中文 English

Interview with Tod Williams and Billie Tsien
Zhonggui Zhao and Ching-Chyi Yang
 
Jan. 4, 2003
Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects office
Central Park South
New York
Yang:
Why and how did you choose to set your base in New York City, in the capital of capitalism, in the heart of real estate industry, and decided not to play with money?
 
Williams:
That is interesting. Well, because I’m older, I came here first. I came from the Middle west, from Michigan. I chose to come here because I thought New York was just fascinating. You said it was center of capitalism, for me, it was center of the universe. I just thought everything was magical and strange here. I love the diversity of the people most of all. Because growing up in the Midwest, everyone looked like me. There was almost no Chinese and very very few other ethic groups.
 
When I was at Princeton, I took many trips to New York. I was always absolutely excited by the sense of the culture, the community, and the potential of the city. I did not in any way as think of it as you did, as the center of real estate. After I finished school, I was working briefly in Princeton, New Jersey. Then I was recommended to work for Richard Meier, who was just starting his office. I thought that was a great moment when I moved in New York.  I realized this was kind of home for me and it has been ever since.
 
I don’t think this is the place I would suggest young architects to go, except that it has worked out for me. Young architects who are starting their own firm can work for larger firms, more as you have done.  That kind of office is an establishment with a world reach. Probably one could do very well with interior work here, because there are always interior renovations of buildings.
 
Zhao:
So, at that time the construction market was not good too.
 
Williams:
No. Probably in the 60s it was good. I was so young, even younger than you. I wasn’t thinking about the market. I just thought, New York, the center of the universe, that is where I want to be.
 
Yang:
Do you think it would be different if you start your firm somewhere else, other than big city?
 
Williams:
That’s a very good question. What would become of me?
 
I think I probably could be successful somewhere else. But I don’t think my work would be as rigorous as I think it has been because of the city. I think the struggle here, for me, has been part of the pleasure. It makes a young person much tougher, clearer and more rigorous. So, I might have had more buildings built. But I don’t think it would be as good.
 
Tsien:
I came to New York because of I was interested in art and literature. I was a bookworm when I was growing up. I was very shy and read a lot. I always read about people in New York, writers from New York, and artists from New York. And I thought, I would like to be one of those people, but I didn’t really know how. It was too intimidating. But still somehow I felt this is where I wanted to be. It had nothing to do (like Tod) with money. The only thing it had to do with a desire to become a part of the world that was involved in art and literature. I wanted to be in a place where that was important.
 
I grew up in New Jersey. My mother is very interested in music, so she always took us to New York for ballets and concerts. All the museums, theatres, everything is located in New York. I just wanted to be part of the world. That is why I came here. I can’t imagine being any other place. I can’t imagine being an architect in any other place. For a while, I thought, I could be an architect in Los Angeles because I went to UCLA. But I realized that I like the closeness of people around me, which makes me feel more secure. I like the diversity. I like the ability to touch music or art; all these different things are so easy to touch here. In Los Angeles, it is much further away. You need a car, here you can walk. I feel very rooted to New York City.
 
Slowness
 
Yang:
We have read the article you wrote about “Slowness”. It seems like you are really into Milan Kundera’s viewpoint about the relationship between slowness/memory and speed/forgetting. But Slowness or Speed is relative. It’s needed to be put into a context to do the contrapose. That is to say there are two sets of relationships that compose this context in architecture. One is the relationship between human body movement and design thinking, another one at the construction site, is about how to build it, by hand or by machine. Do you think this slowness will become faster not only because of the using of CAD(Computer Aided Design), but because of the new kinds of  equipment used on the construction sit?
 
Williams:
In a certain way, I think the past built quickly. In the deep past, people had one way of building and the society was organized. At that time there was one type of material, one source of labor, one religion, one culture. One could build relatively quickly. I would say the Egyptians probably built very quickly. If we think about that, how long will it take us to build a pyramid today? It would take us forever. But they did it by enlisting labor, in other words-slaves. Another example which might be more contemporary is the Empire State building. They built is so quickly, within a year. They had the method of construction, the kind of architecture language they already knew and they just built it straight up. Every one was behind that effort. I think in some way in the past you could build quite quickly.
 
