The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – How Architecture Tells: 9 Realities that will Change the Way You See by Robert Steinberg

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

How Architecture Tells: 9 Realities that will Change the Way You See by Robert Steinberg The general reading public is likely to think of architecture as buildings. But, with this book, Robert Steinberg would like to help readers understand that architecture shapes lives. Architecture can help communities integrate and thrive. Architecture can touch us, influencing how we feel, and how we interact with others. In short, architecture can fundamentally improve our quality of life. As a young graduate architect fresh from Berkeley, Steinberg began to discover the potential of architecture to shape communities. Working with his father, an architect who had studied with Mies van der Rohe (and whose father was also an architect), one of Steinberg’s first projects was to draft and redraft a parking garage in downtown Silicon Valley, CA. As he mediated between the two architects in charge of the project?his father and the city architect?he noticed that with each evolution, the garage became more beautiful and refined. And with each improvement, this garage became more able to succeed in the goal of reviving the dying downtown core of Silicon Valley. The garage was a huge success, and Steinberg began to codify what he had learned. Thanks to the garage, he wrote the first of what would become the 9 Realities of Architecture: Architecture is the Pursuit of Perfection ? a magnificent take-away from a humble parking garage project. As Steinberg eventually rose to become CEO of his firm and grew it into a global practice with six regional offices including Austin and New York, and a major office in Shanghai, he used his drive for creating thriving communities to eventually touch the lives of countless people around the world.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks it's voss here for thechrisvossshow.com thechrisvossshow.com hey we're coming to a great podcast who knew that would happen so we're excited to announce my new book is coming out. It's called Beacons of Leadership, Inspiring Lessons of Success in Business and Innovation.

It's going to be coming out on October 5th, 2021. And I'm really excited for you to get a chance to read this book. It's filled with a multitude of my insightful stories, lessons, my life, and experiences in leadership and character. I give you some of the secrets from my CEO Entrepreneur Toolbox that I use to scale my business success, innovate, and build a multitude of companies. I've been a CEO for, what is it, like 33, 35 years now. We talk about leadership, the importance of leadership, how to become a great leader, and how anyone can become a great leader as well.

Or order the book, wherever fine books are sold. We have an excellent author on the show with us today. He's going to be giving us a brilliant insight into his new book that comes out February 22, 22. Everybody we've got on the show in the last week and a half is February 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22, 22. I love it. It's kind of fun. How Architecture Tells Nine Realities That Will Change the Way You See by Robert Steinberg. He is going to be on the show with us, of course. And in the meantime, go see the video version of this at youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss. See everything we're reading and reviewing on goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss. And, of course, all of our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all that good stuff.

Robert Steinberg, F-A-I-A, he'll have to explain what that is, is the chairman of the global architecture firm Steinberg Heart, trained at the University of California at Berkeley. He is a third-generation architect who transformed his father's residence-focused Silicon Valley practice into a global powerhouse that has, among other achievements, guided the Chinese approach to senior housing. Welcome to the show, Robert. How are you? I'm great. Nice to be with you, Chris. Thanks. Pleasure to have you as well. Congratulations on the new book. And give us your plugs and tell us what an FAIA is.

Okay. Well, let's start with that. FAIA is a fellow in the American Institute of Architects. And about 5% of the architects that are licensed are elevated to this status by their peers. And so it's a nice recognition. So it's kind of like a knighting of architects, maybe? Yeah, something like that. Something like that.

Do they hold a protractor over you or compass or something instead of the sword when they knight you? They do. But you know what? All kidding aside, it's actually quite a nice honor to be recognized by your peers. Most definitely. There you go. So tell us your plugs so we can find you on the interwebs. Okay. Well, my book, How Architecture, Nine Realities That Will Change The Way You See,

is available now at your local bookstores at Amazon or on my webpage, howarchitecturetells.com. And we have book launches coming up next week in New York City at Rizzoli's on the 23rd, the evening of the 23rd, February 23rd. And another one at Book Passages, the Ferry Building in San Francisco on Sunday, the 27th. So please come out and join me. We'll sign it. There you go. Okay. Well, thanks for coming on the show. No, I'm just kidding, man. I'm just kidding. That's it? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It just sounded like a good roundup.

So what motivated you to want to write this book? What was the proponent behind that? Well, I am a third-generation architect. Grandfather, father, older sister. And I grew up in a home that was deeply influenced by my father, who wanted to build things everywhere. He was the go-to architect in Silicon Valley. And my environmentalist mother, who wanted to preserve nature and open space.

