1. Deth in Venice

Show Transcript

Unfrozen, Episode 1, 30 October 2021

“Deth in Venice”

Daniel Safarik:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Unfrozen, Episode One. I'm Dan Safarik.

Greg Lindsay:

And I'm Greg Lindsay. Buon giornio, welcome to Unfrozen here in Venezia is where we start our podcast adventure.

DS:

It's a beautiful thing, Greg, I'm really happy to be here. This is our fourth attempt to come to Venice in the space of year and a half.

GL:

It has been a long time in the making, that is for sure.

DS:

Yes, and it was quite appropriate today as we managed to jaunt around town in advance of the Venice Biennale, which was closed today, to happen upon the Scuola, which was dedicated to the patron saint of the plague.

GL:

Yes, St. Roche. So, the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which we visited, yes. So they entombed there is the remains of St. Roche. And we I think we saw we saw reliquaries, so we may have seen various joints and bones of St. Roche. Yes, I lost my faith some time ago, I had ben raised as a Catholic school altar boy. But even I uttered a silent prayer today to St. Roche, like, in these times that we are here in Venice, like, under his watchfulness?

DS:

Yeah, I felt extremely grateful to have to have been there. And really just to be here in general, not only in Venice, but hanging with you.  We go back a long ways. For the uninformed, which I guess would be virtually everyone, Greg and I go back to about 1998.

GL:

Oh, no to 1996! This podcast is 25 years in the making, after my freshman year of college. But before we get too much of the personal details, I should note if there's anyone for posterity that you know, Unfrozen is going to be a podcast about cities architecture, to do hang out, maybe other special guest stars. I don't know this is Dan’s show. But yes, everyone else is doing multiple podcasts during lockdown, so we decided we would do own after lockdown, when people are back out the world, because here we are in the Bauer Palazzo. So here in Venice, we decided to do a podcast rather than, I don't know, have a spritz outside. But maybe that comes after. But, here we are, 25 years later.

DS:

Yes. I mean, it's pretty miraculous that we've, we've gotten to this point. You know, I think we've both been through a lot of, shall we say iterations of journalism, quasi-journalism, architecture, urbanism. I would say that you probably gained the upper hand, in the sense of you did not have to invest in graduate education in architecture, to be considered an expert, at least in urbanism. And I applaud you for that.

GL:

This is why we said that journalism is like the Dark Side of the Force, not stronger, but faster, quicker, definitely more prone to anger and hatred. That's all very appropriate of the journalism path to these things for sure. Yes.

DS:

And then you know, the bitterness and resentment comes in from the from the architecture side, when you realize that, you know, after you've gone through, you know, three or four years of pre-practice, then you're on the licensure path, which is lined with doorknobs; endless, endless doorknobs, just designing doorknobs forever. And when you realize that that's maybe not the game that you want to be in, considering that the length of your education is concomitant to that of an attorney, but the resulting income is not, then maybe you should choose a different path.

GL:

Here in Venice, I feel the ghost of Rem is looking down here, because the 2014 Elements of Architecture show was all about the doorknobs. There's an entire display of doorknobs, if I recall correctly.

DS:

Was that the show where he had reconstructed a sort of balloon-frame standard American house?

GL:

No, no, I believe that's actually this year. We're gonna see that the USA Pavilion tomorrow. No, that was the one where Rem Koolhaas took theGothic Venetian architecture at the Giardini and then recreated like the shittiest, you know, drop-ceiling American office building circa 1972. You could do that just simply to be perverse, which is of course what Rem is best at.

DS:

Yes. I mean, I think we need to surface right here that, you know, he does bear a distinct resemblance to Nosferatu.

GL:

I have not been able to make that leap. But, but there you go. But I also think about how “Elements” represents one of my favorite things about what architecture is, and how it is taught and how it is practiced. I think you were at one of our New Year's Eve parties, I don't know, more than a decade ago, with our mutual friend Eva Hagberg. She is an alumni of an Ivy League architecture school, and you are an alumni of a PAC 12 architecture school. And I think the way you guys discussed your mutual practices is, you know, do you know what the width of a door should be? She did the theory of the width of a door and you knew how to make the width of the door.