It is true in the future you may be able to build quickly. I don’t think that will be part of my world. There are a couple of reasons. Number one, I think a commercial drive or energy can help build things quickly. In Las Vegas, for many millions of dollars, they built the Venetian-a gambling casino and resort made to look like Venice, Italy. I think a commercial drive or energy can help build things quickly. That won’t really be part of our world. Another reason is that, I’m interested in is bringing things together. One of the reasons we come to New York is to have a sense of the diverse culture coming together. In the way, we are tied to some past and some present. So, thinking this out and having it built in a good way means work will always take longer, it is an interesting challenge to be in this place in this time, which is so diverse and so complicated, and try to ultimately build something, which is simple, solid and rich in terms of its experience. I don’t see it even being faster. I’m not interested in that.
 
Tsien:
I agree with you. When you talk about the earlier builders, each person was much more a craftsman. When you look at drawing set, either well-known buildings, or early drawings for all different kinds of buildings, let’s say, in 1800s, they might be only 20 pages. So much knowledge was within the person’s head and very little need to be on a piece of paper. They didn’t need a drawing set that is 100 pages long with hundreds of details. Today, you make the assumption that the person doesn’t know much and you have to show them every little thing.
 
We are working on a house, which has been under construction for 2 years. It was not a big house, about 5,000 square feet. It is a stone, concrete and wood house. It is just taking that amount of time. So I think Tod is right the kind of projects we do will probably always require slower construction.
 
Williams:
However I want to say I have nothing against fast construction.
 
Tsien:
How can you say that?
 
Williams:
I don’t want to tell other people how to live their lives.
 
Tsien:
If somebody came to you and said, This is a fast-track project and it needs to be done in a year and we are going to start the foundation in 3 months. You would say, ”No, thank you.”
 
Williams:
I‘d just say fine. “It’s going to be all foundations. We’ll start with the foundations and will finish with the foundations.”
 
Yang:
This brings up another question. We believe that “slowness” is an ideal. But in reality, we need to talk about when to stop. I personally think that knowing when to stop is an Art. How do you balance this “Slowness” and the project’s schedule? Is a person who decides when to stop designing?
 
Williams:
Someone has to tell me when to stop, it could be Billie, could be the client. I don’t have a stop in me.
 
Yang:
Does the project tell you?
 
Williams:
The project does speak.  Billie has to shout at me. The building does shout at you, the contractor shouts at you, and the owner shouts at you. One of my great strengths and weakness is I don’t listen. Billie has a very Asian way of making me listen, but she is a great listener also. (Spoken to Billie) What do you feel about buildings saying stop? I would say you would rather stop shorter,  I would stop later.
 
Tsien:
We are balance. I guess, whether it’s a lack of interest or discipline, I suppose I will reach a point where I just want to have some distance from the project. In the relationship Tod is developing his world and he is so involved. He will continue to design even as the owner is putting their socks into their drawer. Tod still has another design, another design…
 
Williams:
Billie will not be involved in the sock drawer.
 
Yang:
Maybe the fabrication of the sock!
 
Tsien:
Tod will design the socks. (Laugh)
 
Williams:
We do balance each other. I deeply appreciate it. New York has discipline, people have time schedule, budgets. Billie found me in New York, I listen better, because she is there and telling me to listen, be quiet and stop.
 
Tsien:
I wouldn’t be an architect if I weren’t with you. I’m not sure what I was going be.
 
Zhao:
The discussion of speed and stop also brings up another question. Let’s say every building has a certain budget. You keeping designing, use more materials, having more details, which means more money. How do you find balance between this?
 
Tsien:
We actually don’t use a lot of material. We use the same material, but we treat it in different ways.  Concrete is very malleable, whether sandblast concrete or ground concrete- they are same material but can look very different. I don’t think the palette is huge, sometimes we use something strange like fiberglass in Folk Art, but we often do that for budget reasons. We thought at first we would use Cast glass, and then we thought it would be frosted glass. Glass is expensive and heavy, the structure is expensive. Fiberglass is cheaper and lighter, structure can be less. By keeping the range of material small is a way of stay within fairly tight budget.
 
I don’t necessarily want to be known as the architect who squeezes the most out of least budget, but in many cases, we do. The Folk Art Museum is 17.5 million dollars to construct a new building in Manhattan, from scratch, with the cabinetwork, all in there.
 
