#375 - Yale Center for British Art by Louis Kahn

Summary

Archispeak Podcast Episode #375 — Yale Center for British Art by Louis Kahn

Hosts: Evan Troxel & Cormac Phalen
Date: July 29, 2025

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Overview

In this richly detailed episode, Evan and Cormac share their first-hand experience visiting the Yale Center for British Art, designed by the legendary Louis Kahn. By exploring their impressions, the building’s spatial qualities, and the intricate details that make it a masterwork, they engage in a deep, candid, and “nerdy” conversation about architecture’s visceral and intellectual impact. The episode is a must for anyone wanting to understand Kahn’s approach to space, materiality, and the user experience — and why this museum is considered a touchstone for students and professionals alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Six Degrees of Architectural Influence

Timestamps: [01:48]–[06:31]

• Cormac discusses how personal connections echo the "six degrees of separation" in architecture, noting direct professional ties from himself to Mies van der Rohe and beyond.
  • "I guess I'm like 2 degrees separated from Mies... Paul Zorr was taught by Mies van der Rohe. That's it." — Cormac [02:49]
  • Both hosts muse about these connections as affirming, funny, and representative of the tight-knit, "incestuous" nature of the profession.
  • Humorous banter: “Incestuous. I think what you're talking about. This is the oldest profession. So I think that just goes with the, you know, par for the course.” — Evan [06:01]

2. Setting the Scene: Trip Logistics and First Impressions

Timestamps: [07:08]–[08:34]

• The hosts recount the logistical planning and serendipity of catching the museum open between renovations.
• Stay at the Breuer-designed Hotel Marcel in New Haven set the stage for their architectural exploration.

3. Spatial Context: Yale's Architectural "Trifecta"

Timestamps: [08:45]–[10:02]

• The concentration of significant buildings makes Yale’s campus a feast for an architect: Paul Rudolph’s School of Architecture, the Yale University Art Gallery (Kahn), and the Center for British Art (Kahn).
• The hosts reflect on their admiration: "Amazing... you don't have to walk around very far to experience it." — Evan [08:34]

4. Exterior: Purposefully Unassuming

Timestamps: [10:07]–[11:25]

• Both highlight the museum’s exterior as “nondescript” and “sterile,” a conscious decision by Kahn to focus the experience inward.
  • “It’s about what’s on the inside… it’s about the art gallery.” — Cormac [10:22]
• Light banter about inner value vs. outer appearance, echoing the building’s guiding principle.

5. Entry Sequence: Compression and Release

Timestamps: [11:25]–[13:02]

• Detailed discussion of the architectural procession:

  • Entry is carved from the building’s form, compressing and darkening visitors.
  • Upon entering, one is “immediately bathed with light” as the space opens into a four-story atrium clad in warm wood, with grid skylights above.
  • “It goes from compression and darkness to expansion and light.” — Cormac [12:42]

• The contrast between cold exteriors (zinc, concrete) and the warmth of the wood-filled interior is deliberate and powerful:

  • “On the outside, who would have thought... what’s on the inside based on what’s on the outside?” — Evan [11:25]

6. Circulation and Spatial Organization

Timestamps: [13:33]–[14:44]

• Discussion of Kahn's servant vs. served spaces and how transitions are marked by compression and expansion using both form and material.

• The iconic concrete stair tower:

  • “The cylinder, the concrete cylinder. You can walk all the way around it… what is every good architect, you know, worth their salt do? Runs their hand across it.” — Cormac [15:33]
  • “Baby butt smooth, baby butt, baby button butter… it's smooth.” — Evan/Cormac [16:08–16:54]

7. Architectural Geometry — Primitives, Light, and Material

Timestamps: [18:16]–[22:52]

• The hosts engage in an in-depth discussion of Kahn’s use of “primitives”—simple geometric forms (squares, cylinders) and how placing them together creates dynamic, elemental experiences.

  • “Nobody in architecture school wants to play with primitives… but it is so powerful also.” — Evan [18:44]

• The stair is free-standing, separated from walls and structure by deliberate voids and reveals:

  • “There's a hierarchy to all these elements.” — Evan [30:35]
  • The constant juxtaposition of elements: “To juxtapose one material to another. Instead of kissing them, they separate them and give some breathing room between the two.” — Cormac [31:38]

8. Material Tactility and Craftsmanship

Timestamps: [15:35]–[17:15], [24:47]–[26:16]

• The hosts marvel at the concrete’s finish (“buttery smooth”), the careful TIG-welded steel of the stair’s railings, and how the dark steel feels warm due to qualitative light and color choices.
  • “It was just a folding metal plate... and the treads themselves kind of floated inward…” — Cormac [29:33]
• The progression is accented by terrazzo treads and landings, connecting the space visually and materially.

9. Light: Masterclass in Natural Illumination

Timestamps: [27:34]–[28:26], [43:04]–[44:57]

• Kahn’s control and modulation of natural light, from the dappled skylights in the main atrium to prismatic diffusers on the upper floors, is compared to the caustic patterns on water.
  • “It is a master class on how to control natural light to basically do your bidding.” — Cormac [44:05]
• Questions about how the space transforms at night and effective use of artificial lighting.

10. Orientation & Intuitive Navigation

Timestamps: [34:14]–[41:43]

• The building’s four-story atrium acts as an orienting device, with every floor returning visitors visually and spatially to their starting point.
  • “You get to see where you’re going as soon as you get into the building and then... where you’ve been as you move up… just chef's kiss.” — Evan [34:14]

11. The Building as a Frame for Art, Not Competition

Timestamps: [41:43]–[44:05]

• Both hosts reflect on Kahn’s restraint: the architecture is beautiful yet intentionally “in service to the art.”
  • Cormac contrasts this to museums where architecture and art compete; here, “the hierarchy was given to the art, not to the museum.”

12. Iteration, Variation, and Kahn’s Signature Details

Timestamps: [51:16]–[59:26]

• The hosts analyze Kahn’s continuous development of themes:

  • Structure grid changes width as it ascends.
  • The careful hiding of mechanical and safety systems (e.g., fire standpipes inside custom, elegant panels).
    • “He’s a master at multi use of what goes in the grid... service bays, structural grid, mechanical grid—all in the same place.” — Evan [62:58]

• The visible wear at hand level on the concrete, likened to the worn corner of I.M. Pei’s National Gallery, is observed as a sign of the building’s tactile success.

13. Memorable, Candid Moments and Quotes

• “This is total stair porn central here.” — Evan [23:42]
• “Can we go back into the stairs, Cormac?” — Evan [45:47]
• “I think you can sit here in this space for hours, just staring, just sketching, just photographing, just watching the way that the light moves across the space.” — Cormac [60:23]
• Security guards notice and appreciate 'weirdos' who come for the architecture, not just the art.

