kenneth Franton Conversations with Daniel Thalesnik, who is here with us, is based on seven in-person conversations between Columbia GISA Professor Emeritus Kenneth Franton and the GISA PhD and AED Graduate Architectural Historian and University of Cambridge Teaching Associate Daniel Thalesnik. Over a period between October 2011 and October 2013. The book has been published by Columbia Books of Architecture and the City and it very meaningfully opens with the Columbia GISA Professor Mary McLoach, who's here, essay Kenneth Franto's idea of the critical. The critical is actually, I'm so excited to have read your piece, Mary, because the critical is a word that comes with us all the time, right? And Mary, an amazing account of how that was brought in by Kenneth and in looking at the work of a number of people that he was reflecting on. It has been designed by Scott van der See, that probably is around here as well. And but what is most important for us and kind of something that make probably everyone here so happy is that Kenneth Franton is with us tonight. And basically, he's here to have this conversation, a conversation of conversations. He will be speaking first, followed by Mary McLoach and by Daniel Thalesnik. And they will all engage in a conversation with Mario Wooden, who is here and of course, Professor of Practice at Columbia GISA and the Director of the MR Program, apart from a well-known practitioner with his firm, and Isabel Kirham Lewit, who's here, who's GISA Director of Publications and Director of CBAC, Columbia Books of Architecture and the City. And this debate will be moderated with the GISA Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, Bart Jan Polman. But I want to show my copy of the book. And the copy of the book is very, very, very worked out, but I'm not ashamed to show how much I underlined in it, because actually it makes me think of Kenneth Franton, actually, what he did with Marcus, right? And there's something about books that can be read like that, that can be underlined, that are so important for us. As Mary McLoach puts it, Kenneth Franton is arguably the most influential architectural historian since St. Friedgiddon. He's a historian, a theorist, a teacher, and a critic, who has not only spoken to fellow historians, but has spoken and impacted to designers and practitioners, which is incredibly unique, right? As Franton himself states, he settled for a writer on architecture. By claiming how material, cultural, and climatic difference is situated across the world, he soon reached a global impact. Kenneth Franton's work is inseparable from Columbia G.S.A.P's history. He joined Columbia in 1972, the years that James Polsek became, the year that James Polsek became G.S.A.P's dean. After a period teaching at the Royal College of Art in London from 1974 to 1976, 77 is still being a full-time faculty at G.S.A.P during that period, as Mary reminded me, he returned it here to Columbia where he was named Professor Emeritus in 2021. So this means that, Kenneth Franton, you've been teaching here for 50 years, right? And I would like everyone to recognize this and join me after that. As Anielta Lesny puts it, this book opens a window on the Franton's relational way of thinking about architecture. One in which buildings and architects are always understood in reference to other culture, and I would say I would add to that political patterns. It provides a non-linear account of Kenneth Franton's professional, academic and intellectual progress, but also the progress of his ideas and how they got nuanced and depth to time and historical events. Very specifically, the development, influence and evolution of his 1980 book, Modern Architecture, A Critical History, published the year of Portoguesi's Venice Biennale, a time when Robert Stern's post-modern ideas impacted Columbia and therefore the world. His 1983 essay Towards a Critical Regional Essence, Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance, and the 1995 essay, Studies in Tectonic Culture, The Poetics of Construction in 90th and 20th Century Architecture. In these books, in these essays, in his work, Modern Critical Regional Environmental Tectonic Culture Politics as a constant commitment to the socialist aspect of modern movement, as Kenneth Franton would explain, and resistance as inseparably from socially, politically and labor-informed notions of sustainability, all of them have been terms that have shaped architectural discourse and practice across the world. As a whole, these books speaks about the present and how to be an architect in facing its defiance. As registered by his book in October 13, Franton said, in 2011, Franton said, it is possible to see the present crisis of capital lessons as indicative of fundamental contradictions, and he carries on. Although it is reasonable to have a rather despairing outlook on the future prospects of our species, it seems to me that this issue of sustainability represents a point of departure from which we may build a fragmentary alternative to the present impasse. In the critical regionalist thesis, I tried to argue that this act of resistance was not only cultural, but also political, the idea that the small unit would be able to resist the globalized system to some extent. Please join me in welcoming Professor Kenneth Franton. It's a bit too much, I think. Anyway, I'm very happy to be here and I feel that the warmth in this space is such that I could get away with anything, but like Donald Trump, I mean, terrible, I will stay out of that area. But I've written down stuff, of course, which I will try to not make too boring, and I don't know, on occasions like these I'm reminded of John Ruskin's image of God, basically, which he likens to his critic coach in rugby school who said at some point to him, because he was hopeless, athletically speaking, that'll be quite enough from you, Mr Ruskin. And I feel this book also is too much in the sense that it's already quite enough from me. But anyway, we won't go there because it's not possible to deal with it. It's too late and in any case. But you know, today began, and I haven't written this down, began in a kind of unusual way because of a very close friend of mine from Serbia. Two Serbians showed up for breakfast in my hotel, one an architect and one a philosopher, and the point being that they've already published two books on the issue of philosophy and architecture and they want to engage me somehow or other in the future. And one of the things they said, but you know, we want the challenges to, and I've not written down any of this, so now I'm completely lost, the challenge is that, you know, we want you to choose one word which would somehow define, you know, what you think about, what you think about the field, what you think about the situation of the moment, et cetera, et cetera. And I couldn't come up with this word. You know, I said, you know, without repeating myself. I did mention the word aporia and they liked that because apparently, what is his name, now I've forgotten his name, but the very famous French philosopher wrote Derrida, he spoke with the title aporia, and so they, but you know, okay. But then, so they went and caught their plane back to Belgrade. They've been here for a while and I sort of wandered around. At some point it came to me that the key word I would use is microcosm, because I think if one really faces the fact, you know, that what architects have a chance of doing in their lives is to make a significant microcosm, you know, or more than one, but anyway it's a microcosm. And I think we shouldn't forget that, you know, that within the total spectrum of production and consumption, you know, the most one can perhaps achieve is a microcosm in which, you know, for their lifespan, a human being or human beings, individual or collective, can, as it were, find a kind of spiritual shelter, or both physical and spiritual shelter. I think it's the point really, has to be both physical and spiritual. And it reminds me of Barragan's remark, which I find unbelievable, when he got the principle prize, he said, an architecture which doesn't achieve tranquility fails in its spiritual mission. It's an unbelievable aphorism, I think. And then I thought, or I've never written it, but I thought, you know, the problem is how to combine tranquility and calm. I don't know, sorry, tranquility and calm are the same. Tranquility and vitality, that's the challenge, I think. And, but this question, I mean, it's so profound, I think, this question of Nachdetje which doesn't achieve tranquility fails in its spiritual mission. And so this together, maybe microcosm, tranquility, I mean, you know, I wrote a lot of stuff here and I'm not going to read it. That's good for everybody. And because life is too short. And I mean, basically I've said all I have to say, really. I mean, I deeply, I feel very condensed about that, you know, this question of microcosm. Ah, it reminds me of one last thing. The master of aphorisms, by the way, is without question Alvaro Caesar, you know, unbelievable aphorism. I mean, the one unbelievable aphorism is the idea is in the place, not in your head. Unbelievable aphorism, I think. His aphorisms are, you know, young architects, old architects, whatever. We could all, these aphorisms are unbelievable. And I was thinking of another aphorism which now I've forgotten, fortunately. So I won't go on about that. But oh yes, that's