RENAISSANCE | anthonypoon.com

#195: THE RHYTHM OF ARCHITECTURE, PART 1 OF 3 | THE MATRIX OF THE EGO

November 1, 2024

Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma (photo by Hudson Hintze on Unsplash)

On August 28, 2024, I participated in a podcast entitled, “The Rhythm of Architecture,” from the series, Doctoring Up Design. With host Josh Cooperman, here are edited excerpts from our episode S4/E36—to be presented over three segments. Please enjoy part one.

Death by Design at Alcatraz, by Anthony Poon, published 2022 by Goff Books (photo by Anthony Poon)

Josh Cooperman: I had the opportunity to catch up with longtime friend and an incredible architect, Anthony Poon of Poon Design Inc.; he happens to be an extraordinary talent. Keep listening and you’ll hear why. You wrote a book.

Anthony Poon: I wrote three books (here, here, and here) and working on the fourth and fifth right now.

Josh: Tell me about the third one.

Anthony: You’re talking about the murder mystery novel?

Josh: That’s the one.

Death by Design, illustrations by Anthony Poon, book interior design by Pablo Mandel (photo by Goff Books)

Anthony: Last year, I came out with my first work of fiction called, Death by Design at Alcatraz. My story assembles a group of architects competing to redesign Alcatraz Island into a museum of art. During the design competition led by a billionaire egomaniacal developer, architects start to die off. It goes into the psyche of architects and what we would do for our ego and arrogance. When people say, “Hey, I would kill for that job,” maybe one literally would! The reviews have been great. And I just recently adapted the book into a screenplay for a feature film called, Death by Architecture. I’m starting to shop it around.

Josh: I love that, and think about how design and architecture are so interwoven in everyday life. And I believe we’re in a golden age. I believe we’re in a renaissance of architecture and design right now, especially in a post pandemic world. Now that everything is clearing out supply chains, people are starting to actually think differently about design and architecture than they had in the past.

I was on a road trip with my son, and I found a book in Kansas City called, The Paris Architect. I don’t know if you’ve ever read it. Phenomenal story about an architect who is a Bauhaus devotee and finds himself in Paris during the occupation of World War II. He’s an unwilling accomplice or participant rather, who finds himself looking for and applying unique ways to hide the Jews from the Nazis. I love how the story of architecture and design is interwoven into real life, because I feel like many people don’t realize this. It’s almost like The Matrix. You don’t realize it’s all around you.

Anthony: Exactly. There’s an old essay I wrote a while back, Everything Is Design. People may not be aware of it and you’re right: There’s a search in the zeitgeist around architecture right now. You have TV shows about house design, you have housewives and homeowners designing their parties, choosing the right tablecloths, right wedding cake frosting, and you have fashion at its highest caliber.

Linda Way, Los Angeles, California, by Poon Design (photo by Hunter Kerhart)

Everything is being designed. Everything is being created. Everything is being curated and tailored. Architecture is no longer the building that we’re standing within. It could be the sounds that we hear, the music that’s being piped through the speakers. Architecture is everything from sustainability to the ideas of resilience. How does a building survive a catastrophe, say a fire, a flood or even a school shooting?

These are topics of architecture that didn’t exist a generation ago. The idea of DEI has become prominent in how we create our artistic teams. Architects are no longer the kind of superheroes of the past generation when Modernism was a singular force moving on a linear path. Today architecture is splintered into many avenues, not just a grid of roadways, but more of a three-dimensional matrix.

Oral Roberts University, Tulsa, Oklahoma (photo by Smntha.Mntsr on Pexels)

Josh: Having recently moved to Tulsa, you can see Modernism had sort of morphed from the Art Deco phase into the Mid-Century Modern architecture after. That’s the way architecture is supposed to be. You talk about it being splintered and fractured. Isn’t that how we grow?

Unity Temple, Oak Park, Illinois, by Frank Lloyd Wright (photos by Anthony Poon)

Anthony: For certain. Back in time, sometimes there were a shortage of ideas and a shortage of construction quality. They were building civic buildings clad only with cheap stucco! I recently visited, for the second time, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Unity Temple in Oak Park. He was one of the first to not just use cast-in-place concrete, but also left the raw surface exposed. It’s not just beautiful, but a hearty structure. I think we’re in a “renaissance” like you say, because the idea of building to last is not just about 25 or 50 years anymore, but maybe a hundred years or more.

#133: THE INFURIATING MYTH OF AN ARCHITECT’S WEALTH

April 9, 2021

The Brady Bunch, a sizable family to support as an entrepreneurial architect (1969 to 1974)

It’s a popular myth that you see in TV and movies, that an architect is rich. From Mike Brady supporting a family of eight (nine if you count Alice) to the architect duo of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone, from charming Tom Hanks to Steve Martin playing an architect twice, the world seems to think architects are wealthy—rolling in money.

Know this: we are not. Not at all. Not even close.

left: Sharon Stone and Richard Gere in Intersection (1994); middle: Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle (1993); right: Meryl Strep and Steve Martin in It’s Complicated (2009)

We are regular people with a regular job. We don’t have those fancy clothes, driving those nice cars, living in big homes, as one might believe from the prevalent urban legends of who an architect is.