DS:

Yes, we were coming at it from different perspectives, although I think we respected each other. Yeah, I mean, the Oregon approach -- I went to the graduate program there, from 2004 to 2007 -- was very much, you know, “this is architecture boot camp. And you're going to know the header heights of stairs, you're going to memorize how high a doorframe is, you're going to memorize all this stuff, because we build practical stuff, we're not one of those theoretical schools.” 

I remember the first day, you know, the instructor said, “this is architecture boot camp,” and I'm thinking like, yeah, everyone kind of is sort of wearing boots in here, I think they're probably going to go out mudding with their, you know, custom Jeeps, and, maybe do a little mountain climbing. It was definitely a rustic transition, having come from New York, where I actually lived across the street from Pratt. And I suppose, as a practical matter of crossing the street, that could have been a place I could have gone, but probably could not have afforded, you know, with the lack of income in the New York City environment. So, so yeah, I wound up in the Green Valley of architectural futures.

GL:

And then here we are. Now, as I say, like, this is our second trip to the Biennale, for those who are listening. I like to joke that this is our Biennale Brocation that every two years Dan and I make a habit of coming down. Like, I mean other other dudes may go on to golf trips, during the the glimmers of Hot Vax Summer back in the spring, where all sorts of dudes made various trips to get together. Dan and I spent, again, more than two years trying to get to Venice for this for our regularly scheduled, you know, dude vacation, but it's good to be it's good to be back. 

The feeling I have in every city I’ve visited post-pandemic is, “it's still here.” It's been restored. Life is a normal-ish kind of thing. And it's even more appropriate that Venice, obviously the city of the plague the city of like, where literally there's memento mori everywhere of contagion. We literally saw people putting out carnival costumes with the plague masks with the, you know, the herbs in the nose for this. I mean, it's good to be here. What were your highs today? We mostly went to churches.

DS:

Yeah, I broke it down like Hosier, and I said, “Greg, take me to church,” and he delivered. So yeah, we started with the extremely Byzantine San Marco Basilica, which is, obviously one of the most touristic things in the city, but it's well worth it. It's unusual for Venice, most of the churches in Venice are Baroque. And this is just an absolute, you know, feast for the eyes of madcap high Byzantium. And it what's funny about it is that it's not only one of the oldest churches in Europe, it's actually a quasi-facsimile of a church that was destroyed in something like the fifth century in Constantinople, from which most of the relics in the church are stolen, or I should say, borrowed and not returned, by what was then the Venetian Empire.

GL:

That's how the Republic rolled back then. Yeah, it was fascinating. So for those who have never been to San Marco, the thing that struck me -- I've been fortunate enough to visit various German cathedrals. I've been to St. Peter's, and scale in the Vatican like, disgusts me, it was so huge, it was incomprehensible. The Hagia Sofia strikes me as the closest analogue to San Marco. The Hagia Sofia, obviously, is more ruined after the sieges, and now it's going to be a mosque again. I guess, so much for its museum status. Thank you, Erdogan. 

But yeah, the thing that boggles your mind about the Basilica San Marcos for me, it's like everything is gilded mosaics, it is an infinite amount of human detail. This is I feel, of course, about Venice in general, why Venice is the most special place on earth in many ways, is like it represents an accretion of human complexity and detail that can never be replicated again, because of modernity and post-modernity and human economics. And this is breathtaking to see, like, no one would ever create this again. And so, just to see like the tiny mosaic fragments up close is just mind boggling, about what level of artistry and sweat over centuries it took, literally centuries to do that. Perhaps these are trite observations, but when all the crypto-white-supremacist trads on Twitter, who talk about “how great Western civilization was,” they never acknowledge this point that like, human life is simply worth more than it was over centuries of accretion there, and that we expect more of our time today. We would never build San Marco today, because no one will give up that much of their lives, multiple family lifetimes, to ever build anything like it, which is why we need to preserve it. 

And speaking of preservation, Dan, what were they putting out in front of the Bauer as we were coming in to record this?

DS:

Oh, good point. Well, yes, we saw the extra-special elevated walkway. That is basically the default emergency reaction of the Venetian authorities to acqua alta, which is the high water condition caused by the tidal surge. And of course, you know, it's become worse over the past number of years due to our friend, climate change. And despite the efforts of creating a multi-billion euro intervention on the shore, or rather on the barrier reef, if you will, of Lido, there's two entrances to the lagoon, which are protected by what's known as MOSE, a system that fills with air and brings the gate upwards into a sort of diagonal position to prevent the sea from flooding. I'm told that it has been deployed once and it did work. But they're nevertheless preparing for, I wouldn't even say “the worst;” I would say they're preparing for what is now “the typical.”