And you can imagine the conversations we had around the dinner table. My Jewish upbringing taught me that it was an individual's responsibility to leave the world in a better place than when they came. There's a word for that called to kuno lum, which means to repair the world. Oh, wow. And I began my professional career as a filmmaker, documentary filmmaker, and then later went back to graduate school at UC Berkeley, where I was exposed to this idea that architecture is much more than building as shiny objects, but that architecture is a social art. That's why I wrote this book. And what I mean by that is architecture done right has the potential to deeply influence how you feel, how you behave, how you connect with other people. And that idea of sculpting space and

shaping life has really influenced our firm's work. And I wanted to share that. Yeah. Now you said it was, what was that term again? A social. Social art. Yeah. I love that. I mean, we're all inspired by really beautifully architect, architectural buildings, design buildings from all the way back to the Empire State Building. And what's the other building that's in New York that's a – Chrysler. The Chrysler Building.

That's a beautiful – just the design of it. You see that same sort of design in L.A. and some of the older buildings, and they're really cool. But, yeah, everything from that to – was it Franklin? Was it Franklin Wright? Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright. I was close.

You were very close. It's a long Thursday. So the brain is still trying to get there. But yeah, from all these different things, they're inspiring. They give us a vision of stuff. So give us some details on what's the side of the book, overall arcing, and what's some of the stuff you lay out in there. Okay. Well, let me start by talking about the social art and what I mean by that.

Okay. Because that may not be a term that everybody's familiar with. But consistent with my training as a filmmaker in storytelling, I came to believe that fundamentally architecture is about storytelling. And the design involves the human spirit, the evolution of character and the development of relationships between people. And the program at Berkeley was really focused on that idea. spirit, the evolution of character and the development of relationships between people. And the program at Berkeley was really focused on that idea. And I liked the idea of creating environments where people interacted and connected with each other in interesting ways. And my first year at that school, we took a class called psychological factors as determinants of architecture. It's very different than you're describing. You know, when you talked about

the beauty of buildings, it's a little bit, if you'll forgive me, I'll make an analogy. It's like going on a date with a pretty girl and it looks nice and everything's great. But then as you spend time, what is the quality of the conversation and how do you get to know each other? And that's what I'm interested in. I'm interested in this idea of not buildings just as beauty, but how they impact people and how it makes them behave. And this class that I took taught us to think not about our values,

but about the user's value. Who's going to inhabit these buildings, and how would they respond to decisions? And so it's a very different kind of approach than many architects have taken. And I never really thought about it this way. You give me some really new things to think about. But really, kind of the identity of a city or the identity of people or what they identify with comes in some of the buildings and stuff that are iconic. Well, what's so interesting is that architecture actually has this very rich silent language and most people never were taught or exposed to understand that language.

And it's very evident. If you think for a minute about going into a soaring stone cathedral, and you walk in and you feel very small, and the ceilings are high, what the architect was trying to say is you're not that important. There's something much more important than that than you. Or if you think about after the 1918 pandemic, in the 20s, people started building these chrome laden diners. And what their message was, their silent message was, we're free of germs. We're clean. It's a safe place to eat. And if you think about this, all buildings are telling you something.

They're telling you where to enter, how to move, where to go. And what I'm trying to do is to explain to people with nine very simple ideas that I call realities, how to understand this built world around you so that you can appreciate what these buildings are saying. And also, if you learn the language of architecture, you can help design the future of your community by being able to speak that language. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And I've always been admiring of beautiful architecture and buildings and the big city sometimes and everything that goes into it it really is an art form but i don't think i really how that makes me feel i remember going to quote unquote the big city when i lived in the so in the rural areas

and there was something exciting something thrilling about those buildings and what was on them and the design looking up at them and kind of their mass and their they were almost uh what's the word i'm looking for they were almost you know there were these things that you looked up to and they were towering and and opposing and but also kind of making a statement of these i don't know what i don't want i'm going off that maybe you have a better way of formulating what i'm trying to say you're doing great you know what i i'll give you my little buzzword to make it very easy. I refer to this as sculpting space that shapes life. And if you think of a city or you think of an alley, we sculpt buildings that form outdoor rooms.

And these spaces between the buildings can be as important as the buildings themselves. So when you go to a city and you're in a narrow alley and the scale is not too tall and there's interesting things and entrances to buildings, it has a feeling. And then you go to Wall Street and you're dwarfed by these very tall buildings and narrow streets. It has a very different kind of feeling. And then maybe you go to the main park and it opens up. And each of these evokes a different kind of feeling. And then maybe you go to the main park and it opens up. And each of these evokes a different kind of response and feeling in you and your behavior. And it either makes you open to connect with other people or it makes you a little paranoid. And so architects are constantly working that language, trying to get to your emotions.

