Frank Ghery and Norman Foster EPISODE 48
Frank Ghery a Canadian born architect whose works have been cited as being among the most important works of contemporary architecture. Frank has been named "the most important architect of our age". Norman is known for his complementary yet ultra-modern redesigns of classic buildings and for his simple, streamlined new structures. Dubbed the "hero of high-tech," his architectural signature is a design that opens a building up to the public, is mindful of the environment, and saves money by using modern materials and advanced technology.
SHOW CLIPS
A BLOCK
INTROS
Norman Foster - Intro
Frank Gehry - Intro
ADVICE
Norman Foster - Advice To Young
Frank Gehry - Advice To Young
Norman Foster - Childhood Influence
Frank Gehry - How I Got Started
B-BLOCK
ARCHITECTURE
Norman Foster - Drawing
Frank Gehry - An Architect’s Signature
Frank Gehry - Client Expectations
Norman Foster - Conventional Building
Frank Gehry - Freedom Of Expression
Frank Gehry - Creative Inspiratio
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast. It's an awesome episode. 48. I'm your cohost Mike Parsons. And then as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan. Mr. Chad Owen. Hello, Brooklyn. Good morning, Sydney. Can you believe we're about to start an entirely new series chat? Yeah. And we're creeping up on episode five.
Oh, Ooh. What do you do for 50th anniversary? Is it that like gold or silver or? I can never remember. I've got, I've got a lot more years to get. So I was just trying to like create the opportunity where all our listeners send us lots of gold and silver, but obviously that's not happening anytime soon, but man, a new series I'm pretty pumped and this one's close to my heart and I think it might be close to yours too.
Yeah. So we, we both have. Designer blood in our veins, not just in the digital sense, but also in the built environment space, AKA architecture. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's crazy how you and I have have met through the pursuit of building digital products, but. Uh, both of our families are populated with architects all over the place.
So I am you take the cake though. Chad, come on. You have to spill the beans. Well, yes, my lovely wife and I just went to an architecture Institute event last night here in New York city. It's one of the perks of one being married to a, uh, fancy designer architect. Uh, but also being in a place like New York that, uh, sort of appreciates architecture, not.
Not quite as much as our European friends. Um, but, um, yeah, there's never a shortage of, uh, of events and things happening here in New York. And you've got a bit of a lineage of architects, right? That's right. That's right. So my grandfather was an architect and my uncle is also an architect. So there's, there's sort of architecture, oozing out of out.
Both of our bloods. Uh, Chad and we have decided to do an architect series and chatter Owen. Are we leading with the two heavyweight champions of architecture for this show? Certainly to the more famous architects, Frank Gehry and Norman foster, if you've been to any major metropolis on any continent, I'm sure that you've.
Uh, at least taken a tram or a bus or a train. Uh, by one of their buildings, if not actually been in one of their buildings. And at this point they have almost way too many to count. They're both prolific that's for sure. And, um, for those of you who may know the name, Frank Geary, or know the name Norman foster, we've decided to put both of them together.
And, and really to, to, to come in strong and open up really big with our architecture series. Um, now this is, this is going to be a fun exercise. Chad, let's try and describe the two most iconic buildings, so to speak. Yeah, the same. We've got Frank Gary's Bilbao Guggenheim museum, and we've got Norman fosters.
The Gherkin in London city. Chad, how do we, how do we describe these? I mean, this is an audio podcast. This is like the ultimate constraint. I mean, do you want me to kick off, like, what is most people listening to our show? We'll have seen the Bilbao Guggenheim museum, but how do you, how do you explain this as a, sort of the most unexpected building ever.
Yeah, that's I probably should have known coming into this that we'd have to describe some of your feelings in audio form, but I, I like in Gary's work to imagine, imagine a whirlwind of sheets of metal that come together, like in a tornado and form a building. Yes. And the, the kind of visual theme of the Bilbao museum.
He also has in many of his other buildings. Like I went to school in Chicago and he built the amphitheater there in millennium park on, on the lakefront in Chicago. And it has the very same kind of wavy curvy, almost like stretched to taffy like curves, but it's. It's metal. It's like very stark and, uh, and metal, I would say it's an explosion of floral and organic line.
It looks. Very few right angles. He had, I'm like, I'm looking at the PDF. This is how the, any, any writings it's very metallic on the outside. And this bill, wow. Building was built in a destitute area at the time and it has single handedly. Transformed Bilbao the city and this, of course, this neighborhood so much so that in architectural circles, they talk about the Bilbao effect that when building is so amazing, so immense that it can transform an entire neighborhood and economy the way people come together socially.
Um, it's actually called the Bilbao effect after Gary's building. Um, and the, you cannot understate the effect that this building has had as being not only iconic, but actually rejuvenating our whole city, uh, which is a pretty crazy idea for just a building. Now let's have a look though. We've got, um, on the other side of things, Norman foster, he is like, I mean, he's a very different kettle of fish, isn't it?
Yeah. Um, although they've both won architecture's top prize, the Pritzker prize. I can't remember exactly who won at first, but yeah, they, they both received the award. I think Norman is known more for kind of pushing the technological arena in terms of materials used and. Uh, using those materials and new and interesting ways that may be, uh, haven't seen before in, in buildings.
And he's also, it's kind of hard, like many of the, uh, entrepreneurs and startup founders we've found, it's hard to kind of separate the ego from their accomplishments and many would say, you know, The buildings are even, uh, too small to contain their egos. But yeah, Norman foster has made some very large and impressive buildings in his time.