the beautiful thing he says, these are the microcosms. Somewhere early in the 70s, he says, most of my works were never published and never built. I'm not the exact words. Many of them were destroyed or altered. And then he says this, because it's in a passage, it's in a text which is called the flittering image of reality, actually. And because he developed this idea as the flittering image of reality which you have to kind of reach for, basically. He doesn't say that. But anyway, he says most of my houses were, this is in the mid 70s, were demolished or they've been altered or whatever. And he says, most beautiful thing, I think. But something remains, fathered by someone. It's the most beautiful thing. Okay, that's it. Thank you. A hard act to follow, of course. No one can quite come even close to Ken's charm. Hi, it's great. I am going to be a little boring. I swore when I was beginning teaching that I would never read a lecture and I don't think I ever did when I was teaching at Columbia, but I had to write something tonight, maybe because I'm a little nervous. But first, it's wonderful to be here again and see so many familiar faces and so many former students, colleagues and friends of Ken. And I was counting on Daniel to say all the thanks first, but they just switched us. He will give a more complete thanks. But I have to say thanks to Dean Andres Jock, Bart Young-Pulman for making this event finally happen, and to Isabel Kirkham-Lewitt and Joanna Klopenberg and the whole team that's behind them for their care, diplomacy and patience. I want to stress that word patience. Making this modest but very special book happen. There are deans of the past to thank. And I also want to thank the graphic designer, Scott Vendazine. I'm mispronouncing it, I'm sure, who we really put through the ringer. And thank you, Scott, for doing a great job. Daniel and I hope the book serves both as an introduction to Ken, especially for those of you who did not have him as a teacher, but also, and I have a feeling this is most of you in the room, who do know him an opportunity to learn more about him and the evolution of his thinking and rethinking about architecture for all these many years. Before turning to the book, however, I want to talk briefly a little bit about his career. You heard the very beginning from Andres. His 50-some plus or minus years of teaching at Columbia and especially focusing on his role in developing the history theory program. I thought he was going to talk about studio, but he changed his mind. So, unfortunately, you're going to get only a slice. And this talk is a bit of a hybrid, a mixture of tribute, and I really want to give a warm tribute to Ken, a bit of school history and maybe an introduction to one slice of the book. Most of all, as I mentioned, I want to take this occasion to thank him for his immense knowledge and remarkable writing, and I would like to suggest that he probably has seen more and knows more and thought more deeply about 20th-century buildings, including a few 21st-century buildings than anyone else, for his constant engagement with both contemporary practice and education, helping to transform Columbia into one of the leading architecture schools in the world. And most of all, and this is personal, for being such a warm, supportive, and gracious colleague for so many years. I keep thinking how very fortunate I was when I began teaching at Columbia in 1978. I don't quite make 50 years, but I'm getting there, to have him as a mentor and colleague, and then slowly over time as a dear friend. I also want to say that despite my youth when I arrived, I was only 28, he always treated me as an equal. Undoubtedly, long before I even came close, and I certainly am not there yet, and I just, it was an amazing fact. In fact, in retrospect, I'm almost in awe of how much he and also Jim Polshek and then Chair Richard Plums, how much faith they had or trust in me as a very green young professor. Of course, Ken had a rich life and career as both a practicing architect and writer before he arrived at Columbia in 1972, which the book interviews with Daniel give, I think, an excellent entree. First working as a practicing architect, and here as a stand-in for his years of practice, is a picture of the Coringham Housing Estate in London, and I can't resist showing you his nice, crisp drawings, and which he designed while working with Douglas Steven from 1961 to 65. And second as a writer and editor, and here is, you saw the cover a second ago, and a spread from his first book done again with Steven, British Buildings 1960 to 64 with some amazing photos by somebody I'm going to mispronounce, Michael Carpentier. I'm not sure. And several of the many issues of AD that he was responsible for as technical editor from 1962 to 65, where in fact some of the ideas of what he will later call critical regionalism began to be formulated, especially in this issue that discusses Gina Volley. But I also want to note his recognition of an emerging avant-garde, or we could even say neo-avant-garde, when they were little known in the English world at the time. His tenure at AD overlapped with his time at Steven's office. How he could do it all, I can't even fathom. But as all of us know, he used to walk by the office in 400 Avery. Ken was always working, very hard. And just as important, he always seemed to enjoy it. I couldn't, there's just such pleasure in work for him. After leaving Britain in 1966, he began teaching at Princeton. I just missed him as an architecture student, but he was legendary there. I remember being assigned his brilliant essay on the League of Nations competition, comparing Le Corbusier's and Hannes Meyer's entries to the League of Nations competition. And if you haven't read it, for those who are younger in the audience, I really encourage you to, because it stands up beautifully in time. During this period, beginning in 1968, he was also part of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies, founded by his former Princeton colleague, Peter Eisman. And Ken, of course, would go on to be one of the founding editors of oppositions. But back to Columbia. Ken joined, we've already heard the faculty in 72, giving up a tenured position in Princeton. As he already explained, I thought he explained, but maybe not quite. He and Jim Polshek, the new dean, almost immediately began rebuilding the school, which in all honesty was in shambles, perhaps honorable ones, after the events of 1968. The initial focus was on the studio curriculum, and the school, very much with Ken's guidance, began hiring a remarkable design faculty. And I was expecting him to tell you all about combining the kind of formal rigor of Cornell with the social and sort of team 10 perspective of RPI, but he didn't. So I leave it at that, read Daniel's interviews, there might be something there. But in any case, one of the important initiatives that remains is the housing studio. And at that point, it was taught by type. And I just show you a spread from the school publication at the time, a praisey of some of Ken's students' work. He was obsessed with the perimeter block. I always think related to the Corbuz and Moblebilla, but you get some idea. That has changed. But what has remained is this idea of collaboration that was part of the original program and of course, housing. But I'm going to focus on another aspect of the school in which he was fundamental, that is the restructuring of the history theory curriculum in the early 80s. When I came to Columbia, quite frankly, the architectural history, the architectural history theory offerings were a bit of a hodgepodge, quite random. There were, of course, some excellent classes including Ken's lectures on modern architecture and his legendary seminars on building analysis. I might also mention Richard Plens' lectures on New York City housing and the history of urban planning, as well as a wonderful array of architectural history courses offered in art history, which in fact covered a wide chronological and geographical span. But there was no structured history theory curriculum for the MRT program. I remember the first couple of years at Columbia. I'd sometimes felt like I had to teach a new lecture course every semester to fill what was perceived as some hole. At that time, that is the late 70s, all of us who taught history also taught studio. For example, Aldo Giorgola taught Italian Renaissance, maybe for better or worse. And no one, including myself, had a PhD. That would come struggling while I was teaching at Columbia. But Ken realized that just as the studio sequence had required major overhaul and a pedagogical vision, so too the history theory curriculum needed to be tackled. Working closely with the faculty, and I would like to stress how collaborative Ken always was and with the support of Polshek and Richard Plens and Max Bond, who were successively chairs of the architecture division then, as was Ken following Bond when he left for City in 1985. Ken implemented two major structural changes to the history theory curriculum. This is a bit embarrassing. Okay. The first was a two-semester sequence required lecture course for incoming MRC students. What was originally called thresholds in architectural history, later just architectural history 1-2, and the second was distribution requirements. The survey course, which was admittedly Western in content, was based on the idea that we would