GL:

Yeah, I mean, King tides, everything. So you know, coming, coming to Venice to be on the front line of the future as well as the past here. But I also love the fact that like, literally in addition to learning the Vaporetto route maps and other maps, around the lagoon, there's the emergency elevated walkway map, which literally amounts to a bunch of Italian construction dudes putting down scaffolding that's about two feet high, carving a route that goes around the Grand Canal. And I just love that, you know, that goes right by our hotel, because you know, even in Venice, even in our first-world condition, some of us are more first-world than others.

DS:

That's true. I did notice, as you did as well, that the Giardini, which is the location of a good portion of the Bienalle, was completely not on the map. So I think it's intended to serve the greatest population density, perhaps also the greatest density of tourists, or it could just be that that's where they know that it's most likely to flood. I don't know, the precise elevations of all the locations within Venice, but I know they're all pretty low.

GL:

I think it'd be a great irony on two levels. If, number one, if this the designated wetlands area of Venice, where it's designed to flood and serve its highest and best purpose. And second, it would be really apropos for all of the many, many critics of the Biennale that this is a frivolity that we can no longer afford in a climate emergency, among other things.

DS:

One of the reasons I went to the University of Oregon all those years past was because at that time, it was considered novel, that green architecture was a pursuit that you could have. And it was one of the few schools that was putting a stake in the ground and saying, “This is what we want to do.” I remember being with a, you know, very idealistic fellow graduate student, who said, “you know, I don't think I'm going to get on a plane ever again, it's just too environmentally costly.” And, my argument to him at that time was, “you know, that plane is going to leave with with or without you, and it's going to be expending that fuel.” I mean, it kind of matters. If you get on that plane, what you do when you get to the destination, like, are you going to a stag party? Then yeah, you probably should not get on that plane. Are you going to, you know, attend the architecture Biennale and contribute something to the dialogue that we have found is difficult to replace over facilities like Zoom over the course of the pandemic? I don't know. Maybe there's some justification for that.

GL:

Well, I don't know that we’ll ever answer the question of whether the Biennale is actually a high-minded exercise, particularly the press preview, or is it a stag party for Bjarke Ingels?

Having been here in 2014 for the preview week, that was my only previous time, but like, yes I’m not sure the highest and best use of our remaining kilograms of carbon to pump in the atmosphere are put to best use to fly people to the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation for that but, it is an interesting thing. 

The thing people I think most people don't realize about being in Venice for the Biennale until you're here is how many starchitects have active projects, have done renovations, like the density of modern architecture and contemporary architecture on the ground is we went to a Rem Koolhaas-restored mall today. I mean, there you go. And then like you know, you've got Palazzo Grassi, which is the Tadao Ando theater where I interviewed Hans Ulrich Obrist, or he interviewed me back in 2014, where we were like a bunch of coked-up chimps, like interviewing each other. I'm not sure that was worth the kilograms of carbon. But yeah, it's fascinating, you know, because of the architecture Biennale think all of them are here, or maybe it's just like, “Venice is Venice.” And like, this is the prestige place to be because of the Film Festival, and the greater art and architecture relevance. But, I would argue like, in addition to like, the classical stuff, maybe this is the highest density of starchitect projects of any city in the world.

DS:

It certainly would be the highest per capita, without question. I mean, 52,000 people here, unless you count the daytime population of tourists, you know. Even then, it's, incredibly compact, and incredibly mysterious. And, it is definitely, not just a place where you go to admire old things. I mean, you do. But the fact that the Biennale happens here, and everyone wants to be here and have this sort of … “dog and pony show” is putting it a little too crudely, but, you know, have an exhibition that that addresses newfangled ideas, shall we say, kind of suggests a continuity of, architecture being, this continuous process that that never ends. I guess there's sort of an analogy there to like, even though we look at something like the Basilica as a historical thing, it is, in fact, constantly being worked on, not just restored, but augmented, changed. And the things that we were admiring were themselves accretions on to a church that was already 500 years old. So, it almost is like Venice is the perfect place to do this. And yet it's very existence is so liminal. It's just like inches away from sinking into the ocean. And that's, that's a lot of information to collect in one place. You know, it's a good place to come to think about the issues because they're literally lapping at the shore. That's true.