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Notable Quotes

“It literally goes from kind of like compression and darkness to expansion and light.”
— Cormac, [12:44]

“You get to see where you’re going as soon as you get into the building and then to continually remind you where you’ve been as you move up through the layers is just chef’s kiss.”
— Evan, [34:14]

“It is a master class on how to control natural light to basically do your bidding.”
— Cormac, [44:05]

“To juxtapose one material to another. Instead of kissing them, they separate them and give some breathing room between the two. And that is literally something that I’ve just thought that, you know, it’s just natural. Right. That’s what you do.”
— Cormac, [31:38]

“I just truly, truly love stair design.”
— Evan, [29:12]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:48 | Connections in the profession: six degrees of architectural separation | | 08:45 | Arriving at Yale: the campus as a concentrated hub of great architecture | | 10:22 | Discussion of the Yale Center’s purposeful exterior anonymity | | 12:09 | The building’s entry: spatial compression and sudden illumination | | 15:35 | Experiencing the stair cylinder: tactility and spatial separation | | 18:44 | Primitives, geometry, and spatial power: the “basic” shapes at work | | 23:42 | “Stair porn” — marveling at craftsmanship and detailing | | 27:34 | The stair tower’s light — glass block caps, caustic effects | | 34:14 | Orientation and wayfinding: always returning to the entry atrium | | 41:43 | Kahn’s restraint: the building as a frame for art | | 51:16 | Structural grid hierarchy and refinement as the building rises | | 62:58 | Service elements hidden in the grid; code-mandated features made beautiful |

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Final Thoughts

Evan and Cormac’s visit becomes a live case study in how a building’s discipline, simplicity, and attention to human experience can elevate it to architectural greatness. The Yale Center for British Art is described as both a laboratory for ideas and a sanctuary for visitors—its lessons as relevant to practitioners as to students.

Memorable Moment:
Cormac’s conversation with a security guard, turning him into an “architectural evangelist,” is a fitting metaphor for the impact architecture can have beyond its profession:

“He was just like, I don’t think that I'm ever going to see this building the way that I saw it before. I'm going to see a lot of the things you're talking about.” — Cormac [55:01]

This episode is an ode to careful design, the nuances of a Kahn masterpiece, and the enduring joy of truly seeing and experiencing architecture.

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Listen to the episode and find more at archispeakpodcast.com

Transcript

[A]

Hey, everybody, it's Evan here. And I just want to take a couple minutes before we jump into this episode to let you all know about something that Cormac and I recently did that is a little different than what we normally do on the podcast, and that is that we've recorded a completely separate standalone version of this episode with a visual component, and that's over on our YouTube channel. There will be a link to it in the show notes for this episode. It's around the same project that we visited that we experienced ourselves when we were in Boston for the AIA conference in June. But again, a completely separate conversation with graphic elements we're drawing on the screen. We're doing all kinds of analysis that we did here on the podcast as an audio version, but it just made a lot of sense to do it in video. And so I wanted to let you all know about that, because if you like this kind of episode, I think you're going to like that one even more, because we get even a little more nerdy and architectural about it, because we're not. Not just trying to describe everything that we saw, we can actually show what we saw. It's called what Makes this Building Great. And again, we're going to be talking about the Yale center for British Arts, which was done by Louis Kahn in the early 70s. So exactly what we're talking about in this episode, after we get past that kind of initial banter that we're known for here on the arc of Speak podcast. Anyway, I'm going to give you back to this conversation that we're going to be having here on the podcast, but also just let you know that. Click the link in the show notes. Check it out. Subscribe to our YouTube channel so that, you know, when those kinds of episodes come out, we do feel like they need to be separate from the audio version to really do it justice. All right, let's jump into today's conversation. Thanks. Talk to you next time.

[B]

So my wife was talking about Six Degrees of Separation. She was watching something, and she knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody that knew the actress that was in the movie that she was watching.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And I started thinking, there's the 6 degrees of separations of, like, Kevin Bacon and things like that.

[A]

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. Yeah.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I think we've had an episode called the Six Degrees of Cormac Phelan.

[B]

So what's interesting is I was thinking about this, and I don't know if on that episode we actually talked about it or not, but since you know, I've been doing a lot of, like, Mesian stuff, looking at Miis and visiting Miis projects and reading about Mies. And you can sort of see it over there. There's a Mies print that was just added to the household collection of two.

[A]

It actually is a collection if you have more than one.

[B]

Okay, congratulations then. There you go. So I guess I'm like 2 degrees separated from Mies.

[A]

Okay. Because how do you figure?

[B]

Well, I was taught by Professor Paul Zor. Paul Zorr was taught by Mies van der Rohe. That's it. And I mean, is it.

[A]

Congratulations.

[B]

Isn't that the definition of, like, you know, the separation kind of thing is that.

[A]

I think that's how it works.

[B]

You know, I mean, if you were

[A]

in a movie with. With somebody who has been in a movie with Kevin Bacon, then.

[B]

So here's the thing. So now I started thinking to myself, okay, then that means that I'm. That if I'm only 2 degrees separated from me, then that means that I'm 3 degrees separated from Corb Gropius Breuer.

[A]

Way less than 6.

[B]

Way less than 6. Like, then that means that. Then that means I'm 4 degrees separated from Peter Barron's. So you just. So you know, you. Because I are now you know, because.

[A]

Because I do a podcast with you and they did podcasts. Right. So. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm curious, like, in our audience, what. What kind of connections there are like the one you're talking about? I bet there's some pretty incredible connections even. Even with individuals that I can think of right now.

[B]

Well, I mean, in. So what is the separation that I know and walked around with Paul Rudolph? That's one step, one degree. Right. If you met him directly, I guess met him directly. Walked around, you know, talking about architecture with him. I feel like I'm semi. Not degree to separated from a lot of pretty famous architects.

[A]

This is the definition of making it right here. You've heard it. Heard it right here. Cormac has made it.

[B]

What do I win?

[A]

Yeah, what do you win? You probably are just on some list somewhere that just put you on a list.

[B]

You mean like no Fly List?

[A]

Yeah, the no Fly List.

[B]

Right?

[A]

You're on. Yeah, you're on someone's black book.

[B]

No, I was like, totally. Just, you know, she. She started talking about it, and I was just like, I wonder if there's like a. A 6 degrees of separation from the architects. And then I'm thinking to myself, wait, then that means that I'm within 6 degrees separated from Frank Lloyd Wright.

[A]

I. I'm just saying incestuous. Incest. I think what you're. You're talking about that.

[B]

No, because nature of this. Because if you, if you think about it, you know, Frank Lloyd Wright visited and hung out with at least stayed in his house. You know, Walter Gropius, remember? Right. And so did. And so did Court. And so here you are. Now look, look how.

[A]

No, here you are.

[B]

Well, no, here we are. I'm just saying.

[A]

I'm just saying. That's funny.

[B]

We're. We're pretty hot stuff.

[A]

Does it.

[B]

That's what I'm getting better.

[A]

Does it make you feel better about yourself?

[B]

I mean, you know, there's times when you sit there and question your life choices and stuff, and then when you sit back wallowing and the in thinking. And then when you sit back and you think about it, it's like, you know what? It can't be all that bad. Look who, you know that knew somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody that knew somebody.

[A]

Right, right. I said the incestuous nature. But I. This is the oldest profession. So I think that just goes with the, you know, par for the course.

[B]

There's one that rivals it and they're kind of the same.

[A]

No, that's kind of the same. That's exactly what I'm saying.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Yeah. I think architecture is.

[B]

However, I've always. I've always made the contention that one of them gets paid in. One of them sometimes quite doesn't.

[A]

All right, talking about what are we talking.

[B]

What are we really talking about? What are we really talking about today? I believe it's like a part two of our trip part.

[A]

The next part in the series. So. So what project do you want to talk about? I have one in mind.

[B]

Project.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. Do you want to go with area or do you want to go with project?

[B]

Sure, let's choice. Oh, it's like a roulette.

[A]

Yeah. Project British Art Museum. That's what we're going with.