I think even holding several kinds of records for a world's largest X or world's largest, Y. Yeah, that's so true. Um, starkly different in style and taste. Um, but both equally impressive. I mean, we've got two great architects, Norman foster, Frank, Gary, we're going to break them down. We've been really fortunate that we've got two big bucks because of, uh, ideas to come up in the show.
Right? The first one is the advice. Both of these acclaimed architects have. For us and our careers. And the second one is really diving into architecture and Chad and I are so excited to show you how some of the behaviors, practices and mental models of architecture really do have they're. So, uh, analogist to what we, uh, What we need to do as entrepreneurs and is innovative.
So I think we can learn a lot on how these two gentlemen have been so successful. And as a short aside, don't forget if you are interested in any of the, the clips or the books, anything that we mentioned in this show, you can go to moonshots.io. You can pick up the show notes for this show. You can get all you need around.
Foster and Geary. And we've also should mention Chad, we've got some other killer architects to come in the future shows. So make sure you stay tuned to this series. If you enjoy Norman foster, if you enjoy Frank, Gary, there's plenty more to come and you can find out about that@moonshots.io chat. Oh, and where do we begin?
Our adventure? Yeah, we have just a few kind of introductory clips, both about Norman and Frank, but we'll start with an introduction clip on Norman foster. Lord Norman foster is here. Architecture critic, Paul Goldberg, once called him the Mozart of modernism over the course of a six decade career. He's become one of the world's most revered and prolific architects is iconic structures include the Gherkin building.
London city hall and the HSBC building in Hong Kong in 2009, Steve, Steve jobs of Apple chose foster and his firm to design the new Apple headquarters, which opened in April, also reached and launched the Norman foster foundation in Madrid. It promotes interdisciplinary thinking and research to help new generations of architects and designers anticipate the future.
Hmm, anticipating the future. I mean, that's a bit of a bold statement. Don't you think Chad? Yeah, but I think, you know, it's kind of a, because what architects are designing. Hopefully is lasting 50 or a hundred or even more years, they definitely have to be a bit of a, or a lot of a futurist. Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing, like the, not only the excitement that that idea causes, but also the constraint, you know, trying to create a timeless piece of work.
Sounds easy, but I. But I feel in my bones, how hard that would be as an architect. Um, well, let's jump immediately straight across. Let's get to know the other superhero. If you will, of this show, mr. Frank, Gary, let's have a little listen to who this gentleman really is and how he thinks I have always felt if you know what you're going to do in advance, then you won't do it.
Your creativity starts with whether you're curious or not. When you build a building, any building, start with the simple block model to see where that goes. Most of our cities are built with faceless glass only for economies and not for humanities as an artist. I got constraints. Gravity is one of them, but within all those constraints, I have 15% of freedom to make my art.
I'm always trying to express movement. I was fascinated with the fold. So basic to our first feelings of love warms. These ideas are scary as hell to tell to the client they can reject you and they will, but you got to find your own voice, create the logic for it. As you go stretch it into another place.
I'm just telling you how I did it. My, I did it, whatever you do promise me that every project you make or design you'll take the risk of doing something for humans. I love I'll don't you just love that building for humanity and not just economy. I thought that was very powerful, Chad. Yeah. And this idea that the constraints, you know, he has 15%.
Hi, in which he can play with. And yet he's, you know, designing these incredible sites and functional spaces. Yeah. Because you look at Bilbao and you, you would say he had zero constraint. Isn't that interesting. Yeah, but he knows that he's operating, you know, what the materials can do and the site. Right.
And like he said, you know, gravity, it's, it's, it's gotta be a structurally sound building that people can occupy and, and good to look at. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, okay, so now we've set the scene. Haven't we we've got two Titans of architecture. I would assume a lot of our listeners have actually walked inside of their buildings.
If you've been to the, uh, the British museum, for example, with that. Standing a glass ceiling. That's Norman foster. It just, it's just amazing what these two have done. And we've got tons to learn from them. I think we should jump in Chad, let's go some advice to set us on our way throughout our life. I think career, and we've got four thoughts coming up.
Let's get into the first one. This is Norman foster and his advice to the young. My advice to a young artist, the young architect is first of all, does architecture or art sculpting, painting, drawing. Is that what you really, really want to do more than anything else in the world? And you would do anything to be able to do it because it really, really fires you.
If that's the case you've made the right choice. And you go for it and you immerse totally saturated. You live it every living second of your life. If you don't believe in it that much, then you have to find something that you believe in something else. And it doesn't really matter what it is because in life, I think you'll find that everything is creative.
Yeah, I am a little bit biased that everything is is creative, but this, I see this as kind of a play on the follow, your passions kind of side of the equation in terms of, you know, how people find purpose in what they're doing. But I liked that he frames it from you really have to believe in it. And if you're not, if you don't truly believe in it that then you should be doing something else.
I don't know if this is something that's maybe. Uh, new to our audience. Um, but it's really fascinating to hear it come from maybe an unexpected source. Oh, that's yeah. Well said, do you know what, as soon as I was listening to Norman fostered in, I, it immediately made me ask myself, is there anything that I deeply wish I was doing?
With my work that I'm not doing. And it's a very interesting question. Like if, if, if you truly deeply love what you do, then imagine what that looks like and, and kind of immediately made me ask that question and then sort of in the pursuit of like, well, filling the gap, are there some things I'm not doing that would be serving my passion and my, my deep love of what I do.