Poon Design team from archives (photo by Poon Design)

Yes, we are rich in our artistic rewards and in the opportunities to chase our creative dreams. But no, we are not affluent. My question is this: Why don’t we have lots of money?

I compare our design industry to doctors and lawyers, who have similar paths of required higher education, rigorous state requirements for licensure, and even responsibilities to public safety. But for anyone who knows the statistics, architects aren’t just not rich, some are living at modest middle class incomes. Well, at least not starving artists. But when compared to doctors and lawyers, architects are compensated at a fraction of our professional colleagues. Why?

Probably a doctor, not an architect, showing up in this $3 million Ferrari F40 (photo by Joey Banks on Unsplash)

The work of an architect is not valued as it used to be, as say in the Renaissance, when kings and queens rewarded architects handsomely to design heaven-reaching cathedrals that would last centuries. Perhaps architecture today is too abstract to understand. People know that when they hire a plumber, the pipes get fixed. But if you don’t understand what design is or what an abstract idea is—then from architects, you are only getting random lines on a piece of paper. And how much money is that worth?

Curson and Pico Mixed-Use Project, by Poon Design

But with star chefs, you would never call the recipe for a Michelin-rated dish, merely random scribbles on a piece of paper. I have had clients say that they don’t need a design, just the drawings. I don’t get that. That’s like saying I don’t need the fascinating epic of the Harry Potter saga. Instead, just give me random ink on pages.

Add to this how reality TV (here and here) has inaccurately shown that you can approach an architect and ask for three designs, for free! Would you ask any professional for free work, such as your doctor, dentist, accountant, or lawyer?

One critical thing to note why architects suffer: The typical fees paid to an architect rarely compensate for the work that needs to be done when designing a building. For example, if an architect gets a fee of $100,000, we all know right from the start that $120,000 is needed to do the work. You might ask: Why not just do the work of $100,000, since that is all you are paid to do? It is not that simple.

Architects drafting and slaving away (photo by Michael Neatu)

Partly, the work is dictated by the client’s indecisions and endless changes over the course of an unknown number of meetings, coordinating the work of structural and mechanical engineers always behind schedule, getting city approvals that can take months and even years, administering construction and resolving all the unforeseen conditions, and the other hundreds of spinning tops and fires that burn brightly. In part, we are also driven by our artistic ego, and we will design a project until it is great, not stopping at the amount of fee that is allocated.

So, who is the blame?

San Diego Civic Theater, California, by Anthony Poon (w/ HHPA)

#40: WHO WILL BE MY CLIENT?

July 8, 2016

Arena for 2000 Olympics, Sydney, Australia, by Anthony Poon (w/ NBBJ)

In architecture school, our professors provided us with projects to design. Example: For this semester, design a sports arena in San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

But here is the thing: How does an architect land such a project after graduation? This is a challenging question to ponder after you leave the comforts of school, after you have made the premature decision to start your own architecture company from your apartment. And you realize that you have no clients. Not a sports arena. Not even a bathroom addition. None at all.

Basilica of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy, by Leon Battista Alberti and Giorgio Vasari (photo by Andrea Corsi from Pixabay)

Everyone sees homes, theaters, parks and shopping centers within our communities, but how does an architect get hired to design them?

Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy, Giorgio Vasari, Bernardo Buontalenti and Alfonso Parigi the Elder (photo by Gina Aburlacitei on Unsplash)

Many architects would kill for a system I call the Medici Effect. Within such a circumstance, an architect can sustain a career through the loyal patronage of a single client—be it an individual, a retail chain, or a university. This Medici Effect is a client-architect relationship where decade after decade, the faithful client provides the architect with projects.

From the 15th to the 18th century, the Medici family reigned supreme in Florence. As wool merchants initially, then formidable bankers later, this family commissioned Renaissance painters, sculptors and writers. And yes, architects too.

Alongside hiring painters Michelangelo, Raphael and Rubens, and the scientist Galileo, the Medici’s supported architects most of all: Alberti, Vasari, Buontalenti and Bartolomeo, just to name a few. As one of the most powerful clans throughout Europe, the Medici family bankrolled the entire career of any architect of their choosing, as well as completing building upon building—from palaces to churches, from museums to hospitals.

Though a wonderful tale from hundreds of years ago, this Medici Effect does continue today. A contemporary example can be found in Culver City, where a husband/wife, client/developer team of Frederick and Laurie Samitaur Smith has sustained a 30-year patronage of Eric Owen Moss Architects. Project after project, the Smiths have produced a city-scale portfolio of buildings through the talents of this single architect

Pterodactyl: a visually-bold composition of zinc-clad boxes set into a glass office building, Culver City, California (photo by Anthony Poon)

During fortunate periods of my career, my Medici’s have appeared in the form of developers, retiring architects, friends, and even a public school district. What I have learned so far, if I have learned anything at all, is that an architect should base a career on relationships not contracts. If an architect’s entire career revolves around one hundred projects, it is better to find ten patrons that might each give you ten commissions vs. finding one hundred individual clients.

It should be taught in architecture schools, and it should be a directive at the workplace: Build relationships and attract clients. At many law firms, entry-level attorneys, even paralegals, are requested to bring in clients.

Architecture is not just about earth shattering design, but about marketing, business development and public relations. If you are simple minded, call it “schmoozing.” If you are intelligent, call it good business. And, if you are human, call it survival.

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