[B]

Amazing.

[A]

All right, next project. Okay.

[B]

What else can I say? Amazing. And you know, here's the. So here's the funny thing.

[A]

Set the scene. Set the scene of. Of this. Because this is. You're you're doing. You made this happen.

[B]

Can I tell you how lucky we are to actually have been able to go and see it because from.

[A]

Am I just. I'm just well right here.

[B]

Well, from. From what I understand, it had been under renovation for quite some time and a lot of people who've tried to see it in the not too distant past, you know, maybe within a couple months of us seeing it. Weren't able to see it because it was closed. And I'm like, we got lucky. They're like, oh, it's open. Yes, yes. So set the scene. So I believe that you and I were talking last time about staying at the Breuer Designs Hotel Marcel. The Hotel Marcel. The. Yes. And so that was all planned. That was planned because I wanted you to travel from New York to New Haven. We meet up, pick you up from the train station, and then we would basically drive from there to Boston. With all intentions of stopping at Yale and driving around and taking a look at some of the amazing buildings that are there. And we drove in and decided to park, take a walk around. My wife was with us.

[A]

You don't have to walk around very far to experience what it was pretty cool how there was just like.

[B]

Right.

[A]

All.

[B]

Everything was like. Exactly.

[A]

In that one area that we wanted to see. Yeah.

[B]

There was like the trifecta of three different buildings. There was the School of Architecture by Paul Rudolph. There was.

[A]

Who you're connected to.

[B]

Who I'm connected to. First degree. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Good job.

[B]

See, there you go. Well, we're. We're pretty hot stuff. Right Then across the street from that was the Yale center for Art. Yale Art Center. I'm blanking on the name now that I have it written down, but I don't have it with me right now.

[A]

Yeah, you got to find your.

[B]

Your sketchbook, wherever it's at. You know where I'm. You know what I'm talking about. I know. And then catty corner to that is

[A]

Yale University Art Gallery. Yale University Art Gallery.

[B]

There we go. See, we'll go with that. The magic of the information.

[A]

I luckily had one of the front door there.

[B]

There you go. And. And so, yeah, we went there. You know, it's interesting is that what we noticed in some of those works was the. Obviously the theme that he had started to develop in some of these later works. Exeter British Art, Salk Institute. There was this language that. That is. That was being created in some of his later work.

[A]

It was developing. It was. And it was crossing the boundaries of these projects, for sure.

[B]

And the thing that I loved the most about that is from the second you walk in the front door, now, I will say that the exterior is somewhat nondescript, sterile.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And I think there's, you know, there's. There's a. It's very purposeful, very intentional that it does that, because it's not what's really on the outside. And he's even said that I've watched an interview and you know, if I can find that interview and find the YouTube interview that they did with him that he basically talks about, you know, it's, it's about what's on the inside. It's about the art gallery and he, you know, even the Yale.

[A]

It's like you, Cormac, what really matters. It's not the exterior.

[B]

Yeah. That's hurtful. It's not that. It's. It's not that you're wrong. It's just I have you point that out and it. I always have to come to terms with, you know, my, my grotesqueness. I think that's what you're getting at.

[A]

Oh my gosh. What's the word? That's definitely the word that comes to mind.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Every time I see you.

[B]

Exactly. It's like, ooh, talk about a face for radio.

[A]

I get it. I get a shiver.

[B]

Yeah, it's definitely a face only a mama can could love.

[A]

Yeah, you're definitely right about this building because on the outside, who would have thought that what. What's on the inside based on what's on the outside? So this is a very. I think we even kind of talked about that a little bit when we were there. It's like. Well, first of all, you wouldn't know. And then like, even the entry, like the procession through the threshold into the interior, it. It's a deep entry to get you to the middle of the interior, which is pretty interesting. But it is just literally a recession in the front by the removal of the solid mass. So you get this void and it's like, oh, that's where I go in. I mean it is pretty obvious, but at the same time it's like, it's just such a, a simple move to get. It's not like announcing an entry.

[B]

And if you think about it, one you. It's very. You've spot on on the way that basically you take this simple rectangle and you've carved out the corner of the lower portion of it. So it's multi story and just that single story carve out that takes you from the sidewalk and it takes you to the front door. But it basically compresses you, it darkens you, Right? It does, yeah. And then, then you walk into that front door and you're immediately bathed with light.

[A]

Yeah. Because you're in that open core.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's like this full height, four story tall atrium.

[B]

Four story tall atrium, just completely clad in this beautiful wood. And you know, you've got the three squares of the skylights that just filter down light. And it literally, it goes from kind of like compression and darkness to expansion and light.

[A]

And it's the. It's the same. It. To me, it looks like the same teak wood that's on the exterior of the Salk is on the interior of this building, but on the exterior of this building, it looks like zinc paneling, concrete. Right. It's really cold colors, cold materials. But then you go inside and it's super warm, inviting. Like you said, you really are bathed in natural light, but it's also really warm because of the natural wood tone and obviously tons of light coming in through the skylights.

[B]

And he does that trick multiple times, right, where he basically forces you into these darker, compressed spaces. So, you know, you leave that, the entry vestibule, that quadruple height space. You know, you leave that area and then it compresses you back down. So when you go to the information desk, you're kind of compressed back down. Now you're with kind of like wrapped in very cold material, all concrete, all raw concrete. And you've got the choice of going to the elevators, going through into the gallery space, or then out into the. Or is the gallery space one floor up when you walk into the gallery?

[A]

I don't have the floor plan in front of me, and I'm trying to remember because I think we just went straight into the stairwell.

[B]

I think we were drawn into the stairwell for sure.

[A]

The stairwell. Okay, so I'm looking, I'm looking right now. Yeah. You go through the elevator core to a set of double doors that are wide open into a cylindrically shaped. And you can see the cylinder at the back of the elevator corridor, whatever you want to call that vestibule. So you see this kind of this beautiful shape with the doors wide open, and you can see the stairs inside of them. And there's natural light in there, or I'll say there's lighting. Maybe it's not natural, but it's like it's lit inside. And it's just. If you look around the edges of the back of where that, that stair tower is, it's just a. It's a set of teak doors, but it's dark back there, so it's not like. So, so I. I'm pretty sure that's private stuff that has to do with the, the gallery. And so it's obvious, like, go up. I mean, you just came from a space where it's like where does all that go? I'm going there. And then immediately. Here's the answer of how to achieve that right off of the lobby.

[B]

But first, one thing that is so the cylinder, the concrete cylinder. You can walk all the way around it right there. There is. Yeah.

[A]

It is free from the.

[B]

It is completely free from the. From the walls behind it and everything else. And of course, you know, what is every good architect, you know, worth their salt do. Runs their hand across it. What is the texture? What does it feel.

[A]

Touch it. Yeah.

[B]

What does it feel like? Because I believe we kind of actually ran across the street first and walked around Yale School of Architecture. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in. And I believe you were seen hugging or caressing the rough concrete. I could be wrong.

[A]

Yeah. The coarse aggregate of the exterior of

[B]

the route could be wrong. But I believe there's photographs to prove it.

[A]

If they exist. I don't have them. Maybe you do. But you're right. There's a. A pretty interesting contrast here. And because these buildings are so close in proximity, I mean, they are kind of playing off of each other in that. In that way with. With texture, for sure.

[B]

And so back into the British art and running your hand across it, nobody seemed to expect how, like, just amazingly smooth that concrete was.