Williams:
Which is less than 1/2 of Rem Koolhaas’s Prada store, which is just interior. I think, I enjoy the process of what people call “Value Engineering”. If we can essentially turn fat to muscle, that is the way I see it. Every body is made of a certain amount of fat. If we didn’t have the fat, we could not survive. We need the combination of fat and muscle. In general, we don’t need the excess fat, Probably without discipline, I would have much more fat than I need. So I rather relish the time by which we began to shape the building. We do that at almost every stage, We can shape and tight the building as we see the problems. I don’t believe you can just cut the top off building or remove a wing. You have to rethink the whole organism. That is very exciting and challenging to me. This seems to architects to be a problem. But for me, it is actually an opportunity to make a better building. Another problem is people wish certain rules didn’t exit, like building codes or accessibility for handicapped. I see those rules as ways by which we can actually make a better building, rather than just simply make compromise.
 
Yang:
In that article you mentioned it’s your hope to work on only a few projects at a time. I believe there are a bunch of jobs out there waiting for you. Then what will be your consideration to decide which commission to take or which competition to enter?
 
Williams:
We made the decision quite a few years ago, not to do commercial work. That became a quite good regulator for us. Because, if we don’t work chasing the dollar, then the dollar won’t chase us. That slows the process down. We have  fewer possible clients. We have lost whole sector of the work, by trying not to be too big. We still have difficulty to get enough of the right kind of  work. We always said we can do several projects at a time. A project takes at least 3 years to do. Our ideal will be to realize 1 project a year. That will be a very good pace. Last year the work dried up. Now we are busy. We feel nervous about whether we have opened the door too much, so the question is how much to open the door to the world outside. First you want anyone to come in, then you need to close it.
 
Tsien:
We do very few competitions. We only work for invited competitions. The first idea in our work is never that good. All projects become better all the time. The projects are the best in their realization, never in the early ideas. We are never brilliant, like you drop down a idea, put it on the board, people go, “Wow!”. We realize that’s not our strength.
 
We won a project in Hong Kong, but it was a very small competition, which was for the Asia Society in New York. They have a Hong Kong branch. The competition was with Kazuyo Sejima from Tokyo, Elias Torres, his partner José Antonio La piña from Barcelona. These are architects we know and respect. In that kind of competition, which is small, personal, we feel we can at least have a strong showing. We have just become involved in our first international competition which is in Marseliie, France.
 
Williams:
This is a very large arena. We occasionally take steps towards this large arena, like opening the door. I’m not sure whether we have opened the door wider than we are capable of performing. I don’t think every architect should go after every project in the world.
 
Zhao:
You did a similar project in Mexico, was it an arena?
 
Williams:
That was not a competition, it was a commission. And I don’t know whether that will ever be built. It was an amphitheatre, and it was international, that is correct. When we started the project about 4, 5 years ago, the owner said it would be done in 2 years. If it does  get built, it won’t be built for another 10 years. so, that will be a nice, slow project. I’m looking forward to it (laugh).
 
Yang:
Do you agree there is another kind of nature in a so-called Public project, which is about politics? In a project like this, the client’s anxiety about his/her political life will transfer into a pressure push onto an architect. Sometime it’s simply a time concern because of the term of office but sometime it’s might be an identification issue. We can take Folk Art museum as an example, does the client or do you ever think there should be a different presence between a museum for Folk Art and the other, something like Modern Art, and what should a Folk Arts museum look like? Has this become a pressure for you?
 
Williams:
I did enjoy that. It is a problem. Sometime it is very frustrating of course. But Billie and I in time have decided something, it is also about slowness. We actually want to choose and work with a client we like and respect. We believe that behind every institution there is a person, so we try to find the person. We want to choose someone who likes us and respects us and we want to like and respect them. You actually like to hear what they have to say. Understanding what they say is not a problem, actually it helps us to grow. If that person for example, says, as a trustee of the Folk Art Museum might have. “I can see this art museum looking like a log cabin, I want you to build a log cabin.” That is quite difficult problem, politically, I suppose, unless I can image a new idea of a log cabin. Probably that person doesn’t respect us enough, we can’t respect him enough too. If we can respect one another, I think it is possible to build a log cabin for that kind of person. So, I like the challenge.
 
