Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg West 20151114 : vimarsan

He said, this is what i want . Frank this wasnt his thing. He didnt want design with a capital d. Charlie did you ever have any contact with steve jobs . Frank a little bit. Charlie he was so pronounced in terms of what he wanted. Through the close friend. Norman foster was the right match for that. An absolutely perfect, objectlike precision. Paul thats what he wanted. Franks work is funkier and looser. Thats what facebook wanted. Frank its the spirit of what i did for my house, which is not know, 10ilt on, you acres. Charlie with the whole roof being a garden. Frank its a different paradigm. Charlie born in canada. Thinking you would be what, wanting to do what . Expecting to do what . Chemical engineer, he was the only one that looked interesting. So, i thought about that and went to a chemical engineer who took me out to his plant. At the end of that, he said, this isnt for you, just from my reaction to it. Charlie take a look at this from cbs. It is a wonderful series called notes to self in which an older frank gehry speaks to a younger frank gehry with the wisdom of perceived age. Here it is. You were born in canada in a climate of antisemitism. You will be the only jewish kid in the Elementary School and they will beat you up regularly for killing christs. You cant change this. You cant change who you are, so you have got to stay the course. Your family, your mother and father, will be tough on you. Your father will be worried that you are a dreamer and you wont amount to much. Your mother will compare you to and inends children, her eyes, you will always fall short. But understand, this is their version of love. Many of their, own obstacles to overcome. Their mother will introduce you to the art gallery of ontario where you will develop your lifelong love of painting and sculpture. To will also take you Classical Music concerts that will ignite your soul. Art will be your salvation. Charlie heres whats interesting about that. The idea is that you think building should be art, building should inspire your soul. Building should create an emotion within you. Frank yes. It should feel good. Most monday levels, when you go ,o a space and it feels good you feel comfortable. Thats a feeling. Right . Can you elevate it just a little so it is engaging other senses, other parts of your intelligence intelligence . I think, for a long time, wrongly thrown in with that group called the deconstructionists. You were always after feeling good, that feeling uplifted at the same time. I had a chance to ask someone if i was a decon and he said no. It was an automatic, poetic charlie is he an outlier who wanted in on his own terms . Terms . Paul he was an outsider. Charlie you wanted to be there on your own terms. Frank i certainly always wanted to be loved. , so much,hink adored but to be liked, yeah. I didnt know that was possible. Charlie you know what, you do love it. You love it when somebody somebody comes over and says, i love this, and i love you for doing it, right . You had your 85th Birthday Party there. Book, by the way, has generated interesting responses from developerclient types. Because they thought i could be helpful. Maybe the book change their minds. One thing you pass on to me, from a developer said, i had been working with you for a while, i read the book, now i finally get it. Now i finally understand what you are about and what is inside your head, what you are trying to do here he to do. Charlie a little more from notes to my younger self about his approach to architecture. Frank you will find a profession that makes sense to you and gives you a sense of arsenal pride. Personal pride. You will be tested again and again. You will have a teacher tell you that this aint for you, frank. Find another profession. Vowpissed off, ignore him, to prove him wrong. Once you find your passion for architecture, work your tail off to understand and build expertise on every facet of the profession. No matter what you do, however big or small, make it the best thing that you can, because you will be judged on everything you do. Make sure everything you design and build adheres to your highest standards. On people who try to dilute this mixture and partner with people who support the best. Take every crisis as an opportunity to better work. Finally, create buildings and places for people. It doesnt mean adding to historical models from the fast. Be curious forever. Never forget that life is about people, so make buildings for people. Always use natural light, because its free. [laughter] i couldnt help it. Charlie the computer really made a difference for you, didnt it . Frank it allowed me to do a lot of stuff. Charlie it allowed you to do what . Frank it allowed me to demystify things. Eminsional things are presented to a contractor and they say, this cant be built. The contractor on disney hall in a meeting in front of the board of directors in my office said, this building cannot be built. I was ready for him. I took him downstairs. We had the mockups with all the hard parts of the building already built because of the computer and he said, oh, i didnt understand. The building is built. I think your imagination at one point was ahead of what engineering and technology could do. The computer allow those to catch up. Frank mainly, to