And I found that really powerful. Um, and. So it's a very good question to ask. So I think we really love something. Are you doing everything possible? Uh, are you leaving anything to the side that you should be doing? So I found that I found that very powerful. Didn't you? Yeah. And for me, it's always been interesting to find that balance of.
How much kind of fulfillment and passion you have in your work and then kind of whatever, you know, your I'll just call it outside pursuits here or hobbies or other things are because for me, there's a bit of a danger of putting it all into your work, um, or, or trying to get all of that fulfillment from your work.
And again, I see this. There's always that tension in that balance. But I think asking yourself, is this really what I want to do above anything else is a really good question to be continually asking ourselves. Yeah. And, and hopefully hearing this, all of our listeners can be like, Um, just taking us, uh, one step back at the moment, as we're talking about this to us themselves, do I really want to live this?
Believe it, do it, feel it? Yeah. Is this the thing? And you're quite right, Chad, you know, you have to balance that with. Equal passion for things outside of your work. I mean, that's only the only way you can be human. That's be honest. Wow. That's a, that's a good, a good thought starter from Norman foster and another one from Frank.
Come on up though, too cool. Hit us and hit us with it. Chad kids that, and I tell my students that they should not look over their shoulder. They should be themselves and find their own way. And, uh, that they will slowly realize that they will become the expert in their work and that nobody else is an expert in their work and that they will have, uh, uh, and so it doesn't matter what somebody else says.
I mean, yeah, maybe they won't like it, but at least you're still in control. You're still the expert in your work and over time, if it's any good. It'll find its way into the bigger picture and it may be great and not find its way into the bigger like Vango didn't when he was alive. But yeah. Uh who's to say what that's good and what's bad in the end.
So for one's own life, I think it's, that's where you go. You find your own thing, you relate to it, your strength and you can have a pretty good life. If you don't look over your shoulder and try and be what the next person is cause you can't be what they are anyway. So that's what I tell kids. And I try to
just be yourself. Don't look over your shoulder, follow your heart. Like Chad, I can't begin to tell you how much. That has been my own journey just to be who I am. I am do the things that I, I love where the clothes, that express who I am and to not, um, bend to what others expect, but to have the courage, just to be myself.
I mean, I'm always working on it, but this advice, ice is just rock solid. Yeah, this is an interesting perspective. I kind of heard it in the lens of positioning where you're really the only expert in your own work. Right. Right. How good is that? How good is that? Frankly, it was like, whatever, whatever people say, like doesn't really matter much because they're not experts in, in you.
You're the expert in you and your work. I, I think that that's. That's really interesting. Well, and it builds on itself because if you focus on what you love, what you love will be unique to you. You, you will be an expert in your thing and you will thrive because what are like a powerful sequence. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think it's especially true in the creative pursuits, but I think what I'm taking away from it is, well, we can also apply that. In, in business or entrepreneurial pursuits as well. You know, you don't want to take it too far in that you're kind of shutting down the outside, uh, influences and, and kind of advice and counsel, but you can certainly put the most weight in your own perspective.
And. Again, because you're the one that's living. It. You're the one that's sacrificing and committing to it. So obviously, you know it best. Mm. Uh, I love this stuff and it's so awesome because we're talking about architects, but they have something to teach us whether where. Entrepreneurs innovators, teachers, carpenters.
It doesn't matter. There's something in here for all of us. So I'm fascinated now, Chad, for us to dive a little deeper now and go back to the formative days of both of these architects and let's look at some of the childhood influences how they got their first start and let's see what we can learn. And, uh, why don't we, uh, jump into listening to Norman foster.
Talking about childhood influences. I think as a child, I'd always been interested in buildings and had always been interested. In things locomotives, I would stand for hours waiting for a locomotive to pass, and there were special locomotives with nameplates and they were just good strains. And you waited patient lift the really special ones and cars who always had an attraction.
And, uh, and artists, when I was a child in Manchester, I was aware of. Of Lowery, for example. Um, uh, so, uh, whether it's weekly magazines like Eagle with cutaway drawings, which reveal the center workings of the, uh, all the, all the things that move and, uh, and have a dynamic. And so, uh, perhaps all the things that excited the Italian futurist.
So at the beginning of the, uh, of the century and which in many ways have also inspired other architects, local BCA, for example, how to romance with, with flying machines and devoted a book to it. And it was one of his books that I discovered in my local lending library. That I'm towards a new architecture, but it was the juxtaposition of classical architecture with fast hydroplanes.
And so, um, so as a child, uh, I was, I mean, I remember sketching and I remember being enthused and excited by these machines. Uh, and speed. Wow. I like the diversity of, of interests. Hopefully those of you listeners that have been on this wild ride with Mike and I for 40 plus episodes. And you can tell that we have wild and varied interests here.
Now that's kind of what I'm taking away from Norman is while something like locomotives and flying cars doesn't seem like it has much or anything to do. With architecture. I think that it's really, it's really quite the opposite that that varies interest informs much of, of what he's done in his career.
Oh, totally. And do you know, I'm going to try and draw some parallels here, but actually in Norman foster, I see a little bit of a Richard Branson, um, in that Norman foster, is this wildly curious person? I, what I heard. Norman foster really saying that as a child, he was just wildly curious as to how the wonderful things in the world worked.