focus on moments of critical change in architecture, whether theoretical, programmatic, technological, or social, hence the word threshold. Initially, we thought we would begin with the Renaissance, but after a couple of years of trying that, it became clear it was unwieldy. Too long a historical span. And we changed the timeframe, inspired in part by Michel Foucault's periodization in the order of things, and began with the late 17th century. He always says his period began earlier, but the examples are always late 17th century onward. And namely that was Ren and Perot's challenge to notions of natural or positive beauty. Initially too, Ken and I had planned to alternate semesters and we did do that for two or three years, but somehow it ended out that I usually taught the first semester and he taught the second, except when one of us was on leave. And an important objective was always to examine the connections between architecture and larger social, political, and economic forces. And although the introductory sequences changed significantly over the years, both in format, timeframe, and geographic range, I think the legacy of social and political concern is still very much there. And forgive me, I don't have Ken's archives, so you're going to see my version of these documents that I dug up in the files, including the next one. Well, this isn't me, but memos from some of the history faculty. The second major change was the implementation of distribution requirements. The decision which came after multiple committee meetings in much intense debate was to have five, with students required to take classes in four of the five subject areas, which were then pre-1750, non-Western, urban, modern, and American. As I recall, these discussions happened, and you only had to take, as I said, four of them. These discussions happened while Ken was chair, if my memory's not playing tricks, which beginning around 85. And I want to note that we were with UC Berkeley, one of the very few architecture schools that then stressed the need for courses beyond Europe and North America. I remember in the 80s, Geraldine Dodds and then Zane of Celleck, the older Zane of Celleck, teaching Islamic architecture. Patricia Morton and later Koumyukudo's teaching Japanese. Jean-Louis Bourgeois offered a seminar on African architecture, and I could go on. There was also, and this may have been due to the legacy of Fitch, but maybe independent of that, an interest in vernacular architecture, which Gwendolyn Wright, who had studied with J.B. Jackson, taught for a couple of years. And as a stand-in for her course, since I don't have her syllabi, I show you a spread from an early issue of Preci, where she's writing on vernacular. This is, of course, now a requirement of NAB, but I like to think Columbia was way ahead of them. Anyway, and as the names just mentioned suggest, an amazing group of full-time and adjunct faculty got hired in the 80s, including for that period a considerable number of women, notably Gwendolyn Wright, who I believe was the first woman tenured at GSAP. There was some earlier efforts, Francis, but didn't work. And Zaynep Czellik, again, the elder Zaynep Czellik, was among the historians. But there was also, and there were so many women teaching studio then, too, Susanna Tory, Loretta Venturelli, Barbara Lyttonbury, Ghislaine Hermanus, and more. But there was also an amazing array of visiting history theory faculty, Alan Kahoon, Robin Evans, Jean-Louis Cohen, Helen Searing, Joan Ackman, who later became head of the Buell Center, and again others. In the early 90s came the next big change. Bernard Schumi, who became dean in 1988, decided that it was time GSAP had a doctoral program. I don't know if this is true, Bernard can correct me, but we thought his decision, or I thought it was, was probably in part a strategic move to keep Ken at Columbia. He was always being wooed by other schools. Ken and I worked closely, and I want to stress with the full support of Bernard, you'll see his name in these letters giving us directions. We had to write up a program, and it was like a three-year process, I can't tell you the bureaucracy, we had to go through the university level and then finally get state approval. It was decided that it would focus on architecture after 1850 and part to distinguish it from art history's program, although there's always been blurred lines, and that it too would emphasize political, social, and cultural factors critical to architectural developments. And again, like the history curriculum in the MRC program, we always saw the doctoral program scope as global, encouraging students to work on subjects related to their own background or to whatever languages they knew. For example, Ken Oshima was on, wrote on Japan, Ezra Akin on Turkey, Ava Luisa Palkonin on Finland, Tau Zhu on China, Ioana Theocropoulou on Greece, and there, others actually in the room, Marta Caldera on Portugal, and I could go again, keep going. We were fortunate to attract in large part due to Ken's own global reach and worldwide reputation. And of course, there are probably more translations since then, but there are a few. And this reputation became really clear to me when I was at an event with him in Hong Kong in 2016. And if you look at the list of the names on your right, you'll see that people from Asia as well as elsewhere were clearly big supporters and admirers of Ken. Not to mention, which was an important factor in drawing students, his considerable charm. We got an amazing group of students who've gone on to have outstanding careers. Although the financial aid in those early years was meager, I still remember Ezra Atkin and David Rifkin having to teach at three schools while they were writing their theses. There was besides a deep commitment to intellectual rigor and archival research and amazing warmth and camaraderie among the students, inspired in part by Ken's own generosity, wit and openness. I might mention to the wonderful gatherings he would have at his loft, and here it's essential to mention Sylvia, who would always graciously host these events with incredible style and taste and make sure they were delicious morsels to eat, not to mention lots of wine which Ken kept pouring. Anyway, we all had a lot of fun at those events. Thirteen years ago, the doctoral students had a party for Ken's 80th. They baked cakes in the form of architectural buildings, his favorite ones, and not just the rectilinear ones. I think you can see in this next image that Andrea Merritt kindly provided. We have a version of Ron Schoenck there, but I remember very vividly one as a toast, a student in a toast, a student described the program as, quote, magical. I was startled at first. It's not a word you hear often in academia, but in many ways the student captured the atmosphere of those early years of the program, and I like to see the program today now larger and better known as part of his incredible legacy to architecture and architecture education. Now, briefly, and this might not be as much fun as thinking about cake, I'd like to discuss quickly, I hope, my contribution to the book. As I told you, this was a bit of a hodgepodge. As Andre said, it's titled Kenneth Frampton's Idea of the Critical. In this essay, I wanted to explore a side of Kenneth's thinking that I thought was often overlooked, both by architects and theorists who have tended to stress his fascination with Hannah Arendt and his interest in phenomenology, both very important components of his thought and continue to be so. I was struck, however, how frequently the word critical appeared in his books and essay titles, and even in his teaching. The building analysis seminar that I mentioned even had the word critical built form in its title. And the book, of course, that came out of that seminar, again, checked the subtitle. It seems so obvious, but what did this word mean? I was also struck how indebted we, that is writers about architecture, are to Ken, for the use of this word in architectural discourse. And I might say, for better or worse, and Ken might say worse, I don't know, given how ubiquitous its usage has become. Needless to say, it generated, too, a kind of counter-movement in the early 21st century, the post-critical. And by the way, Ken would not allow me to use all these images. I wanted to have a big spread of all the critical titles, and he vetoed that. So I guess he didn't want to be associated with all of them. But the question I had was, what did this word critical mean to him? Where did it come from? And who were the writers who inspired him or might have prompted him in its usage? The word critical, of course, has a long history, deriving from the Greek word kritikos, meaning judgment or discernment. But its modern usage is usually seen as coming from two sources. Kant's three critiques, and I won't even try to summarize that meaning, and Marx's critique of political economy and capital, in which critique for Marx is a kind of ideological dismantling. In general, and forgive my kind of cryptic summary, this is meant that the word is associated with a kind of self-reflexivity that goes beyond intention and popular reception. And in the case of Marxist theorists, a belief that critical examination can contribute to social and political transformation. But Ken's source, as it was for so many of his generations, and for mine too, was the Frankfurt School, the group of scholars who had