← On with Kara Swisher
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- [00:01]
Kara Swisher
How would you describe your sensibility? Because it's not whimsical. There's a lot of architects who are whimsical.
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Jeanne Gang
Not whimsical. I don't even like that word at all.
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Kara Swisher
I don't either.
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Jeanne Gang
Good.
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Kara Swisher
Hi, everyone.
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Narrator/Producer
From New York magazine and the Vox Media podcast network, this is on with Kara Swisher. And I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is architect Jeanne Gang. She leads Studio Gang, an international architecture and urban design firm. Some of her standout projects include the Gilder center at the American Museum of Natural History and Solar Carve, which are both in Manhattan. The Arcus center for Social Justice Leadership in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Populous hotel in Denver. Gang's first skyscraper, the 82 story Aqua Tower in Chicago, was the tallest female designed one in the world. That is, until she designed the 101
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Kara Swisher
story St. Regis Chicago Tower.
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Narrator/Producer
Gang's work has been praised for its boldness and common sense. Her designs are remarkably varied. No two buildings look alike. They're united by the desire to connect people to each other and to the environment. Gang has received many honors over the course of her career, including the MacArthur Fellowship and most recently the 2026 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture. She's also a professor at the Harvard
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Kara Swisher
Graduate School of Design.
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Narrator/Producer
I know it's unusual for me to interview an architect, but I actually want to be one a long time ago, and in fact went to a summer school at the Harvard School of Design and found out that I wasn't very talented at architecture. And I decided to go into journalism instead, which I was, as it turns out, pretty good at. But architecture has always inspired me and I renovate a lot of houses. I do a lot of things around architecture. And when I saw Gang's Aqua Tower in Chicago without even knowing she had done it, I was so moved and thought it was such a beautiful building,
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Kara Swisher
I needed to know everything about the
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Narrator/Producer
architect who made it. And of course, it was Jeanne Gang. Every time I look at one of
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Kara Swisher
her buildings, I'm inspired. They're all different and as she'll talk
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Narrator/Producer
about later, they are like poetry but in architecture. And I really do admire her. And I think it's important to talk to people I admire. And I think you will, once you get to know her. Our expert question today comes from Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York Magazine and Curbed.
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Kara Swisher
Even if you know nothing about architecture, you want to hear this, because Gang is working to solve major social and
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Narrator/Producer
environmental problems that affect us all. This is a great conversation. So Stick around.
- [02:54]
Matt Buchel
Hey, I'm Matt Buchel, comedian, writer, and floating head you may or may not have seen on your fyp. And I'm starting a brand new podcast. Wait, Don't Swipe Away. It's called that Sounds like a Lot. You know that feeling when you check your phone, read a few headlines and think, that sounds like a lot. I can't do this. Well, I. And I'm going to get into it every Friday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast. I'm going to start by breaking down whatever insanity is happening in the world. And then I'll sit down with a comedian or actor or writer or honestly, anyone who responds to my DMs. This is not the place to get the news, but it is a place to feel a little bit better about it. That sounds like a lot. Coming May 1st part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
- [03:29]
Rabbit Arcan
Burn your five pound weights. I'm Rabbit Arcan. I'm an athlete and fitness instructor. And I am telling you, unless you have been limited to lighter weights by a medical professional, they're honestly inexcusable. You need to be lifting heavy. And I'm talking especially to the women out there. Toned arms. What can your body do? This week on Project Swagger. What heavy means and rules to bring into your routine? Listen now.
- [03:59]
Podcast Host (Explain it to Me)
More and more Americans are finding themselves taking care of their kids and their parents at the same time.
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Kara Swisher
Well, you know, I joke that there's a dark game which I was playing. Which family member will identify disappoint today.
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Podcast Host (Explain it to Me)
How to care for others without burning out in the process. That's this week on Explain it to Me. Find new episodes Sundays. Wherever you get your podcasts,
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Esteed Herndon
It is on.
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Kara Swisher
Jeannie, thanks for coming on on.
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Jeanne Gang
Thanks for having me.
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Kara Swisher
So you. You are my single favorite architect. I don't know if you know that, but you are indeed. And that's why I have you here.
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Jeanne Gang
Well, that is special. That's an honor.
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Kara Swisher
It's an honor. So you have a very expansive view of architecture and what it's capable of accomplishing. And you often use the phrase actionable idealism to describe what you do. I thought that was really interesting. Can you explain what that means and how the concept manifests itself in architecture, in your work?
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Jeanne Gang
Well, that came about. I was trying to communicate why, I guess why we do architecture. And oftentimes you receive a brief and it has the parameters of what you're supposed to. Supposed to design. But I found that sometimes there's a lot more opportunity to what the impact a project can have than just what's in that brief. So this comes from the idea that we are idealistic. We want to make the world a better place and to improve the condition, but we also have to be realistic and actionable. Means that step by step, we can get there, but we need to think about the long view and work intentionally toward each day toward making that a reality, to make the cities we want to have, to make the world we want to live in. And so that's what it means for us. And I think in the work, it's really about looking for that connection between the immediate project and the longer goal. So one example is sometimes we do projects that are not a brief at all. It might be just something we want to do with our skills as architects, is being able to help people visualize things and imagine things. One of the first examples I guess I could give is just that the Chicago river, which is a place, it's a resource, it's a river. It was reversed more than 100 years ago. And as an environment, it has become polluted. It causes flooding and all these things. And in that reversal, actually had some negative impacts downstream as well with pollutants. It was to save the drinking water of Chicago, but the pollutants ended up going all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico, causing other problems. So this idea of, like, what could we do about this situation of the river? Was the subject of the thought. And then we worked with other not for profits and things to try to help envision what it could look like if we unreversed the river. What could it be? What would the potential be? What would the benefits be? And so it's a little bit like working scientifically with researchers and people that understand the animal and wildlife that live in the river, people that are in engineering, infrastructure and so on, and bringing those things together to kind of try to imagine what a different way could be. So that was the kind of impetus of really turning on people to accessing the river. I guess, number one step for people was to appreciate that that is a resource. It's not just an industrial waterway. It's many things to people, animals and so on.