And that is the perfect reminder to all of us, that in order to create something new, that. Curiosity is essential because if you're curious, you'll look out in the world, you'll find out how things work, you'll see problems that are worth solving. And I find that super inspiring and a bit of a nudge, a bit of a reminder, keep curious, keep hungry.
Didn't you think it had a little bit of that feeling? Yeah. Yeah. To not see your curiosities as distractions, but actually as, um, kind of worthy pursuits, abs. Absolutely. Really, really good stuff. Well, I mean, it's, so we're so fortunate that we've been able to find both of these architects talking about similar things together, and it gives us the opportunity to, to sort of contrast, compare how they think about things.
So let's now have a listen. We just heard from Norman foster. Now let's have a listen to Frank Geary and find out how it all began for him. Frank Geary. How do you create feeling with materials? Greeks knew how to do it. I've got a picture of the charioteer 500 BC when I saw it. When I was 40 years old, I started crying and I thought that's what I want.
I want to be able to build a building that makes people.
500 years.
What is it that made me want to come into this profession in high school, I took shop and build things and I did well in that and loved it. Making things with your hands. I looked at the professions. One could go in and I remember looking at architecture at that time. And architecture curriculum was to build a Cape Cod house or something, you know, it was, it was not very interesting.
So I closed the book and I didn't even. Pay attention. But I did go to the lecture on Friday nights at the university of Toronto, and there was a guy from Finland showing his buildings and furniture. That guy turned out to be Alvar Aalto. So I was kind of peripherally interested because I didn't know why I was interested.
I was intrigued by the way things were built. When I got to LA, I went to night school, LA city college. I took a ceramics class with Glenn Lukens, who is a well known ser service. And he's the one that after a year told me not to stay in ceramic. He said, you're not gonna like this. I think he should look at architecture.
He was building house by Raphael Soriano. I visited the site. Raphael Soriano was telling people to move beams around and it was kind of exciting. I guess I, my eyes lit up the first buildings I designed look like Raphael Soriano. He got to me. Intrigue. I mean, how crazy is this very different styles of architects?
And what we just heard Frank saying is he was intrigued on how things worked. And Norman foster was just one big curiosity engine. I mean, it's right there. Isn't it, Chad? Yeah. It was funny to hear that he was kind of put off by architecture at first. He wanted to do things with his hands sculpture, right?
Yeah. But, um, I think, I think he realized that maybe architecture is, is doing that kind of physical activity, but on a bigger scale. And as he was saying, Rafael was kind of moving beams around, you know, so you're not kind of working with a pot, so to speak, but, um, yeah, you're kind of moving walls and beams and whole structures.
It's really, really interesting. Um, I think, I think it's, um, take out from, from how they found their careers was just this abundant curiosity as to how the world worked. And I think that serves us all well, as, as a powerful reminder, don't you? Yeah. And that what we want to do may not be in that kind of first, uh, idea or pursuit that we have.
Either, you know, cause Norman probably could have, I don't know, become a train engineer or, uh, gone to work in a car factory or Frank could have been a ceramist, but yeah, as you said, they kind of follow their curiosity to end up where clearly they were meant to, uh, to be working. Yeah, and it pairs very nicely to their advice.
You know, be yourself, don't try and be someone else follow deeply in your passion. And, you know, you could take that and we can see that very analogist to some of the thoughts we got from Oprah Winfrey and others. And I just think it is so powerful that no matter where we go, Chad, we see these universal themes.
Be curious, be passionate. Be open to the possibilities of the world, whether you're an architect or a television show host, or an author or an entrepreneur, there are these universal themes that continue to remind us on the path. It's not easy. It's perhaps easy to say, but it is rather hard to do. Isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. And one thing that was really interesting to me in life learning and more about Frank and Norman was kind of the everyday practice and the, in the sitting in the chair and the doing of the thing, you know, we've heard a lot about was that, uh, Bill Belichick, his kind of mantra for the Patriots is you ready?
Well, the finest really fantastic clip that kind of takes us to the most fundamental thing of architecture, kind of in the, I guess, romantic sense in this drawing. And so here's this amazing, it's almost like poetry, uh, describing Norman and his, uh, and his drawing practice as an architect. Norman never stops drawing communicates in the most effective way through a sharp pencil and a beautiful block of paper in his cars, the refresh note pads and freshly sharpened pencils, just in case something comes to him.
He's always drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing. It's the way he thinks. It's the way he argues points. You can see the buildings take shape.
His lines are very spare, but very expressive in a very economical way. Just like no,
the view he had was a railway line, which went right past his window at high level. And he would have been out there looking at these big black steam engines, rushing past, throwing out smoke and cinders. Under the track as a passageway that goes from Norman street, which is humble and poor, you can smell the damp, but you go through this tunnel under the railway and you find yourself suddenly in a middle class suburb with trees on the streets and detect lists and realize of course, that Norman was on the wrong side of the tracks, always drawing.
I mean, isn't it amazing to think, Chad, that. An architect whose personal wealth must be in the hundreds of millions of dollars every day. He's drawing. I mean, him and bell, Bella check, like just do your job. I mean, joined at the hip right there, Chad. Yeah. You might be overselling the glamorous life of an architect there.
My, but I would say sir, certainly Norman and Frank get criticized, um, because all they do is draw. Now, and it takes, you know, a studio dozens, if not hundreds of, uh, expert, uh, technicians, you know, to turn this kind of maybe what you would see as a scribble into, uh, into a fully functional building. But, um, Let's say that they're 50, 60, or over a hundred years together, uh, years of experience, um, maybe gives them a bit of that, right.
