#465/Richard Saul Wurman + Kim Hoagland Fights for the White House + Musical Guest Quinn Lemley

Modernist architecture defense system

0:00This is Alistair Gordon, author of Week in Utopia, and you're listening to U.S. Modernist Radio. Mama don't allow no architecture around here. Mama don't allow no architecture around here. Oh, I don't care what mama don't allow, gonna draw my modern anyhow. Mama don't allow no architecture around here. Welcome to U.S. Modernist Radio, where we talk and laugh with people who enjoy, own, create, dream about, preserve, love, and hate modernist architecture, the most exciting and controversial buildings in the world.

0:36I'm Tom Guile. Today's first guest, architect and author Richard Saul Werman, wrote more than 90 books. He also founded TED Talks, among other innovations, and pretty much created the field of information architecture. We'll also speak today with a woman who's suing Donald Trump over his changes to the East Wing of the White House, architectural historian Kim Hoagland. Finally, our musical guest, the lovely Quinn Limley, brings Hollywood glamour back to life. And now your host, Mr. Modernism, George Smart.

1:09Hey, thanks, Tom. Modernist architecture's last line of defense is, structurally speaking, a Post-it note. We're talking about a deed restriction, a single sheet of paper that legally bars your mid-century home's next owner from bulldozing it for 10 years. This is a document that every developer hopes every mid-century homeowner has never seen. And there's a new breed of mid-century enemies, the lying couple. This is a duo who proclaims a love of the house, a desire to keep it forever, a promise to renovate it thoughtfully, and then, two weeks after closing, it's gone.

1:49These days, lying couples are everywhere, in every city, sometimes as plentiful as the developers, gay and straight, old and young, spouting lies to get their hands on the land. The deed restriction is breathtaking in its simplicity. An owner who loves their house attaches a one-paragraph covenant to the deed, and for the next 10 years, the house may not be demolished. Then it gets recorded at the county. That's the whole defense system. Just a few sentences, sitting in a file cabinet, radiating consequences like a tiny nuclear reactor.

2:23Why 10 years? Because 10 years assumes, correctly, that a buyer who wants to destroy a charming modernist house right now will lose interest if they have to wait a decade. 10 years is also longer than the attention span of the average developer, who operates on a one-to-two-year return on investment. The restriction doesn't need to outlast the building. It just needs to outlast their financial interest. What's remarkable is how unbothered the document is relative to its power. Important legal instruments usually look the part.

2:55Seals, ribbons, etc. This one-pager looks like a permission slip. You could lose it under a takeout menu. And yet, it casually overrules the single most expensive intention in real estate, saying no with the serene confidence of a librarian. The deed restriction does not raise its voice. It has been recorded. 10 years. One page. Just do it. U.S. Modernist Radio is underwritten by the Brent R. Harris Charitable Trust, restorer of Richard Neutra's Kauffman Desert House in Palm Springs, and six other houses in California.

3:32By the Ife Jones Conservancy, preserving the legacy of modernist architecture in northwest Arkansas. IfeJonesConservancy.org. And by Diane Bald and the Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu, and Palm Springs.

Interview with Richard Saul Wurman

3:50Architect Richard Saul Wormann studied under Lou Kahn, worked for Charles and Ray Eames, coined the term information architecture, wrote more than 90 books, and founded TED Talks, which he later sold for $14 million. He's a Guggenheim fellow, an AIA fellow, and a Cooper Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, among many honors.

4:22He will tell you that every single thing he has ever done comes down to making information understandable. This is one true genius. George headed to Florida for this conversation with Richard Saul Wormann, recorded in Richard's home. My sport, my practice for my sport, my training for my sport, is trying to make complex things clear to myself. I make mistakes, but I take baths in failure.

4:54And I'm constantly failing. I'm constantly pecking away at my ignorance. And the only way I discover the flaws, the things I'm ignorant about, that I can't explain to myself, I would have this conversation with myself upstairs. So I will tell you what's on my mind, or as a response to what you ask me. I hope I don't say things the way I've said them before. I don't think there's consistency in my life except the desire to understand that which I'm ignorant about.

5:33And that is my advantage over you. My advantage over you is I have an unlimited repertoire of what to talk about. Ah. And a curiosity to drive it, too, right? Yes, but your repertoire is basically focused on your knowledge and speciality. When you go out and try to get a job, not you personally, but anybody who's listening, they tell what they are expert in, what they know how to do.

6:03They tell somebody their abilities. They're good with people. They're bad with people. They're a good salesman. They know a lot about mathematics that can use certain programs on their computer. They can do this or that. They make a nice presentation. They dress well. They have a good vocabulary. They're well read. Any of those things. I would have the advantage because they have a limited repertoire. Mine's unlimited because I don't understand anything in a profound way. And so I sell my ignorance.

6:35Doing something is trying to figure out the pattern. It's somewhat mystical, but I would call myself a quilter. However, I have shreds of cloths, shreds of flotsam and jetsam. Maybe they're all different colors, different patterns, different materials, and I'm trying to thread them together. So I make quilts. But you have a desire to make quilts, and not everybody wants to quilt. I mean, clearly you have...

7:05You can have a desire to do something. You can also have no desire to do anything else. So you can work from the fact that you have chosen this, or it has chosen you. I can't type. I don't make a particularly wonderful appearance. I don't dress that well. I have a decent vocabulary. So, so well read. I can't sing. I can't memorize anything.

7:35I could never be in a school play because I couldn't memorize a line. I have a terrific memory, but I can't memorize.

7:44When I speak to somebody and they speak back to me, I can see their words. So I see and hear at the same time. I have managed to blend those two senses, and I do about 80% well hearing two conversations at once. Okay. Which is helpful to me. Everything is interesting. Everything talks to each other. Everything takes place someplace. Everything is conversation. I just look for patterns that are simple-minded across sideways that touch each other.

8:20And I think that's sort of my goal. People see, and my conversation would be, oh, you're the guy who did TED Talks.

8:30TED Talks is absolute and antithetical to what I was trying to do with TED. What were you trying to do? Everything but TED Talks. I designed four days. I designed just recently three days. It would be like, I did a book, but here's only the third chapter. That's a TED Talk. The book is a conference. It would be like seeing the middle 16 minutes of a film and saying, you saw the film. To me, everything connects and everything has a relationship.