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Kara Swisher
So this is through architecture to do this.
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Jeanne Gang
So through architecture is what brings people to. It's the beauty of architecture. It's the ability of it to bring people together that can start to spark that action. So with the river, we and some other architects did projects along the river to give access to the public. And we did these boathouses, designed boathouses that were for Youth and boating groups. And they start to engage with the river in new ways and realize it's like, even if it's dirty, it's still hours, you know, and that helps to activate people toward being stewards, toward caring about it.
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Narrator/Producer
So let's talk about your larger career
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Kara Swisher
in design philosophy because, I mean, many people don't think about architecture in this
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Narrator/Producer
way, but you started your firm, Studio
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Kara Swisher
Gang in Chicago in 1997 and you realized early, I love this because I didn't want to work for men. I don't want to be bossed by them, end quote. I get this completely. That's how I designed my career, not men. I didn't want to be bossed by anybody. But talk about, talk about how you sort of began the firm itself.
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Jeanne Gang
Well, at that time there weren't too many women run firms to work for. And also. And it wasn't just because they were men. It's just like the model of it was very constraining. And I always thought of architecture as a medium, more like a medium that you can use to put projects into the world, working together with other. With clients and collaborators, but also just your own thoughts, which is what I was talking about with the river. So I was thinking that architecture could be much more of a mode of expression, a way to be in the world, a way to act in the world. And that's just what I wanted to set up. And it just didn't exist. So that's why I had to. And I looked forward to starting my own thing.
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Kara Swisher
Why didn't it exist?
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Jeanne Gang
I think it was just, you know, with the constraints of each profession. And architecture was set up in the way that it is. It has a certain. We do have to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public and people that use our buildings. And so there's rules like that, but there's other ways you can practice as well that are either scholarly research or activations or, you know, guerrilla architecture, I guess you could say. You can do many things that help express what you believe in, what you care about. It's just the profession itself had some constraints. I think that's what people were following. But now it's much more open. There's people doing a lot of really interesting things. I think maybe I was on the front end of that.
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Kara Swisher
Yeah. Although I mean, historically Julia Morgan or Louise Blanchard, Bethune, Buffalo. I loved her architecture, for sure.
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Jeanne Gang
Yeah. There's definitely hidden figures within architecture realm of women that have been practicing for a long time. And it's great to bring their Stories forward, too.
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Kara Swisher
So nearly half of the world's population live in cities where the relation between people and nature is arguably under strain. And this is something you're just talking about, and you've talked about how you view yourself as a relationship builder between people, communities and nature. Talk about some of the ways that has worked out, and what are some of the ways you strengthen that relationship and what's the problem?
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Jeanne Gang
I'm a big observer of nature, and I love. I learn a lot from it, and I am inspired by it. So I've always been thinking about why isn't there more biodiversity within cities? Because I think a lot of people born in cities or kids born in cities might not be exposed to that amazing wealth of biodiversity. So I think when I think about relationships, I always think about ecosystems because we're part of a bigger web of life and we're just one part of it, and there's many other parts of it, including the water and the air, but all the living things. So how can we make places that highlight that relationship that let us have access to that? And so I've been really excited about working in cities where you can bring that to the fore or even in just an ordinary project. How can you bring more awareness about the environment and set up a place where people can have that relationship?
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Kara Swisher
What gets in the way of that? How do you strengthen it and what hinders that?
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Jeanne Gang
Well, I think one thing is people have separated themselves from nature or not even considered ourselves animals, but we are. So there's just that construct of separation between humans and animals. And so we've done that with our environments. We've paved things. We put trees in cities, we put them in small containers in the ground and don't let them connect to each other. So there's just a lack of understanding of how it all works together. And we've designed out, for whatever reason, the relationships, so it's tried to bring them back together, like, you know, designing a place in the city. One of the places we designed was the nature boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo. So I don't really like zoos that much, but this is a zoo with no cages in it, and it's just an outdoor area that has a pond that we revamped so that it could. So that it could sustain life in it. And. And added a boardwalk for people to use and a pavilion. And it's just like. It's just a really rich area full of nature. People love going there, and it's right in the middle of the city these days. I'M worried more about what's not in the city, since cities are starting to be, in a way more biodiverse than what's outside the city because of the way people's preferences for just monoculture, lawns and things like that. And also just the way that the area around the outside of the city has become more occupied by logistics and data centers and things like that. And it's starting to really change the balance there. So maybe cities are actually kind of like a very important safety place for. Yeah.
- [14:08]
Kara Swisher
Oh, that's interesting. I think you're right. Data centers. I'll get to data centers. That thing you're talking about is in Chicago. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful place. But obviously your most famous building is the Aqua Tower in Chicago. It's an 82 skyscraper that was completed in 2010. It's your first skyscraper, I think. Is that correct?
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Jeanne Gang
I didn't even think I was going to be doing one of those.
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Kara Swisher
Well, it's a remarkable building for anyone who has not seen it. It's both technical and from an anesthetic point of view. Talk about the tower itself, because besides being beautiful and striking, it's also interacting with the environment in a way that people may not realize initially.