To do so. Oh yeah. But, but in a funny way, um, the engineering aside, the fact that this still jarring that to me, that Norman Foster's reminding us that. He goes everywhere with a pad. He, I was watching a documentary on him. He even in his car, they have pads and pencils ready. And I think the reminder here, or the learning here is just the same as Richard Branson.
Who's traveling everywhere with a notepad and a pen to write down opportunities. When the inspiration comes, they're ready, they're ready to do it. And I think regardless of your craft or your practice. Uh, if you're a coder always be coding. If you're an architect always be drawing, you know, if you're a sales and new business guy always be calling, I mean, yeah.
There is a fundamental truth to do the practice and do it every day. That's that's, what's so strong. That's what we can take from Norman foster. Don't don't you think? Yeah, absolutely. You know, oftentimes we can get distracted by. You know, the newest, uh, growth hacking fad or, or, you know, whatever, whatever comes across our, our inboxes or our social media feeds.
But yeah, there's a beautiful simplicity and just returning to what it is that, that you're actually doing. Yeah. Um, yeah, and there's a simplicity simplicity in, in all of us that is very unique and genuine to us. Um, and this next clip very much in the spirit of drawing as well. Is Frank, uh, Geary talking a little bit about that.
Really capturing who you are in your work. And, um, he, he's actually talking about it through the metaphor of signature. So let's have a listen to Frank Gary. Well, first of all, if you're going to be an architect, you have to learn the craft. You have to learn how to build. You have to learn the engineering.
You have to learn how to be responsible to build. Something, that's not going to leak. That's going to stand up. That's not going to kill people. It's going to be, so you have, there's a discipline. You have to. Wow, for sure. Your personal spirit, it has to evolve into your language that you create. When I teach a class, I always ask the kids to write their signature.
And so if you have 10 kids and H write their signature and you look at them, they all look different. And so I tell them, that's you that's, you that's, you it's different when you write your signature. So it's gotta be different when you produce your work, it's gotta be your signature and it's hard. It requires a certain amount of trust, uh, to go forward.
That's the hardest thing I think, uh, I have it in my own family where. I see my kids struggling with that and, um, how to cut away, you know, take the chance to jump off into the unknown and, uh, not be afraid to do that. I think, uh, what comes out is personal, like your signature and for better, for worse, that's worse.
It may be great. It may be terrible, but you gotta take the chance, right. An artist can do that. And some architects do it not a lot. Oh, and what about entrepreneurs? I mean, the fascinating thing that, that this clip, and I don't think I've ever thought of it this way, but. Like if an entrepreneur walked away or let's just say vanished from a business, how would you know that it was theirs and not someone else's?
And I, I think many of the people that we've profiled, we would probably know, you know, if we knew who they were. And what they left at the company. Like I would say most, if not, all of them had left some kind of indelible Mark, maybe not throughout the whole company, but certainly on much of the companies, but like, Going back to bill Belczyk like, yes.
You know that he is the one that has coached that team. There was no other coach and then NFL that there was coaching that team. Like, you know that when you go into that locker room, that that was a bill Belichick team. I'm, I'm curious, um, from, from you, Mike, what other entrepreneurs maybe do, you know? I feel like had left that indelible Mark on their companies and maybe how.
We can be sure that we leave a bit of our signature as well. Yeah, I will. I think the easy one is obviously Steve jobs. I mean, his signature was so strong. It was absolutely overwhelming. Right. Um, yeah, they're still kind of trying to figure out what to do in the post Steve jobs era, because it was so much tied to him and his personality, et cetera.
Yes. Yes. I think Warren buffet is the same there. I think when I think of more newer entrance onto the scene, and I think about who we've discussed, I think Simon Sinek is one to watch out for, I believe the sort of. The way in which he asks simple, but profound questions to help us be better. I mean, he, I think he's bringing something very new and we saw that our audience absolutely loved his show.
I think he, I think cynic might be onto something. Yeah. Yeah. I think. I mean, it's really, it's really hard to leave out Elon Musk with all of his companies and Jeff Bezos, but I would also say, you know, like someone like Travis Kalanick and the Mark that he. Made at Uber. And they're trying to unwind his signature still to this day from Uber.
So as, as Frank said, you know, your signature, it might be good for him. It might be bad. Yeah. Yeah. And somewhere in the middle of that might be Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, which just continues to have issues with. Privacy and ethics in a major way. Yeah. Another one it's closer to two, normally foster and Frank Gehry, uh, would be what a unique signature he's had.
I mean, so much so that Apple copied. Uh, some of his design from the analog world into digital. Cause it was just that good. Yeah. And his products, you look at it and you know that that's a data rums product. Totally, totally. Um, but look, an important part of being an architect is that it it's, it's not like you sit in an ivory tower, stroke your chin and come up with ideas.
The reality is, is actually quite different. It is a lot of hard work where you actually have to work with, with clients, take a brief, meet their expectations because in the end you're spending their money. Now what's quite interesting is we managed to find a clip of Frank Gary talking about how he works with clients.
And I think there is a ton in this for us to think about how we manage our. Commercial relationships. So let's have a listen to Frank, Gary talking about client expectations. You create the kind of format for it. Then that format has to be able to relate to the person who's prepaying the money, showing them that they can build such a thing for the budget they want.