9:04That every speech has a relationship to some other speech, and every person has a relationship to somebody else. And the silence between speeches, and the silence between presentations, and the permissions of meeting each other, and the length of breaks, and the meals, and the signaling of only serving sake and caviar. As in your most recent conference. In my most recent conference, it tells you without a word, without me making a point of it, before or after or during, that it's not your Aunt Tilly's garden party.

9:39As so many conferences are. I don't care about other conferences. I would never hire somebody to work with me on a conference if they had done one before. I don't want people who know how to do, quote unquote, a conference. It would be asking somebody to paint a third of my painting. Now, some people can do that. So you want people to more... I don't want the people to do anything. I want to have an interesting time.

10:11Okay. I do not care about the audience for my books or my conferences. And you've done well by that model, because you've obviously... What do you talk about doing well? What does well mean? Well, you've entertained yourself. Well, period. Right. I have done... But there's an implication when you say done it well, which is fame, power, money. It's success. No, that is not what I am after. None of those. Not fame, not power, not money. I was bankrupt at 45. Started from zero.

10:42I have no skill sets. I told you before, I can't type. I don't have any skill sets. I don't do sports. You name it, I can't do it. You can see structures. I see okay. You see very well. I hear all right. Yeah. I am a quilter. I can knit those things together. You're a knitter. A quilter. A knitter has more order about it. I see. A quilter takes disparate parts of anything. And the thread between the parts has meaning in quilting.

11:16In knitting, it's just the same thing. They're really different.

Epiphanies of structure and space

11:20You told me earlier that you first recognized your prowess at seeing structure when you went to the 1939 World's Fair, which most people have not been to. So maybe you could share a little bit about that experience, Richard. Well, I think that's what I said is probably wrong, a little bit of an exaggeration. I think my epiphany about seeing structure was a conversation when I was probably 19. And this funny man with a scarred face and squeaky voice, as just a part of his conversation, said,

11:58every space you're in, you should know how it's made. And then he went on talking. It was just a hiccup along the way of a sentence, of a paragraph, of a chapter. But think of what that means. When you're in a space, you know how the space is made. You might as well throw away most every building you've been. If that is true, or if that is a desire, or if that is a measure, that's a different aesthetic. And a willingness to notice.

12:29To make it part of your thinking. If I put out my hand, I do have an inherent sense of how that's made. If you slice my body in half, vertically or horizontally, you have a map of my body. You know how it's made. You see the relationship of parts. Acknowledging each other, working with each other, ignoring each other, expelling waste, changing color of various liquids from red to blue and blue to red.

13:00You learn so much from the slice down to a body. You learn that your brain is just fat. You take statins to get rid of the cholesterol, and your whole brain is cholesterol. There's something to learn from everything. If you slice it, dice it, ask it, talk to it, dance with it, and think of the opposite of it. The tango. The amazing tango. The dance of Argentina.

13:30A dance that really is the country. Men and women dance together. Men and men. Women and women dance together. They hold each other tight. They back off and are angry at each other and stay away from each other. They improvise, and yet they have a regular order to it. The music and the dance, they blend. They dance at lunchtime in squares, whether they know somebody or not. They dance by themselves. It's a dance of opposites. Opposite sex.

14:02Opposite passions.

14:05Opposite love and hate.

14:09Niels Bohr in 1914, I think, 13 or 14, a year after Einstein. Einstein and here were good friends and argued all the time because of quantum mechanics and Einstein's physics. The new physics, the old physics, they argued but loved each other. Each arrogant in their own way, quiet arrogance and boisterous arrogance. Niels Bohr, in his Nobel speech, he said when he has a profound thought, he realized that the opposite was also profound.

14:41It's the tail I'm putting on the end of the dance. It's a tail that I wear every day. I wish I had a tail. I would have better balance. I could sit on my tail and have a three-legged stool like a kangaroo. I don't know why we don't have tails. We've lost our tail. We have a tail bone. It goes down there and got cut off. A tail would be useful and didn't make it. I think we should really almost add it on. We should have a belt with a tail on it and then we could just sit.

Adventures across Canada and America

15:11I want to ask you a question about a story that you used to tell all the time. And this is the story about your trip to Canada with the two Mikes. Cheltenham High School. You told this story constantly, so much so it was written up in your high school annual. Which I designed. Had dots on the cover. Michael Wojcik and Michael Auspitz and Harry Subin, one other person. Yeah. It was to Algonquin National Park.

15:42Okay. And it was in probably 1951 or 2, something like that. My memory is good. Yeah, your memory is great. I have not heard anybody ask me that, ever. I don't remember anybody ever asking me about that trip. I know. I don't know where you found it. In my yearbook, I guess. But I don't even remember that the yearbook talks about that. Anyway, so what about that? So you used to talk about this trip all the time.

16:13Well, it was a big adventure. I was 16 or 15. So what did you guys do? We lived on, I forget the name of the lake. I remember discovering the loon as a bird. I never had seen loons before. In fact, I did a sculpture of a loon at that time, which has a lower mandible that's bigger than the top mandible. And the water would go over that. They'd sift through the water, much as a whale. I have not thought about this. I haven't thought about this in 70 years, 75 years.

16:43And it would sift the water through, and like a whale sifts through the small plankton and everything, through the filter. That's the way the loon do it. And they went along the surface and made a beautiful noise. They had a wonderful noise they made. I used to be able to imitate that noise. That was on the lake. And we had a canoe, and we would swim in the lake and take it down one of the estuaries that went into the lake to shop for things.

17:15And we camped up there for a month in high school. I had a period of my life where I did adventures. That was a kind of soft adventure, because I was with other people. But I took adventures where I begged my way across the United States. In a jeep. Yeah. So you know my story. I don't want to talk to people about my story. If you know what, you tell it. You tell it. No, no, no. My listeners don't know the story. I'm just prompting you to tell the story. I don't talk. That's nothing I talk about. I'm not interested to look backwards.

17:47I just summed them up. I did adventures. I lived in the jungle for six months and mapped Tikal, a third of Tikal. The interesting part about that is I never took a course in mapping, and I lied to them and told them I could, and had to learn how to do plane table mapping, which none of your readers will understand what it is, because they think you hold up a laser and mapping is easy. No, it was a slide rule and books of tables. I certainly couldn't do it now. Lots of math. But I lived in the jungle, which was no roads, no communication.