Tsien:
I think that we hope to be able to understand the intention of what that person might want. Because sometimes you can only describe things in terms of what you know- like, folk art equals log cabin. But what they are trying to say is they want a museum to really represent the kind of spirit that kind of art is created from. If you can listen hard enough to understand the hidden message, then you can try to create something they didn’t know, but they will feel comfortable to represent the spirit of what they say. That is a great challenge in architecture. Unlike artists, who just work for themselves most of the time, we work with people who are trying to say what it is they want, but it is very difficult. So, they describe buildings in terms of what they know. You have to take what they know and turn it to something they hadn’t imagined.
 
Williams:
I think you can think about client that way. Then you can go down throughout the project. To include the contractor or sub-contractor. They too have something to say to you. Billie says, it is essential. If you can get to that level, it is quite wonderful. Because you learn something. The contractor can bring something magical to the project, like the tile man or the plumber. Of course, this is kind of ideal world, but that is the way, by which, we can take this political problem and turn it into a more profound result.
 
That takes long time to figure it out. You have to go to bed at night then wake up again try to find a way to get into the project. Each day find something if you can. That is quite exciting.
 
 
American Folk Art Museum
 
Zhao:
American Folk Art Museum is the your first public building in Manhattan, did it reach your expectations after it was finished?
 
Williams:
Well. I feel very fortunate to be able to do a public building in Manhattan. I feel very fortunate that is well-loved, there is much I like it about. But I still have a lot of things that I would like to improve about it. So, I think, it is hard to say that it reached my expections. It both exceeds them and falls short of them. So, when something surprises you, someone loves it better than you expect, that is pretty nice feelings. If you look at the project clearly, you see it is not perfect. You can learn from this faults to make next project better.
 
Tsien:
When the people inside, people who use it, owners of the house, people in the building, or the museum goers, if they are happy, they feel moved- then it reaches my expectations. Then, I suppose, when other architects approve, a different set of expectations are satisfied. One is the  experience of the user, one is not visible to most people other than architects. When I see things and problems, I’m not happy but I don’t torture myself.
 
Williams:
I probably torture myself a little more. But I’m not sure that expectations being reached is useful. For me, by the time I am done with something. I say, OK, that is the standard. What will we do for the rest of our life? If you think about your life, do you think you want your expectations to go down, stay the same, or would you like them to ascend? That is a question we need to ask you.
 
Yang:
When I was young I prefer going up, too many things I don’t know I can not even  imagine. I like the feeling when expectation goes down, I can fulfill by any tiny thing then happiness becomes real for me.
 
Williams:
If you can reach that height, and begin to go down, you hit the right height, then you can feel comfortable about it.
 
Tsien:
That is a good answer. You are striving for  something and also you see what the reality is ahead.
 
Williams:
Let’s try a building, say one building after one building, what would you like it to be? What about the one after that?
 
Zhao:
It is difficult to answer, but I would like the expectations to be higher.
 
Williams:
But that is not going to happen. If you hit the right height, then perhaps you should feel comfortable and say I should descend. It is an interesting problem. If your expectations are too high, I think it will be very hard on yourself. If your expectation is too high, you will always feel unhappy. If your expectation is lower, you produce a higher result. I prefer the last. I did it when I was a student, I would be luck to get a “B” on this, if I got “A”, I will be very happy; But if I got “B-”, I can survive, I can go to next day (laugh).
 
Zhao:
There is a Chinese saying, “ higher the expectation, better the result.”  Anticipation can turn into pressure, but can discover the potential too.
 
Tsien:
That is the model of Chinese parents. (laugh) No matter what you do, not quite good enough.
 
Williams:
My parents, they want quite the same as Chinese parents, even in other culture.
 
 
MoMA
 
Zhao:
We went to the Folk Art Museum before we came today. The MoMA’s curtain wall is up, it is very reflective and dark, at first I thought it was stone, then I noticed the other side is rougher and duller. That is stone, so the side adjacent to Folk Art is really a curtain wall. I didn’t think it should be like that.
 
Williams:
I thought it was going to be a very serene, almost very silver, white curtain wall.
 
Zhao:
Did you get some elevation information or material samples from them when you designing Folk Art Museum?
 
Tsien:
Not very much, because the MoMA was not very cooperative. We did see the big model in their lobby. We like Taniguchi’s work, we visited his projects in Japan and respect him as an architect. We know his building was going to be very tranquil, we feel that it will be a good neighbor.
 
Williams:
I just saw the curtain wall two days ago. We thought it would be lighter and but Billie and I always sense it will be a tranquil neighbor.
 