And if sometimes they can't, sometimes their wishes is not. And this process very quickly brings that to everybody's attention and you can deal with it in the front end, rather than designing something, having it go out after everybody's in love. And. Then they find out they can't afford it, then you start cutting it.
It becomes a compromise. And I hate that part. I don't, I don't, I can't go there now. I want to do it. I want to beat real from the beginning. So given that process and given a lot of computer programs and stuff that we've developed to make that process work seamlessly and carefully. Um, the art part, uh, what does it look like?
How does it, what materials, what form, what all that. And those are studies model studies that, uh, we make that relate to site. And, uh, you know, if you build a tower.
70 or 80 story tower for the most difficult part is the curtain wall, because that is what the building's gonna look like. And so you have to be very careful to develop a curtain wall with the experts, with the engineers that can be, be built. Within their budget. That last part, I immediately think of, uh, a condo tower of Frank Gary's in lower Manhattan.
If you're in Brooklyn, kind of looking across the Manhattan bridge or the Brooklyn bridge, you'll see this building and it looks like there's almost like ocean waves. That as the walls. Wow. Um, and so I, I mean, he may even be talking about this exact building, but yeah. You look at it and you think, wow, that must have been very expensive too, to make that the curtain wall or exterior walls is, as he says so pretty.
But, um, this kind of expectations in scoping exercise is really interesting. To me, because I've been in the situation where I have not had the practical conversation upfront and come up with a really great idea and kind of assumed that the client would go for it and then found out that they had like one 10th of the budget that I was anticipating.
And then it's like, well now what do we do? But isn't it for all the. Um, celebration we make of them. You forget that this just some hard graft every day, working together with clients, doing things on budget, being, um, ingenious and coming up with cost effective ways to do things. And it's a reminder to all of us.
This is not some sort of fancy for delightful self-indulgent. Spend what you want kind of situation. They have this time constraints for y'all have they just answered them in a different way. Don't they? Ted? Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of relating it to like, you've got this great idea of where you want to take your company and your startup and in your mind, you know, you're going to get $5 million to start it, but it turns out you're only going to be able to raise five, $500,000.
Right. Do it. So your, your runway just went from three years to two. You're like, okay, what are the. What are the compromises that I have to make in that, that tension between kind of your desire and the art artistry and the creativity and the practical nature. It is a really fascinating oscillation. And while, while we may not be working on it, kind of in the same way, I think those are the decisions, the tough decisions often that we have to make as we're.
Guiding guiding our businesses are working inside of our companies. That, yeah, we're not the only ones that are doing that. You know, there's some architects out there as well that are dealing with, uh, just as angry or upset or misaligned, uh, clients as we are. Exactly. Exactly what what's really powerful is if we have to remember that.
That is just part of the job and you can't get away with that, even if you're Frank Gehry, even if you're Norman foster, but the exciting side of this is there's always the opportunity to challenge the conventional wisdom. And we heard a little bit of that from Frank and what we've got now, we've got Norman foster talking about the same thing about how he sees a brief, he works with the client and how he starts to challenge convention.
So let's have a listen to Norman foster. If you think about her a tower or you think about a conventional airport, it may re-examine that building type and come up with something which is different, but different, not just for the sake of being different, but different for a good reason. So if you take a tower conventionally, it has a central core.
Um, when we questioned that. On the building immediately behind me, the Hong Kong bank. There were very good reasons for rejecting that model. Even though if you analyze pretty well every tower on the planet, it would have a central core. So we broke with that tradition. We reinvented the tower by fragmenting the core, putting it on the ends.
You have free space. So you can see from one side to the other, it's not blocked and it's flat. So you could put even a dealer's room, which would be unthinkable in a tower. And that's exactly what they did many years later. Or you could consider an airport, um, like Stansted, which again, questioned the conventional idea of a terminal, which was that it was a sandwich of space.
And the roof had a lot of ducks with our handling plant on the top, which cooled the air, lots of electric lighting then, because you've got no natural light. So you've got the heat load, the lighting, very energy consuming and not very nice. I mean, yeah. Claustrophobic, which is why airports had such a bad name when we reconsidered that.
And put all the handling at the bottom underneath so that you could open the top to natural light and the soundbite. So for most of the time you didn't need electric light. You suddenly had something that was joyful, that would uplift the spirits and suddenly becomes popular with the most important people who are the paying customers.
Oh, boy, for me, this gets us right into the act of creating something 10 times better, which is start with a big problem, but here's the key thing, uh, employ a radical new approach, a radical new solution to that big problem. And then you're really on the way, how exciting Chad is to hear someone. So creative taking us to those moments where he had the confidence and the courage to think different.
Yeah. I think some of my favorite buildings are when the brief is, well, we think it has to be done this way and architects are so good at asking the question why. And so in the case of this airport, you know, Why does it have to be a sandwich of a building with low ceilings and no natural light? Well, because that's the way it was done is not an answer.
That's going to suffice it for an architect, let alone an entrepreneur. And so, yeah, I think this, uh, questioning of the way things have been done and trying something completely new. Like if you, um, if you Google just, you know, Norman foster or Hong Kong, you'll see. The building that he's talking about, where the central core has been moved off to the sides.
And it looks as if there's almost four or five suspension bridges, um, at different levels of the building, because, because there's a big, huge span in between the two solid columns on either side of the building. And if you look at some of the interiors too, you can see that it's like a vast block size.