18:19Very dangerous. Very uncomfortable. I don't want to say dangerous. That sounds like bragging rights. No, it was just uncomfortable experience that you don't remember, because our minds forget pain and discomfort and remember the- The good stuff. The good stuff. And I lived on an island for two months with two other guys over what we could catch with our feet and a net and ate out of shells and had one bowl and one bottle of Madeira in the Outer Banks.

18:51Of North Carolina? When Ocracoke was not a national park, had no roads, and lived in the side of Tyron Hills, which has moved since that, but that was on a map of being a big dune. And I learned a lot. You learn from what doesn't work. You do learn from failure. Yeah, absolutely. That's the only way I learn. Now, something you did one time, which should be considered more dangerous today, is that you went out to California, and you went right up to Charles and Ray Eames' house and knocked

19:25on the door. That was when I begged to cross the United States. I went with David Rothstein. He was 19 with me at that time. We were 19. Finished our first year at Penn, and got an old car, an old Jeep with no doors, no roof, and was in very bad shape. This was 53. So it was shortly after the war, we decided to drive west and see things. And we had a cook stove. We didn't have a tent.

19:56We made a vow never to sleep under anything, take a bath in anything but a stream or a pond, something natural, never inside, not buy any food, and learn how to beg, which was, in the first few days, it's difficult. And then you get used to it. And you couldn't take the trip now, you'd be killed or arrested. But you could then. It was, society was different. It's not that we were embraced, you just weren't killed. Right. The police weren't called. Yeah.

20:27And every day was an adventure. We got wet when it rained. At night, sometimes we were cold. And I think I learned that was a set in my life. It said there was a set to my personality made that I could survive being abrasively charming.

20:48Abrasiveness was important, but being charming was important. And the contrast of both was another part of my personality that seemed to work because the sidestep you do when somebody's abrasive is then covered with caviar when you're charming. And the caviar even tastes better because of the surprise. Okay.

Meeting Charles and Ray Eames

21:15Anyway, we made it across the country. And at one time, we found where Charlie lived, Charles Eames lived. And we drove up the driveway when nobody was there. And we walked around the house. You wouldn't do that now. You know, that would be. Was this in Pacific Palisades at their noted house? Yeah. Yeah, there. Yep. And we walked around, walked around, and then somebody came up the driveway. But we weren't concerned. I mean, we were just relaxed. Nothing bothered us by then. And we said, hi.

21:45And she wasn't bothered either. She said, what are you two young men doing here? They're kind of, that's not a quote, but that was my, that's my memory of it. And we told her. But we had a routine by then. We were charming by then. We looked like s**t. We had only the clothes on our back. We probably smelled bad. We were kind of dirty looking. And we certainly looked like hobos, but we came in in a car. We were young. We were 19. Well, you know, we had a nice smile. And we looked people in the eye.

22:17And she said, oh, you boys, get inside and take a shower. And we're sorry. We said, ma'am, we can't do that. We vowed not to do that. Are you hungry? You bet we are. She said, well, wash your hands and face. And we sat down and talked with her and had a nice meal. And she showed us around the house. And we said, is Mr. Eames going to be coming? No, he was shredding on a couch that he was doing for Herman Miller. So we spent several hours there.

22:48I've been along, you know, an afternoon with her and went on our way. Many years after that, after my office closed in Philadelphia, I had to survive. So the office closed in Philly. I called up somebody at USC and somebody at UCLA and said, I need a favor. Give me a visiting professorship for a semester because I'm bankrupt. They both did. So I went out to the West Coast. Different car at that time, I assume. I didn't have a car.

23:19I had a friend who was in the used car business in Philly. He had a friend who was in the used car business in L.A. And they gave me a nice mercury convertible blue, which I had for nothing while I was there and gave it back to them. So I taught, filled up the week Monday through Thursday with teaching a couple days in each school.

23:43I was about to go home and a friend said, Charles and Ray Eames are going to give a speech because they're going to open their Franklin and Jefferson show at Lachma, L.A. County Museum. I'd already seen the show because it was at the Met first. Okay. But I said, oh, I'd love to hear him talk. I'll save you a couple seats because there was a lady who was teaching at USC then. I said, come on along with me. And it was jammed. Walked down to these two safe seats. They were sort of middle, right.

24:14And for some reason, the Eameses were always stage lift. So I sat down, and Mr. Eames is introduced, and he looked down. He said, oh, there's Richard Saul Werman sitting there, that wonderful architect from Philadelphia. Wow. I think I had met him once, but I'm not even sure I had met him, but he knew who I was. And after the, he gave a lousy speech. He was not a good speaker. I went up to see him, and I said, Mr. Eames, thank you very much for that introduction.

24:46I mean, that was very nice of you, and I enjoyed your speech. I lied. I enjoyed your speech very much. He says, oh, my God, it's good to see you. Where are you? I said, well, I've been living here for a little bit. I'm going to be going back to Philly, but I've been doing some teaching. Where are you living? I said, well, I'm living down by the water, and you haven't come to see me? I said, well, you're a busy person, sir. I wasn't going to just come in.

25:18He said, what are you doing tomorrow? I said, come and see me. I'll be happy to. It was right close. I was living in a flophouse. I mean, I wasn't penniless. I had a black and white TV set, and I had a hanger in the closet. No furniture. There was a little refrigerator. I bought a lot of V8, and I had one meal a day, and that's all I had a budget for. Because I sent all the money back to my first wife, because we had two kids. Yeah. I'm not complaining. It was not hard.

25:49It's not hard for me to live that way. So I went to see him the next day, and he said, well, you're not doing anything. Why don't you come work for me? I said, well, I still have. That would be so abrupt to move out to the West Coast. He said, here's a plan. Come out here for a week every month. I'll get you an office at Polaroid. I'm doing a project for them. You can be in charge of that project. You can go up there for a week, a month.

26:20You'll have an office and work on the project. And then you can have two weeks in Philadelphia to do whatever you want. I said, fine. But now let me dial back eight hours. I went out to the lobby after introducing myself to Mr. Eames. And the person who saved the seats for me was out there with the woman he was with. And he said, have you ever met Gloria Nosh, N-A-G-Y? And I said, no.