- [14:47]
Jeanne Gang
Yeah, absolutely. Every floor is a slightly different shape, which creates this visual of almost waves along the facade, but it's really made up of individual floor plates. And the reason why they are the way they are, which is irregular, I would say, like irregular organics, curved. It allows people to see other people while they're on the facade, when they're out on their balcony, as opposed to, you know, like, trying to separate them off so it feels more like you're on the porch or something, as opposed to in a little box. So another thing that the irregularity does is to break up the wind pressure so it doesn't build up speed, so it confuses the wind. And that way it makes it more comfortable for people to be on their balcony. Even in a city like Chicago, which is windy and also pretty cold most of the time. But the idea was just like, at the time, how can we do a tall building that allows people to be out and be part of the city and part of their building at the same time, kind of in a community, see each other and just step outside? Which when we did that, it really wasn't that there weren't that many buildings.
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Kara Swisher
No, they're straight up and down.
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Narrator/Producer
Most skyscrapers have.
- [16:11]
Kara Swisher
Maybe if they have balconies, they. They're not accessible to other people.
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Jeanne Gang
Inside. And this is. You still want privacy if you live in a tall building, but you also want community. And that's what we were trying to bring to that project.
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Kara Swisher
And it looks like birds or the wind. It looks like the wind essentially moving. Was there a design idea there to make it look like that?
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Jeanne Gang
Well, like I said, I really look a lot at nature and the processes of nature, and sometimes you find patterns that exist in one thing or a totally different thing. In this case, I was kind of inspired by those rocks along Lake Michigan that are eroded by the wind or water. But then that also looks like a pattern. Someone sent me a photo of a pattern of sand on a beach that looked exactly like a.
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Kara Swisher
Just like the wind has hit.
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Jeanne Gang
Yeah.
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Kara Swisher
Yeah.
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Jeanne Gang
So, yeah, you find these synergies between these different patterns that you find in nature, and they're always for a reason, and they exist at different scales.
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Kara Swisher
Why did you not want to build a skyscraper? You said you never thought you would build one.
- [17:22]
Jeanne Gang
I didn't not want to. I just didn't think anyone would ever ask me to, to be honest. Because when I started my firm, I had worked in and bigger firms, and really at that time, it was really the corporate firms that were doing the high rises. So I got a lucky break. I ran with it. I hadn't pictured it before, but when I started, I like to start with, like, this beginner's mind with everything. And I did with that. It was like, what are people? Why are people designing high rises the way they are? Which were really. And you still see this, like, compositions of different patterns of grids and different curtain walls and colors and textures. And I was really thinking about, like, how does it feel to live there? And it can be isolating. I mean, get in an elevator and you are. It feels awkward. You don't have an outlet for connecting to your neighbors very well. So that was driving it. That was one problem I saw or opportunity. And then just the. The fact that you just can't be outside outdoors and see other people. And that's one of the things that led to the design. Design. Yeah. So, like, with my work and our work, I would say we always try to find, like, functional reasons, technical reasons. At the time, with Aqua Tower, it was like, you can't make every floor different. Are you crazy? Because how are we going to build that? And luckily, working together with engineers and the developer of that building, Jim Lomberg, who happened to be an architect also, but he was a developer. He was like, I think we can do this. We talked about flexible Formwork. We could use GPS to lay out the points. And all the technology was there. It just hadn't been used that way before.
- [19:21]
Kara Swisher
But in a lot of ways, designer Thomas Heatherwick says we've gotten used to buildings are boring and says new buildings are, quote, too monotonous, too anonymous, too serious. And obviously that's not an issue with your buildings. Do you think many of your fellow architects are reluctant to depart from that norm that you're talking about and take these aesthetic risks?
- [19:41]
Jeanne Gang
Well, I think modernism was a very strong influence on a lot of us. And there's. And not that many people can do beautiful curves, to be honest. I mean, some people make curves and they just look up, so they know it and they just stay away from it. I'm not saying I do all curves, but, you know, I know how to make it look good. And so there's maybe an avoidance of it because there's difficulty. There can be expense if you're not using the right materials. Very difficult to curve. Let's say wood, or not just wood, but any material. Concrete is pretty easy because it's fluid. Anyway. That could be one reason. And then I think that it's not just the architects. It could be that the owners of the people commissioning the buildings want something more ordinary or that looks like whatever is next to it. Not every building should be extraordinary. Maybe some buildings should be quieter and flexible and, you know, so those are all things that we have to take into account, all of us architects and. And budgets. And there's many, many factors. That's one reason I love architecture. It's like, it's not just my art, you know, it's what I do with each client that makes. Produces something totally different and new every time. Like something that you do together with
- [21:11]
Kara Swisher
the client and then speaking to other buildings nearby, presumably.
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Jeanne Gang
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's part of a community of buildings that make a city. There's. You can have a dialogue between buildings of different eras. Like an asynchronous collaboration, if you will,
- [21:28]
Kara Swisher
which you can do in Chicago very well, actually, and in New York, too. When you're thinking about this sort of making it interesting, does that put you
- [21:36]
Narrator/Producer
out on an edge?
- [21:37]
Kara Swisher
Because I think you're known for interesting buildings. Right. Presumably. I know when I see your buildings, for example, even if they're not the same, they're similar. Does that make sense?
- [21:47]
Jeanne Gang
Right. There's a sensibility to them.
- [21:51]
Kara Swisher
How would you describe your sensibility? Because it's not whimsical. There's a lot of architects who are whimsical, not whimsical.