Open space in the middle of these floors, which is very different from most, if not all skyscrapers, because as he said, you know, there's kind of a central core and then you kind of build a little O shape, uh, around that central core. And so for me, I think what I'm taking away is this creative problem solving and not just like being creative for creativity's sake, but like.
Improving the experience of the people that are in these buildings is really why he's doing it and just accepting the status quo. Yeah. It's not going to be good enough for him. And so I'm always looking for new ways to approach. Client challenges or challenges inside my business. And so, yeah, I'm going to be picking my wife's brain now for some more creative solutions to things, because I think I need some architects of brainpower bring in the extra cavalry.
That sounds, that sounds awesome. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're absolutely right. Like this it's it is. Just even to hear Norman foster talking about it, it almost unlocks a creative desire in ourselves. Doesn't it? You see? Oh, that's how you do it. That's how you think differently. Fascinating. Yeah. Even how he designed Apple's new campus, like a big loop, like what.
But I know, um, it's, I mean, from the photos, it's a beautiful campus and I think it, it embodies apples. Yeah. Or Steve's, uh, mantra of think differently. Yes. Big time. And, and actually, you know, it's the perfect thought for us to consider when we listen to Frank, Gary in a moment, because what's quite interesting is.
This breaking of convention and thinking differently really extends itself as an idea into discovering the freedom of imagination, the freedom of expressing our own creativity. So let's get into that with, uh, mr. Frank, Gary, after modernism, the, uh, return to historicism was very disturbing to me. They're called post-modernist and I don't know why I said this in lecture.
I said the Greek temples that you're emulating or answered for morphic. Why don't you go back 300 million years before man, to fish for your inspiration? If you got to go back, let's really go back. And I don't know why I said it. It was intuitive something, but then I started thinking about it. I started drawing fish and then I realized fish shapes, express movement.
It was a rich language. So. I started to explore that idiom, that idea. It was like Pandora's box. I was into a new paradigm, new playground. So that's how I got to this freedom of expression. Hm. Looking for sources of inspiration in the most unlikely places. There it is. We've heard that before on the show.
What a thought, Chad? I mean, what comes to mind as you sort of deconstruct that a little bit? Where does your, where does your imagination go? Yeah, I mean, I think so many, so many of the seeds of the ideas for the companies that have been started by the entrepreneurs that we've profiled came from unlikely places, probably not 300 million years ago and in our fish ancestors, but, you know, in areas like.
Or circumstances that somehow seem completely disconnected to what the companies are today. Like going to Airbnb, for example, where it was just some guys that were hosting some people for a conference. And now there's, you know, hundreds of thousands of. Rooms available all across the globe or someone like Travis Kalanick and his idea for Uber.
He just wanted to be cool and be in a black car for, uh, for the night to impress his friends. And yet now they're now they're, you know, on a mission to eliminate car ownership across the globe. Like. That's that's kind of where my mind goes and kind of the unlikely, uh, Genesis stories for some of these companies.
Exactly, exactly. I think, um, the, the nature you get with Frank is just, he will look to all four corners of the world for inspiration and not just in the classic areas, but in very primal, intuitive, natural human places as well. You know, Frank just seems to be almost sees a never ending stream of new inspiration.
Um, so unexpected. Um, and you see that in his work is so organic. It's almost kind of very natural and floral and curvy and folded, like. Blankets. He mentioned that at the beginning of the show. Um, yeah. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Frank, Gary had Chad. Um, Derek, is there any more we have we have, is there any more inspiration in the camp?
One more? Yes, yes. Yes, we have. We have one more clip. Uh, another w we wanted to leave you the listener, uh, with some of these, uh, inspiration, inspirational and in creative clips. So we have one more for Frank, again, just sharing some of his creative insights and inspiration and where he goes to get it.
Years ago, boarder asked me how I got my inspiration, just intuitive. I pointed to the waste basket beside, and I said, look in there, you see, think about the caverns in the spaces, textures in that way,
you know, you can look anywhere and find inspiration. You can look anywhere and find inspiration. I mean, the crazy thing is Chad, when you look at his Bilbao building, it kind of looks like someone got a piece of paper, scrambled it up, put it in the trash can and then kind of pulled it out again. Doesn't it?
Yeah. Yeah. But I think I know as a, kind of a short and glib quote, but I think. Oh, I don't know who said this, but I have heard design described as seeing things that others don't, um, or, or creativity as, you know, the ability to see things that others don't. And to me, that's what I'm taking away from Frank saying, Oh yeah, look in the waste back waste basket for some creativity.
It's like, because he is able to find. Inspiration and be creative with something as benign as the trash in the trash can. That's really driving home for me, this, uh, this, this definition of design and creativity is being able to see things that others can. Yeah. And, and the, um, practice it. You have to exercise that.
Yeah. Well, you kind of start to see how all of this wisdom and learning sort of comes together from them, both because that. Finding creativity anywhere from UAE, you know, developing this freedom of expression, it comes from you challenging the status quo and the convention working together with people to meet their expectations.
If they're funding. What you do, and it all comes back to you drawing every day and making sure you have your own unique signature to the work that you do. And that was so this kind of line of thinking this approach, these mental models, these systems that they put in place in order to, to behaviorly to end up becoming, you know, The greatest living architects all starts with both of them saying very related things, which is start with your passion and be your self that it comes together.
So elegantly, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You know, they, they work hard and they're. Their successes, you know, compounded in such a way to get them where they are. And so I think that's, that's what they're, that's what I'm taking away is you're the expert on your work. So, so sit in the chair and do it and, and, and go to wild and crazy places for, for inspiration, because that's, what's going to make it yours and.