[A]

I'm pretty sure the word I said was butter. Yeah, it's buttery smooth.

[B]

Yes. I believe the words I used were

[A]

baby butt smooth, baby butt, baby button butter.

[B]

It was something. It was smooth. I think anybody who touched it was caught off guard with the fact that it's, you know, this cold, gray, dark concrete material and how silky smooth the it was to the touch. Just amazing.

[A]

Yeah. And this is not an easy material to work with. And so you can tell how much care went into the craftsmanship of. Of this building.

[B]

I think this. And I'm. I'm still trying to, like, wrap my mind around how they poured this, because it is definitely something that a lot of care. A lot of care went into the creation of that. That stair tower. It's. It is definitely something that amazing. You know, this is where I started to kind of reminisce about. Something that one of my professors had told me is that we always kind of like, design. Design with, like, circles and squares and everything else. And I remember one time that somebody had done an arcing corridor where it was a round wall, basically a cylindrical wall, then wrapped with a. Basically an arching wall of the same kind of like, same radius or same whatever. It just. It was perfectly offset.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And one of the things that I found interesting was, is the professor said that, you know, what makes, what would make it more interesting is if you offset it with a square or a. Just a straight line and it would actually, it would actually make both of those sing differently than what they are. And that was in perfect play when we were there because now you can actually see. Oh, I see exactly what he was talking about. And he's right.

[A]

I just want to build on that because these are basic shapes. Like, you know, you think about primitives in three dimensional geometry, 3D modeling, it's like primitives. And nobody in architecture school wants to play with primitives. They want to, they want to be free form and they want to be expressive and do all these things. So placing the cylinder in the square is what you're talking about, kind of creates this negative space that undulates just by the nature of these two shapes being placed one inside another. So you've got these corners and you've got like this round thing playing off it. And lighting. This is where you start to get that play that you're talking about, right? Is the way that each one, I mean, they can be the exact same material, but they reflect light differently, they catch light differently. You know, you've got darker corners, you've got brighter spots toward the center. And it, and it creates this kind of procession through the space just by placement of lighting. And it's so elemental and in that way and it's, it just seems basic. And I mean that like in the most truest sense of the word. And it's so powerful also. Right. And I think what. And it makes me just wonder if some of this stuff is just kind of hard coded into our DNA. And I don't know if I mean human or if I just mean architects, but. But it's those things where it's just like you can sense the powerfulness of it because of all of those things working in unity, right? Shape, color, mass, light, shadow, it's all of that stuff. And you're getting it immediately going into the, into this building and you haven't even gotten to the spaces that are like truly celebrated, right? Like, this is seriously just utility at this point, Right? Right. And it's still pretty incredible.

[B]

One of the things that I started to understand visiting this, then visiting across the street, and then later on we'll talk about another one, you know, probably in a different episode, is his organization based off of the servant spaces in the served spaces. And you know, how each of them are uniquely and very distinctly separated from another, but also work in uniform to help order each other. It was a simple move. Just simple moves. To be able to. To pull that off where we're sitting here, we haven't even. We've barely gotten into the building, and we're talking about the. The. Basically the elevator and stair lobby.

[A]

I know there were total architect nerds and.

[B]

But here's the thing.

[A]

It just shows you how impactful it is.

[B]

Exactly how simple and amazing that space was because, you know, you talk about it, you talk about, here we have a circle and a square. So first you've, you know, you've entered into.

[A]

You've just trying to be descriptive to the audience here.

[B]

So if you imagine, you know, here you are, you've gone into a big rectangle. As you go into that rectangle, one of the structural bays at the ground floor has been removed to create this compressed, dark space. And then when you go into the space, all of the floors of the next bay in have been removed. And. And now it's all the way up to the skylight, to the, you know, to the roof. And all of these are just simple squares. It's just.

[A]

Yeah, it's one dark void to one bright, bigger void. And then you go back into another dark, small, tight void.

[B]

And then that void is filled.

[A]

You go to the next one. Yeah. And you've got this cylinder inside the cube, which is a void inside of a void. And then you go inside it.

[B]

And then you go. Then you go into the cylinder.

[A]

And.

[B]

And what he greeted with a triangle. Oh, no, no, sorry. This was. This was a square that was across the street. Don't get my stairs confused. You're right, you're right. Don't get them confused. So here we are into a square that is inscribed into the cylinder. Exactly. And you're just like. Come on. Like, I know Just simple moves that are just so brilliantly done.

[A]

And it's all like, on the center axis of the building. You're talking about the order of all of this. And it is so simple and freaking obvious, and yet it just goes to the root of the DNA.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly.

[A]

Immediately.

[B]

Exactly. And so then we walk into the stairs to the cylinder, and the cylinder holds the stairs, and they interconnect all of the different floors. And it's amazing because of course, that same smoothness, that same butter texture of the exterior is carried off into the interior. But here's where I turn this over to you because here's where you basically sat in all four.

[A]

Four light pictures.

[B]

Took a lot of pictures in four flights of looking at stairs and handrails.

[A]

Yeah, this is total stair porn central here. And, and what, what year was this project? Do you know? Offhand, it was 70 something, right?

[B]

Yes, it was late 60s, early 70s. So basically same time as when the Salk was being designed and completed.

[A]

So, so the guardrails and I mean, it's all this kind of steel plate that's just raw steel plate. It's all TIG welded like super perfectly. And, and the, it's, it's what's really cool about the guardrail handrail system was that it, it was all built up out of very simple pieces of plain, flat steel, you know, plate and bent and formed into these really nice to touch, nice to interface with shapes. I mean, so it has this really beautiful radius, different radii that you can, you never have to worry about. Like, it's a harsh, cold material, but it is soft to the touch.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And, and so you have these stainless steel kind of cylindrical rails that you're gr. But the guardrail itself, that's built up out of this plate steel. And it's probably 8th inch plate steel, maybe maybe even thinner, maybe like 3 32. But it's dark, it's this cold material, but it's totally inviting to touch. And it's, and it's really lovely and complex. It's, it's like really well done.

[B]

What's the interesting thing about that though, is even though here it is, this cold steel, it didn't feel cold because I think because it being darker kind of helped warm that space up. And with just this. Here you go. Ready? Ready. The dappling of the light coming down from the top of the cylinder.

[A]

And, and why. Okay, so this is something that, that you were really nerding out over in the stair, which was the way that. Okay, so it's, it's a square in plan. The stairs are square and you're inside of a cylinder. So there's, it's scribed in, but it only touches at those corners. Right. And so the stairs themselves, the treads and the risers, the whole run of stair is held off of the edge of the cylinder so that light can pass through not just the middle of the whole stair, but along the edges of the stair as well. Because you're right, like there is this dappling of light because there's, the lighting in there is warm and it's at every landing going all the way up. But there's also a bunch of. I think it's a skylight at the

[B]

top, like through glass.

[A]

Block or something. So we'll get there in a minute.

[B]

Yeah, but.

[A]

But just all of that filters all the way down to the bottom.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah. What's interesting is the cylinder itself actually stops short of going all the way to the roof. And so when you're in, and I don't want to give it away, another space, you see that it stops short, but it's capped off with glass block. And then above that is the skylight. So you do get that, you know, that light coming through, you know, so it's that borrowed light that then is just because of. And I know that there's certain people who may or may not listen to the show that really hate glass block. I mean, this is a magical.

[A]

This is the way to use it.