Zhao:
It is good that you designed a slot on the right side to seperate the buildings.
 
Yang:
How do you think about Edward Stones’ old MoMA building? Have you done anything to reflect the façade?
 
Williams:
You are too young but I remember it from the 60s. There are two things I would say about Stone’s building. When you were in the Stone’s MoMA, you had a sense of the way you move through the building. There were special moments when you met “old friends”, that is, piece of a art. We like the intimate scale of the original building. The other thing we knew, was that the old MoMA built underneath the sidewalk to create an auditorium so we knew there was space available. We had very limited site. So we too? built beneath the side-walk. I don’t think there was too much  the connections.
 

Fabric of the City

Zhao:
As we know, Sculpture effect can give the museum the presence in the city, like Whitney Museum, Guggenheim. The image pops up immediately when we hear the name, I think the way how Folk Art Museum deals with it’s presence is a very smart idea.
 
Tsien:
The museum knows it is such a small size museum next to MoMA. It also has a smaller reputation. So it needed to make the façade on 53 St. as a powerful sign. From the beginning, Tod was really interested to make a surface has a strong texture to it, feel it’s very connected to the hand. He also was interested in the faceted façade, the way light changes on the plane of the building. In fact, walking towards the SOM’s building in Columbus Circle, I’m very happy that the façade is cranked. That the lower building and high part are facing different way. It sends reflected light down 59th street.
 
Williams:
You have a particular problem when you are in the middle of block. I think, one of great things New York has is many of the buildings that are anonymous, then you come inside and find this a quite special building. We knew we had a rather anonymous position. We wanted it to be a icon but we were in the middle of the block. So we fought very hard to make a quiet, strong statement. We arrive. We are here. This is not just store. This is not any building. This is the American Museum of Folk Art.
 
Zhao:
I was reading Billie’s text about the idea, which mentioned the bubble gum, what does that mean?
 
Williams:
Chewing gum. When we were first talking about this building with the client, the client said, “what do you think the façade should be?” I said to them, “Should it be wood? It’s Folk Art. That will be nice. Well, Let’s think how long it can last.” I said, “Should it be stone? Stone will be good. But every building in New York has stone on it.” Then I said, ‘Should it be titanium? Frank Gehry has just done it. That will be great, let’s get titanium. That will be a symbol of an important museum.” Then I said, “Look, let’s do some thing as common as we can, How common it could be? How about if we just take something from the street. Chewing gum.  Let’s make the facade with chewing gum.” I didn’t really mean it. I wanted the museum to think, to open up a little bit. I wanted to find something you can find on the street. Then we thought about possibly pouring the concrete on the street and tilting it up. You will get some very common everyday material there. I knew it was a facetious statement. Just try to open up thinking a little bit.
 
Zhao:
I think in a way the townhouse on 72nd St. is a miniature of American Folk Art Museum, they both have a core of light flooding into interior, use stair to organize spaces, they both kind of concealed from the street life. How do you see the fabric of the city?
 
Williams:
The real fabric of the city is not what goes on outside, but what goes on inside. It is like the fabric of a person. I think the city is full of facades, masks but there is another world inside. In both cased the world should be illuminated. It is a pretty simple diagram. You have a façade, then a path through the façade. So we have some formal structure outside, then something else is inside. As long as we have street front like that, I can’t imagine different diagrams. What do you think?
 
Tsien:
I think the fabric of New York is not very consistent except for some highlights. The buildings we make are interested in a dialogue with their neighbors. You have to be same height legally. In some way you want to be connected to the person next to you, but in another way, you want to show you are quite different. I think for the house on 72nd St., it’s a very diverse street with different scales. To some extent, we try to be like townhouse. The owner wanted a limestone house. So, we try to follow some rules. But, in another way, we say,” Look, I’m special, I’m different.”
 
Williams:
If we look back at the early studies, we were struggling about what the building should be. Here is the perfect example we listened to the owner. I said, I didn’t want it to be limestone. He said, “Look, in real estate, I can tell you the limestone townhouse are much valuable than one that is not.” Then we began to see the rules that affect limestone buildings on the street. We try to use what we learn, also we try to separate us from them. It’s a general rule. It’s like people sitting in the subway car, we are all on our seats, but we are sitting next to one to another. We like to be aware of our neighbor.
 