26:52But I've been looking at her legs for the last hour and a half. That's the first thing I ever said to my wife. She thought that was really rude. And that was the meeting. The following week, there was a party for me because I was going back. I don't know why somebody had a party. I don't think I was well-known or anything. I certainly don't still think I was well-known at that time. But I had done some books, and I guess I was better than a piece of shit on the floor.

27:25And at that party, she was invited also. She was being fawned over by a lot of people. I didn't know who the hell she was. At the end of the party, we start talking at the very end. And we fell in love. Just like that? Yeah. We fell in love. This was, what, 79, 80, somewhere in that time frame? Yeah. And we fell in love. And we had a tumultuous courtship, bicoastal, me coming out.

27:55A week, a month. I assume flying, not driving. Flying.

28:01And then, in the meantime, I worked for Charlie. The first day I started working there, we got along. We liked each other. We had a relationship like I had with Lou. Lou liked me, but he couldn't overly show it because of the jealousies in these offices. Everybody wants a piece of Lou in the offices, and everybody wants a piece of Charlie. They're always like that. I have the same problem working with Jack Dangerman, that they know he likes me, and there's jealousies there.

28:32And I'm not trying to take anybody's job. Yeah, right. But there still is that, you know, people are ambitious and insecure. And the more I don't give a fuck, the worse it is, you know. When I taught at NC State, I always made it clear. I said, when I got the job from Camp Hefner, I said, I'm only going to be here one year. I know I was recommended. I have never taught before. I'll do a good job. But I will never come to a meeting.

29:05I will go to no faculty meetings. Make it clear to everybody in the faculty, I'm not going to be here. I'm not staying here. Nobody has to worry about how well or how poorly I do. And I've done that every place I've taught. I don't want to be in the politics of things. I'm not ambitious at somebody else's expense. Yeah. And within a few months, you became the most recognized teacher there. I got the award. I got the outstanding teacher, yeah. Which doesn't surprise me.

29:36I mean, because I do that well. What surprises me is they would recognize me. Twice. Well, anyway, so he called me over. He said, I'd like to call you Saul. I like your middle name. Could I call you Saul? Everybody called me Ricky or Richard or Mr. Werman.

30:00Even at that age, I had a sense of dignity. And I always use Richard Saul Werman when I sign things because I felt that gave me some dignity when I'm a son of a kosher butcher and a cigar maker, right? It was my clawing, my insecurities. I said, yes, you can call me Saul if I can call you Charlie. And he was Mr. Eames. Yeah. He said, that's the deal. He liked that. And we instantly bonded.

30:31And he had a decent-sized office. Not huge, but he had a decent-sized office. And he had a kitchen in his office. And he had a teeny small garden where he had lunch with Ray. They served him lunch out in this garden. From that moment on, the week I was out there, or the week or 10 days I was out there every month, I had lunch with him in the garden. Oh, wow. And so I met every hootie-tootie guy that came to visit them and stayed for lunch, you know, once or twice a week.

31:03So that was a wonderful thing.

Information architecture and guidebooks

31:07Now, at what point did you shift your focus from being an architect to being an explorer, an architect of information about how to portray that differently? Because there was a shift in there. I mean, you had an interest all along, but your activities really shifted there in the 80s. See, I don't see any shift. I think I was always interested in everything. Yeah, but you started doing stuff. Your big-selling book came out in the late 80s.

31:39I didn't think of that as a big-selling book. When I finish something, it's over. I don't even think about it. It's over. I'll ask you, did you have a good time at my conference? That was all. That was just to make it smooth when he came in here. But I don't really give a f*** about the conference I just did. And I'm interested in the thing I'm doing now. I'm not interested in that. So you're very present to where you are in the moment. I get that. No, I'm not present. I'm tomorrow. I mean, I can list things because you're going to ask questions about them, and I can show you things because it's examples of things which you talk about.

32:13I can't talk about what I haven't done. I can think about what I haven't done. If you just want me to talk about the book I'm working on, I'll fill up the whole thing talking about this book, which is fascinating, much more fascinating than talking about a trip to a lake in Canada when I was 16. You know, that I have to dredge up. I mean, you put me way back when I was four at that World's Fair in New York. An epiphany I had when I saw my mother telling me,

32:47because I saw somebody just walking with a cane slow. She told me, she said, do you know that you learn to walk, that we don't naturally walk, and that when somebody is laid up for a long time and they get out of bed, it's not so much the weakness of their muscles. They have to learn to walk. They have to relearn that process. Well, I thought that was fascinating, and I've taken that with me my whole life, that we learn each thing,

33:17and then walking became a metaphor for me because what you have to learn is you have to get stable, gain equilibrium. Somebody holds you, and you gain your equilibrium on a very stupid thing. We have two little pads. Why don't we have this tail? You know, that gives us balance. No, we're standing this much bigger body on two little things. It's a bad design. Yeah.

33:47I mean, this chair has five legs, so it doesn't tip. We have two. It's the wrong number. It's not stable. Who do we call about that? And then to move forward, we have to take a big risk. We throw one foot out, which is heavier at the end, so it has the strength of something towards the outside. When you twirl a ball around, it has strength because it's at the outside of something,

34:18and you push that leg out, and you lose your balance. You lose your equilibrium. And to gain your equilibrium back, you pull the other leg up. You purposely put yourself in danger. You purposely fail. You purposely lose your balance. And the end of that act moves you forward a positive thing, that we hail, that we hail, fail, hail, fail. We hail this failure to move ahead. And I thought,

34:49wow, that is an interesting thing you taught me, Mother, that you have to learn to walk. And then I dissected what walking was. But I think I was five, six years old. And I've always thought about not taking anything that somebody says without understanding what it really means. A more critical thinking. I don't use big words. I just wasn't satisfied with what she said. Yeah. And I wanted to bring it back to what you actually do.

35:21And I occasionally walk with that in my mind. Well, I'm losing my balance. I'm moving forward. And that was a good metaphor, that by losing your balance, by failing, you move forward. So when your architecture practice failed, right? Yeah. What did you move forward into? I moved to a job in California teaching before. And so I thought, well, I'll go back. And my name was out there. So they asked me from Cal Poly Pomona, would I be dean? So then I moved out there. But then I was fired.

