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Interview with Anthony Lumsden page 3
V5: Do you think that different stages of the design process are too compartmentalized in a situation like that?
AL: No, it's just different ways of parcelling out the fee: we'll take one-third of the fee, we'll take some of the profit off it, you've got one-third of the hours for your part, and we'll give some small proportion to the design department.
For instance, if you're someone like Kevin Roche, his office, you might get 70% of the fee to do architecture. If you're in DMJM, you might get 45% of the fee to do architecture - and 30% of that or more will go to architectural documentation.
One of the great, big problems in architecture is that too much time is spent on construction documentation, when anybody could do that. It's greater than the money spent on design. The AIA is absolutely wrong about that 10%, 25%, etc. We could save millions of dollars from good design. Big offices ask every time - "how little of the fee can we spend on the aesthetic side of it?" The "aesthetic" side of this equation is the phase where all of the efficiencies, all of the economies, all of the building systems come from. If you do a building of a particular type that does not make for modularization or repetition or prefabrication, how are you going to save
money? There is no way that they can produce the documents and do it for the money that is allocated.
V5: What changes in the profession have you seen in the past 20 years?
AL: Not much. I'd say we've been through some periods where things like "Post-Modernism" even ruined some great architects. The magazines certainly influence too many architects. What's happened to the profession in general, I think, is that technological architecture has shown an extraordinary strength, and not only in Asia, where they're really on to the idea of doing buildings that are modern and clean-looking. As far as I can tell, maybe still 30% of the buildings they're doing in Indonesia are post-modern buildings, and 50% in Korea maybe, but a lot of people have caught on to the idea of doing buildings that are different - not rectangular, but buildings that have surfaces you didn't expect, with the technology and materials: that's where Foster, and Piano, and Rogers are coming from. So I think that's the biggest thing that's occurred in the past several years. Even in Frank Gehry's case, the buildings look much more modern. Like (Gehry's new Guggenheim Museum in) Bilbao, which seems to be a very good building, like the Disney Hall. People will go to Bilbao.
V5:How do you see Bilbao, and then Richard Meier's new Getty Center?
AL:You know, these questions are dangerous. But it doesn't matter. They're
honest opinions. I admire Richard. I think he does a good job for the client, and obviously the clients think so too. But I was disappointed in the Getty, to the extent that Richard didn't do something more extraordinary. If I had the hide to do it, I tell him, OK, take all the systems that you have and turn all of them ninety degrees, and then you're going to get the surprise of your life. This is what I was saying about plan shapes. Hill towns have a great feeling of depth because of the way that you can see past the first buildings and see other shapes back there. And then you can see the cathedrals showing you what form they have. Not because of the shapes themselves, but where the shapes reveal themselves in relation to the front plane. His frontal stuff is pretty good, because he lays it all out. That's a lot to ask of a guy given such an extraordinary position, but I think he had the power to do that. He really could have gotten it. I think it will be a good job; but extraordinary, not at all.
V5: But Bilbao you see as an extraordinary building?
AL: Yes, I think that one is special. But it's extraordinary for Frank also!
V5: When you see models of the Walt Disney Concert Hall it looks beautiful and promising. But then when you look at Bilbao, the Concert Hall seems a weak sister to Bilbao.
AL: Oh, no doubt. Bernie (Bernard Zimmerman) likes it better, though.
V5: Well, Bernard is heading a committee to raise money for the building project (laughs)! It will now be seen as the second sister unless they give more control back to Frank Gehry so the design can move forward. But as of now it is frozen in working drawing hell.
Are there changes you would like to see in the profession?
AL: I'd like to see some emphasis on some things that architects can do that other people can not do. They're not pushing the things that make extraordinary buildings at all. Nobody would go downtown (in Los Angeles) to see the buildings we have. Nobody would come from overseas to see those buildings. You might go to Paris, or to Siena, or you might go to Assisi. I'd say the AIA is structured badly, and the awards committees are structured very badly, and half the people on them don't know what the hell they're doing.
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