that. russia is called in to help the syrian army repel an offensive in a book province launched by militants with the support of turkish troops. germany mourns the 9 victims of wednesday night's shooting near frankfurt chancellor merkel condemns the poison of racism as if the suspect is believed to have had seen a photo of motives. and ukrainian protest against the arrival of the compatriots who have been evacuated from the coronavirus epicenter in china and are now under. the latest on the story. coming up now though a renowned architect is at the desk on sophie and co talking about cities of the

future. hi welcome to sophie visionaries and. my guest today is a true explorer someone who loves to paint the present in order to figure out the future i'm here with architect urbanist writer a thinker rand paul has in his office to talk about the future of the city and the future landscape. graham it's so good to have you here on our program i've been wanting to ask you all kinds of questions big questions i was essential ones i'll try yes but like i want to start with your exhibit at the guggenheim that's opening. so it's called countryside the future. and it's really it's

funny you say that because most of the people i've spoken to big thinkers feature ologist most of them agree that the future is within big cities that want to win become trees just big city so when you name it like that do you is it just a concept or do you really believe the future is there and it's of course provocation but it's a very calculating provocation because in 2007 the un said that half of mankind for sleeping in cities may see me from that moment cities are the only thing anyone has been looking at and cities has been what people have been kind of publishing about doing studies about. intellectual concentration is going to cities. the prediction is that. maybe 70 or 80 percent of mankind to live in cities and i think there to. become a completely absurd situation that we you know over us are concentrating on very

overcrowded kind of situations and that we leave the countryside to be its potential all its beauty all its history its. its nature. and so. it's more statement to let it happen and that we need to look at a country again but we have to be prepared to live in the countryside thing and. of course in a totally new way. and we're showing some evidence of that between also showing the need for it but is it a statement that actually offer some solutions i'll tell you i'm so. because like the country where account from it's a huge territory and i see that 17 villages every year disappear from the member of russia and i'm not i mean it's understandable that where there are the money living conditions all of that but maybe something for your perspective maybe

a solution that you're offering could reverse this in my country well. if people who leave because they're. kind of little interest to nation. with this city and that therefore everywhere. drains people away from the countryside from villages to prince to prince in africa to prince in europe but i think that if you got a very 1st indoctrination or 1st the propaganda of well actually that we are also making propaganda for it. can come to show evidence for instance you know for a living working with the university of nairobi the 800. students and basically you know. spending really we can you countryside. 60 percent of them sold a future in the countryside and for africa where do you people you know typically

have one foot in the countryside and one foot in the city so there are models of living in the countryside particularly with new technologies new kind of ways of using media new ways of using the internet that who live there so ok we're talking about the concept now which i understand but if we talk for instance i was talking to your country man mark post i don't know who he is is this amazing guy a vascular physiologist who makes meet out of stem cells you know and so we're talking to him and he actually showed us the meat and right now it's hamburgers future it's going to be steaks and all kinds of great. steaks and everything and we're talking and he's talking to me scientifically how in 3040 years farmers in the countryside and your country's begun farming aren't even going to have cattle anymore because the media is going to be made out of you know by your reactors that

you have in your house so everything because of technology i.q. saying it's changing including the landscape including this base of how you know life in the countryside would have you imagine what it would look like of course ringback. basically you cannot look at the countryside if you thought knowing that there will be an enormous amount of change in you but you can also not look at the countryside and kind of realize that in terms of climate change there's an enormous pressure to actually keep more and more and more of the countryside there is kind of plans to preserve 60 percent or of the. entire rules you know in terms of protected areas or reservations or whatever so yes everything will change but part of the chance to also be to live in the countryside in a new way if only to simply maintain it or to maintain

a kind of presence there the fact that i think our cities are not that wonderful. cities or do kind of centers of inequality you see whole generations that don't get a foothold in the city it is actually kind of really absurd that they don't believe in doing much more pleasant much more kind of relaxing much more healthy environments. affordable and vibrancy of contraception so now you're talking to me as a thinker as a. theory which you also are but at the same tight same time you're a man who things informs right so when we think your buildings far as this thing from the landscape of a countryside can you maybe in few simple words explain how it would look informs the future of the countryside architecture life or space was. well i think i think . part of the generation generation of 68 that you know

already in the sixty's and seventy's. never been a hippie but of course hippies were perfectly able to imagine what it would be like to live in the countryside. they were confined having series how you could live in communes of course new soviets the have been incredible communes compiling and living in the countryside operating in the countryside i think. it will not be a kind of situation very soon everything looks different but i think. what needs to happen is that circle logical negativity about the countryside is going to reversed in the 1st instance also on a psychological level so i don't think it's new forms that will happen oh no of course new technologies will implying new forms or new ish forms but i see it

as a kind of basically a campaign. in the almost independent of architecture ok but that as we for me also one of the great revelations that in every profession you are always to the prisoner of the parameters of the profession. actually if you want to kind of think of a real solution maybe you should look at the solution that is defined by the architecture field to just move outside talking about professions. i am observing right now how so many professions are becoming slowly obsolete and you're wondering which one of that is going to be obsolete tomorrow you're saying in your essay junk space architecture per se disappeared in the 20th century what does it mean. and should be a political comment i think that. strong and good architecture is.