35:52I was dean for six months. I ended up the year. I was dean for a year. But halfway through, the vice president came in and said, where were you last Friday? I said, I was in New York. He said, this is a 40-hour-a-week job. You're supposed to be here every day. I said, did I miss any meetings? Is there anything I haven't done in my job? Is there any cause? Well, the cause is you're supposed to be here. I said, but everybody knew I was leaving. My assistant knew. Everybody knew. Everything was taken care of. I go to every meeting.

36:24So somebody was out to get you. Oh, yeah. They couldn't stand. I was then living with Gloria, and we weren't married. And I didn't dress up. I don't have a tie and a suit. So I said, are you trying to tell me that you want me to leave or fire? He said, I'm glad you said that, not me. Yes, you're fired. I said, okay. Very soon after, the president called me over to his office. He said, what just happened? So I said, I was fired. But he had interviewed me to begin with and made it perfectly clear he wanted me to do

36:58things on the outside, so I was a real person, as many architects as deans are. But this was a state school, and the state school in the fine print says you're supposed to be there, and this guy didn't like me. So a very interesting series of events happened. He said, that's the letter of the law. You're fired.

37:17Now, as president, I'm going to rehire you. What salary are you getting? I said, I don't know, $34,000 a year. Well, you can get higher. I'm going to make you a full professor with tenure. He says, I've never done this before. I will never do it again, but I have the power, according to the letter of the law. I can grant you tenure. That must have really made that guy mad. Oh, he fired him. Okay. He said, who do you want to be the next dean? I said, there's a young man who I think is ambitious and is honest, ambitious about

37:52teaching, not about himself. He said, who? I said, Marvin Malica. Marvin Malica. He said, okay, he's the next dean. He said, what do you want to teach? I want you still around. I said, two nights a week, I'll teach something. One or two courses, I'll teach two nights. But then I'm going to move into L.A. Because I was out there. He said, you got it. So I had failed. I got married. But I came out of it okay. And I moved into the city, which Gloria wanted to move into the city.

38:25We were living in a very nice house in Claremont, renting a house because it was close to Pomona. Moved into the city. We lived together. But then it wasn't working because I, anyway, she kicked me out. Are you back to the one omel of the day? A schedule? Yeah, about, yeah. And I get a little crummy room, get robbed again. And somebody was starting a school that was then part of a New York school.

38:56I met this guy who was the president of that school. He said, I want you to teach for me. I said, I'll start a program. Can't start architecture. That needs too much approval. I'll create a new program. Let's see if it works. We'll call it interior architecture. And nobody ever used that title then. Now everybody uses that title. But I invented that title for there. The way I invented information architecture. Yeah. So I started that and I realized I couldn't find my way around.

39:27I was in L.A. and it was so confusing. So I met somebody who knew somebody who got me a meeting with the CEO of Atlantic Ridgefield. I don't know how these things happened, but I did. And I said, hi, I just moved out here and I can't find my way around. And there's no good guidebooks. I'd like you to give me some money and I'll do a guidebook. And the guidebook is not because I'm an expert in this city. I don't know about it. But the guidebook will be so I can understand the city. And everybody will take advantage of me going from not knowing to knowing.

40:01He said, yes, gave me $7,500,000, whatever it was, wasn't peanuts. And I did access guides. And then I realized I couldn't do one. I'm shortening the story. And I got Frank Stanton to give me $250,000 for half the company. And I was in the guidebook business. So then I just started doing guidebooks. I did the first one over again completely. I couldn't get a publisher for the first one. And I sold it out on the back of my car to 7-Elevens, car washes, gas stations.

40:32So you could hustle. Oh, yeah. But those are the places I thought people would. When you're in a car wash, you have a few moments. You're an hour or a half hour. And if something is an impulse buy, you would look at it and maybe buy it. And I got them by the counters of 7-Elevens and stuff like that. And that's the same way I did my Olympic book. I said, I love the Olympics, 1984, 1983. And I went to Atlantic Richfield again. And I said, you're one of the sponsors of the Olympics.

41:04I would like to do a really good guide to the Olympics. So they gave me some money. And I sold three and a half million copies of that myself. Out of the back of your car? No, no. Atlantic Richfield had just opened these shops. And I think their first order was 200,000. And I then sold them only 100,000 at a time to people, from the printing place to something. And I sold three and a half million copies. Wow. So all of a sudden, I had a business. And then I did medical access. And I did Olympic football.

41:34I did baseball. I did 22 cities around the world. And then I got a job doing the phone books, the smart yellow pages, which were the first 80 pages I did of the yellow pages. And I had an office of 70 people in San Francisco. But I lived in New York. I came out one week a month again. So my life has been just that. All at the same time, I was doing all these other books. I did the Urban Atlas. I did various dwellings to describe in a comparative manner. I ran the Aspen Conference in 72.

42:06You did the AIA Conference one year. I did the 82 Conference. That's what I did the table for. I didn't have a keynote speaker. I had a keynote table. And that's the first introduction of the Commissioner of Curiosity and Imagination as the main copy in that. And then he became the main figure in the book I did called 33. And he's the main figure in this, too. Did you ever work at all with USA Today? I was helpful to them. They picked my brain, and I knew them very well.

42:36But I work with a lot of people free because I just love being asked to do things that I'm so seldom asked. And if I charged them, nobody would ask. I mean, I also give away things. I started a conference called EG. I ran that and then gave that to Michael Hawley. Anyway, the D Conference that Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher wanted to do a conference, they spent a weekend with me. I named it the D Conference and helped design it. Kara tells about this in her book.

43:07So I'm not making up things out of ego. You can look it up. Well, the reason I ask about USA Today is that that was the first big example that I heard about, about organizing information in a way that was much more understandable. And I recall at the time that USA Today was just pilloried for it by critics. That's right. How come? How come? That's the name of the game. I am not embraced by other graphic designers.

43:39No? I wouldn't see why not. But I'm not. I just told you, there's not a school of graphic design that has invited me in the last 10 years to ever speak. I have done 100 books. I created the field of information architecture. I am a visible person for the TED Conference, visible because of my books and my previous speaking. But I don't believe in style. I believe in understanding, and it's something that is truly and deeply understandable is also handsome.