worked at the Institute for Social Research in the 1930s in Germany and sought to extend Marxism's ideological critique to the cultural sphere. This is not the occasion to describe in detail his discovery of these thinkers, but I thought I might give you a few indications through a quick series of slides, but not all of them are in the book, by the way. I took up too much space, as it was, which suggests their importance to him. First, and perhaps obviously, was Walter Benjamin, whose essay ceases on the philosophy of history. He first quoted in Oppositions 1, 1973, in a piece titled, Industrialization and the Crisis of Modern Architecture. And again, it appears in the introduction of the first four editions of Modern Architecture, A Critical History. I might also note that Benjamin's synopsis, and I don't know if this was causal or not, a synopsis, Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century, was published in the same 1969 issue of Prospector, as Ken's wonderful essay on the Maison de Verre. And of course, the links between Benjamin and Hannah Arendt, whom he'd already begun reading in Britain, were very strong, since Arendt had edited the first edition of Benjamin's essays in English, the book cover I just showed you, Illuminations, which was published in that all-important year, 68. But also, very important to his writings, Ken's writings of the 70s and early 80s, and perhaps less recognized today, was Herbert Marcuse's book, Eros and Civilization, which Alan Cahoon had given him in the late 60s, and Ken thinks may have actually been first given to Alan, or at least recommended by Thomas Maldonado. Ken read it with incredible thoroughness, and apparently lots of passion, and I can't resist showing you a few pages. You saw one image from Andres, but I'll show you a few more. I can't help it. And that one, there. And if you've just a little anecdote, if you'll forgive me, if you've ever been edited by Ken, it looks a little like that. But instead of saying trays and portons are very important, it usually says move or delete. I know. Anyway, back to Ken. As writings of the members of the Frankfurt School were translated, and this was really a product of New German Critique, New Left Review, they all started being translated in the 70s and 80s. Ken's own reading of these members expanded to include books by Adorno and Habermas. And I show you they're quite minimal Moralia, which was given to him by a former Columbia student and teacher, Alessandro Latour, shows up quite frequently in his writing, and you'll see a reference later. But his ideas about critique owe debts to contemporary Marxists as well. Most notably the Argentine designer, Thomas Maldonado. And by the way, the English translation of design, nature, and revolution towards a critical ecology was one of the rare instances. In fact, the only one I could find in English where the word critical appears in an architectural context before Ken. And Claude Schneidt, whom he first encountered on a trip to Ohm in 1963 with Monica Pigeon, the editor of AD, and experienced that prompted his own later oppositions essay on the school, and again, Hannes Meyer and his importance. Ken includes within modern architecture a remarkable passage from Schneidt's 1967 essay, Architecture and Political Commitment, about how the dictates of profit and capitalism had led to the degradation of modernist dreams for better housing and mankind's liberation. At the end of my essay in the book, I discuss some of the similarities and differences between Tefori and Ken's critique of capitalism and architecture. What I didn't know when I began working on the piece is that Tefori wrote an early review of modern architecture at Ken's own request for a publication that I showed earlier that he referred to modern architecture and the critical present. It's a largely positive review, and in it, Tefori admits to the possibility of a reconciliation between phenomenology and Marxism as being possible. However, there are significant differences, not overtly stated in this quite polite review of Tefori's, and he of course had to refer to an essay that hadn't been translated yet in English, a little bit of intellectual show off maybe. Anyway, unlike Tefori, Ken grants architecture the possibility of still having a critical valence as offering a way to avoid closure. He continues to see the generative and positive qualities of form and experience to create what he calls a space for architectural practice that resists the most blatant forces of commodification, even if it's at what he called a microcosmic level. Nor is he afraid to give examples, and there are some beautiful ones in the book. I just show you a few. Nor is he troubled by a phrase that Tefori uses with some criticism, the phrase operative critic. But rather than summarize Ken's position, I'd like to close by citing two quotations from Ken, which might invite further reflection and maybe even discussion. The first is from a 2001 interview with Gavork Hartunian where Ken specifically addresses Tefori, skipping the first sentence. I am aware that the Marxist hard line then as now thinks of my writing as operative criticism, as permitting the survival of an anachronistic hopes of design as a liberative agent, which Tefori dismisses as regressive. However, he also concedes that under present circumstances, one is, quote, left to navigate an empty space in which anything can happen but nothing is decisive, unquote, which sums up, I suppose, basically what I think about my position. The second passage is from the last essay of his 2002 book, Labor, Work and Architecture, and here's back to Adorno, but now titled Minimal Moralia, Reflections on Recent Swiss German Production. Here Ken states in quite moving passage, at least for me, what navigating and writing in this empty space means for him. One can only hope that others will be able to sustain their early capacity or alternatively to reveal an untapped potential for the pursuit of the art of architecture in all its anachronistic fullness. One perhaps needs to add that one does not indulge in the critique for the sake of a gratuitous negativity, but rather to spur the critical sensibility, to sharpen the debate, to overcome as far as this is feasible the debilitating dictates of fashion, and above all to guard against the ever-present threat in a mediatic age of sliding into intellectual synombulance where everything seems to appear to be for the aestheticized best in the best of all commodified worlds. Thank you, and here he is again. So a couple of weeks ago I met Kenneth Frampton at the bar of the Architectural Association. After we finished talking and as we were leaving, I noticed that the people sitting in the tables around us all had copies of his books, and evidently they had been waiting and eavesdropping in our conversation in order to approach him and start an impromptu book signing. At around the same time, there was an article in the Financial Times on Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and how, I quote, they represent two paradigms of choice so many of us face in this technologically accelerated, morally restless times to keep up or not. Jagger is active on Instagram, obsessed with keeping up to date with trends to the point of having pushed the stones at some point into disco and included some hip-hop in one of his solo projects, and he refuses to write an autobiography. Richards instead does not appear to care about social media or trends, prefers reading in his library, wrote an autobiography, and appears to enjoy interviews about his career. Having witnessed Ken's fame that day, I left the EA relieved thinking he might be more of a Keith than a Mick. It's a privilege to be gathered here celebrating architecture-related ideas that led to books, articles, seminars, conferences, discussions, polemics. And we could add architecture, buildings, I mean. Ideas that involve conviction but that also changed over time. Ken's critical and reflexive outlooks involve a concatenation of ongoing paths, and later in the evening we will get to talk to him about theories, buildings built and unbuilt, lost utopias, dissatisfactions, old and new, and several decades of architectural agendas. Ken is and has been concerned with the future of our profession and the relevance of the discipline, where it can ground itself and how it can continue to move forward. I think that having this conversation today is particularly significant, a point in time when our world is bleeding in so many places and it is in times of crisis that architectural culture struggles the most to remain relevant. One excuse for this event is a book of interviews, a set of conversations between Ken and myself. A book that will reveal at least that we both enjoy talking to each other. A book that has had an acute and loving introductory essay by Mary MacLeod in which she reconstructs intellectual affinities and is able to assign values and significance to Ken's work and that paves the way for a set of interviews that inquire into ways of being dedicated slash addicted to thinking and rethinking about architecture. Ken has been devoted to caring about architecture a grand amour and this relationship has had some of its most energetic moments when he thought the discipline had lost its compass. The story of these interviews can be found in a brief preface in the book where I explain that the start of this project can initially