So what are some of the nine realities that you talk about in your book? And I guess there's a lot of pictures in this book that show some examples of what you refer to. Well, the book is beautiful, I think, but it's not just the beautiful picture. The Rob Report came out and said it's one of their top recommendations this year for the holiday. It'll make anybody's living room look good. I appreciate that. But it's not just the photos. It is the message and it is the nine realities. Now, Chris, I can't give you all of the realities. I can't give you all the milk till you buy the cow. Sure. Yeah. Just tease us.

I'm going to give you a couple, but I'm not going to give you the whole. Architecture is inherently disruptive. What do I mean by that? I mean that whenever you go to design a new building, it's like joining an existing conversation that's already going on. There's things that people are used to, there's a feeling, and the architect has to decide, do I join the conversation and agree with what's going on and support it? Or do I feel differently and I take a very different point of view and change the conversation? And so that level of disruption, how aggressive or how passive you are, is one aspect of the realities. Architecture builds community. That's what we're about.

That's how we connect with people. And there is a wonderful story where I was asked by the federal government, the Department of Labor, to design a Job Corps training center for disadvantaged high school youth. And it was the second chance to get a job and get some education. And they said, we want it to look like an elementary school. And I said, you're crazy. Why would young people that didn't fit in the system want to go back and start over again? I said, we got to use color and form and make it pop and make it feel like a place that they would want to live. And this kind of facility had places that you had to check in for security and what have you.

Instead of hiding those or being afraid, I celebrated them. I made them red. I put them in the middle. We put sunlight over them. And all of a sudden, this became an environment that created this community that was fantastic. And 30 years later, I talked to the director and she said, we would never change the colors on these buildings. This is our identity. This is who we are. You've made a community here. That's brilliant. I never really thought of that too, in the use of light and

colors in buildings to do that function. And it makes sense. I wasn't a big fan of school when I was growing up. And it was really formal and really bureaucratic feeling, very going through the machine sort of thing. And so I barely passed through school. And that makes sense to me what you're saying about how you change the attitude and, because those guys don't want to go back to the same sort of rigid thing. And they probably need, they probably learn from different aspects of visual or auditorial fun. That was my problem. I didn't learn. I'm very visual and I had a hard time with textbooks. It's interesting. Some architects have a style, an individual style that they're known for,

and they plop that in the city or that city, wherever, and that's their signature. My approach has been a little bit different to think about who's going to use the buildings, whether it's disadvantaged teenagers, whether it's single mothers with children, whether it's abused children, whether it's college students, whether it's the elderly, and to try to put myself into their shoes to think about what would resonate with them. And that's what this book is. It's a story of creating communities and environments for specialized people that have very different needs and how you go about doing that and what the incredible results

can be from that. That's pretty wonderful. You're going to make me go. And now when I go out and see buildings or I tour through stuff, I'm going to be like, yeah, somebody thought through this, you know? So Chris, my, my premise here is nine realities that will change the way you see. And the feedback that I'm getting so far from people that have read this book is that it really has changed the way they see the world. That is interesting. And I imagine it has an effect.

I've had employees that if they don't have their office painted a certain color, they can't perform well or some kind of crap. And I have a hard time with it because I'm just like, I perform well with this white or whatever. But some people, this appeals to them, especially females. If they don't like a certain color in the kitchen, then we got to change the kitchen or whatever. And how people feel in their environment is an important aspect to them. Maybe I'm not in touch with my feelings enough. Well, one of the things that I loved about a school at Berkeley is they taught you first to design using your own values, how you would approach it, what's comfortable for you. And then they really pressed you to let go of all of that and think about who these users are and what their values could be.

And to change your mindset, to deal empathetically with them and to think about their aspirations. What would enlighten them? What would energize them? And so it's, the book is a process, a methodology, a way of thinking. What I say is these nine realities are a holistic way of looking at buildings. And what I tell the architects in our firm is, if you look at your project and you respond to each of these nine realities, I will assure you that your project will be well thought out. And if you don't, if you just pick and choose one or two of them, you may find that you have a flaw, you miss something,

and your project is really short of what it could have been. Yeah. I mean, you could look at some buildings and they just seem kind of dead from the outside or the inside. They seem kind of boring. They seem kind of lifeless. And then there are other ones that really stand out, that really pop. And you're like, wow, that's really interesting. Some interesting thought went into it. And so what, any other nines you want to tease out maybe at all? Well, let's talk the last one. Okay. Is architecture is innovation.