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Jeanne Gang
I don't even like that word at all.
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Kara Swisher
I don't either.
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Jeanne Gang
Good. No. It's like trying to find the poetry in the everyday things that you have to make. And so we've never had really big budgets on our projects ever. I mean, I started out with community centers and not for profits. All over Chicago we're building community centers and there's never much excess budget. There never is. So then you have to try to find out how can you make something special, customize it for them, and make a discovery. I love discovering things. Like it could be a discovery in form or it could be a discovery in, like, what a material is capable of. And that's how I get adrenaline rush.
- [22:48]
Narrator/Producer
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- [24:13]
Maria Sharapova
I'm Maria Sharapova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Follow Pretty Tough wherever you get your podcasts.
- [24:42]
Mitch Purse
I'm Mitch Purse, two time NWSL Champion, Championship MVP and forward for the US Women's National Team. Before I went pro, I graduated from Harvard with a degree in psychology, which comes in handy more than you think. Any athlete pursuing greatness knows there's a certain mentality you have to have. What people don't know is what that costs. In my podcast, Confessions of an Elite Athlete, I sit down with the best athletes in the world and explore the psychology, mindset, and unseen battles on the path to greatness. So take a seat and learn from the Confessions of an elite athlete on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:31]
Kara Swisher
Let's then focus on architecture, community and relationships. A 2023 Surgeon General report found that even before the pandemic, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness. There's a link between increased isolation and decline of so called third spaces or informal public places to socialize. Now you've designed community centers, museums, university buildings and other places for people to gather. And Studio Gang has developed a of design strategies for communities to use, reimagining their civic comments talk about these strategies and the idea of community. It's something I talk about a lot, especially because I cover technology and what it does to us. Because technology is not a third space.
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Jeanne Gang
It just isn't. No, I know there's nothing like getting together in a physical space with others. And so the architecture can set up a way for people to connect with each other in a comfortable way so that it's not awkward. And it's like about setting up spaces that encourage behaviors that are community oriented. And there's two ways of thinking about community. One is like how you design it so that it encourages that. So like the physical space. But before that it's like asking the community what they want. I think that's really important and so engaging with people. And that's not something you can do through technology really. I mean you need to talk to people, hear what they care about and especially for public space so that it can inform the response and also to make it so that people are part of that process of in a democracy, people don't.
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Kara Swisher
I just came out recently out of Moynihan Station, which is beautiful in its own way, but I keep thinking they hate people. Whoever designed this hates people.
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Jeanne Gang
Why?
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Kara Swisher
Because you can't gather anywhere. It's quite beautiful, but it's not. I don't know, it's not a public space. I'm not sure why it's not even though it's a train station.
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Jeanne Gang
Just my it feels quiet in there. Yeah, I don't know.
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Kara Swisher
You can't sit and there's reasons for that and everything else. But what is the strategy for a good community space? Because this is one of the things that is Affecting our health, is affecting our mental issues around people. And I think the comedy of people around our country, we don't have these public spaces as much as we used to.
- [27:58]
Jeanne Gang
Yeah. I think my favorite example of work that we've done recently is in Memphis, where we did a riverfront plan for them as being on the Mississippi. The Memphians, they were using it more like a loading zone, not a gathering space, and focused more on the streetscape. But they want to kind of reorient to the river. And we did a park called Tomley park. And to like, how do you start?
- [28:27]
Kara Swisher
Right.
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Jeanne Gang
It's like we want to talk to a lot of different groups. What do you want to see in Thomley Park? We had this youth design leadership group that was high school students that worked with us for a while, imagining what they would see. And what was really interesting is what we heard over and over was people wanted just everyday things in this park, like bathrooms and concession stands, something to keep out of the rain. Shade was a big thing. And so what we tried to do there is just elevate those things being in this very prominent riverfront, but using very, like the programs people gave us and injecting them into this landscape and park. And it's amazing how well it works. It's just because I think because they feel it's theirs. And it is. And it's just the beautiful design that brings people closer to the water. We did this one really interesting thing. We have this big canopy there, and it's called the sunset canopy. And the structure is. It looks like cranes that they used to use along the river. So it's kind of inspired by the working waterfront. So the shade is created. It's very flexible underneath. You can play basketball, you have dance, you can yoga, all those things. And then there's these swings that are hanging from the structure, and they're very wide and long, so they're big enough for people to sit on that do not know each other on the same swing. And it's amazing to see them start to talk to each other. And they're just doing something, and they're looking at the river. And they are inspired to communicate that experience with each other. And that is. There's something in that. There's a key to what we need, I think, as community, to connect. That architecture is able to bring out and experience is able to bring out. Need something a little distracting, not so that you don't just look at your phone.
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Kara Swisher
Right. Which is what people do when they're in these spaces. So You've said that public architecture is not as successful if it comes from the top down. But an architect is in the position of making these top down decisions that shape the public's environment. Now you teach at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. How do you get your students to approach their work with humility and get away from the top down sort of architect as God approach? Because you're talking about actually asking people what they want. And sometimes that's good, and sometimes the architect does have better ideas. For example.
