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TC:
Now you’re building another building on West Second. Is it the same concept
in terms of building another small community or is it a slightly different
concept
SH: Different. It’s geometrically more interesting. Arthur’s contributions have been enormous—it’s a beautiful plan. It’s going to achieve I think a very similar result, but in a somewhat different way. It’s a long process to describe, but it has two hallways, open to the environment in that air flows through. It’s not quite the same organization. You can’t see everything all from one place. They’re still very interesting spaces. Hopefully we’ll maintain that kind of community environment. TC: You created that and you built it and it’s busy and it worked economically and the whole thing is there now. Is it something that can be replicated? SH: I think it is, but unfortunately, this is the problem I’m struggling with now. The Sixth building is a leased building. I own it. When people don’t fit they go. Usually they figure that out for themselves one way or another. Occasionally I actually have to let them know somehow, but more importantly it’s not open. Probably 90% of the people who come to try to become a part of this community are rejected. We don’t let them in in the first place. So, in a way, we’ve sort of hewn this community. For about the first eight or nine months that we had that building it was very precarious. It wasn’t jelling. It was partly my fault, entirely actually, but we had the wrong mix. People do odd things when it’s the wrong mix. They interact in odd ways and tension is created. Notes appear in the elevator that say, you know, “x of this or y of this or the owner or this or let’s all begin some class action against him etc.” That sort of thing was happening. I think strata developments are in the end a terrible legacy on our future. Because they create ownership of buildings that is then utterly out of control of anyone. When it comes time to change those buildings in any way, getting concensus of the strata organization, which in this case is 350 odd people, would be an impossibility. But, more important, when people don’t fit into that community getting rid of them is impossible. So, the community doesn’t ever really get a chance to become. It doesn’t gel because it has these disparate elements. This sounds to me when I’m saying it out loud, “you’re bad”. TC: It will look even worse in print. SH: I know. It becomes almost a dictatorial kind of thing. But, I don’t think so. I think at the outset what needs to be done is that communities are almost created by rules of inclusion. I’d say inclusion instead of exclusion. I mean, what is it we’re trying to achieve in a particular area and in this particular place. TC: To go back to Arthur’s earlier example of the city-state, you become a Duke of Sixth Avenue. You have the state, you have tenants, they come in. But, maybe that’s okay, maybe that’s how you do build community. You’re saying, “These are the sorts of people who would be happy here.” SH: Architecturally you can provide a kind of filter. With the building on Sixth it’s very difficult to be—and the type of people who want anonimity generally don’t talk. The restrictions that I’m talking about hurt value in a certain absolute sense, because economically anytime you fetter something or restrict the access of an item in some way it diminishes its value. TC: When you build do you think about 20 years, 50 years, milleniums? AE: No, absolutely not. I mean, you can’t bring that in. There’s no way. You must have had the experience of saying this is going to turn out this way and then it never does. From all the evidence it should go that way and it doesn’t. Something happens and it goes exactly the opposite way. So, what I do is try to look at the present and nobody looks at the present. It’s the rearview mirror complex. They’re all looking at the past and judging the present from the past. So, that’s why—you know, the Courthouse, it’s been touted in the States as the most advanced courthouse to be built in the last hundred years. That’s simply because all courthouses were looking at the British model, which was condemning and the law was fierce and you went trembling in to whatever—generally to be killed. TC: If not killed, then tortured. AE: And I say that’s all a contradiction of what our law is which is you’re not guilty until proven otherwise. So, there shouldn’t be anything which gives you any sense of guilt whatsoever. It should be friendly, open —part of the openness came from my experiences in Saudi Arabia where they do have open executions. But, the interesting thing is that everybody knows what’s going on. Originally we had proposed televisions outside of every courtroom so you can sit on the benches and watch what’s going on, so you’ve got the law out of its tomb. So, that’s just looking at the present. |