Color and Material
 
Zhao:
Speaking of the inner space of the building, I like the way you deal with primary colors, I think it is very important especially in Manhattan. You don’t get direct light usually; the color of light is always bluish. In your buildings, you use red wood floor, wood handrail, red wall, green water, green tiles, against blue shadow, blue sky, sometime floor stone with cool tone. The colors make the interior very vivid and intimating. You can balance them very well too.
 
Williams:
I think that is something we have been struggling with. People actually are quite interested in being inspired, but they also want the intimacy, which is a very important thing. I listen to Billie about it. We listen to clients speaking about it. In the situation of the city, we could be very cold to one and another. We improved the sense of intimacy in the house on 72nd St. and Folk Art Museum, even through first one is a smaller residence. I think Folk Art Museum is better because it is more intimate. Do you agree?
 
Tsien:
I agree. People have told us about that. They’d like to live there. They said, “I can just move right in!”(All laugh)
 
Zhao:
Material can definitely improve aesthetics, how much do you think material can affect people’s life?
 
Tsien:
I think material will always be a backdrop of people’s life. People can feel either embraced by material, or, the material can be completely recessive. We want a combination of the recessive material, which gives you a strong container. We want some embracing material, which gives you some warmth. The balance between the two is one will let people fill in what they want.
 
Williams:
Roll up your sleeves, put your arms on the table here. (Put arms on the glass-surfaced table) It is cold!
 
This table was designed about 10  of years ago. There was a discussion between Billie and me. We were expanding the office and thinking making another conference table. What temperature would you like the conference table to be? I think it affects my life and I relate to you if this is warmer. I have the feeling, it can actually change it, because it means that we are more inclined to lean over and touch things. It is taking a long time. I’m telling you. I don’t think I understood until the age of 50 that material could affect the way you live.
 
I worked for Richard Meier. I was taught that in a way to think about abstraction, the clarity of the geometry, all that stuff. But this is the perfect example. We are only beginning to learn this, just beginning to learn this problem. This is the tip of the iceberg. It’s a perfect lesson.
 
Zhao:
In the Folk Art Museum, I noticed you had an idea about “Layer”. The way you deal with the profile, the profile tends to be very thin and use different material. Usually you use a layer of veneer to attach to another material, for example, the gypsum board enclosure is separated from the exposed concrete. You try to make it clear. what is the thought behind that?
 
Yang:
Seems like there is another logic of using material, to define different spaces.
 
Williams:
The most recessive layer is the structure. On top of the structure there sits another layer. Each layer has a logic. The building wasn’t too big; we had a wonderful team to keep that dialogue going. I don’t think I could support that intellectual layer idea in a much bigger building. It was a very complicated thing to do. You have to go through it, draw it, redraw it, peel these things back, then each one has to be organized according to its logic, cost and use. What do you feel about that?
 
Tsien:
I would say not everything needs to be layered. Sometimes it is not very important.
 
Williams:
I’m glad to hear that, Billie wouldn’t do that. Not everything needs to be same.
 
Lower Manhattan Development
 
Zhao:
Billie, you are the member of Lower Manhattan Development Corporation board (LMDC). As the only architect in LMDC, what is your job?
 
Tsien:
There are 16 members. No one is an architect except for me. So, I ‘m supposed to be the architectural conscience of the board. 
 
I learned a lot about politics. And I’m still a beginner, often I have no idea why a lot of things happen or occur. In a certain way, I would rather be a beginner; I don’t want to be deeply involved because it is not my life. I don’t want to be a politician and I certainly don’t want to be in the board forever. So, why am I there? I’m just a conscience.
 
Zhao:
So, You have to attend a lot of meetings?
 
Tsien:
I attended a lot of meetings. I’m like a small boat attached to the big boat. Sometimes the big boat going in one direction and I wish it could go another direction. I keep paddling and paddling, most the time the big boat goes where it wants to go, maybe my little paddling on the side make big boat go in a slights shifted direction.
 
Williams:
But your paddle went deep there. You changed the course of things. Billie, and another Board  member help to make the 7 proposals happen. Your strokes begin to mean something. She, Alex Garvin and Roland Betts actually selected those competitors. Your desire and the public desire because you caused the moment to make that happen.
 
Tsien:
We are going to see what’s going to happen. Now the big boat is slightly moving. I don’t know whether the big boat is going to be crashing or not. We are going to see.
 
