Art and architecture thrive on influence, an asset that knows no boundaries, geographic or disciplinary. It is in this spirit that we welcome new voices, perspectives and interpretations.
 National Building Museum and Metropolis Magazine contributor, Andrew Caruso, begins the 2013 run of Inside the Design Mind with an emerging voice: Yang Yongliang.  At only 32, this Chinese born graphic designer-turned digital artist has come of age in one of the most pivotal (and controversial) times in his country’s history. His digital-collage reinterpretations of China’s cities present explorations of the built environment that are simultaneously critical and aspirational, dark and foreboding yet filled with light. Already showing in galleries from Shanghai to Paris, we think he’s one to watch.



Andrew Caruso: What parts of your childhood influenced the way you approach art?


Yang Yongliang: I grew up and learned about art in an old town that had retained its traditional Chinese character. My teacher made oil paintings and he taught me basic exercises in drawing and watercolor. I remember him telling me on his deathbed that he was thinking about painting. His manner and attitude toward art had a far-reaching influence on me and his death had a profound impact. 



AC: You originally studied very traditional forms of art making. Why then did you begin your career with digital media?

YY: My childhood education included traditional paintings and calligraphy and at university I learned graphic design. I began using different software programs and studied photography and shooting techniques. Combining these skills became natural. 



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Paul Goldberger, Photo by James Callanan

It’s rare to find someone willing to pay for opinions these days, and rarer still to be known for them. Yet, Paul Goldberger has crafted a career by objectively navigating the subjective. As an arbiter of quality in architecture and design for nearly four decades, he spends a few moments with me to reminisce about the “short break” he took from journalism that led to, among many accolades, the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 and, more recently, the Scully Prize.

Andrew Caruso: You’re being recognized this year by the National Building Museum with the Vincent Scully prize. Given your relationship with Scully began when you were a student at Yale, this must be a very meaningful award.

Paul Goldberger: Scully was very much a teacher and mentor to me. Actually my first exposure to him was a high school visit to Yale. I observed one of his classes and was blown away. He was one of the reasons I wanted to go to Yale in the first place and I was lucky to work with him through college and as my thesis adviser.

AC: Do you remember what his class was about that first time you saw him?

PG: I think it was about Lou Kahn, but I’m not completely sure. I must have attended several hundred Scully lectures, so they can blur a little bit. And, I’m afraid high school was a few years ago (Laughs). Architecture had an almost holy aura in that lecture hall. That aura I remember very clearly, even if I’m not completely sure it was about Kahn.

AC: Was writing a passion for you during college?

PG: Yes, writing has always been a passion of mine. I was one of those kids who was the editor of the junior high school newspaper, and so on. For a while I thought I’d pursue a career in journalism, and then I spent a summer in Europe just looking at buildings. I realized that’s what I should be doing. But then I began my career as a journalist and it was only when I realized how much I missed architecture that I began writing about it. Gradually, it was all I was doing.

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Steven Holl, photograph courtesy of Mark Heithoff

This year, the American Institute of Architects conferred its highest honor – the AIA Gold Medal – upon Steven Holl. I had the opportunity to talk with Steven about his sources of inspiration, a mid-career enlightenment, and his recent recognition as one of the most celebrated “American” architects.

Andrew Caruso: Balancing your practice with teaching and art is clearly a part of the designer we know you to be. How do these explorations shape your design point of view?

Steven Holl: Every project is unique: a site and a circumstance, a culture, a climate, a program. All of these forces are unique and you need a concept to hold the manifold pieces together, an idea that makes the project significant in its place and for its purpose. That is always the way I begin projects.

Inside St. Ignatius chapel, photo by Paul Warchol

The chapel of St. Ignatius, for example, was built around the idea of seven bottles of light in a stone box, an idea very particular to their program. The idea that architecture can have a “religiosity”, that it can inspire a kind of reflection about the mystery of existence, is an important ingredient for a chapel.

St. Ignatius chapel, photo by Paul Warchol

With all projects, I explore deeply to find an original idea that can drive a design, an idea that can make the building mean more than it would if I was making a kind of style that I move from one site to the next. I’m not a signature architect because I don’t have a signature. Each project is unique. Each project has a relationship to the site, to the climate and to other forces.

Cité de l’Océan et du Surf, Place de l’Ocean, public plaza with restaurant, Biarritz, France, photo by Iwan Baan

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Heroic. Contemplative. Grieving. Victorious. The rebirth of the former World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan has engendered significant public reaction and reflection. With implications as complex as they are profound, it is not surprising that it has taken more than a decade to heal the urban scars of September 11, 2001.

I had the rare opportunity to sit down with three architects working on the site, Santiago Calatrava, David Childs, and Daniel Libeskind, at the recent AIA Convention in Washington DC, where they were honored along with four others, as “Architects of Healing”.  We discussed their experience of reshaping one of the most culturally significant sites in the history of the United States.

With this interview we begin a series of conversations, “Inside the Design Mind”, with key architects, exploring the motivations of today’s design icons and influencers. This initiative is part of the National Building Museum’s intention to tell the story of our time through architecture, engineering, and design.

Andrew Caruso: What is it about architecture, perhaps distinct from other art forms, that promotes a healing process?

Santiago Calatrava: I never thought about that, but we understand architecture as having a sense of permanence. Architecture mostly survives us. Whatever we build, we are conscious that it stays for the next generation. In terms of giving the sense of being remembered, architecture is very useful.

Being remembered, in Latin, is the root of the word monument. So, the monument character [sic] of architecture has to do with passing an idea to the next generation.  On one side architecture will preserve [this memory] to the next generation so that it never again happens; and on the other side, [the attitude] to rebuild, is also exemplar for the coming generation. From these two points you can see analytically the deep sense of the effort in lower Manhattan.

David Childs: I’m not so sure I buy into that. Can you really describe sculpture being different from painting, from architecture? Over the past three or four decades there has been a merging of these disciplines. I think, in fact, these things have blurred. It’s so wonderful, the openness of it. Architecture can certainly [heal] in its own way, but so can poetry.

Daniel Libeskind: Architecture promotes healing because it brings people together. It is literally the space of emotions and of our lives. There’s nothing abstract about architecture when it comes to healing. Yet it’s something also of dreams because architecture creates the perspective of orientation — of where you are, and of memory — at the same time. In that sense I think it’s the greatest instrument of healing that we have. Every urban context and building brings people into a social and contextual whole. That is the enigma and the power of architecture.

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