44:15You don't have to make it pretty. That is not the belief of design. That's why I call it information architecture, not information design. Ask the next 1,000 people on the street what the word design means, and they'll say making something look better. My iPhone is a package that somebody designed. It has nothing to do with the contents inside. Right. You wouldn't make it look that way. It was Steve Jobs wanting something small this thick to put in your hand.

44:46It has no reflection on the inside workings or how it works, or to make it easy to use, or you pick one up, you have to hunt for things. Well, despite all that criticism of USA Today, it went on to become an enormous success. Yeah, because it worked. It performed. Things that do what I'm saying perform. My access guides were very popular, but nobody copied them. And when I sold them to HarperCollins, after a year and a half or so, they asked me to buy it back. They couldn't figure out how to do them.

45:18I said, no, I don't want to do them anymore. I did them. Thank you. Yeah. I just find that astonishing, because looking at... It's the name of the game. Was it just too advanced for them? Okay, look at this table. Yeah. This table makes sense. This is a triangular table. Yeah, but it makes sense. For two people to have a meeting here with no... It doesn't feel like we're having a meeting. We're not talking over a desk. Right. We're having a conversation like we're just two seats next to each other. Obviously, I can have four people, and I have had meetings with four people here.

45:50I had one two Fridays ago with some people that flew in from Esri, from Jack Dangerman's company. I can have meetings with just two people. I can work here alone. It's simple. They can go together. It takes up 100% of the spaces used. A lot of people have seen it. Nobody's copied it. I don't mean copy the details of how I did it. Right. It's just the basic principle of the triangular desk. Yeah, I've used it in three houses now I've moved it.

46:22Well, the more that I learn about the things that you've thought about and explored and been curious about and written about and convened, the more I see things like this triangular table that are just like make my mind go, this is incredibly useful. Well, the living room table we sat at, it has eight chairs. The distance across that table, you can talk across. It's 10 feet mouth to mouth. You can have a conversation across. Two people can have a conversation at a corner.

46:54Every two people have a little table to put a drink down on. You can stretch your legs out in front of you. Show me another coffee table that you can do all those things. All right? Right. And it's beautiful. And it's like a little building. Nobody's copied that either. Well, they should. Well, they should. They should come running. No, they shouldn't do anything. No, because I'm not going selling. But not people have seen it. Yeah. It's a diagram. This table is a diagram.

47:25I made a diagram, and then I made the detailing. I made a diagram, and then I had it detailed in the drawing. Somebody built it. My wife has a long table in her office next to her. It's for her of what she does. And she's an author and how she works. It's not designed for aesthetics. And that's what people are more obsessed with. Not more, only. Only. Is it a nice-looking building? No. Is the ground floor interesting? Can you walk by the building and be out of the rain?

47:56Can you be out of the sun? Can you have a slightly higher curb so when it's raining there, you don't get splashed with water? Can you do things that perform? I'm not talking about the prettiness of a design. Take that book there that I just gave you. Yeah. Look on the back cover. Okay. And read. Understanding, understanding, I'm holding. Okay. Just read that to yourself. So, understanding begins with not knowing, a void, an emptiness, a desire to understand. Piazza San Marco epitomizes this idea of the quality of emptiness.

48:28It's a surprise of the void that proves the profoundness of the opposite of expectation. This is a book of examples and stories that give permission to embrace one's personal path to understanding. Frequently, we find that the good question has more value than a brilliant answer. Implicit in the chapters of this book is finding the quest in question and the word in form and information. Simple? Yeah. Simple words.

48:59No big words there. No. I'm not trying to change the world. Just, that's what a quilter would do. So, form has not followed function. I don't think of function. Function is taking a shit. Performance is the art of function. Okay. Piazza San Marco performs. My piazza there is Piazza San Wormitt. Yes. Performs. It performs. I don't know the architects that did the buildings around, and they don't even line up.

49:31But there is a walkway that goes around it. So, when it pours rain or it's too sunny, you have a place to walk. That's simple. And you also allow the buildings to have 15, 20 feet more to their footprint, one story up, so they get more value for that footprint down below. And they give a lighted, safe, unsunny place to people as a gift. And they get a gift of being able to build more square footage.

50:02Everybody wins. Yeah. And we don't even have to know the name of the architect. And they don't have to line up in the roofs. They don't. So, I come about it differently. Yeah. I come about it to have things perform. Because I think if they perform, they'll be handsome. That's probably the most famous piece of architecture in the United States or the world. And there's a certain elegance about performing because it just feels easy. This table performs. It's not shocking.

50:33Everything I've said it does, you see, it happens. Out there where we sat and had coffee this morning, that performs. I think it looks okay, but it wasn't designed to look okay. It was designed to perform. Richard, you were one of the people that noticed early on that, say, in conferences, where typically people go to get some coffee, go to a presenter, presenter, presenter, have lunch, presenter, presenter, presenter, cocktail party, go home, that the spaces between all these things, between the coffee and presenter, between presenter three and presenter four, where people were just talking with each other and creating those conversations was really a lot of the reason people came, for one thing, and something else as moments that could be leveraged.

51:23I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. My mind does not work that way. The way you're describing a conference, you say, well, this is the way conferences are, and people are doing these things. How can I make it better? How can I correct it? How can I use those things for other things? I don't think of any conference whatsoever. I think, well, there's some people I'd like to talk to. What would be an enjoyable experience for me? I don't go further than that.

51:55There's no other learning curve. There's no checklist where you have to have panels, and you have to have chairs, and you have to have this, and you have to do this, and you have to have breaks, and you have to have food, and you have to have... It never occurs to me. I know when I can start, and when I can finish, for other monetary reasons, or my own energy, or what I'm interested in, that thing.

The Shoulders Conference

52:20I came upon the word about a year and a half ago. Shoulders is such a soft word, and such a big word. It's such an important word. And shoulders is not about ego. Shoulders is about not style, not copying somebody, but being in the presence. I could stand on the shoulders of Socrates, and I never met him, and he never wrote anything. But I have this aura about what he gave to me.

52:51That would be interesting to talk to people about. I do have some knowledge in many fields. You see, I can talk to people in every different field, and I know enough that I'm talking at their level. They're not talking down to me. Everybody was invited by me personally on the phone. Nobody got a letter, an email. This is for the Shoulders Conference, the recent one? Everybody was talking by myself. I called them, got them on the phone, and told them about it. That's the way it was done.