The board has the public power. The Port Authority has the ownership of the 16 acres. Port Authority doesn’t have to do what the board tells it to do. With the presentation of these ideas, people say why does the public get to voice their opinion? It is not such a good idea. The reason we are encouraging  the public to voice their opinion is that, the Port Authority will have to go against the public opinion.  The Port Authority can overrule LMDC, but it is very hard for the Port Authority to overrule the public opinion. If it wasn’t for the public, Port Authority has the power to do what they want to do. Now, all these people from all around the world have seen these ideas, for better or worse, they think some of them are very exciting. Whether those ideas are actually get carried out, I don’t really know, but at least they are out there.
 
Williams:
But your have to understand the Port Authority is not a bad group. They have lost people and property  and they have huge income pay need to generate. They just want to serve their job best, which is to get money and get the thing going again. So, Opening this up and listening to the public can be very disruptive for progress. It needs to be a very very dynamic and creative compromise to have the boat moving in right direction, and have the Port Authority somehow celebrate that and make it work in the right way. We know each scheme isn’t a perfect direction but just open up the dialogue. Billie ‘d like to say, I have done enough. I can step off the board. Everything would be OK. It is not true. It will be better for you to stay there longer.
 
Zhao:
It was very interesting to see the common people, tourists, they all have their own opinion.
 
Williams:
It was amazing.
 
Tsien:
I think it is first time I have ever seen people who probably have never discussed about architecture, they say, I like Liberskind’s most. I like Foster’s! It is very moving, emotional actually.
 
Williams:
In the end, it might be the most public thing we would have ever done. It will change more people’s life to have that discussion. It helps everywhere on the world. That is a great thing.
 
China
 
Zhao:
Billie, Your family came from Nanjing and Shanghai, do you think you have any Chinese cultural influence on your design or thinking?
 
Tsien:
I think so, not in terms of style, but perhaps psychologically. We want to have a reserved  façade, we don’t want everything flashy outside exposed. We really want to have the heart inside. You have to trust people in certain way, they have to trust you too. You must go inside, to find the heart of the building. That has to do with Chinese way, a certain way of being more reserved. It is  not necessary to express all your emotions to everybody even if they are very strong inside. It is a psychological expression of being Chinese rather than a cultural expression. My culture is really American. My parents came from China. I am first generation. My mother is a biochemist. My father is an engineer. We grew up in a town where there were no other Chinese. There was not a Chinese culture.When Tod expresses his anger, I get more silent and more silent, which drives him crazy.
 
Zhao:
Let me show you something. This is CCTV headquarter in Beijing(Showing rendering of Rem Koolhaas’s winning proposal). It is a 5.9 million sq. feet building, which accommodates production, broadcasting, development and administration together. This is part of preparation for 2008 Olympics.
 
Tsien:
What is being happening around it? It won’t always sit in a field of grass.
 
Zhao:
No, there are buildings. This a not reality but I guess most of them are residential.
… …
Williams:
I think this is interesting. There should be a park there I hope.
 
Williams:
I feel good for China to more to a global field. Probably it is good to be dramatic. A whole lot have been lost when you just extrude a whole new world. But it is pretty exciting to be in a dynamic leading position. Last time I was there, it was 1978. When I was there, I felt Chinese culture was there. But this is a world culture, not a specifically a Chinese culture.
 
Zhao:
I am worried about the final construction quality of this kind of glass buildings.
 
Yang:
Speed causes dynamic to the city, like this TV station. At the same time there is no detail because of the speed.
 
Williams:
I get excited by things, but in my heart, there is a concern.
 
Tsien:
Talking about gloal cities, I have a more gloal feeling in Europe. In Europe, the countries are so small and there are so few people, I wonder whether China eventually will be a whole different globe onto itself, because there are so many more people in China. In Europe, everybody knows the same thing. I know my eye is still the foreigner eye looking at China. 
 
Have you read “Soul Mountain”? about a person who wanders  through China looking for ancient China, dead poets, ancient monuments, things that disappeared… …It is an interesting book.
 
Williams:
I feel if this building would be done slowly it could be done well. This could be totally interesting and connecting to some Chinese. This is Beijing. There are different climatic conditions there. That will be an interesting challenge.
 
(Photo: Folk Art Museum©Michael Moran)