[B]

This is the way to use it. If you're going to use it. This is the way to use it.

[A]

Because this is the case study.

[B]

It created such a, A different kind of light. It was a diffused light, but it was also kind of a very dancing, you know, I don't want to say disco ball esque. It wasn't like that, but it wasn't a consistent like, you know, harsh lines and all that other stuff.

[A]

It's like a caustic pattern on the bottom of a pool. Right.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Or reflecting off of a pool surface onto. Onto a wall or something where it just kind of dances along like you're talking about. Yeah, but it's a refraction, right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

It's a reflection and a refraction. And then it's augmented with synthetic lighting too. So all the way down. Because this is a four story stairwell, so. And what's really interesting too is that the floor of the building is not concrete. The flooring on the first floor at least is terrazzo. And that terrazzo is the tread of each step and the landings going up. And so it's just like that material continues to take you upstairs. I mean, that helps warm up the stairwell. Right. Because this is a totally enclosed. There's no windows to daylight. There couldn't be. It's. It's in the middle of a building anyway, except for the skylights at the top, which we just mentioned. But it feels nice in there, even though it's this. Yeah, it's a heavy space to be in to get you to go upstairs. So it's not like the kind of space you want to hang out in. Like we wanted to hang out.

[B]

Yeah, I was gonna say it took

[A]

us, it took us a while to get up.

[B]

A commonly long time to get out. Of a stairwell.

[A]

Yeah. I don't think your wife was in there as long as we were.

[B]

No.

[A]

No, but you, you kind of go through it and you're look, you're just looking at every detail. It's one of those things that really encourages you. How did it, how did they. Why did they do that?

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Oh, that's interesting how those two things go together. And it really encourages you to kind of study it as you go up. Yeah.

[B]

And, you know, so one of the things that, you know, you were talking about is that. That I was kind of enamored with is the fact that not only equally. I think you were enamored by the fact that you've done a lot of metal work in, you know, your handcrafting.

[A]

I love stair design. I just truly, truly love stair design.

[B]

And, and I. And I realized, I guess through some form of osmosis, maybe I actually learned something in architecture school, but that I've copied him on stairs where there's.

[A]

By holding it off, doing the hold off.

[B]

So not only did he hold the stairs off the wall, so there's a. There's a visible gap between the wall and the end of the treads, but then what he did was also hold the. Basically the tread surface that's inside the handrail or terrazzo. He's held that in from there. And so I remember, you know, one of my favorite stairs that we've ever done on a project was we've. We held it off of the wall, then held the terrazzo, the precast terrazzo treads off of it. But it was a, it was just a folding metal plate that, you know, went down the stairs, and then the treads themselves kind of like floated inward of that. And so there was kind of this zone of like, here's like the gap between the stair and the wall, here's the gap between the handrails and the treads, and then here's the treads and every stair.

[A]

There's a hierarchy to all of these elements. Yeah.

[B]

In every stair that we went into, of every building that he did, we saw that. We saw that detail. And it was such. It was beautifully executed, beautifully done. I don't know if I executed as well as he did, but I, you know, it's one of my favorite design aspects of a project that we did.

[A]

And.

[B]

But it was one of those that I look back at things that I've done on projects that are like, direct result of my hand, my thought, my creation that are very con. Esque. We'll talk about it. A little bit more, you know, when we talk about other things as we get in there. But it is definitely something that has been deep rooted in my education and DNA, that some of the simple moves that he's done in, you know, to just kind of like, I swear that I would, I would kick myself when I use this word. But to juxt.

[A]

But here we go.

[B]

But here we go. To juxtapose one material to another. Instead of kissing them, they separate them and give some breathing room between the two. And that is literally something that I've just thought that, you know, it's just natural. Right. That's what you do. You know. Now granted, I had a lot of like, you know, Ivy League professors that, you know, taught me and stuff. And so they were influenced by the things that we're talking about now. And so maybe just through, you know, them and them and them, you know, and that, that starting off with that 6 degree or 2 degree or 1 degree separation between all of these people, you know, I kind of learned these things. I don't really believe that I actually learned anything in architecture school.

[A]

You heard it here first. I think it's interesting. Yeah, you do start to see that. And I think it was already apparent it was happening on the exterior of the building, it was happening in the lobby.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But in here you really start to see it because you're right next, you're right at it and you can see the literal. Like we don't allow these two materials to get too close to each other. Right. And, and that could be 1 inch, 2 inches, 6 inches, it, it depends. But you do start to see it. And by, and here it is with the treads and they're just holding them back from the edges of the poured in place concrete stair. Yeah, it's really cool.

[B]

Then when you get, finally get off of the stairs and go into some of these spaces, one of the ones obviously win it always the stairs always present you back to the main entry atrium. Yes. And so when you're, when you're there, you're always presented to different heights of that. And then as part of the renovations that they just did, they had to make that atrium meet code. And unfortunately I know, yeah, new code. And unfortunately I know that if you have an atrium, you either have to fire separate it or you have to close it off. A lot of times you'll see people fill it in with glass so that, you know it's completely separated. So that separation. Exactly. And, and so they, they went the fire curtain route. And the first thing that you come out of these stairs or you come off of the elevator into that little small vestibule and then you turn and you're faced back towards the, the big entry vestibule with a big entry atrium. You want to like immediately go up and lean over and like look down and all of this other stuff.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And there is a security guard posted at every floor, basically getting ready to yell at you, don't get a hand.

[A]

Can I talk about what I think really matters here? It is not your nerdy smoke system. It's an orientation technique. I think. What, what is so brilliant about this? Like, and you, you mentioned it directly, which is he reorients you back to the space. You came into the building from every level, go up. And that is all about orientation for visitors. And this is a public building. It's not the kind of building that you're going to get to know over time and try to figure out the circulation paths. And I mean, of course that's true for some people, but for most people they're going to experience it one time and it's again, so clean and so obvious about where you are at all times in this building. For a rather large building, what's so brilliant about bringing you into a four story atrium is you get to see where you're going as soon as you get into the building and then to continually remind you where you've been as you move up through the layers is just chef's kiss. Thanks, Luke.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. You know, the thing is, and now that you say this, so you come in, you, you're, you like, of course, you're just sitting there kind of like awestruck, looking at this big, you know, atrium space that's just beautifully warm. You've got the framing of the concrete structure held off inset wood panels that in one of the documentaries he called it basically these, you know, ghost reveals. So it's just the separation between a material and another material is this shadow line. And I blatantly.

[A]

Shadow play.

[B]

Yeah, I blatantly steal that as much as I can in the work that I do.

[A]

So reveal different sizes and scales.

[B]

Different sizes and scales and things like. But one of the things that until you just said it, I didn't realize is that you are immediately informed of what kind of building you're in when you go into that atrium. Because you can see all of the art, you can see hints of it. You don't see like a full piece, you know, work or something like that, but you see hints of off into the gallery that you can see beyond. And you're like, okay, I want to go there. I want to go see that. And again, you're in this one space and you're orienting yourself to like, okay, now where do I need to go? I feel like I want to kick myself every time I say juxtaposed.

[A]

You could say contrast. Yeah.

[B]

But you know, when, when you've got this.