53:21They didn't take my call, I called back. They didn't take the call, I called back. They didn't take my call, I called back. I love that. And I would explain it this way. I said, I don't know if you know this, but it's so basic to our humanity and life on Earth. 32 degree water, Fahrenheit, is not ice. You can have 32 degree ice, but ice doesn't. 32 degree water is not automatically ice. To change a state from liquid to solid of water.

53:53I'm not talking about other materials. Water gets slightly larger at four degrees, and that's so it doesn't sink to the bottom. It floats above the other water. If colder water sank, because it compressed, it got smaller, it would kill all the fish. But other things don't do that. They don't get bigger at four degrees. Iron, anything that you have, glass, molten glass, they just don't. Water acts differently.

54:24So let's just keep with water. Water at 32 degrees is not ice. You have to take 80 calories more out of the water. You have to take more heat out of it to get 32 degree ice. Ice is not colder than water at 32 degrees. But you need to take that energy out of it. You have to take the calories out of it. 80 calories per cubic centimeter to make a change of state. And you have to do the same to change it from water to steam.

54:55You have to put stuff back. It stays the same temperature. You can have 212 degrees, but it's not steam yet. So are you extracting the hot air from the conference? No. What I'm saying is to change the state of being somebody smart to somebody extraordinary, which I think you are. I'm talking to one of the people I want to speak. I think you're extraordinary. And you have a change of state. There will be other people in the room just as smart.

55:26But you have a change of state, some clarity, something else that makes you somebody's shoulders you stood on that changed your attitude, your way of working, your way of thinking. It didn't necessarily make you smarter. You don't have to keep on studying, and you'll become successful. So I'm not just trying to pick out the smartest people. I'm trying to pick out the people who have a change of state about designing their life. And that's certainly who was in the room.

55:58Well, that's who I wanted to hear from. Yeah. And that's who I am. I ain't the smartest. It was really a stunning experience. I don't tell the audience all that, but I'm telling you. So I do this not to fill the room or make money. I do it because it's interesting. It is the most interesting. Yeah. If you ask, well, what do I want in our life? I say, I like to have interesting days. Yesterday was interesting. Today so far is interesting. I hope tomorrow is interesting. I don't say happy.

56:30I don't say gleeful. I don't say fame, power. That's not success for me. I mean, I'm fortunate. I have enough plus a dollar. I am not trying to make money. I stopped that long ago. I figured out how long I might live. I have enough plus a dollar. Okay. Well, I want to express my gratitude for you because I have stood on your shoulders on several occasions over the last few years. In terms of your inviting me to different things or asking people to get in touch with me, I am really grateful for that.

57:07And I want to tell you. Thank you. But to me, it's not me doing good or being nice. It's just, it's what you're supposed to do. I don't have a thing saying, I give back to the public or I am going to be good or I'm going to take this call and pass it. And it's not a tid for a tad. It's your nature. Okay, it's the nature. But it's more as Paul Klee titled one of his great books, The Nature of Nature.

57:37Thank you, Richard. That's it. That's it? That's it. That was short. Yeah.

57:47That was George's conversation with Richard Saul Werman.

Lawsuit over the White House

57:50Kim Hoagland spent 15 years as a senior historian of the Historic American Building Survey at the National Park Service. She then went to Michigan Technological University. Go Huskies. Where she is now Professor Emerita. She has written six books on American architecture and sits on the board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. In 2026, in coordination with the Trust, she took Donald Trump to court over plans to destroy the East Wing of the White House and build a bunker ballroom without going through the long established approvals.

58:24Kim, you have quite a wonderful career as an advocate for America and its buildings. You have a BA in American Civilization from Brown University and a Master's in American Studies with a concentration in Historic Preservation from George Washington University. I mean, there's red, white, and blue flying all over you, plus, plus, you've taught at Michigan Technological University and you're a board member of the storied National Trust for Historic Preservation.

59:04I can't think of anybody that would have been, you know, more qualified to be in the place where you are, particularly since you worked in the National Park Service for 15 years as the senior historian of Historic American Building Survey. And yet, I understand that you've been reduced by President Trump to the woman walking her dog. Is that right? That is true. And for the record, I do not have a dog. Okay. So, take me back to the origins of this project. So, how did the East Wing come to get destroyed? And how did they let this happen?

59:41I thought in Washington, there were like 15 boards you had to go through to do something like that. That is true. And the question is, what happens when you ignore them all? And that's what the president did. So, he ordered the demolition of the East Wing seemingly on a whim, without any new plans approved, vague ideas about what he wanted in its place. And that's when the National Trust got involved. Okay. So, do you just call up some contractors and they come?

1:00:11I mean, are they not afraid of getting in trouble with somebody? Oh, they were. And Clark Construction has a little black mark on its name. But it's pretty clear he did not put this out to bid either, which is part of the government process. Okay. Okay. So, when did the East Wing go down? I think, well, February, was it? February. Okay. So, February, 2026. And then, was the ballroom announced right away or was it just getting rid of the East Wing? I think he said he wanted to do it for a ballroom, but he didn't, you know, show us any plans or anything.

1:00:46Okay. Actually, I think first he said it was a bigger East Wing. Oh, yeah. And then he decided he needed a ballroom. Okay. Okay. Now, how did you get involved in this to be the plaintiff in this case that the National Trust is bringing with some other partners, right? Or is it by itself? By itself. So, first of all, I'm not the plaintiff. The National Trust is the plaintiff. Okay. I'm on the board of the National Trust. And in order to establish standing in a case, a nonprofit has to show that it has at least one member who's personally affected by whatever the action is.

1:01:21And so, I agreed to be that person. So, I filed out an affidavit along with the suit saying I'm personally affected. And that's because of where you live? Yeah. But I think every American is personally affected. Yeah. It was particularly handy for me, but I think it affects all of us. And the public outpouring on this issue has proven that. Yeah. This is something that I think most people see as just incredible happening. It just can't believe that this is occurring. Yeah. I know.

1:01:52And, you know, usually you think of these preservation regulations as being, oh, so burdensome and all these reviews and everything. Well, this is why. This is why. So, someone will not do this. And then he did it anyway. Now, in addition to not getting the permits to tear down the East Wing, does he have permits to build the new thing, which is under construction right now? No. No. And it's not so much permits because the federal government, you know, the local government can't regulate the federal government.