- [31:11]
Jeanne Gang
Well, I don't think that asking people what they want precludes your design talents. It just engages with people and they're not telling you to draw the line here or there. They're just saying what they want. So it's a great question though, because we have to learn our trade, our skills. And so when you're in school, it's really like you're doing it from. You don't have a real client, you don't have a real community. So what I've tried with the students this semester was we used technology. We tried to find profiles of people who might be candidates for living in an affordable housing, which they're designing for New York City, for Queens. And the students found profiles of people who were very much oversharing online. But we're talking about their apartments. We're focusing on artistic people. How do they live now? What do they say they want? Because without the benefit of going out and interviewing people, they were able to find a lot of information about at least what people put online, about what they are missing, what they want, what they wish they could have, how they live their life every day, if they're an artist, where they put their materials, what they have to do. So, so that was how I was working with students to try to understand people that we're designing for.
- [32:36]
Kara Swisher
And does that still exist? This architect is God approach too much of architecture.
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Jeanne Gang
Oh yes. But I think there could be a model. There's architect is God, but there's also the owner could be the God figure. So yeah, it exists. And of course there's occasions where you need something monumental and you need something that has symbolic meaning. I mean, that definitely exists in our society. And if you do a competition, sometimes we win work through our competition. That is also another way where it's not so much the influence of the people around you, because the people running the competition just want to put this design against this design, against this design.
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Kara Swisher
Right.
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Jeanne Gang
And so that's where you can maybe use more of your voice. I still tried to Find out more about the place that I'm working in if I'm doing a competition. But you still, you would be putting forward more of your artistic vision than you would if you were doing a community project where you're engaging with the
- [33:46]
Kara Swisher
community, with the community itself, which you have much experience in. So every episode we get an expert to send us a question. Let's listen to yours.
- [33:54]
Justin Davidson
Hi, Jeannie, this is Justin Davidson. I'm the architecture critic at New York Magazine and Curbed, and I have a question for you. Yours is one of the very few firms that is based out of town but does a lot of work in New York. You've covered a lot of bases. You've done an office building, a luxury high rise, a fire station, a parks department recreation center. Now you're working on a medical building. There are a lot of firms who want to make their mark in New York, but they find it a really difficult place to do their best work. There are so many financial and political and legal restrictions. So my question is, has Studio Gang cracked the code of New York, and are we getting your best work?
- [34:45]
Kara Swisher
Wow.
- [34:46]
Jeanne Gang
He's great. Yeah, he is a great journalist that. That I really respect the question of the best work. I think it's. I always feel like I'm doing my best work and we're doing our best work. The constraints can narrow down what that means, but I don't feel like that is hurting the quality. I feel like it's creating a city, New York, that has a special character because of those constraints and because of the process. New York is one of the few cities where there's a community board and every single neighborhood, there's a review. So it's very democratic in that sense. People get to voice their concerns. Maybe that can slow you down, but it's a great process. I really enjoy that. I enjoy that New Yorkers are engaged with their. What's going on in their community.
- [35:45]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [35:46]
Jeanne Gang
So to Justin's point, I think if there's a code to be cracked, it's like working within the constraints and trying to find what that potential it brings out, I guess, that the code to be cracked.
- [36:00]
Narrator/Producer
We'll be back in a minute.
- [36:07]
Kara Swisher
Foreign.
- [36:13]
Esteed Herndon
I'm Esteed Herndon, and this is America.
- [36:15]
John Finer
Actually, we're all talking to each other to see what did we do wrong? What did we not see?
- [36:20]
Esteed Herndon
I'm in Washington, D.C. this week to interview Ruben Gallego. He's a Democratic senator from Arizona, and he's been thinking openly about running for higher office. But he's recently run into some hot water because of his connection to Congressman Eric Swalwell.
- [36:34]
John Finer
I have to learn from this and I will learn from this. But you know, for me, it's not a 2020 question. It's about what it means to be a better first boss in my office and also a better senator to my constituents.
- [36:47]
Esteed Herndon
This week on America actually, we asked Gallego about predatory behavior in Washington, his plans for immigration reform, and more.
- [36:59]
Jake Sullivan
Is the US China rivalry ultimately a race to build the future? The United States and China are the two countries that are really inventing the future. The future is being financed by Wall street, invented in Silicon Valley, as well as Shenzhen. I'm Jake Sullivan.
- [37:17]
John Finer
And I'm John Finer. And we're the hosts of the Long Game, a weekly national security podcast.
- [37:22]
Jake Sullivan
This week, author Dan Wong joins us to discuss America's lawyerly society, China's engineering state, and why derangement might be a prerequisite for superpower status.
- [37:33]
John Finer
The episode's out now. Now search for and follow the Long Game wherever you get your podcasts.
- [37:39]
Vivian
Wedding season is here and your wallet is already sweating. Between the bachelorette in Vegas, the destination ceremony, the registry gifts, and the outfits for every single event, being a good friend has never felt more expensive. I'm Vivian too. You're rich. Bff. And on this episode of Net Worth and Chill, we're breaking down exactly how to survive wedding season without going broke. We're talking hidden costs. You forgot to budget for how much you actually need to spend on a gift flight and hotel hacks that could save you hundreds. And my most unhinged but totally legal money, tips for stretching every dollar. Because celebrating love shouldn't mean sacrificing your financial future. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.com YourRichBFF
- [38:19]
Kara Swisher
so let's pivot to another central part of your design philosophy, environmental sustainability and climate change. According to the World Green Building Council, buildings account for 39% of global energy related carbon emissions and 11% comes from materials and construction. The Institute of Architects has set a goal to reach net zero emissions by 2030, but realistically, that's probably not going to happen. Talk about the barriers to hitting these net zero goals or reducing carbon emissions in buildings more broadly and how much you think about it as you're building.