be connected to an assignment for a seminar here at Columbia, a class to which I arrived following some funds awarded to me by the Bewell Center. So I thank the Bewell Center as a first thank you of the night. As part of this seminar I had to interview someone extensively and instead I had the idea of interviewing a couple of people to reconstruct the idea and process of a relevant architectural book. Once I settled for a modern architecture, a critical history, my plan was to first interview Robin Middleton who, as acquisitions editor for Thames and Hudson, commissioned the book in 1970 and then continue with Ken who published the first edition in 1980. While Robin told me the whole story he was not convinced about a formal interview. Luckily Ken was and the project took a more monographic and biographical direction and today we can find the outcome in this publication. The first two interviews became the seminar project but as I was left with too many questions I suggested we program more interviews. From the third interview onwards the approach was to follow the arc of Ken's professional and personal biography which led to deep illuminations on built and written forms of architectural production. The interview spun Ken's early days as an architecture student at the Guildford School of Art to his decades long tenure as a professor here at Columbia University. Together they capture the circumstances and I would say personal, political, social, cultural in which he started writing, thinking and publishing his ideas on architecture providing a framework not only for his time as the technical editor as Mary mentioned of architectural design but also for some of his most resounding publications. In sketching out the intellectual atmosphere of architectural culture on both sides of the Atlantic from the 60s onwards the conversations also reveal how this theoretical terrain informed his most critical contributions to architectural thought and practice. These seven interviews took place over a two year period and I would argue that they are both a history and a personal reflection on the work of one of architecture's most enduring writers. They open a window onto a relational way of thinking about architecture one in which buildings and architects are always understood in reference to other cultural patterns. They unfold a thought process where Ken is constantly editing, refining and reacting to his own work a practice that is continued over the course of all of these conversations. This collection of interviews meanders producing not a straightforward account but an entangled discursive map of his life and ideas. Together they reveal a portrait that is as much about Ken himself as about the cultural environment from which this idea emerged. That was the long explanation. I think the short one is a simple fact that becomes evident throughout the interviews. Ken likes buildings and he likes talking about them. Groucho Marx was the one never to forget a face but in given cases make an exception. Ken in turn I would guess would like to forget many many buildings but instead of ignoring them he has tried to move the discipline forward by addressing their issues. Over the years running into Ken walking up and down the stairs of this building over the years running into Ken walking up and down the stairs of this building was an opportunity to talk buildings. So for those of you who are currently using this building there is something to be said about taking the stairs. Ken talking about buildings usually involves a different angle and he was and is I would argue dissatisfied with so much of the current production of architecture. That is of course until something catches his eye and then he is eager to share his opinion. Ken has connections and he knows people that know people and wherever he lands in the world he is driven to see buildings sometimes by architects looking for his blessing but most of the time by fellow junkies that can also act as dealers namely friends or former students that just want to see and command buildings with him. Like many good building analysts, Ken had the chance of designing buildings himself. He can draw and this he can do very well. As Mary showed you which adds in my books to his acute eye. However to say that I only enjoy talking to Ken because of his love of buildings would be reductive. There is something more intangible, something that can be described as sharing and caring for a culture that is specific to architecture which most of the times it's not only rock and roll but we like it. I want to start by thanking the Buell Center again for awarding me the funds that ignited the interviews. I want to thank Dean Andres Hake for making this happen as he inherited our little book problem and has been extremely elegant and supportive about it. Interim Dean Waping Wu was supportive of this project and former Dean Amal Andraos was the one that gave us the green light in the first place so heartfelt thanks to the three of you. More thanks to Barjan Polman, his team and to Mario Guden for hosting the event. On the production front thanks to Isabel Kierkam Lewis for her attentive leadership in this process and special thanks to Johanna Joseph, Johanna Kloppenburg and James Graham all from Columbia Books on architecture in the city, present and past. Also and this is a thank you in capital letters to graphic designer Scott van der Sey, where are you Scott? for enduring and succeeding. Finally, thank you Mary for sharing with us your wonderful essay that complements and completes the book and last but not least thank you Ken for the interviews and for our ongoing conversations in London. Thank you. Thank you to Kenneth of course, to Mary and to Danielle for these wonderful presentations and remarks and I should also say for this remarkable book I think also trying to compete with the number of post-its here. I want to welcome to the stage Isabel Kierkam-Lewitt, the director of Columbia Books and Mario Guden, professor of practice and the director of Mario Guden Studio. My name is Barjan Polman, director of exhibitions and public programming here at GCEPS and perhaps to start the conversation, Ken I wanted to begin with something that Danielle actually sort of pointed out to me and we were wondering about is that maybe you could talk a bit about where the idea of critical regionalism ended at or if it ended at all. You speak about moving towards a sort of tectonic culture because of the limitations of critical regionalism and I was wondering if you could speak about these limitations and what if an interesting that towards the sort of very end of the book you seem to suggest that your work has had more impact on a sort of smaller scale and I was wondering how the resistance that is sort of resistance that is implied in critical regionalism is tied to this notion of this very specific notion of the scale of the building. That's quite a lot. It's more than one question I think but in any case it's organic. It's all tied together at the same time. And yes, well the first thing I think to be said is that the term itself was coined by Alex Zonis and Leanne the favor in a very important essay of 1981 and which is a comment on two major Greek architects of the mid-50s, Dimitri Pikionis and Aris Konstantinidis and the title of the essay itself is dualistic, the grid and the pathway and the grid, they never actually say this but the grid is clearly Aris Konstantinidis and the pathway is, well it's generally, well I think specifically it is the landscape that Pikionis made outside of the Acropolis also in the mid-50s and well I think the coinage of the term in the first place and then this dualistic aspect in the way the term is given meaning by them in relation to specific practices is a very sort of, it's a legacy that I surely inherited from them and I've tried always to credit them appropriately and in fact on one occasion not so long after that I got interested in the two terms together I was present in a kind of seminar in Delft in the Netherlands where Alex Zonis was present and he on a blackboard he wrote the words critical regionalism and then rubbed out certain letters to make it critical realism which I, well you know I got the message I think from him and maybe you know that it is this question of how real is this because obviously that was implied in this gesture I feel you know it was something I also experienced here in the States because and that leads me to this question of tectonic you know I backed off into the position of well that is then become the book studies in tectonic culture and well there's no question that these towards the critical regionalism six points for an actually resistance which was a reaction to the 1980 Paulo Portuguese Venice Biennale which was you know well the slogan of course says everything his slogan the end of prohibition and the presence of the past and it was I think you know with the strut of the wisdom the wisdom I said in line with these shop fronts by rising architects you know says everything about well about the scenographic aspect and in fact of course that the works were actually made by the scenic designers of the Chinatita in fact so you know it was it was unavoidably very scenographic but even so I think that in as much as I remain faithful to that essay which is the date is 83 in fact interesting enough both Habermas and myself are in the anti aesthetic anthology of how fast