[A]

Join us. When you've got this down here, when you have this circle elevated so much,

[B]

when you have this circle juxtaposed by the square, because you have, you have a four story volume which is the square. You have a four story cylinder which is the stairs. And then you go from the atrium to the stairs and then you again, as you said, reorient it back there. But when you're down there, first of all, the, the stair isn't really apparent when you walk into that, that first space, but the use of the building is very much apparent. You immediately see glimpses, hints of these little peekaboos of what it is that you're there to do. And then when you get up there and you kind of like reorient back towards the atrium, then you walk into the corridor and you're basically faced with a decision of walking completely in a rectangle donut.

[A]

Which is another void. Which is a three story void now.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And I think what's so interesting is. Yeah. Like you just mentioned, like, I'm glad you did like downstairs when you, when you're con. Like, where do I go? And, and that, that stair circulation is what I would call like an innie. Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But then when you get up here into this other three story volume, the stair tower becomes an Audi and it's this object in the space.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

And you immediately know what it is because you were just inside it. But from the outside, there's nothing that you can read on it that says this is a stair tower. But you already know because you've been in it. And so what's cool again is this is an orientation technique. Now you're totally inside a building, you can't see out at all. And you're in another three story volume and you're like, okay, that's how I get up to the next one. I'm going to go back to where I just was again, reorienting you back to this very simple diagr. Gram of circulation. But it's kind of comforting in that way because you. How many museums have you been in where you're just like, I'm gonna be lost Because.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, all the time.

[A]

Right. None of the. The exhibits change. Right. Maybe they don't change here. I don't know. But. But I've been in so many where it's like, I don't know what floor I'm on, let alone who the artist that we're talking about here.

[B]

So one of the things that then once you come into that space, or for me, what really became very obvious was the structural grid and, like, really how he organized everything basically, as either solids and voids of the structural grid, and everything was ordered through where the columns were. You know, how did you cut out? There's certain spaces where you're in, say, the vestibule is one size, then that triple height space that is opposed to that one that has the stair, kind of like being the Audi in that particular case, is basically an extrusion of the atrium, but it's then interrupted by the circulation space and the stair. And you don't visually connect them until you're in certain locations. That's actually on the back side of.

[A]

See both of them.

[B]

That. Where you can see through them and see past the cylinder and then see all the way through.

[A]

See the layers.

[B]

See that? I mean, it's.

[A]

It's incredible.

[B]

Yeah, it is, too, because. Did you go with me out to the. The One Air and Space Museum out near the Dulles Airport? Have you been.

[A]

I'm offended right now that you didn't.

[B]

That I didn't take you to that.

[A]

We did. We did. We did.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'm offended that you don't remember. We talked about it.

[B]

Literally. Literally. How old are you exactly? Like, how long have you known me and how. How long have you known that I have a.

[A]

You and memory? Mr. Brett Levitt went there.

[B]

Okay, but do you. Okay, so. Okay, that's. Right now it's all coming back to me. But do you remember that kind of, like, visual layer when you just walk in the door, you completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I forgot about the whole, like, you know, SR71 and our, you know, jaws dropping and a little bit of drool on her. Lots of drool. But. But I mean, that visual layering of that, I think, is probably one of the most successful moves in a museum. And it literally is that kind of like, visual layering at the British art that depending on where you're standing, you know, you either see one piece, another piece, or all of the pieces. And I thought that was just a brilliant move for me.

[A]

It just keeps going back to orientation. It's so easy to understand the architecture and the procession of spaces throughout this building. That simplicity has got to be difficult to achieve. And yet the way it's presented is just. It's, like, obvious. Like, this is how you do it for this kind of a museum. I'm not saying that this would work everywhere, but it's just. It's pretty incredible.

[B]

Well, what's interesting about it is, is that it gave. Because now that I started to then see the simple ordering of the building, then you started to see that the hierarchy was given to the art, not to the museum, that all of those simple moves were basically created and intended to be made for the artwork.

[A]

In service to.

[B]

Yeah, in service to what it was, what it's there for. And you see, you know, you've been to numerous museums where the art, you know, the architecture is the art as much as the art is. And so there's this competition between them. And in some cases, I've seen an extraordinarily successful combat between.

[A]

It's like a collaboration.

[B]

Exact levels.

[A]

Right. They're coordinated. They. They complement each other. Right.

[B]

But then I also think, sometimes, what is the architect there to serve? And in this particular case, it's clear that it's there to serve. The art in the great.

[A]

Wasn't clear to me because I didn't care about the art. Well, but, I mean, I know what you're saying.

[B]

Yeah, but. But what was the. What was amazing about it? So here, you know, let's just. When we got all the way to the top floor, and here you are, you're engaged with all of these, like, clear story. What do we want to call them? These pyramidal kind of, like, clear stories that they had.

[A]

Yeah, they're kind of a prism. Yeah, yeah. Really beautiful. Filtering, the way that they filter and refract the light.

[B]

And so it doesn't filter so much intense light into the space that it overwhelms the space. It creates a nice, constant, simple glow that lights the space up. That there's, like, absolutely almost, in a way, no need for artificial light, with the way that the fourth floor kind of like, pulls in all of this light and basically cascades it through. You know, whether it's through the atrium spaces or, you know, and then filter in from there or just on that one. It is a master class on how to control natural light to basically do your bidding. Because then this podcast is highlighted. Wind me up, get me going, and I'll just start talking. You know, I'll talk to the wall. If the. You know, if the wall is willing

[A]

to Listen, I know you'll talk to the security guards about it.

[B]

I know that I'll talk to some security guards. Which was interesting is that they were very interested in it or they were very nice in and made it look like they were interested. But what I did actually find very interesting is I did notice that you and my wife, like, just slinked away as they. You saw me like, Gavin, there he goes, he's talking to him like, you

[A]

know, I'm gonna go see more of this building while Cormac talks to the

[B]

security guard for 30 minutes about the building.

[A]

I just wanted to mention, because you talked about, like, that cascading light. That's a great way to describe it. And I'll say, I wonder what this place is like at night. So during the day, it's, it's amazing. And so obviously there is artificial lights in here as well, and there's a lot of different types of cans. And I mean, the. I think the lighting design is really well done, and I bet it feels really different at night.

[B]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And another building that you hear me talk about a lot is the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, Maryland. And what I find amazing about that one is that they do a very similar thing where they have, you know, these light monitors that bring in a lot of. Of daylighting. But then what's interesting about it is, is that they also have it very light controlled where. So if it's overcast or if it starts to dusk or whatever, the artificial lighting will actually start to slowly ramp up. So it will stay consistently that same type of light, like, throughout the light intensity, the light color, like, everything is controlled in a way that. That's what you feel in an interesting. I kind of hope. I hope, you know, like, that something like that kind of occurs here too.

[A]

Can we go back into the stairs, Cormac?

[B]

Sure, sure.