- [38:53]
Jeanne Gang
We think about it a lot and it's the most important challenge that we have as an industry, I would say more than any other. But okay, so we have to think about our carbon emissions. Earlier, it was all about how is the operational energy of a building, like how much heating, air conditioning. But now we need to cut it faster. So that means we have to cut it out of our materials, the embodied carbon of the buildings. So how do you get the materials, what are they made of? How much energy does it take to get the it to the site? So there's just a lot of challenges and we need to address all of them. I mean, one of the easiest, first things that everybody has to do is get into an electrical, get off fossil fuels 100% off so that you can start to supplement the renewable energies in there. But for the carbon, a lot of things that we're looking at are the bio based materials. So wood and things that are naturally produced. And there's a lot of new products that are made with wood. If you look around Chicago, we have all these old loft buildings. Same in San Francisco. There may be some still left where the columns are like the whole tree, basically. Now we can make a column like that out of smaller thinner strips laminated together. So they're engineered products that do the same and they take advantage of the qualities of wood. And so we're using a lot of. Like in San Francisco, we designed the California College of the Arts in timber and UC Santa Cruz Kresge. College dorms, residential hall and academic buildings. Really great. Lots of different forms. Beautiful buildings made with timber. You know, it's, it's great. So bio based materials, reuse of buildings and reinvention of buildings. Because the most carbon you can save
- [40:58]
Kara Swisher
is if you kind of reuse them.
- [41:00]
Jeanne Gang
Not just reuse, but even increase their capacity.
- [41:03]
Kara Swisher
It's essentially upcycling. So your latest book, the Art of Architectural Grafting, shows how to build sustainably by reusing and upcycling existing buildings. And explain what you mean about architectural grafting, what it means in practice. I'm thinking the house I'm sitting in here is from 1894.
- [41:19]
Narrator/Producer
Maybe.
- [41:20]
Kara Swisher
I kept all the redwood. It's built of original redwood framing.
- [41:25]
Jeanne Gang
Beautiful.
- [41:25]
Kara Swisher
Like ancient redwood framing. And what I did is I kept it as much as I could. And then the stuff we had to take out, I gave it to a furniture maker who then made it into pieces of furniture.
- [41:37]
Jeanne Gang
That's upcycling.
- [41:38]
Kara Swisher
That's correct.
- [41:39]
Jeanne Gang
I'm well aware of it.
- [41:40]
Kara Swisher
But what was interesting about it was, you know, it was virgin redwood forest, which what they used to grab off in Marin and bring down here. Cause it was, was considered junk wood, I suppose. And now of course, it's highly valued. Talk a little bit about what you mean by architectural grafting.
- [41:56]
Jeanne Gang
Like graft in plants is like when you take a root stock that's maybe good old rootstock of a fruit tree or vines, a lot of times in agriculture, and then add a new plant, scion of a new plant that you want the qualities of like tastier fruit or more beautiful flowers or whatever. So this is like an ancient craft in horticulture and agriculture that goes way, way back. And the reason I was attracted to that is that it could be a metaphor, but it's like a place where humans and nature, humans are nature, but work together to get something. I don't think there's really any just, just untouched, raw nature anymore. I mean, we are part of it and we've always been here for a long time. So I love this craft of crafting. So with architecture, maybe the same thing, we could take the rootstock, an existing building, and give it new life. And that's the most important thing, life. Give it new life, Let it. Because if you only preserve something, it might not live, it might not have enough functionality in our day and in our current contemporary life to make it work. So it's really about bringing this new quality to it. And. But you can't just graft anything to anything like in nature also. You can't just, you know, it doesn't work. No, there has to be some commonality, some way that it can be combined. So I was trying to, in the book, trying to come up with, with some basic rules, let's say, to be debated. But I was just tired of talking about reuse and adaptive reuse and all these words that are just lost their meaning or they're not inspiring and trying to open it up more for architects so that we could develop more precise language around what it is, what you do when you add two things together.
- [44:05]
Kara Swisher
Right. Where did it really work from your perspective? What graft have you done that you think has been particularly effective?
- [44:14]
Jeanne Gang
I think all of them have worked that I've seen of ours because we're really being very careful attention to it. So making sure that the flow, that there's a redundancy in the connections, not just one little straw connecting. It really needs to have the flow through the movement and the functionality to work robustly connected on the interior. And then architecturally, style wise, like, what is the thing that you have in common? Like, some people will look at the American Museum of Natural History and say, oh, it looks so different than what's next to it. But remember, this is a campus of 25 buildings, many of These buildings are very curvaceous with turrets and all kinds of things from. So kind of like riffing on that, but also being true to the construction type that we're doing. And we used a similar granite on the outside as on the opposite side, as a building on the Central park west side. So there's like a tie there. So it's about this asynchronous collaboration with the previous architects and the previous architecture to make sure that there's something that is tying them together, bringing them together.
- [45:29]
Kara Swisher
Because you can graph badly, that's for sure.
- [45:31]
Jeanne Gang
Yes. Then it won't work.
- [45:32]
Kara Swisher
It doesn't work. In 2018, you taught a course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design called after the Storm, Restoring an Island Ecosystem following the hurricanes. Irma and Maria talk about lessons from those disasters. Should architects and communities approach rebuilding after fires and floods in this era of worsening natural disasters?