does you know also both essays are a reaction against the Venice Biennale of 1980 this is perhaps a hopelessly kind of elliptical response to your question and you ask you know am I still convinced about it well I think I don't know what to say really but I think in as much as it has been sort of lived out so to speak by architects in particularly in Asia and in also in Europe to some extent you know the and also bubble of course in Latin America the idea was a kind of the term itself and the six points for an architectural resistance was I think you know a pointer departure or became a point of departure for architects that were not part of the transatlantic Eurocentric connection although I mean if you if you think of Spain Italy and so on you know of course there was a certain influence there of the idea well you know the question arises did the work come first or the idea you know I mean Mary showed just now you know the that issue of which features you know Gino Valley and you know I mean that the work of Gino Valley is long before that before the time is coined even and in fact Gino Valley was celebrated you know for his for the inflection that he created you know by Joseph Rick work long before I published in fact it is Rick work that is the author of the of the feature on Gino Valley that appears after the design so you know it is it's bigger you know both in terms of in terms of well really in terms of the kind of spontaneous production in different parts of the world but I think part of your question is you know do I still you know do I still subscribe to it and well I do and but I think you know we we have moved into another moment in a way that that's why I mentioned in the brief that this this word microcosm you know because I think that you know compared to the modern movement and the ambitions of the modern movement you know realistically speaking the profession has this possibility of the of holding operations in a way the making of microcosms you know that are of significance and of cultural significance and also can be because I don't think it's entirely separable of political significance as well and and I think from that point of view you know there are certain architects that are exemplary in as much as they are able to create works we have a kind of a discernible presence and also give something to the society in a very powerful way even if they're quite small in fact often because they are small they have this kind of impact I think and and that should be in my opinion well that is what I mean really by evoking the word microcosm you know because I think that realistically speaking coming back to realism rather than regionalism you know the the possibility in one's professional life is for the generation that is rising you know is is to achieve works of that order you know that have that kind of presence and and there are many architects that one can point to that have created works like this for instance very recently I was I attended an event in the Royal Academy in London where an Irish architect named Shane de Blacom receives a medal from the Royal Academy which I don't think they've given it too often but a medal for architecture so he gave a lecture etc etc and the whole publication of his work and and another Irish of an of a younger generation when it came to questions and answers after his presentation used exactly that word he said you know to the older man you know I always feel you know that your work has it's important to me because it has the presence I think this this question of presence of this this kind of intensity that it's still possible to make is is something that one should really drive for you know I think this applies also to education and so on I think this idea of microcosm there's this beautiful moment in your conversations where you discuss sensibility as a sort of environmental consciousness as as as environment engaging issues of both identity and social structures I think that that sort of relates to what you say about microcosm even though we we have moved onwards as you say just to stick with critical realism for a moment Mario you were studying at the school let's say during maybe the heydays of critical really could you explain a little bit maybe also for all of us who were not there yet what what it was like but the school was like at that moment yeah thanks Bart and I want to say a heartfelt thanks also to Mary and to Daniel and and mostly to to Ken you know because you're the reason that we're all here tonight and yeah so I you know I arrived here from South Carolina in 1987 and first encountered Ken in the slide library which used to be in Fairweather I won't get too nostalgic about that but I really do appreciate Mary your your introductory essay on Ken's idea of the critical because it looking back now I didn't know it then but to me it was the critical was not only within the history theory but now looking back I remember we received this list of books to buy as incoming first year students and Illuminations was at the top of the list it was Walter Benjamin there's also a book by Paul Clay there was Roland Bart and so critical was not just happening there in history theory it was also a discourse that was part of the studio and Ken's construction of the MR curriculum was yes important to housing but it would actually started in first year unbeknownst to us in the way in which that curriculum was constructed and I'm wondering if both of you other of you could kind of talk about could talk about that because it now becomes much much clearer to me it's like oh my gosh wow we were reading Habermas we were reading Benjamin we were reading Roland Bart's you know first day you know in the MR program and I can also recall there were a couple of bookstores on Broadway you know every new Minnesota press book that came out you know we had it on our desk so might you either of you talk about the way in which sort of critical also found its way into the discourse in the studio well it could be a very long conversation but Steven is sitting right in front of me here Stephen Hall and well the two things are two names that were first of all Stephen and secondly Jim Polchek who was the dean of which we worked with under etc etc and I worked particularly with Stephen and so it's not that that collaboration wasn't so much a history theory collaboration as one you know was clearly geared towards educating architects and I recall you know Stephen and I together you know we played around with this Paul Clay book Point Line Plain and we developed first year curriculum that was based upon this idea of exercises that would emphasize these three terms and but that was only part of an ongoing effort to develop a curriculum a design curriculum for the whole school actually and I was reminded recently that other figures who in the end didn't remain in the school I mean that's also another thing you know it was really anyway so sobering fact that you know you can find an absolutely brilliant teacher who somehow or other isn't recognized by the institution and they simply let the teacher go you know I'm thinking in particular of someone who was one of the last assistant assistants of Luc Obusier his name is Jose Uberie he was an unbelievably gifted architect and teacher and and part of this moment when I'm working with Stephen on trying to I don't know develop a curriculum for the whole for the whole three years base and well we we had limited success we did have some success I mean but but of course all these things are always very organic and they are somewhat fragile you know they they you know maybe it's easier or it was easier as another time to be more category and to sustain a pedagogical position you know it's much more difficult today I think and and was even difficult then of course also but of course I I don't know what else I can add you know of course it brings me back to this question of microcosm I don't really have I think Ken said it well I think there was an interesting combination that probably was changing just about when Mario came a first year a real emphasis on gaining formal skills just originally Klaus from Cornell taught in the 70s he wrote a book or did two beautiful books called formal structures I think was influenced in part by structuralism at Cornell but there was a desire kind of strange interesting combination at that point that evolved in interesting ways over the years of a kind of mixture of this desire to have intense formal rigor with this social and political side which came out sort of slowly but clearly by the housing studio sometimes already in the spring first year and I assume those reading lists you got changed over time I forgot about those I remember I used to tell people they had to read summer since heavenly mansion some of the which I still think is one of the most beautiful books written but sounds very dated to the current generation so I but there are things that have remained and I think it's interesting to think about that too as they've changed obviously the environment is probably the biggest change on all of our horizons that we didn't talk we talked a little bit because you have to remember Earth Day started when I was in college but it wasn't like a major issue in architecture school and I think when I say social and political or Mario does or Ken I think what were the burning issues but I still remember oh I better keep my mouth shut I was about