GL:

I’ll say. Today we climbed we climbed a campanile on at the San Giorgio Maggiore. And yes, Dan pointed out on the horizon, “hey, those are gassing flares in the distance!” and like, literally, Mad Max-ish, Blade Runner-ish gas flares of the El Segundo refinery, on the far side of the lagoon. It reminded me of it reminded me of past trips to Dubai. As a journalist, the thing about Dubai is that unlike, say, your iPhone, which has, you know, supply chains, labor and all of its obscurity, you go to Dubai, and like, hey, the guy building a skyscraper is 100 meters from you through a pane of glass in your taxi cab, and it's 120 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and all of globalization's paradoxes are compressed into that. And you're right, Venice is sort of similar in that regard. Here we can see past, present future paradoxes, climate change, and the global party elite coming in for the film festival or architecture Biennale. And it's all here. 

DS:

Yeah, I mean, it kind of feels like there's always going to be one more last dance here. You know, it's kind of like even when the pandemic was delaying things. I know Rome is the Eternal City, but Venice is kind of like the Persistent Anti-City that should never have been built.

GL:

It’s Deth in Venice. I mean, there's a reason we're calling this #dethinvenice2021, spelled like Megadeth.

DS:

I originally thought it was “D-E-F,” like Def Jam…

GL:

That’s a good one, but I see it is as like, like Megadeth in Venice.

DS:

I think I can accept that because, there's a little bit of a Metallica continuum here. Because you have the Scuola and San Rocco or St. Roche, who is the patron saint of the plague. Then there’s School of Rock and then St. Anger. Metallica, apocalypse, Master of Puppets, are you following me? 

GL:

That is some impressive squaring of the circle, I must confess.

DS:

Yeah, I mean, you know, I guess the Venetian plague costume is not really puppets or marionettes, but I do have an obligation to the international puppeteering cartel to talk about puppets in every single episode.

GL:

I know, sponsorship! I look forward to in future episodes, we just do direct call-outs to them there. I was just going that, you know that, in the Scuola, there was the David Bowie quote that “Tintoretto was a proto-rockstar.” 

Tintoretto, corresponding to my earlier point, spent 20 years of his life doing 60-plus paintings. Imagine anybody in the International Art Fair remit spending 20 years doing anything on any single project, other than a handful of like landscape artists building cities from scratch in the American west. 

It’ll be interesting to see the next time the art crowd rolls in, and I love that you know that you you get the art crowd and architecture crowd in alternate years. My favorite thing about the art crowd versus this one, is that there they bring the collectors. Like, there's multiple mega-yachts lined up. There only seems to be Roman Abramovich when they actually do the Architecture Biennale Preview Week. But that was the thing that actually blew my mind the first time, is that none of the architects brought their clients, except really one, Alan Faena, who has hotels in Miami and Buenos Aires. Alan was there in 2014. And he definitely brought his patron Len Blavatnik, the Russian oligarch who has a school named after him at Oxford, owns record labels and you know, has received adversarial profiles by Connie Bruck in The New Yorker – that kind of person – but Alan brought him and they were the Russian Pavilion, naturally enough. 

But that was the only case I've ever seen. Like, I imagined back in 2014, that like, I pictured Zaha rolling in, you know, God bless her soul. Zaha would like, roll in, with like, a pack of Qataris. I thought we would see finally all the architects and all of their patrons, but no, I actually learned this is the place where they show up and basically write to each other in impenetrable jargon in their gallery details.

DS:

Yeah, true enough. And then they they actually get to sort of have the hoi polloi, too, you know, pay for the privilege of witnessing that. That's kind of a neat trick. I mean, to be fair, it's not terribly expensive compared to, you know, the outrageous prices that you pay for everything else in Venice. I mean, it's actually a fairly good deal as museums go. A single visit to the Metropolitan in New York is over $20 now, right?

GL:

Still free, but, you know, pay if you want to, but… it's this question, like, how much shame they can bring out of you at this point? I would say but Venice is like the inverse of like, the old joke about like, going to like, Buenos Aires, like, you know, once you get there, it's practically free. 