You know, if it's good, it'll get out there and, and gets and get some traction. And if you're not getting the traction, maybe that you think you should, then, you know, maybe that's a message that you veer into another direction and get some inspiration from somewhere else. But I think, yeah, it's really interesting.
I'm learning a lot about creativity. And being able to think differently from these, from these two architects, maybe someone that you wouldn't expect to find on a podcast about, uh, you know, entrepreneurs and moonshot, so to speak. But I think there's, there's a lot that we can, can learn from them. And we have.
Three more shows in which we're going to profile architects. So I am very excited. Yeah. Yeah. I, I wanted to, to just to touch on what you mentioned there, which was just how the, the universality of what we've heard from everyone from sir Richard Branson to Oprah Winfrey. To Frank, Gary and Norman foster that, I mean, the, the connectivity between how they think and how they behave is incredibly close.
Like the parallels are very strong aren't they. Yeah. Yeah. Now you did, you did mention, we have three more architects. Do you want to take us through let's let's give a little bit of a tease to who's coming up next. I don't have the order in front of me just yet, but I know that we're going to be talking about Frank Lloyd Wright.
Correctamundo that's the next show. Yep. Who's an architect. That again, I'm sure that you had. I've seen his buildings in a book or on TV, or, you know, walked book by one of them. And two other architects that you, you may not be as familiar with, but you should, should, uh, Zaha Hadid. You know, one of the more well known female architects that has buildings all across the globe and as well as Ingles from Scandinavia who has left probably an outsized Mark in the field of architecture in recent years.
Um, so yeah, I'm really excited to profile and learn from each of them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, very three very different types of architects coming up and, uh, just a whole spectrum of, of, of really different approaches, different personalities. That's. That's going to be so fascinating to see what we can learn, what we can draw from that.
So, Chad, uh, something I often ask of you at the end of our shows is, well, okay. What changes for you tomorrow? Now you've had about this never ending curiosity, uh, this, this passion that you need to have this unique signature, this. You know, pursuit of creativity and breaking convention. What's the one thing that changes for you now having delved into the world of Norman foster and Frank Geary?
Hmm. This is, this is maybe a little too simple, but I have definitely found myself thinking through drawing recently. And I have this fun little gadget. Uh, it's a remarkable tablet. It's like an E uh, tablet that I call it a dumb tablet because it doesn't connect to the internet. Uh, you know, you can't watch YouTube or anything on it, but it has a really fantastic, you know, unlimited canvas, so to speak.
So it's like a notebook with unlimited pages in. I've been finding myself, sitting and thinking with it a lot more in, in drawing. So, whereas before I might sit down. And write something in a Google doc or in an email, I'm finding myself drawing a lot more. So I'm being inspired by that segment and from Norman foster in describing his sharpen pencils and pads of paper, and I've got my little, uh, I got my little tablet gadget, and I'm going to do me some more drawing and thinking that way.
Good. That's really good. Yeah. Now the thing for me was, um, what's my work. What's my signature. It really reinforced for me. Build your practice, your craft and make it your own. So that's what I'm going to work on. Um, I found that really powerful. Yeah, me too, actually. Like how would people know that these businesses were ours or that we worked in these businesses, even if we weren't there yet.
Yeah, it opens up this interesting question, kind of like of legacy in a way, which we're we, you and I are a bit young to begin thinking about that, but it is, it isn't really well the interesting question to know kind of what is the marker signature that you're leaving? Um, not only it just like on the project work that you're doing, that's probably a little bit more clear, but like, How would you know that you are a part of that company or you are working inside of that company?
It's a really, really interesting idea, is it totally is. Wow. Well, okay. So there you go. Norman foster, Frank Geary, they're done and dusted. We've got three more amazing architects to come. So we're in full flight of our architect series here on the moonshots podcast. You can go where Chad, if you want to get show notes, goodies links.
A show archives. Where does everyone need to go? You will not find me on social media, but you can find all of that information at moonshots. Dot IO. You'll find all of our shows, uh, previous shows, upcoming shows, um, and links to give us feedback as well as all of our social media pages as well. Yeah. Yeah.
And so what's going to be really fascinating to see how it plays out the next few weeks to see how the architects are different from the investor series, which will be different from the. Author series. I'm really looking forward to the next shows. Chad. Um, I got a lot out of this one and again, it never ceases to surprise me the patterns and interconnectivity between the ideas of entrepreneurs and innovators, no matter who they are, isn't it.
Yeah. Yeah. I can. I mean, I can't wait to, to find even more connectivity. I don't think you and I will be interviewing the wastebasket, but yeah, kind of out of left field, uh, people and in industries that we can go to for inspiration and learning. Absolutely. All right, Chad, a big, thank you to you. A big thank you to all of our listeners.
It's been wonderful to have you on the moonshots podcasts. That's uh, that's the end of our first of four architecture shows. We thank you for your time for your feedback. Chad loves a good email@howlowatmoonshots.io. Be sure to send that Chad have a wonderful evening in Brooklyn. Are you going to do something nice?
Nope. It's uh, it's winter cold. Uh, you gotta, you gotta stay in doors and stay warm. Okay. Well, while you're still staying warm, I'll be trying to stay cool here in the middle of summer in Sydney, Australia, but we'll catch you guys all next time on the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.