[A]

Well, I mean, if we go up to the fourth floor. So we just got to experience kind of this second void. Oh, inside the, the donut. And you saw the stair that. The Audi of the stair, that I called it. Right. But it does, like you said earlier, it doesn't go all the way to the roof, so it's. It's held short. And I think that's. That was an interesting choice. Right, but. But to your point earlier, it's like those, those prismatic skylights continue over the top of the elevator, and then in the cap of the cylinder are those glass blocks that we talked about, and they are placed in the top of the cylinder in another square that's been scribed into the lid.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's 45 degrees off of the orientation of the stairs. So it creates this really cool. Like you were. You talked that dappled light effect and that those caustic patterns are literally printed on the walls.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Because you are at the lid of the cylinder when you get up to the fourth floor, you're not at the lid of the building, which is probably 10ft or 8ft higher. It's held short on purpose, again, to kind of compress you before you move out into the space. Again, oriented now at the top of the entry void that you came into the building, which is really cool to experience it on all those different levels. And the prisms of glass over that entry void were different than they are on the inner void. They are more clear because there's no artwork directly in that entry void. And so the light that comes through those is like literal skylight lighting. But back in the inner void, I don't know what else to call these things. It's much more prismatic and filtered because that's what the art is. And they have to be protected right. From the uv. So such a different experience in all of these spaces from the skylighting, which is so cool. But it's right there, and it's this really simple move that has a really dramatic, deep effect on. On you as you're kind of elevating through the building, getting closer and closer to the light, which is at the top. And here you just kind of get to feel it. So. So it's like this spatial compression, but the lighting is at its most intense, which I think is kind of an interesting contrast as you get to the top of the. The stairwell. So thanks for obliging me getting back into the stairs here.

[B]

Yeah. So I. I do have one question real quick. I guess if kidnapped you is the right word, because, like, you were like, yeah, man. You know, why do I have to, like, kind of go out of my way, take a train? Can you just come pick me up and let's go there?

[A]

I don't want to go to Yale, man.

[B]

But would you say if, you know this is on anyone's bucket list, that this is something that they have to see?

[A]

Only if you can get inside, but yes, absolutely. And this is what I drew, this contrast when we were there. Because you haven't been to the Salk yet, right?

[B]

No.

[A]

I mean, you're. You're a loser, but I know you don't have to get to the inside of the Salk like, of course, you want to get in the courtyard of the Salk, but. But the actual inside of the Salk is not utilitarian.

[B]

It is a lab building.

[A]

You've got to get to the inside of this because this. This is the courtyard of the Salk, but in a different. A completely different way.

[B]

So the British art and the Salk were basically the last two projects, and from everything, they basically are the opposite of each other. One is very much an exterior exercise of space making of the exterior place. Right. The courtyard and the arrangement of the buildings and everything else. I mean, yes, it is also designed for being a lab building and research facility and things like that. But I think everybody always talks about this is his masterpiece of exterior and vice versa. I think for me, the British Arts was definitely one of his masterpieces for interior.

[A]

Now, what is so similar about them is that we're talking about the public spaces and how similar they are, even though one's outside and one's inside.

[B]

Exactly, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And the Salk is locked off now with. With fences. I don't know that it was always like that. And so the Salk is not a public building by any means. It's a private research facility. And they've upgraded security over the years, but I'm pretty sure that that courtyard was open back in the day, as it were. And I think what's so interesting about what Kahn did in both of these projects is like he really is kind of commanding the environment. At the Salt, you've got this trough that runs down the center of the courtyard. And on that one day of the year when the sun sets and it's aligned with the trough, and it's just this glorious experience. And in this space, it's a completely different function, but he's still commanding the light as it enters this building. And the way that the building interacts with this much, much larger idea of the environment, I think is what makes these both so successful. And it is interesting that they're both happening at the same and there are very close similarities, and there are very big differences at the same time. Obviously, two completely different projects. But you can see in the mind how there is this culmination of his work coming together in very different ways. But in these projects that do seem linked in a very tangible way, you

[B]

definitely see an interesting evolution of an idea and how he plays it out through a multitude of different buildings trying out these ideas, like the simple way he treated the stairs. And in all of the different ways, the buildings that we went to had similar Ideas, but different executions of the. Of a stair. Yeah.

[A]

I think, I think it's like different expressions. It's like genes in a human.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And different one through epigenetics are turned on and off and then you have this different expression. It could be eye color, it could be hair, it could be all these different things. But it's like the genes are there. Right. All the chromosomes are there. And you see that in the DNA of these buildings. And it's a slight change, different expression. So cool. So cool to see that.

[B]

I will say this. You can harass me about the. Me having these long conversations with the security guards and stuff. But one of the things that. So you know, here we are. We're in.

[A]

It was really cute.

[B]

We're in the main gallery. It's the three story volume. Volume where all of the galleries look into this three story volume. And so you can.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You can have all sorts of different views and perspectives of this space. With now the Audi of the cylinder of the stair. Yeah. Occupying a good portion of this. And first you think to yourself, well, why would you waste quite a bit of space in that. In this gallery space, in this main gallery space to a stair? But to be quite honest with you, in my opinion it somewhat softens the overall space. The austerity of this big like the

[A]

rigidity of the, of the structure and the grid and all of those things. Yeah.

[B]

And then as you look at the volume of the stair, it's punctuated by windows at the bottom. When you enter into the gallery, it's doors and then every floor above it's stairs that basically just kind of like replicate the doors. This, this kind of like entry. So there's almost like the stair volume itself is separated by these voids behind it that then you kind of get this kind of like different perspective depending on where you're standing. But the thing that I liked about like some of these conversations were in that particular gallery space. Here we are and we're looking around and joints. We're looking at all these different spaces. We're looking up at the thing.

[A]

We're looking at how the, the fire department connections are hidden behind these invisible panels All.

[B]

Yeah. All of these different things. And I asked them, I'm like, how many times do you get people like this that are basically in there looking. Weirdos. Weirdos like us that are sitting there looking around at the building in. And I had joked him. I'm like, oh look, there's art here kind of thing. Because it's like, I'm not Much like. Much like the Glenstone. I'm not there for the art. I'm there for the building. And then he says, sees tons of us, tons of architecture nerds looking at this building and all this other stuff, but he was sharing with us the spaces that he enjoys. He's like, oh, the best view. You've got to go up to the third floor and go over here. And then you can see this and this and this. And so they're thinking about it as well. And they're thinking about it maybe in a completely different way, but also what the intent of, like, any architect is to have a building engage people who aren't architects. And for the building to be able to speak to him where he's got favorite spaces, where the view, the light speaks to him, means that it's sort of, I guess Lou had something going there.

[A]

Successful. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, it's pretty successful. And. And then with my subsequent conversations with two other security guards, I was talking to this. I was talking to this kid, and he started asking me questions. He's like, well, what do you see when you're looking at this building? He's like, I have, you know, I see people come in all the time, and they're looking at the building and all of this other stuff. And he goes. And he goes, like, I never really engaged them to, like, ask them what the hell they're looking at everybody else, you know, like, with families and everybody else. They're coming in to look at the art. And you get these people who come in, and they're just distinctly different because they're looking at concrete, wood, light, all of these other things. And we just started talking, and he kept asking me more questions and stuff. And it was interesting to see how willing he was to engage, ask questions about how I see the building. And he was just like, I don't think that I'm ever going to be able to see this building the way that I saw this building versus the way that I see it now. In this conversation that I'm having with you, I'm going to see a lot of the things that you are. You're talking about. Because he goes, I've never paid attention to that stuff. He goes, none of that stuff made any sense to me. And now, I guarantee you, he's probably going to be sitting there if he's, like, just at that. That cross corridor where he gets to yell at people for leading into the atrium spaces and obstructing the potential fire shutters coming down and don't want to get Them want to get between a fire shutter. Exactly.

[A]

And a hard thing.

[B]

And so I was talking to him about the way the light comes in and the way the light lights this up and cascades across here and it create, you know, you say, like I told him, like, step back and look down the. Look down the center of the space and you're framed off by a gallery here and the void here and how the light is different in those spaces and how it illuminates the artwork and stuff. He's like looking at it. He's just like, I see it. I see what you're seeing called indoctrination. Cormac it is. And if he goes off into architecture school, awesome. I'm your evangelist. I'm here for the day.