So many years ago, I had the opportunity to design a very high end senior housing development on the Stanford University campus with my friend, Penny Pritzker. And we designed this project and it became the gold standard for senior housing, not only in the United States, but in the country. And pretty big deal. My parents, I designed it honestly for my parents. It was written about around the world, but whenever I went there, these are the top leaders of Silicon Valley and politics and industry. They would all say, it's fabulous. It's much better than we thought,

but there's a lot of old people that live here. And I thought about that. And what they were really saying was, we want to be part of society. We don't want to be isolated with old people. And so I had another opportunity that came along to design another facility nearby. And we were able to incorporate not just senior housing, but a community center. And market rate housing and affordable housing for families.

And we made an urban intergenerational village, culture and recreation and restaurants and housing. And it was phenomenally successful. The kids after school would help the garden at the preschool, places where your grandchildren could come and go swimming, and you could take them to dinner and have a movie. And this idea of intergenerational connection was very successful. I took our practice and I went to China. And when I went there and I interviewed to do senior housing, people would tell me about the Stanford project. And they would say, this is what we're going to do. And I would let them go on a bit. And I would say, I know all about it. I designed that.

And after that, we started doing these huge projects for the government of China all over. And right now, I think our firm is probably doing more senior housing in China than any architect in the world. Wow. And that impact has been huge. Yeah. Come to think of it, my sister is in a care center, in a newer care center, and she's been in a few care centers. She has MS and dementia now. And the last care center and she's been in a few care centers she has ms and dementia now and the last care she was it was just a renovated old hospital it was very dark very gloomy really just one of those places you go into and you're like have they done the bestest clean out in this place and not a lot of windows not a lot of light just really depressing going to most hospitals

and and then we moved her to a newer place and it has lots of big windows. And I really thought about it, but anytime me and my mother walk into Visitor, we're always like, wow, this place sure is nice. And it has high ceilings and lights and windows everywhere. And I never really thought about it before, but yeah, there's a lot of thinking that goes into architecture and everything that goes with it. Do you recommend this? Is your book mostly targeted towards other architects or is it pretty much to everybody? No, it is not. It is, well, certainly it is, it's the structure that we use in our seven offices around the world when we design. So it certainly makes sense and it speaks to architects. But honestly, my market is the layperson, someone interested in the world around them that really hasn't been

taught or exposed very much to architecture. And what I offer is nine simple stories, personal stories of projects that I've done that illustrate these different realities. And they're easy to remember. And I guarantee you, if you go through and you read the book and you walk down the street in your community, you're going to see things very differently than you did before. It is not an esoteric professional doc. It's user-friendly. In fact, the dean of Yale's architecture school calls it part memoir, part manifesto, and part monograph. Oh, wow. So.

This is going to be pretty interesting because you've already given me some different ways to look at stuff. And I've already kind of admired beautiful buildings. Architecture as leadership is something you talk about, sustaining ideas during long durations. What do you refer to when you mean that? So, I mean, a leader, architecture as leadership, a leader has to have a vision. They've got to be able to build consensus and they've got to be able to sustain that and get it built. I'm in the business of getting things built, not doing drawings. And that project that I mentioned at Stanford, that took 18 years. 18 years, Chris, that's long enough to raise a child to go and think about 18 years. So during those 18 years, Nelson Mandela was freed

from prison, 27 years. The first Harry Potter book came out. We had the Y2 scare, you know, where everybody's computer was going to go. The genome sequencing was deciphered. The World Trade Center was bombed and we went to war. Facebook started. YouTube published their first video. Imagine trying to keep a vision during that period of time when the world was changing so dramatically. And that's what I mean by leadership. You have to be able to come up with a vision. You have to build a consensus and get all these different stakeholders. In this one project for Stanford, well, first of all, I should tell you, nobody likes more opinions

than Stanford. They hire consultants for the trees and for the birds and for the rivers. Everything. Wow. On this one site, there were 450 trees. Each one was labeled. I mean, it was phenomenal the number of people that are involved in the process. So you've got to build that consensus and you've got to have a way to maintain it over 18 years. And the way I did that was with these principles, these realities that I kept coming back to and explaining to people. And that's what I mean by

leadership. Yeah. Would another example be like the world, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center? I mean, I think it took almost two decades, I think, to get rebuilt. It's a perfect example. And some people said it should be over here and some said it should be on the other side. Very difficult process. But I think some of the architects along the way dropped out and it was more than they could handle. But leadership involves having that vision, being able to build a consensus and sustaining it over time. Definitely. Definitely. What are some other things we want to tease out about your book? Well, one of the things that as I developed these realities, I got pretty confident that was a good plan. And then I thought, let's go to another culture. Let's go to a culture completely different than ours. So I opened an office in China.