Like, once you get to Venice, it's all ruinously expensive until you actually get to the Giardini, I suppose. But I mean, the question is, we're gonna see it tomorrow, obviously, this is the this is the episode recorded in advance of actually visiting, you know, the Biennale, but like, it's a good question about like, the theme is “How Will We Live Together?” And, you know, it was conceptualized before the pandemic. 

I did a podcast with Hashim Sarkis, the curator, Dean of MIT Architecture, this spring when it happened, and he confessed readily, like, they could not reprogram the whole Biennale, like, it's still there, like, the pandemic hangs over it. But it's still sort of separate from that, which I think is also like, the problem with these massive festivals, is that with the amount of effort that goes into programming to do it and the hours invested. Critics call out the fact that the Biennale couldn't even address its own theme. 

It'll be interesting when we get there tomorrow to see like, what's available. And I should say, I have a stake in this. I'm part of a team there with Rafi Segal and Sarah Williams in the “stations”, which is sort of like the connective tissue that Sarkis put together there. So even I don't think we fully grappled with it. We started conceiving Open Collectives: Architecture for an Equitable Digital Economy in September 2019. And we never fully internalized it there. So I think, you know, it'll, it'll be interesting to see it tomorrow. Because the Biennale is like, sort of responding to a prompt that preceded the world as it is now. And we're going to read into it themes that we see now, but I don't know. I don't think anyone has all the answers that they should have. Maybe by 2023 we’ll have found them.

DS:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, when all of this -- and I'm making scare quotes -- is “over,” whatever “this” is, you know, i It seems like there's an attempt to address the issues, which is really important. You know, I think architects, as sort of the door openers, between the ideas in the built environment and the reality of the construction world, you know, have to work pretty hard to actually get real ideas into those processes, because a lot of times, they're just very rote. And we just build whatever the economy requires the market requires. 

But there is a certain sort of, I've noticed an interesting sort of crossover between art and architecture recently, and not only that, but an explosion of architecture festivals, where this [the Venice Biennale] used to be really the only one. But you know, minor cities, you know, in outlying cities and countries are now having big architecture and art and urbanism festivals. And I do find that interesting. I don't know if it's just the global need for content, or if something real is happening. Like, are people engaging more with architects, and is this art and architecture crossing over somehow? 

Because when I went to, for example, the Chicago Biennial in the last iteration, it was starting to go on this path of, you know, forgive me, it's very “woke,” you know, and very tuned into trying to resolve real social problems, in a relatively small scale way, you know, and now it's in this year, it appears to be even more so, I haven't visited yet but…

GL:

But that’s a great thing. So, I want to stop you there. Because you're based in Chicago, I'm gonna be in Chicago and I'm, I want to try to see some of the sights here because, you know, the Chicago Biennial is the ultimate…When they created that, like, didn't Rahm Emmanuel practically say in the statement when he was mayor that like, this was a straight-up marketing play, because at that time there were no major American architecture biennials? “This is a tourism draw.”

And let's face it, art and architecture are blending over in a biannual forum. So they can both market to luxury brands, like you know, like Rem doing the Prada Foundation in Milan and all these sorts of things. Now, everybody who’s ever graduated from OMA in a certain era still wears head-to-toe Prada. I've yet to see someone really refute that thesis. 

That was really the sheen of architectural Halo effects on cities like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of Bilbao Effects. Recently I talked to Iker Gil who is curating Exhibit Columbus, which is in Columbus, Indiana, another sort of like architect/starchitect theme park, you know, multiple Saarinens are involved there. 

And, you know, he grew up in Bilbao, and he was talking about the fact that like, no one really understood what the Bilbao Effect was about. And for listeners who don't know, Frank Gehry desinged did the Guggenheim Bilbao in 1997. And like, suddenly, Bilbao was on the global tourism, luxury, elite map kind of thing. 

And so this Chicago Biennial kind of started the same way, it was explicitly about bringing tourism there. And I think it's awesome that this year, it is not they're not even in the Chicago Cultural Center. It's all in vacant lots around the city. And the curators themselves are calling out the fact like, the reason there's vacant lots is because systemic racism basically caused mass demolition of Black communities. And so now they're trying to put in actual installations there. I mean, that’s the counter to Venice, which doesn’t have enough of an organic population left, really, that you could do interventions in Venice, that would matter. Like, there's interventions around here. But like, you can't really help Venice, unless your your entire project is just to basically elevate the city or figure out some sort of climate change protection. You know, beautiful new storm gates would be that. But it's been really refreshing to see Chicago push out to the communities and say, “Let's build infrastructure.” The intersection of like, that cultural tourism episode, but actually giving back to the community. And I think more biennals should do that, frankly.