express movement. Sculptures in the marble in london. You look at the warriors pressing the shields into the stone, and you feel the pressure of those shields in the stone. You see the horses and you feel like they are moving. There is feeling in the bronzes, if you look at the great bronzes. You have a feeling that thousands of years old, and it is transmitted from that artist. Things. Do we couldnt do it without the computer. It is sad, i think, that your sense of the passion the new has matched that has massed an appreciation for the old. You understand historic architecture better than almost any architect i know and are influenced by it. You just dont believe influence mes mimicking. Influence finds its way in a much more subtle way, i think. Frank i was fortunate. Of theas a scholar renaissance at princeton. We were talking for years. I think whats the computer did, though, the tower in lower manhattan, is we were able to do that curved, flowing thing with no change orders. Thats a big deal. Thats 15 less cost. The Construction Industry wastes 30 . If you build a building for 100 million, 30 million is waste. The computer allows you to documents that are so precise. Charlie you can minimize waste. Frank minimize waste. We were able to, on some buildings, save as much as 18 . Charlie what was your relationship to Philip Johnson . Frank i loved him, personally. The german into stuff. I once did. Charlie i did, too. You couldnt not come at some point. Basically, sort of a fascination. Was fascinated by the power. I think he was attracted physically to the handsome, young german youth, and his a allure, it blinded him to what was going on politically. Over the years, i think he sufficiently repented in public for that. His answer never got him anywhere, did it . Do you have any sense of where it is going . Where are we going . We are in the middle of it. To me, frank gehry is probably the best direction. Im very proud to have found somebody like frank gehry sitting there, playing with fences, doing his own house, take the pasture off, and i realized it was something that i couldnt define. Gee, i get that direction, thats interesting. I was baffled. I was baffled because i didnt understand. I said, you are not under anding. There is something not understanding. There is something there. Charlie i should take note of the fact that we sitting in chairs that belonged to you, designed by frank gehry. They are very good. I recommend them to anybody. Charlie great talker. Androle, defining periods trends, things like that. Frank his support, for me, was a big deal. Charlie he, what, confirmed, certified, Something Like that . Frank yeah. Said, keep going. He came to the house when it was first built. Said, he said he didnt understand it. Charlie but he was fascinated by it, excited by it. That did not happen that often with him. He certainly did more than anyone else to put architecture at the center of mainstream culture. That was far more important than his own work, which was actually very uneven and not very good at all. Frank when i did the fish lamps, he said, you cant do this. It will work against your career and everything. Two days later, he bought one. [laughter] charlie remember the trip we took . Started crying. I said, why are you crying . He said, it is so beautiful. It was declared the most beautiful building of our time, which set it on a trajectory to be understood. Frank he loved discovering people. 75th birthday or something picture oferes a him surrounded by a group of younger architects, including you, who he called the kids. He called them his kids. He watered the garden. Michael graves and people. Paul when you think about the work, any regrets . Fork in the road . Any assessment that you now make . I am very selfcritical, so i do look back, but i cant go into the show i have now. I cant go in it. Charlie it is in l. A. Frank i resist going backwards and looking at stuff. Hired somebody to take pictures of our stuff, which was a big problem because when summary wants to publish it , to buy them somewhere, usually they are not that good. Charlie right, right. Paul i think frank really doesnt like to look back that much, partly because i think he is proud of his work. He is not being falsely modest here, but i think he sees all the little things, the anguish and the agony of bringing it into being. He doesnt pretend it all happens by magic, some shape just jumps out in his head. He knows how much anguish, how much agony, went through every object. When he goes through an object an exhibit, you feel that all over again. I remember when we were doing years of interviews for this book. When i looked at the transcripts, i noticed almost all of them start 15, 30 minutes, talking about what he was doing right then. He was more comfortable talking about that. You would talk about what was on your mind then, what the latest stuff you were doing, and only then when i push you back and say, ok, but now we got to talk about 19 b. Frank 1950. Frank i live in the spirit of invention, which is precarious. I feel uneasy. Somehow, i am happy there. Charlie you have a passion for sailing. What is that about . Paul that is about precariousness, too, maybe. Charlie do you have a new boat . A new one. Signed it is not mine. It is a 70foot boat for a friend here. He is putting it in my yacht club, which will create all