#432 - JOHN MARX, Founding Design Principal & Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by John Marx, AIA, founding design principal and Chief Artistic Officer of Form4 Architecture. The three discussed John’s childhood and early career; architect’s relevance in society; gender in architecture; logical thinking, empathy & humanity; loveable architecture; teaching & learning beautiful architecture; AI and architecture; and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT JOHN
John grew up in the Midwest and evolved from studying fine arts into architecture. He co-founded Form4 in SF in 1998. The firm won 2017 American Prize for Architecture and is best known for designing tech spaces for many of Silicon Valley’s big names.
John continues to paint and write poetry, which he feels elevates his architectural design sensibilities (you might have a copy of his Etudes book). He’s a long-time Burner whose most recent installation, Museum of No Spectators, was exhibited at Burning Man the past two years. John is a multi-time exhibitor at the Venice Biennale. He lectured at Berkeley in the early 2020s on designing for cyberspace, predating the Metaverse label, and recently published a series on the topic and AI in Arch Daily. John’s most recent book, Towards Abundance, discusses gender roles and identities.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) John's childhood.
(11:06) Early career.
(13:48) Architecture profession relevance in society.
(19:08) Gender in Architecture.
“One of the greatest curses or insults in architecture appears to be confessing that something's arbitrary. But I think that's the sweet spot. It's the quirky, arbitrary aspects of architecture that people love [and remember]. Linear, logical, verbal. That thought process is not going to permit you to do something expressive, creative, quirky, and human. It’s the multidimensional, intuitive visual creative process that opens that door.” (27:25)
(29:13) What's the world we want to live in?
“They [some architects] say, “We're problem solvers. We look at things rationally and objectively. This subjective thing that you're introducing here is inappropriate for modern architecture. Why are you talking about superficiality like the word beauty, when the world is on fire, and we have climate change issues? We need to talk about carbon, carbon, carbon.” My response to that is: “The most sustainable things in life are those things you will not throw away because you love them too much.” That reintroduces the word love.” (31:18)
(38:25) When did architecture shift to logical thinking?
“International style modernism, which was the basis of minimalism, is a reductive process. When I look at the reductive process, I think, “Okay, well, that's fine. Get to the essence of architecture.” But there's a certain point where every time you go through a layer of reduction and remove something, you're taking humanity out of the design. You get this machine that in the end, is an acquired taste. It's either poetic or it's really boring. Unfortunately, the problem is that not many architects are talented enough to design poetic minimalism. It's really hard.” (40:49)
(46:38) Loveable architecture.
(51:23) Teaching & learning beautiful architecture.
(56:06) Architecture shifts between logic and empathy.
(01:05:20) How to teach beauty.
(01:08:06) AI and Architecture.
“Are we moving towards the way I'm advocating for, which is design from the heart; or are we going to give it all up and let A.I. do it? My fear is we're going to give it all up and let A.I. do it because we've abandoned the heart already. A.I. is not going to steal your job as a designer. You've already given it up by not creating emotionally resonant designs for people, which it has no problem doing. A.I. loves to pander to the population, which architects refuse to do. If you tell it to make things lovable, it'll go there. It won’t say, “We don't do lovable in architecture.” (01:11:22)
(01:13:13) John's favorite building.