- [45:52]
Jeanne Gang
This is so important. That was one of the first studios I taught on that subject. And I took students down and we went and did some recovery work, which was less about building and more about just cleaning up. But it was, the students told me later, like, this was one of the most important things they'd ever done. They'd never been asked to do that before. And they saw the devastation of the power of these storms and what it can do to ruin it ruins people's homes and their lives. And so that was really like to awaken the students about the. What these storms can do. But then the project was to propose something for the island that would help them be more self sustaining. I don't know if you know, but some of these islands that they, they don't even have their own food source. Everything has to be shipped in. And so yeah, we worked with this group called We Grow Food and they, we designed for them. They had had a, like an indigenous market that they grew their own food and had their own market going. These are people that were living on the island and the west end of St. Thomas. So we actually met with them and found out what they needed to continue to make their operation flourish and be more resilient in the future. So that was the project. But what I realized, I think is that, and now we are getting into this because everyone is experiencing storms, fires, different disasters because of climate change. So architects might need to shift a bit and start working more with communities, like to help them rebuild in a more resilient way to help them plan. We're working now with a community in North Carolina that was affected by Helene, and we're Working with other architects and people who are donating time to help them make a plan and envision what they want in the future. And that will help them to go after some grants and help to get things back on track. So I think it's a skill that future architects are really going to need to lean into.
- [48:13]
Kara Swisher
Well, except right now. The Trump administration has repealed scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and environment. It's been called the most far reaching rollback of US climate policy to date. President Trump also called climate change a hoax. Has the policy shift or rhetorical impact on your work or American architecture more broadly? He's rolled back a lot of things. But has it really affected what you're talking about, the long term consequences on sustainability in the green building movement, which had a lot of forward momentum.
- [48:44]
Jeanne Gang
These are serious rollbacks. But I think what I've found is that most people think it's obvious that there's climate change going on. And then including people from all my clients, but all reaches of the American public, I would say and they need some assistance to help envision it comes from them. But they need like the skill I'm talking about for the architects is like being able to assemble people, gather, draw charrette is what we call it, which is like getting together in a room and getting people to participate and to help them create a vision and what does it look like. And that's what I think we will need to do more and more for this type of disaster. But you're right that these rollbacks are not helping at all. And then we need to. States are taking action on their own. Of course, individuals are taking action. But you know, it really should be something that we should be out in front of and we should be leading like renewables energy.
- [49:58]
Narrator/Producer
Has that pushed back.
- [49:59]
Kara Swisher
I mean for example, DEI stuff has been gone, they're gone now. All these policies. Has that happened in the architecture profession around these sustainable buildings or green buildings? Have you noticed that.
- [50:09]
Jeanne Gang
That any incentives that were federal are gone and so that is impacting because not everyone can afford it to start out. So yeah, it's devastating in that sense.
- [50:24]
Kara Swisher
So what do you do then if you want to continue to keep. Because this is a bearing wall of the stuff you're doing, for example? Well,
- [50:34]
Jeanne Gang
I feel, feel very grateful and privileged to be able to now work with people who are like minded and also like pushing the boundaries of this. So for example, with Harvard University, we designed the first mass timber building on our campus. It's called the Tree House and it's a gathering place. It's a David Rubenstein treehouse.
- [50:56]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [50:56]
Jeanne Gang
And it's David.
- [50:58]
Kara Swisher
I know David. And he shows pictures of it all the time because.
- [51:02]
Jeanne Gang
Yeah, and it's very exciting because it's like a glimpse into the future of what campus architecture can be. And so these things are still happening. And it's just the ones that are hurt the most are the ones that aren't getting the help to get to those resilient technologies and sustainable technologies because they don't have the funding.
- [51:25]
Kara Swisher
Right. Do you imagine it's going to shift back?
- [51:29]
Jeanne Gang
It has to. It has to. Because we're not going to just keep investing in buildings that then are outdated. And we need to get. Plus, if we want to regenerate our economy, we need to be producing things. Yes. Like solar panels and other inventions that Americans can come up with in this space. Also within the material space for what we use to build architecture, we would love to use more timber products. And you know, I have a dream that, you know, the Midwest, which has a lot of industrial pollution from previous era, could regenerate and create timber lands that help to also clean the phytoremediate the lands, but also start to become a new industry. For timber. For construction. Yeah, for building in a place where we need to make buildings. So near cities we have two big forest areas in the US Southeast and the Northwest. And the whole Midwest is. There's a lot of vacant land that needs remediation. So it could be like new timber industries.
- [52:48]
Kara Swisher
They're going to put a data center there, there, just so you know. And then they're going to use us to be the fuel for the data center. I don't know if you saw those movies. This past fall, Trump issued an executive order called Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again. He demolished the east wing without permission to make room for a ballroom that he wants to build in a 250 foot arch in Virginia. How are architects looking at what's happening here? And obviously it got more energy this week around the shooting at the Hilton. If you were on a panel evaluating designs for the building and the arch, what questions would you be asking? And the people suing to stop it are not stopping their suit, even though they've been pressed by Trump and others to do so.
- [53:33]
Jeanne Gang
Well, I mean, in some sense, like in one sense, the adding onto the White House is kind of a distraction because it's not like the most important thing going on right now. But, but we do have a democracy and we have public buildings that are supposed to last a Long time. And that's why there are. We have created. We, the people have created ways to get input, public input and urban planning input. And, you know, to preserve the beauty of. And the symbolic nature of Washington, D.C. there's certain sight lines that were created initially. So I think to respect. That is, respect the country and to respect the city and to keep it beautiful. Yes, that's why we have the rules, and that's why we have a lot of input. It's not only architecture input. There's urban planning, there's public input that goes into the process of making public buildings. And I think that's. We talked about New York and how it can slow things down. Yes, it does slow it down a bit, because you need to be able to take all these. And that's how you get better buildings. You get better buildings when you have. You get the shades that you wouldn't think of as one person. You can't think of all the negative things that could happen or even all the positive things. So that's why. Why it's important to have.