DS:

Yeah, I mean, I do like the idea that this, as you say, total marketing concept that was conceived by “Mayor One Percent,” as he was often derided. It has been almost completely turned on its head. I don't necessarily think it will be a huge tourism draw. Because, consider the traditional conception of architecture that you're going to look at, you know, large-scale proposals for big projects, and it's pretty much the opposite of that. But it might get people who are very interested in this in the profession to think more carefully about the kind of projects that they choose. Because there is a there is a growing amount of credibility to investing in in areas that have been disinvested in, and, you know, maybe developers are starting to see that too. I mean, that's obviously the critical missing factor, like, will developers go to this? Will they go to the vacant lots in Englewood and Lawndale and all those places, you know, and see these sort of small-scale interventions and say, “Well, actually what I want to do is take that and then scale it up and build affordable housing and build grocery stores and that type of thing.” That seems to me that be the leap that still has to be made. 

GL:

Or even then I mean, then, you know, I mean, the, it'll be interesting to see. Well, yeah, who I mean, who don't want to put them on a lot here. Like that's, I think about Chicago Biennial, like, Chicago has great architect artist practitioners, like Emmanuel Pratt, Amanda Williams, Theaster Gates, just to choose three black architect practitioners here who all done great interventions in the community framework, they're particularly on South Side. And you know, where, of course they're, you know, the Obama Presidential Center is taking parts of a public park to build a massive monument to the former president. And yeah, they're actually involved in that. 

And I guess it comes back to like a difference between the Chicago Biennial and the the Venice Biennale, where this is still like global architecture. And there you have, you know, particularly like all iterations of the Chicago biennial have featured, you know, those three in various incarnations here in various projects. So, you know, I it is interesting, like, you know, the, the notion of like, can like, you know, Sweet Water Foundation, which is Emmanuel Pratt’s project, you know, can it be self-sustaining? Can it like, drive the entire change of a neighborhood? Does that, where does it interfere with market forces? Those are all really interesting questions. 

But like, basically, like, you know, if we're here to Praise Famous Men and Women, like, those are the ones who should we be praising, and I don't know, I that's, I guess, you know, for the, for our, for our listeners here, like, we're here in Venice, because we tried to get to Venice for two years, but like, really, we need to be in Chicago, like, that's where the real energies are, and what we really should be praising.

DS:

Yeah, I mean, I'm, you know, to the extent that, that it's possible, although, because a lot of these interventions are outdoors, so not ideal podcasting conditions, field record fields, field recordings, right. I will, I will, you know, where my, my sun-shading hat. But um, yeah, I mean, I think it much better that than to have, you know, performative sort of ideas about saving the world, you know, in in a cosseted, you know, gilt environment, as much as I love the Arsenale, and I love Chicago Cultural Center, as buildings, you know.

I think people who want, the people who live in the neighborhoods need to feel that people are coming to them, you know, and even if it's just kind of a questionable piece of art if it doesn't necessarily work as architecture, to see that someone came there who is from the sort of, unimaginable Global Elite, if you're living in that part of the world, living in that part of the city, just to see someone invest in and do something quirky and fun and interesting, and provocative. 

I hope that they do the kind of outreach that's going to be needed to bring the community in there and get interested in not only architecture, but just in continuing to advocate for, you know, their own future that make them want to stick around. Because I mean, that's the biggest problem with those areas - it isn't necessarily the kind of issues that we tried to attack with urban renewal in the ‘50s, which was “blight.” They were actually, you know, down-at-heels, but relatively thriving, densely populated, ethnic and African-American and other minority neighborhoods that were just bulldozed in favor of these giant projets. 

Whereas [the Chicago Architecture Biennale] is more about surgical interventions in areas that people are actively leaving, because there's no opportunity. And I'm just I hope that both types of communication happen, you know, the people who are used to designing for the global elite, get out to Englewood and see what is happening there. But also, the people in Englewood see this and say, “Oh, architecture is important,” you know, understanding the cycles of development and investment is important. How does this object relate to that? And that's putting a lot of pressure on that little object, you know, whatever it is, if it's a playground or a sculpture, or most of these things are not what you might call a full, fully developed building?