[A]

So when we got up to that upper floor, I wanted something we. So the grid, there's a thing in this building, it's like a three dimensional grid and it's really heavy at the very top. Right. The structure of those concrete beams that are separating those from each other are heavy and canted. What I thought was interesting when we got to the top and you start to. You see hints of this on the way up because the grid kind of goes up and meets those. And these pilasters, for lack of a better term, from inside that void, are skinnier than the beams that are going across. But then when we got up into those upper galleries, you see the grid on the floor because they've brought the terrazzo up just where the grid is. And then there's squares of carpet in between there.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And then the way that the columns go up and these very thin concrete columns go up and they don't quite touch the underside of those trapezoidal beams. They're held with a reveal off of it. But they're so much smaller. The footprint of the column is so much smaller than where the beams intersect. And all of that is just the scale and proportion of all these different elements and the way that they touch or don't touch. I thought it was just this incredible study that could be done about that.

[B]

That in another building that we'll talk about in a future episode. Because it's repeated again. Again, it's in. It's one of these languages where he's R and D these ideas that he R Ds throughout execution of different buildings. But you see it repeating over and over again in different forms. In one, there's this exterior expression. This one, it's kind of this interior expression. And even in. In a way it has an exterior one. Where, you know, you've got like this heavier, wider columns and then they slowly shrink as they go up. And you see that same thing as you're saying when you go inside, they still shrink when they go up, that they're smaller.

[A]

It makes sense, right? Because they don't. They're not holding up as much. Exactly how many times would you just copy paste? Oh, yeah. In a modern, I get a six. Yeah. They're all instances of whatever's on the bottom floor. They get the same thing on the upper floor. Not here. Nope. Nope. And. And why not? Because they don't need to be.

[B]

It's because of the use of the atrium. You can see that they're. You're visually connected to the one you're standing, say, behind you. And then you're looking back towards the atrium and you can see clearly. Because I think that was one of the first things you and I were talking about when we walked into the atrium space was this kind of like descending width as it goes up.

[A]

You pointed that out. It's funny because I've never noticed that before because it's like you're just glancing at this stuff. Okay, what's on the next page? What's the Linux? I want to get to the cool stuff. Right. But this is the study. They get thinner and then a little thinner at the top and the material fills that space in. Sometimes the gap, you know, the reveal between them gets bigger. And that is maintained like it maintains one line while these other stepping is happening. That level of study is absolutely incredible. It's so cool to actually see it.

[B]

And that's when you say, I can sit here in this space for hours, just staring, just sketching, just photographing, Just watching the way that the light moves across the space.

[A]

That would be a really cool thing to be able to do, I think. One thing I do notice, like I'm looking at my pictures is you do see a dark spot on the concrete at hand level. People are touching these buildings. I mean, this is not different than like the IM Pei, like the corner of the museum in Washington D.C. where it's literally worn away because so many people want to touch that sharp edge. It's like, don't touch the art, but you can touch the building.

[B]

You know, it's funny, I got to tell you this real quick, real quick. Side note, you just mentioned the I.M. pei Corner, East Gallery, National Gallery of Arts in D.C. this is the second day in a row that I've talked about that particular detail, that particular. That particular dirt spot. Yeah, it's kind of amazing. These are the things that are lasting memories of things. It's just like, why is this like, you know, this beautiful little sharp edge? Or how the hell did he get this concrete so smooth? Or why is this descending width of things as you move up through the building and stuff? And now we're like, oh yeah, you know, if it's just a 16 by 16 column and we're doing that 16 by 16 column all the way up and not even think twice about it, you know, we're just going to do it all the way up. And then you think he was just like, well, why, to be quite honest with you, if you were working for a developer or something like that, if you like shrink it as you go up, you're actually saving them on cost of material and everything else. But they're just like, no, actually I can just reuse that form all the way up. And that's the problem is like efficiency.

[A]

Right.

[B]

I don't think this is one of those exercises of ill. If, if Lou was just able to convince them, I don't think they had a choice. From, from what I understand, from what I understand, the one thing that he didn't waver, they're like, Lou, I think we should do this. It's like, yeah, hey, thank you for your input. Shut up.

[A]

I'll take that into consider. I heard a funny story about, I think it was Mel Brooks, you know, famous movie specials and what all, all this. He would go into the, the studio office, talk with the producers and they, they had input for the film and he, he would take in a yellow notepad and he would write all their input down. He would get really excited about it. Oh yeah, great idea. I was like, you should do this in the movie. You should change this character. Oh yeah, yeah. And he'd write it all down and the meeting was over. He'd walk out of the room, rip out the pages, wad him up into a ball and throw them in the trash.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

So if Lou was like that, more power to him. There was another thing that he did that we saw in a few buildings. And so I guess we can go back to your nerding out about the shutters that come down. He's a master at multi use of what goes in the grid. Right. He has these service bays, but in this building it's the structural grid and it's the mechanical grid. And somehow they're all in the same place at the same time.

[B]

And you and I were standing there staring just like. Because we saw a fire department kind of connection.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And we're sitting there like, oh, look at the way that he hid the standpipes. Because here you got something that normally you would see standpipes within the stairs. Run them up through the, you know, the rated stairs.

[A]

And be right there.

[B]

They'd be right there. And here he took them out of that. Because the stair. That's an architectural thing. Don't. Don't put. Don't put anything in here.

[A]

You.

[B]

Right. And you know, the thing is, is that we talk about. It's just like, oh, yeah. But, you know, I mean, this is the way that the code, this prescriptive code. I'll talk about this, and we'll do this. And this is what we have to do because that's what the code says. And I see these spaces like, I see the Apple store in Chicago or.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Or go back to the Glenstone again. And you see, it's just like, okay, well, you need standpipes, but they put them in locations.

[A]

You need fire extinguisher cabinets.

[B]

You need fire extinguisher cabinets, but they conceal them in, you know, in a very, very simple, beautiful, elegant way. And he does the same thing here. And it was just like, who would have thought that back in the late 60s, early 70s, here's precedents for fighting the law.

[A]

I wonder if that's original. Do you think that is original, those metal covers of everything?

[B]

Yeah, I do.

[A]

I really wasn't part of the renovation

[B]

because I get a book sitting behind me that I won't swing around, that it completely works.

[A]

Cool.

[B]

And actually has photographs of those.

[A]

That's. That's pretty cool. I'm really impressed with the level of detail in which the. The utilities are organized. And so you just don't see shit all over the walls, like all these little warts. And you see the outlets are in this one zone.

[B]

So simple.

[A]

It's stuff where it's like, there are these zones, and this is where those things are allowed to go, and we have to figure out how to make that happen. And they did. I mean, it's. It's super successful in service to the art.

[B]

Right.

[A]

All of this stuff disappears, literally disappears, because it's well thought out and well designed, and it allows the art to stand alone and not have to have these warts detracting from it. Well, we've gone on quite a long time about this project. I hope people enjoyed this conversation. This is why we got into this profession in the first place. So if you did like it, let us know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Please hit a thumbs up on YouTube or go to arcaspeakpodcast.com, click the feedback link, leave a comment on the YouTube video, hit us up on LinkedIn. We always post about the episodes on there. And more amazing architecture to come in the summer of ARCA speak. Going to the AIA conference?

[B]

Yeah. All right.

[A]

Next time, see you.