related to the public sector i think the. architecture is there can probably prefer a profession that works for the public and when i say architecture disappeared i think if the new public clients lurch new disappeared. into kind of periods of new liquidity and more and more conventional to private and i think that therefore you know nobility of architecture or the kind of good intentions of architecture that were in question and maybe even 40 years ago have simply evaporate that. kind of pressure on the part of it that's also evolution no part of it oh of course of course it's evolution and i'm still an architect within that system and i'm not saying you can do architecture but it's a new kind of fundamental a different kind of move that you're playing in the current culture and then you could play 40 years ago and live long enough to going to realize that things that

seemingly change forever may be able to change again a different direction or even to want to read from us but i like. things that are changing so drastically like in my lifetime are there things that globalization has changed and whether you like globalization or not it's here it's your reversible and then what you have as a given is that problems have become global market has become global is there such thing as global architecture. well i think it's a very crucial question because we feel we have to put through all sorts of globalization now we have almost the referrers kind of vast greek equalisation. disappointment with the globalization and i would say yes there's a global architecture and it's not an architecture that looks the same everywhere

but it is an architecture and that engages different conditions everywhere in a different way for instance. did the library. in the city of seattle become the 1st part of the 21st century maybe 10 years later did qatar national library. value the relative value. or the ambition and quality of each of the buildings is completely different even though i was the. i was the author and it's completely different because you have a different form of interaction with a different culture with a different. form of know how these different technologies with different environments so i think that it's extremely important to kind of right now to look at you know do good globalization and to maintain and to says i'm for it because i

think it would be too simple to say ok it was a mistake we go back and let's forget about it it's so funny that you bring seattle and qatar and you say even though i'm the same architect that those buildings are so different because. one of the downfalls of globalization for many is the loss of identity and for instance when you look at the buildings especially here like you can say this is a money and building this is a barbarian tavern italian. but when you look at modern buildings all high skyscrapers still the same this everyone wants to do something like you or zaha hadid and you don't they don't. there's a lot of that and it's 2. thing to have 2 opinions about it if there is so much similarity it means that people like similar to. their 4 do identity is not necessarily a problem but it's actually something that people like because maybe it gives

a kind of family or tea everywhere or kind of repetition of the same expectation the same environment so i wrote an article about generic city which is going to simply say ok you can continue to complain about it. maybe people like. that on the other hand i did to be anon in 2014 in venice and i was there every single country to do square the history of the last 100 years. and those 100 years are of course the period that each country had to become in some way. kind of really showed the incredible diversity the incredible eccentricity over every kind of story do incredible expression of modernity. you will see how different it was formed. in. different cities from underneath

the in finland so i think that if you look carefully. the story about disappearing identity is actually a fake story when i take a short break right now when we're back we'll continue talking to jenny as architect. the future. i would hope to. put themselves on the line to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or injury. or some want to be that's.

actually going to be prose that's what the before 3 in the morning can't be good that. i'm interested always in the waters of our. first sitting. this 10 year period of 0 money velocity where money has gone directly into the pockets of the few oligarchs in countries of doors of america and around the world into these silos like these 12500000000 dollars properties when they when the infrastructure for that starts to crack and illiquidity starts to seep out you get inflation for real for stuff like food and we're seeing this happen now where people are noticing that the cost of every day living is starting to spike higher.

our back with rahm call has rahm your term bigness in architecture from what i understand it's the fact that everything is sort of anonymous in a way that it can be a library or a hospital or a building where people leave apartment building and you wouldn't make we you wouldn't know the difference looking at it and i just somehow because i was a political journalist in the past had this parallel until recently all the politicians and leaders looked alike i.q. would not make a difference they were like all great and then all of a sudden people started voting for the most unexpected people like trump or johnson or like mattingly penn almost became president friends i mean you can like them or

hate them but they're certainly not average so i was thinking did they do this this was the need of people to have something that is not to go beyond a little beyond simple technology actually do you think something like that could happen in architecture where we go back to some extravagant things. things are not traitors you know maybe extravagant is not like quite the right you could even say that are to state your kind of wince who dat. during already in the last 20 years and you could even think that exactly because we became so dominant dominated by economic incentives that there you know there's not a single developer who tells you please do something really boring and really neutral. rich pre-build don't notice it's. please make an ark i'm pleased to be noticeable please be exceptional please be. so in architecture we've had the

period. we're going to more extreme to apologise and leave it to you to church home satisfying to us what about the whole bigness thing because i see it too i see what you see i don't like it. you know. this was just a kind of way of may be exploring but also reassuring people and. you knew you know i've been kind of writer you know as part of my t.v. i simply sometimes see that certain issues are. becoming kind of big or inflated or critical. tragic simply because nobody has really interpreted them in a kind of very precise way and so nice going to sympathy to say ok