to bring up a too heated topic I remember the outbursts on postmodernism and I remember saying getting really upset at the arcane discourse and just got up and almost shouted this must have been 85 or whatever so there were battles on when to be formal when to be social and political they were intense the other thing I would like to stress is we did not all agree there were huge you know we heard about Bob Stern there was an Italian rationalist thing there was a kind of late modernist thing I'm talking early 80s now but what was amazing is for the most part it wasn't personal they were these intense discussions and debates and I just keep hoping universities can continue that way instead of just being dispersed little groups that you can really have dialogue and confront those positions I talked enough I was told that at some point whether you were using sort of gray or yellow tracing paper I could tell you about Bob Stern putting pitched roofs and I would give a critique and they were you know kind of modernist clean things and then he would come by my studio and put in a nice soft pencil and he was very good draftsman too better than I was and he'd add pitched roofs to my I didn't know that sorry maybe we could when speak a little bit about the book itself and specifically the genre of the book Isabel and Daniel like the sort of let's say the format of its structures as conversations and also the let's say the possibilities that emerge through such a genre I can imagine certain models knowing Daniel sort of a film of the Hitchcock example but yeah what are the possibilities here. Well I developed the two first interviews in that class the seminar was on oral history and I was clearly not following the principles of oral history in this interviews because oral history is this kind of approach that you basically ask one question turn on the recorder and never interrupt so it's almost like in the limit of the cathartic sometimes and it's used many times to deal with traumatic events and I was very interested in doing very structured interviews so the teacher was very supportive and gave me a lot of advice but basically I went to Enrique Walker and I said how do you prepare an interview and he said read the two full interviews to Hitchcock so that was that's the short answer probably that was the main I just read those interviews got a sense for what was possible in the format and we just started talking they were very structured in the sense that I brought the questions but then in the editing process of course hopefully that shows that they got condensed and they flow yeah I can sort of pick up on that too Daniel I think speak up okay I think there are actually many conversations that are happening in this book and I think that's part of the reason why the book is so wonderful and of course there's the main interviews which structure it but I think the sort of the nature of those interviews what's most sort of compelling to me is the fact that you learn not so much well you learn just as much actually about Ken as a thinker, scholar, a writer and editor as you do about the sort of as we've said before tonight the sort of cultural political social circumstances that he sort of encountered and the development of those ideas and so I think that the book is just again a sort of a portrait you said that word earlier Daniel that it's a portrait of a scholar but also of a human and I think that that has actually a really powerful sort of political but there's something incredibly political about that which is that we sort of continue to sort of consider and look at those that we sort of the figures that we uphold in our field through a sort of full humanity right and that we learn about the sort of the places Ken frequented how he communed with others what he was reading who he was reading conversation with and writing with and I think that's a really beautiful and sort of political assertion. I just remembered there was another book I read at the time that gave me some ideas which was this I think he's called Martin Gayford and it's called Mum with the Blue Scarf it's an art critic that sat for a portrait with Lucian Freud I have that thought. It's more of an impression of Freud than actual interviews but he's very keen on where did you drink? What did you drink? What did you talk about? Did you fight? So okay so that gave me some ideas for some of the questions. Yeah yeah definitely and I think also you said it earlier but that Ken likes to talk about buildings but I think this book actually tells us that he likes to talk about books also that he likes to talk. And I don't know I think that again in the context of the school of architecture that this book sort of holds books and buildings on the same page it forces us to look at them together it holds discourse alongside practice. And so I actually went back flipping through the book earlier and I noticed that I counted all of the images in the book and sort of tried to track what they felt the categories they fell into and we somehow managed to have 19 books and book covers alongside 18 buildings and then another 18 sort of stuff that was floating around throughout this sort of development of some of these ideas and so again it was the ephemera, it was the bars, it was the other figures around there's a beautiful portrait of her in this and I think that that says something about how the sort of these thoughts and these encounters again are just as material as building and I think that's a really powerful thing to do. To come to terms with in this book. Somehow what you've just said reminds me of my wife Sylvia who is an artist and she says often there's well architects buy books, artists do buy books. So there is you know there's something about books and this field you know it's inescapable in a way I think. One question that I'm sort of eager to ask and I'm borrowing from an interview that you had with Rem Kulha at the Berlach Institute in the early 90s and he asked her what is the role of the critic. So I would like to sort of rephrase or re-ask you that question in this current moment how do you see the role of the critic or maybe the role of the historian if those distinctions can or should be made. God your questions are really not so easy to answer. You know well there's something of course a little parasitic about critics I think. Yeah I think I could say that. In fact my closest friend in London just said exactly that to me before I left coming about one's yes. The dimensions of one's life that could be seen as parasitic and probably critics can be seen as parasitic I think. But that's a very negative view of critics right. But I think one can also say that you know the critics really at their best you know are figures that contribute to the cultural discourse. This is what they do basically and they're very important in a way in a quiet way they're very important to culture period you know and to the continuation of culture and that's the justification I think it's the way they the way they exist the rational the modus vendi of critics. I think of how they should be also. Maybe at this point we should open it up to the audience. Are there any questions? Daniel. Dan sorry. Yes. There's a there's a microphone coming just a second. Coming coming yes. This was such a delight and I look forward to reading the interviews. I was very moved earlier in the summer when you came to the talk I gave on and I brought up the subject of bit cover who marked that word so deeply and our discipline is of course connected with the history of Columbia University Art History Department which is microcosm because his view of the microcosm was that Alberti and Palladio always connected it not only with the social and the political but with the cosmic with the macrocosm. And the next part of my question which is over very quickly is the heretical follower heretical of Vitkova who would have broke with him on this issue is of course Colin Rowe. Yes. And so I was wondering if you could speak to whether or not and you did somewhat at the Barbara Institute when I spoke about the microcosm and the macrocosm what you think about that genealogy which is in part here at Columbia. Yes. Whether it affected the way you think about the microcosm. Well I don't think it has that much you know but I mean what you're touching on is you know the importance of Colin Rowe in relation to Vitkova and I think he had an influence on Vitkova and not just Vitkova's influence and probably I have not adequately recognized the importance of Colin Rowe I think. I mean I also maybe the importance of a certain period when Vitkova publishes the architectural principles of humanism in London in that particular moment which Rowe was very affected by but the whole when I look back at it I mean I didn't really appreciate it at the time but the discourse in the city as a whole you know due to the presence of the immigrate scholars intellectuals that had come to the Warburg Institute and to the Courthold et cetera et cetera they had an enormous influence on this generation of Colin Rowe and Thomas Stevens who was also a very important figure the talking head by Aston Martin never wrote a single book but certainly wrote very interesting articles on very diverse subjects. I mean it was a particular climate I think you know that that that Vitkova was part of and not just Vitkova also Pesna and yes and they were immigrates of course and then in a very