kinds of problems for me. Charlie what is the material . Frank wood. Most new boats are made out of carbon fiber and they are faster. Upon our boat greatest,one of the to make a would vote wood boat with him. When you are in it, you feel like you are in an old boat from way back. Charlie paul says you are part of Frank Lloyd Wright and part woody allen. Frank hm. Ive never met woody allen. Frank lloyd wright, i had three opportunities to meet him politics,ny about his his work, the way he talked about his buildings. Paul he was very right wing. He was an extraordinary i dont know if he had a friendship with ayn rand. He was a big america firster. Part of that whole world, which is not so great a political position. Frank i watch the interview he had. I saw somebody i liked. It was interesting. Understood thee cult of personality. He was the first media celebrity architect. Asked, it is said you call yourself the worlds greatest living architect. He said, i never said that. You consider, he said i look around, i dont see much. [laughter] charlie the eisenhower memorial. It going. We are doing it. I think we are doing it. Charlie if you are asked to , whereise beyond everything tells you to go, what do you do . Frank gracefully say goodbye. Disappear. Read all the i eisenhower biographies. Ambrose, whatever. , because when he was president , i was in the army. I was in the infantry. Everybody thought he was the donothing president. He was playing golf, stuff like that. That is what they thought at the time. You read the book and you get a whole different thing. You couldnt have done what he did without being all those other things. Frank the way he handled macarthur. And montgomery. And roosevelt, all of them. I fell in love, entered the competition, we won. David junior was on the jury and selected us. It only became obvious further in that they were taking another position. Them,of apart from there was a lot of opposition fueled by the dry house fund. Paul there are a lot of people who believe everything in washington should be classical and traditional, and dont want to see modern things. The eisenhower family ultimately made common cause with those people, even though their interests are not the same. The Eisenhower Commission said, he did not say all those things to me. To avoid family feuding. Frank the roosevelt thing, there was family feuding, also. I like susan eisenhower. Shes brilliant. She is quite a smart lady. Charlie she was strongly opposed. So, you didnt like the word star architect. Frank starchitect. The press invented it and used it as a term event term against you. The it is all about celebrity architect. It is a bad term, in a way. There is something cheap about it. Charlie it says there is something more than talent. Paul it says it is about celebrity, not about talent. Isl on the one hand, it that architecture is more about celebrity that used to be that used to be, but there is a misunderstanding about what architecture is about and what it is trying to do. Frank in hindsight, there was a paul it is not so easily translatable. I want to show a series of images, to give some sense of the broadness of this mans life and work. Standing in front of his completed house in santa monica. An santa monica, california. Not quite finished yet. How long did it take you to finish . I dont know. I dont remember. It wasnt that long. Charlie this is the sketch of the guggenheim as the shape begins to emerge. Here it is. This is inside. Its a great scale. The hallodel of itself, the inside, as it was being finished. This is the walt disney concert hall in los angeles. The next one is in paris. Frank yes. Charlie there you go. That was opened a year ago. The opening is the concluding part of the book. Two other things. What you are working on today, los angeles water . River . What are you doing there . You said it calls on your city planning skills. Frank the mayor asked me to do something with the l. A. River. He was kind of jealous about the high line and said, we have 51 miles of river. Cant we do something . I reminded him the high line was a derelict railroad bridge and the l. A. River was a Flood Control project, two different kinds of things. I approached it, with his approval, as a hydrology project, and found that there was money to be made if you handled it right that would cities along the river to do development by water reclamation. It would save money. Said 80 million a year, conservatively. It is probably twice that. Is the los angeles project, another los angeles project. A Mental Health center. Is a the river i am doing pro bono thing, personally. The other is also philanthropic. We are also doing school, bringing arts education, Elementary School. Doing a lot of stuff. Charlie youre still doing work. I dont need to worry about you. Frank no. Charlie the life and work of frank gehry by paul goldberger. Art. Ing thank you for joining us. See you next time. Emily she founded a Genetic Testing Company on one big idea, to create a dna database so big it could singlehandedly move science forward, even help cure deadly diseases. But in 2013, a near disastrous lull. The fda yanked the products off the market. This, as ceo Anne Wojcicki had to face a very public divorce from her husband, google founder sergey brin. Two years later, she and the company have made a remarkable comeback with its first fda a