- [55:05]
Kara Swisher
What were the questions you'd be asking for what's happening at both places there? It's taking up enormous amount of attention. At least he's making it a big deal, for sure.
- [55:18]
Jeanne Gang
Well, I think there was a fine arts commission that would be asking these questions.
- [55:25]
Kara Swisher
He fired them all.
- [55:27]
Jeanne Gang
Yes, but I'm not. Not that up on what it would be. But some of the things I know about are just sight lines and, you know, scale and with respect to the grounds. And I think it's admirable in a certain way that there's initiative taken to build onto the White House because it's not like it's some perfect thing that was preserved from day one. So a kind of. Of appreciate that and I think could use ballrooms. I'm not totally against it. I think the process is important to get the best result.
- [56:05]
Kara Swisher
What would you put there? What would your ballroom look like? Oh, oh, oh.
- [56:10]
Jeanne Gang
It would never be picked for that project because I think it probably needs to be something that, again, like, grafting. It can.
- [56:20]
Kara Swisher
That's a real grafting project, isn't it?
- [56:22]
Jeanne Gang
It is a grafting, but that one is where the graft is, like, so heavy that it breaks off of the rootstock.
- [56:30]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, yeah, the graft is heavy. That's a nice way of putting it. Graft is very heavy. It's like very large and very gold graft.
- [56:40]
Jeanne Gang
It might break off.
- [56:41]
Kara Swisher
What happens then if they build something like that? What can be done? Nothing.
- [56:45]
Jeanne Gang
I Guess I don't think so. I mean, I don't think it would be from the environment standpoint, it wouldn't be worth tearing it back down or, you know, so I think it's going to be there. So maybe it has to be balanced by something else. Maybe you just have to make the whole thing bigger. Yeah, yeah.
- [57:02]
Kara Swisher
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Do you like the arch? Are you an arch person?
- [57:08]
Jeanne Gang
One of my offices is in Paris, so I really like the arch that is there.
- [57:16]
Kara Swisher
Yeah.
- [57:16]
Jeanne Gang
And I like that Paris has a very strong urban plan that gives you access to landmarks, but the landmarks are not just about individuals. There's things of different eras. But no, I mean, I still haven't quite gotten my head around what this arch is. It's just big. I don't think there's any reason for it. No, there's no victory. And most of the time, arches were made for victories.
- [57:53]
Kara Swisher
Does Trump have an effect on architects or not? Or just. I mean, what he's doing with gold and everything else. He made a patio. Seems like a mar a lago patio at the White House. Does he have an impact on architecture in general? No.
- [58:09]
Jeanne Gang
I mean, in that he was a developer. He also built large buildings that do impact our cities. And so in that sense, yes, but I think, like, in terms of influencing trends.
- [58:24]
Kara Swisher
No, no. Yeah. I still can't stand the one in Chicago. It makes me upset every time I see it. Largely cause the font. I don't like the font on that building, on the Trump building there.
- [58:34]
Jeanne Gang
I think the kerning is wrong, too.
- [58:36]
Kara Swisher
It's all wrong. I'm a big font person.
- [58:38]
Jeanne Gang
It upsets me. Like there's too wide of space between two of the letters.
- [58:42]
Kara Swisher
That's correct. It's really irritating. So my very last question. If you had to push someone to look at a piece of design you think has been inspirational to you or right now in the world, is there one thing that you just love to look at? The way I like to look at your aqua tower? I don't know why. I just do. I just like to look at. Had it.
- [59:02]
Jeanne Gang
Oh, you mean like a contemporary thing?
- [59:04]
Kara Swisher
Anything.
- [59:08]
Jeanne Gang
I mean, I see things every, every day that I think are interesting. I. I guess I'm most interested right now in reinventing vernacular ways of building somehow. So looking to old ways of building and trying to update them into the 21st century. Because a lot of times, some older ways of buildings that were vernacular, in other words, people did it on their own without architects. There's knowledge in those things. Like building with earth or rammed earth or building with cordwood masonry or these kind of things that I'm really fascinated by. And so I'm always trying to, whenever I go somewhere, look at like what, what was built there originally, just with what was around. What can you build with what's nearby and what's available? Of course, you can't build tall buildings with those means, but I always learn just from. I really am interested in those. I guess it's low tech stuff. But of course those low tech things can be upgraded too and we can reuse what's smart about them.
- [60:22]
Kara Swisher
Yeah, that's a great idea, actually. Anyway, Jeanne, thank you so much. You're a wonderful inspiration to me and many others. More than you realize, I think.
- [60:31]
Jeanne Gang
Thank you.
- [60:31]
Kara Swisher
I know you're not supposed to know who the architects are. Sometimes you do. But your buildings are just beautiful. I don't know, there's something about them.
- [60:39]
Jeanne Gang
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.
- [60:44]
Narrator/Producer
One thing before we go. Want career advice from Kara Swisher? Now's your chance. We're doing a special episode all about it and I want your questions. Send us a selfie video with your question to On Oxmeet and you might be featured. Can't wait to see what you've got. Today's show was produced by Christian Castro Roselle, Michelle Eloy, Catherine Milsop, Megan Birney and Kalyn Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Bradley Sylvester, Sam Lee and Ruella Roof. Our engineers are Fernando Arruda and Rick Kwan and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you're getting the Aqua Tower penthouse. No, that would be me. If not, there was a sale on gold paint and you're getting a Mar A Lago inspired home makeover. Go over your listen to podcasts, search for on with Kara Swisher and hit follow. Thanks for listening to on with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Monday with more Sam.