relatively compact small relatively small context and that produced in a way Colin Rowe but also I think that same discourse in a way produced you know my own way I evolved let's put it that way and I mean there is no question that the first person to recommend to me to read Aaron's human condition is Thomas Stevens who had taught Colin Rowe and Liverpool et cetera et cetera it's not really not really an adequate response to your intervention but there's a question here as well. Oh Bob Fishman. I'm Robert Fishman professor emeritus at the University of Michigan one of many people in this room who owes so much to you can. My question is that when you published critical regionalism I think you said 1983 I don't think any of us could have conceived of the rise of China and how it you know it so profoundly changed the balance in meaning really of global architecture. Suddenly Le Corbusier whom we discussed dismissed here in the United States was alive and well in Beijing and I was I just wanted to challenge you how would you know how do you see this you know is China in effect a kind of refutation of critical regionalism how do you see you know how do you see that concept in terms of this as I say unexpected transformation of global architecture. Well I mean so many Chinese students of course who are now very interesting Chinese architects studied the GSD in Harvard you know it was a regular sort of trajectory from China to GSD I mean and I think they the GSD was perhaps more important than other schools in developing these Chinese architects but I you know I don't I haven't made a habit of I've written a lot about recent Chinese architectural production there I don't know five or so monographs all of which were engineered by the architects they coming to me to write on their work right and you know you can see that they have the work has a lot of energy of course that is partly the product of the rise of Chinese power and economy clear you know and also shift in policy by the Central Committee work by the government to develop regional to emphasize you know regional centers I mean they have different reasons why they want to do that but I remember that I don't know what like 12 years ago or something like that maybe a bit more the Chinese government had the idea to move 340 million peasants into cities and they clearly reverse that whole thing you know and and so the what gave these Chinese architects opportunities was this emphasis upon regional you know to reconstruct regional culture in a way I mean you know many ways you could say for perverse reasons like there is a real effort on the part of the government to increase Chinese tourism for example this this emphasis on the regions is partly instrumental in that respect but I think you know they I'm thinking in particular vector architects you know who somehow understood the in a in a totally fresh way and and produced you know works which you could identify as having being partly the community partly Italian rationalist you know with a normal amount of energy in the works and so I think that's what you're alluding to in a way and and but is this the is this a con consequence of this towards the critical regionalism I think it's claiming too much for that 1983 can I just intervene though when I was in Hong Kong for this event where many of Ken's books ended out at Hong Kong you I couldn't believe the impact of that essay critical regionalism it was but there's this kind of weird thing in China anybody who's been in southern China and just sees what I would call I guess Ken would call just civilization no regional identity at all just one high-rise condo building after another and on the other hand this really amazing sensitive architecture that's trying to kind of discover either recreate bits and pieces of past architecture or some regional identity and you know I'm going to sound like Lefebvre I just think there's this dialectical tension between this anonymous kind of architecture that's everywhere at least in southern China I mean you just feel like it's going on and on and on and then these places like the Academy of Art of Wang Chiu that are just so consciously attempting to find some sort of regional identity and but I mean Ken is maybe modest I do think the essay had a huge impact and curiously so much more outside of the U.S. in general than in the U.S. which he explains in the book was partly why he moved on to tectonics well Wang Chiu wrote for quite does of course credit towards the critical regionalism but I think but it's such a huge country I have no idea what goes on in parts of it I know this made me think of this moment I was thinking earlier you know vis-à-vis microcosm again I was thinking of you know this is the most incredible thing which is it's hard to find it but I remember talking to Barry Bergdahl about it because there was this statement from Mies with the date 1951 and Mies says that is why we can't build cities anymore old cities plans it is it goes on like a forest and we have to learn to live in the jungle and even do well by that that's what Mies says in 1951 and I think I was thinking earlier about well obviously it's a bit on my mind this question of microcosm I mean we it's clear human beings cannot build cities anymore it's quite clear they can't you know megalopolis clearly is not a city and what Mary was referring to and I was sort of alluding to the fact that the the power had the idea to move 340 million peasants into cities and then they thought better of it thank God you know because it would just be more you know totally soul-destroying you know high-rises ad infinitum and with no coherent whatsoever you know just real estate development and you can't make cities just like that so I think Mies was you know absolutely clear for it in 1951 to say that is why we can't build cities extraordinary I think you might be happy to know that Wang Shu and Lu when you will be here next week speaking in this room and any any other question Wang Shu next next week oh my God sorry more questions like maybe just one more yeah all right yeah that gentleman is leaving for great right now Sandra Sandra where are you going are you going to have a drink you mean you have too much work lovely great to see you please Professor Frampton hello I was wondering if you were going to have a drink yeah Professor Frampton hello I was wondering in the context of you know the internet and digital technology and kind of digital world building and digital communities and digital cultures that kind of come out of this do you have an opinion in those spaces how critical regionalism applies I think they're basically incompatible in that case would you say that perhaps this like transnational digital space is a is an area where there's space for kind of techno utopic avant-garde in that case yeah but maybe but I mean what what would be the point though I mean you know it doesn't doesn't really need architecture if you know what I mean it has no need for it at all I mean it is it is what it is you know it is you know it is of course the mediatic explosion you know that we are living but inevitably we are living in it you know and it is what it is I mean but I don't think it has much to do with sheltering the the human subject you know I don't think it does because it's it's physical this question of sheltering the subject you know I mean I know it's a study of to use the word sheltering but I even think politically you know like a space like this has its own public political potential and and if you don't have this space you know which the digital is not capable of providing by definition then you can't have this it is a very important point made by Hannah Arendt power remains with people as long as they live together as long as they are together and when they're not together the power and this brings up another topic which I can't resist mentioning it is Massimo Cacari has this idea which has to do with the of course you can say it's a very European idea because it it doesn't okay we can't build cities anymore but the old cities still remain in Europe anyway and and Cacari was mayor of Venice twice that's also unbelievably cultural because believe you me neither in the United States nor in the United Kingdom will ever an intellectual become mayor of a city forget about it forget about it to the great credit of Italian culture that has happened more than once and and he Cacari has this idea of which is also by the way because it has to do with this idea of national national democracy democracy you know it's against national democracy actually because Cacari's concept is federation from the bottom that is to say it's also a critique of the European Union that the federation shouldn't be from the top down but from the bottom up and and it speaks to the political in the sense that only when it's more direct where people are close together can it you know otherwise at the scale of a nation and so on it's just a game of manipulating human beings you know in order to gain four or five percent advantage to then go to power but it has no you know it's like a democratic idea is completely voided in that case and this is the present chaos of the United States in my opinion you know it what will stop it from sliding into you know finally totalitarian we'll see but but I don't think it's digital is not pertinent to any of that that would not be a good note to end on maybe we can get one sort of that