And I thought I would test these realities in China. And they fared very well. They resonated. And it's not about the language. It's not about the culture. It's about the human spirit. And we're all the same. We all want health and we want safety and we want our children to have opportunity.

So one of my favorite stories in China, my favorite projects, was what I call the Bamboo Cave. I was hired to design this very massive community. I think there were eight 30-story buildings on the property, and they were spread out over the rolling hills. And I said to the client, we've got to have a community building where everybody could get together and not just be isolated. But by the time I convinced him to do that, there wasn't much land left. There was just sort of a sloping hill down to the river, which was everybody's view quarter to the river. And I said to him, what we'll do, this was in Chengdu in Western China,

where the panda is. And the pandas live there because of the bamboo forest. And I said, we'll make a bamboo cave. We'll put it underground. And you'll walk underneath the stone walls and through the bamboo into this magical little bamboo cave that we designed that really twinkled with all these realities.

Uh-huh. And it's called the Bamboo Cave. Is that what I'm trying to search for this on the thing? I think I see a YouTube video that's come up and some different things. I don't know if there could be. it's called the bamboo cave but it's one of the last stories in the book wow that's amazing i never really thought about how much people interact with architecture and you see beauty and how you feel about stuff and and and how stuff impacts you So you give me some really incredible insight to architecture and everything else. I'll tell you one story that happened to me that was kind of surprising

that really changed the way I thought about architecture and actually about life in general. Once when I was in China, I was having a difference of opinion, let's say, with clients and was a little frustrated. And my friend took me to see this very famous dam. It was a dam in Western China that in the third century BC, the rains would come and it would flood all of the fertile valley below it, which was the food basket for China. And this emperor tried over years and years to build bigger and stronger dams to control nature. And he couldn't. And, of course, the rains came and kept flooding out the crops.

And along came his son, who was tasked with the same job. And the son thought about it for a long time. And his approach was very different. He thought if we could work with the energy, the nature of the river, and control it, and break it down. And so he used bamboo and stones and rocks to make these tendons to subdivide the river into tributaries. And he used the force of the energy of nature to control it. And he was successful. And that message about confrontation, about conflict, about overpowering versus working with the energy that's there in trying to get that energy to move in a direction you want it to do.

It really impacted me tremendously, my architect, but also how I behaved and how I worked with other people, my relationships with other individuals. That's pretty amazing. That's a great life lesson too. I mean, sometimes maybe just trying to hold things back and stop things. You just need to find a workaround. No, architecture is fascinating because it deals with science.

It deals with sociology. It deals with the structure, and it's a fascinating profession. It definitely is. I mean, it's extraordinary. I've always admired people that have an eye for art where they can take a look at this. I mean, cause I just, I have a very simple sort of rudimentary sort of look at things, but it makes cities beautiful and everything else. Anything more you want to tease on the book before? Well, I guess I would just, I might just

say that we started talking about sculpting space and shaping life, and that's how I describe my profession. When I start my work, there's nothing there. It's a clean page. And if I do my work right, it changes how people live. It makes users happy. It can bring communities together and the power to unite groups that never worked together before. Architecture done right shapes community and it builds bridges between people.

If you're a doctor and you make a mistake and your patient dies, you bury them and you cover it up. But if you're an architect and you make a mistake, that effort exists and is visible for decades. It's a heavy responsibility, but it's a fantastic opportunity to help unite people. Definitely. That's what I'm interested in. Definitely. Well, this has been very inspiring and I've learned a lot already and I haven't even gotten to the book yet. So I'm sure I'll learn a lot more from the book. Give us your plugs, Rob, so people can find you on the internet. Okay. Well, I hope everybody will either go on my webpage where you could buy the book,

howarchitecturetells.com. Go to your favorite bookstore or order on Amazon. And I know this is a national program. If you're in New York City on Wednesday the 23rd at 6 p.m. at Rizzoli's, we're having a book launch, a conversation. I'll be signing books. And the following Sunday, the 27th at the beautiful Ferry Building, Book Passages, we'll be having a West Coast book launch. And I'd love to see you and say hello. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on the show, Rob. We really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks, on the show, Rob. We really appreciate it. My pleasure.

Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks to my audience for tuning in. Order up the book. You can go wherever fine books are sold. Don't go into those dark alleyways. Just the fine books. They have good architecture. How Architecture Tells, Nine Realities That Will Change The Way You See, February 22, 22.

You definitely want to preorder it now so you can be the first one on your block to say you got a hold of it and got the chance to read it. Thanks so much for tuning in. Go to youtube.com for it's just chrisfossgoodreads.com for it's just chrisfossy. Everything we're reading and reviewing over there and all our groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Thank you for tuning in. As always, be good to each other, stay

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