GL:

Yeah, I don't know. That's all very poignant. Like, you know, we're not in Chicago right now. So we should probably curtail some of this discussion until we actually…

DS:

I'm talking about things I haven't yet seen.

GL:

These are some of the issues that we try to tackle in my Biennale exhibit, Open Collectives, which is inspired by this idea, you know. Rafi Segal, my friend, is the team leader and has actually designed kibbutzim in Israel. And you know, and the question we're asking is like, you know, we're 25 years into the internet era, like, can we actually design a combination of physical social networks, people doing things in a place together those kinds of interventions? And what kind of architecture supports it? And then, how do you build digital networks that can actually accentuate that and do that saying, I wasn't even like a Dyson Sphere, right? Like how do you how do you build it an architectural intervention, where you know, where you around that close personal human core, you can capture energy up close, what kind of structures you need support that, and then at the very fringes of that recapture, like just whispers of attention and effort, you know, you can use that to make it productive. And that's, that's the kind of thing we're doing. 

And it's interesting, but because, you know, the reason this ties back to Chicago is Irene Lopez de Vallejo and DiSCOs, distributed cooperatives. She’s out of Bilbao, everything goes back to Bilbao in the end. And that's sort of the thinking through there trying to think of like basically new cooperative forums to actually allow investment in these kinds of communities there and like, how do you how do you actually, you know, convince people to engage locally? What are these new structures and practices?

And you know, how does crypto get involved? And I bring this up to bring it back full circle, because it was ironic today -  the best quip you had, which I can't believe you have not dropped here, is “Venice is built on the original Dogecoin.” The original Dogecoin from the Byzantines, trade with the Ottomans, like all this stuff here -- this was the original speculative currencies minted here in Venice. So yes, Venice created its own Dogecoin back in the day. So, what are the currencies of the future here that we can use to capture human effort? I don't know. But maybe we are drifting a little bit too much into crypto here and it’s getting a little late here in Venice.

DS:

Yes, we are edging upon the magic hour. Well, the magic are being the spirits. We're well past sunset. But it's hard to tell from within these confines because the buildings are so close together. Even if you have generous windows, you are still looking at a wall. And that's, you know, that's in a five star hotel in Venice. You know, you've really got to pony up to see the canals. 

GL:

We're going to be coming to you all this week from Venice and from Turin. So you know when the time to listen to this. Hopefully we have a whole package here as we launch the “Unfrozen Cinematic Universe here. Like, yeah, we've got the BINALI on top. For episode two, perhaps even episode three, then we're hopping a train to turn into utopian hours, which is my friend, Luca Ballerini. has his own festival urbanism this year, the theme is the 1000 minutes city. So you know, instead of like, Oh, cute in 15 minutes, cities will ride bicycles everywhere. It's like, No, how do we include everyone. So hopefully, we're gonna wrap up some special guest stars while we're in Turin, and and then we'll see where the podcast takes us, perhaps to Chicago and beyond. So, it's good to start this with

38:13

you, Dan. I am I am so excited that we're doing this, you know, I had a back in when there was a thing called a Blogger blog. I had a blog by this title, which involved quite a lot of, well, quite a lot of research and, you know, masquerading as a as a reporter. And I feel like, you know, the free association that that podcasting allows, you know, creates a little bit more runway to test out ideas without having to, you know, create something that is, you know, an essay form sort of, you know, you don't have to get to sort of, you know, Michael Sorkin levels in order to to get an interesting or provocative idea out there, presuming that that's what we're doing

39:05

a say another Canadian immigrant, I think all the time. Like what would Marshall McLuhan Think of this like, I think I think I think his whole hot and cool medium kind of off or like asked me recalibrated, like, telephone television feels like we're really hot medium now compared to all the other media that came since but like, podcast is a pretty cool medium, right? Like, it says hobby like now we're all just recording podcasts are all throwing thoughts out there, run through some machine transcription if you want if you just want to read it. We have all the tools here so so yeah, I look forward to further discourse of discursive discourse with you. Indeed, indeed. Let's make it happen. All right, you heard it here first.