since the early 20th century the. expertise of architecture that when you see something you immediately understand it and you understand what it is for and you understand how it works is no longer valid and so it is no longer valid because of certain reasons and those reasons are mostly to do with new technologies that enable us to be kind of to. and so it's not that i take a position but i try to give the most precise explanation so that. a certain. in happiness can be avoided but this thing simply through understanding things. but you know how before an artist any artist including an architect could just. do whatever he wanted to do without really thinking i mean that's. that's that's the feeling we got that idea of architecture is that no architect every do

what they want it and no architecture ever be able to. if you look at the history of michelangelo you see that the pope's told him that he had to come to defend himself that he had to kind of change. his design kind of. 5 different times because somebody didn't like it architecture is it going to incredible frisson it's like you want something or somebody wants something you can do it but then a dialogue going to begins. and in a way to better protect you do more intense the dialogue and it's about. responding to what you need to do what you have to do what you it's about exploring the theme the lack of freedom. the freedom stew or oh you must be experiencing a lot of cognitive dissonance here.

maybe the departed type of called native dissonance a perfect term but i mean with all due respect it's good that you say this because like if you are a writer and you write a movie that i don't like and i can play if you build something i mean i'm stuck with it at least my lifetime i have to look at it every day so even that is not to do is a number of buildings that are terrible how do you feel about that. it's a situation. you know you were on break she's like one of my favorite serbian writers he says that an artist dies twice 1st physically and then 2nd one when he's . is no more do you feel the same way like if you're building a stereo and you're laying him going as. being. the 1st this is thinking about the 2nd. but there's something that i keep thinking about all the

time because we have so many problems now along with global warming and overpopulation 1st of all so it's only a worry is that in the future we're going to have to build more buildings more compact buildings we need to tear down more buildings and we need to house this people somewhere do you feel like we're going to have this problem of heritage versus. putting your people in buildings. absolutely. 2 things i think the. issue of global warming is very important in a show we actually have a kind of very detail to look at somebody looking at. how people survive there and we we have can focus on and seeing all kinds of incredible phenomenon happening you know in terms of how you survive and how you can flourish in. extremely difficult conditions. also in order to deal with

global warming. that's a revaluing of the country is extremely important because it's clear that you know maybe we saw technologies were simply nature itself also has to help us we have to come to the store in nature to a much more important role than a test and a much more demanding. client in a similar way so that is you know another crucial message of this exhibition. what we're doing now almost like lemmings who can move to the city it became simply . if even for our own survival to to abandon the country is so it's not exactly what you're saying but could it be also that if we take the countryside and

start living there we won't have to tear down the trails in order to i don't know built high rise so that people can be housed i think that. if you look at. statistics if you look at. quantities i think one of the difficulties is that so many of these questions have . become extremely emotional. basically based on slogans but if you look statistically it's actually the numbers to be or accommodating no. because you can really handle them. don't need to kind of break the story half of the city the only kind of reason would be to replace dysfunctional entities research things the kind of work which better and more discreetly. i think is no can approach there will never be

a situation that anyone is forced to eliminate the beautiful things of the earth thank god he's saying that but still like a job of an architect no matter how great he is the transform space to create new space new things right so it's only inevitable that your buildings will pop up next to 18th century i think i think. thought so too but maybe 15 years ago if we can can we really interested in prison. for diversity reasons and that's why i do think of us and it's more i'm currently working. basically you know without any ambition to take to the story with the admission simply to improve but also to maintain what was good about those buildings and i think that you know both in the garage and detention there are there's an incredible generosity of scale a norm is going to spaces that would be very expensive to going to day and so

i think even immortal of the architect or somebody who's only doing new things and therefore competing with what is there is a bit old fashioned what is the future of the form because we're talking about transforming the countryside but look we're like on this on her you know a cocoa break with this artificial intelligence. certainly going to join. us here so what is it going to look like. i don't think it will necessarily look. once you get used to things maybe they don't. think that anymore i think there's also. kind of reason to believe that. we need to get much greater discipline and whether we want to or not but death will you know and so we need to embrace that and wants me embarrased that i think that. for me it's

not necessarily something that. you're forced to produce in the future i really think that the kind of pressures we are under. more likely to end in more sober. more sober cities. obviously more intelligent. realty or motor city can also be a form of intelligence. i'm just trying to figure i don't have kids and i'm thinking about having them now some really trying to figure out what kind of space they will be living in when you're talking about your generic zuni of the future it can be any city any place where for me that is like the notion of my home my castle disappears privacy disappears describe it cowhouse is going to look where my kids going to. school. and still be able to leave

a mosque or if they want to they can go to dubai or they can go to delhi so i think that to not to be kind of different. and i think it's a kind of very beautiful question of course what life move my kids have. but it's maybe also be tragic that we are now forced to oust its christian instead of being able to simply reproduce without too many too many wars going to. just you can reproduce without too many workers ok i'll take that advice thank you so much rather in this wonderful interview. ok ok.

now. when i was. going to get that money even if you don't know me. bob dylan once said money doesn't talk it's chremes former republican new york city mayor michael bloomberg is proving this just the sheer force of lobbyist spending has made him a serious contender to capture the democratic nomination are we experiencing peak trauma to arrangement syndrome.