1:02:22Okay. I didn't know that. By building permits. Yeah. But it's permission, right? He needs permission from various review agencies and he needs authorization from Congress. Okay. And he's gone through the two major review bodies, which is the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts. He has loaded those two boards with his own appointees, including his White House secretary, but he has not gotten authorization from Congress. In the beginning, this was going to be paid for by private funds, right?

1:02:54So, he said, yes. Yeah. And how is it now? Well, now he's kind of pivoted, added on an enormous, it seems, military national security component to this new building. And now he says he needs money from Congress. The amount was a billion dollars. And then he said, well, part of that's going directly into the White House itself. And it's very unclear. This military part of the East Wing, as I read it, is basically an operations center that is a bunker for the president to make, you know, serious decisions about the world from.

1:03:31But I also looked up that Obama did a huge renovation of the Situation Room during his tenure and renovated all of that. So, was that just not big enough for President Trump? I may be wrong. Well, and I thought the Situation Room was different, and that's in the White House. Okay. But the East Wing included a bunker to retreat to when things got bad. And that's where they took Dick Cheney during 9-11. Oh, okay. To secure him from any possible attack.

1:04:02So, Trump has demolished that. He now has no bunker at the White House, and now he feels very much under attack. But what you point out is that a bunker is essentially defensive, right? It's where you go and hide. But now what he's planning for the ballroom is today I saw a drone port, which is like an airport for drones, which seems to me to be more offensive than defensive. And you wonder who he's going to attack with these drones. It's just, to me, it's an incredible thing. Now, is the National Trust involved with any of his other projects, like the giant arch he wants to put up in town?

1:04:39Yes, we're monitoring a lot of these carefully, and we're part of the suit with the Kennedy Center. But what's really interesting is there's, I don't know, five or six projects that are very disturbing that are going on in D.C. right now. And different preservation groups have taken on each of those. I mean, there's just an outpouring of objection. We're taping this in June, and just recently, there was a judge that ruled against President Trump about renaming the Kennedy Center after himself.

1:05:11What was his rationale for prohibiting Trump from doing that? Well, Congress named the building, and so only Congress could change the name of the building. So we were very happy to see that. The National Trust had asked for a preliminary injunction to prevent the closure of the building and the continuing, you know, whatever Trump had threatened to do to the building. But the judge ruled that the defendant, the government, had argued that the building would not be demolished or reconstructed in the immediate future.

1:05:43Okay. We'll see. Because things change, right, so fast? Yeah. And in fact, at the court, the current manager of the Kennedy Center said that he didn't know what Trump wanted and couldn't actually control him. So, you know, it wasn't the building manager's intention to do anything like that.

Endangered modernist federal buildings

1:06:00Are there any projects going on that you're aware of that the National Trust is monitoring about tearing down existing buildings in Washington?

1:06:11Because it gets rumored from time to time that some of the modernist buildings from the 60s are going to go away. Yeah, there are a number of office buildings from the 60s that the administration is trying to divest of. You know, it's cut the federal workforce and it doesn't think that the government should be owning these office buildings. I'm not sure they're directly aiming to tear them down, but they're trying to get rid of them and offload them onto some other operator. The trouble is, this is not a good time to be selling office buildings.

1:06:42So you never want to dump a whole lot of office buildings at once because that's going to further depress the market. So there are a number of those buildings that are very much endangered. Now, some potential purchasers have shown interest in National Register designation so they can get tax benefits so that they can redo the buildings. And others have been willing to discuss putting some sort of covenant on the deed that would prevent them from destroying the building. So those are all very much in flux. I mean, there's the FBI building, and I understand they're building a new headquarters for themselves somewhere.

1:07:18My understanding is they're going to move into the Ronald Reagan building, which is about three blocks away downtown. But the FBI building, I think, is definitely slated for demolition. And then there's the Housing and Urban Development building, which at one point they were trying to sell or auction. I don't know what's happened to that recently. Yeah, I'm not sure of the latest, but I think it's possible to get a sympathetic owner there who would preserve the building. So, you know, in other circumstances, this would be like your greatest dream because you were on NPR, right?

1:07:54You've been on all these fantastic broadcast outlets. Including your show.

1:08:01Oh, yes. People always consider us and NPR in the same breath. Yeah. Yes. So what is the trajectory for you as the person of standing, of legal standing, and the National Trust moving forward? What's next in the legal process? Well, for the ballroom, well, the judge has ruled that Trump needs authorization from Congress. He has, of course, immediately appealed that, and then he's filed several more briefs arguing against that. The order was put on hold by the Court of Appeals, and that's going to the court in early June.

1:08:35Okay. At the Court of Appeals, does it get sent back to a lower court then if they... Yeah, I mean, essentially, it's a question that comes up again and again, which is about executive power, right? What sort of authority does the president have, particularly when he yells national security? Does that mean he can just, you know, roll through every other existing precaution and process? You know, or should there be some review of what he can do? Now that the East Wing is gone and construction is underway, more or less, for this ballroom slash bunker, what are the practical options going forward?

1:09:13I mean, do you see them just stopping and leaving a hole in the ground? Do we let them finish what they're doing? What is the next practical step here? Well, I think very practically that the ballroom could be reduced in size and still accommodate the thousand diners that he says he needs, and also whatever reasonable security measures are needed. We don't really know what's reasonable and what's not. But by reducing the size of the ballroom, it could be, you can reduce it, say, by two-thirds.

1:09:47It wouldn't compete visually with the White House. It wouldn't obstruct views of the White House. It wouldn't be this hulking mass next to the White House. It wouldn't be visible from space. I don't actually know if it would be or not, but, you know, it's enormous. So it could be much reduced in size. I think a ballroom may be actually a very reasonable thing to build, but there's no reason for it to be three times the size of the White House. And it also connects to the White House very awkwardly because now he wants a second-story connector, which means a hallway is running, you know, bang into the East Room of the White House, which would then turn a glorious Palladian window into a doorway.

1:10:26So there's some destruction of original fabric involved. Have you heard any rumors of other projects on the horizon that we have to look forward to? Well, we're also tracking, besides the arch, the idea of painting the executive office building white that came to the review boards into court. This is a late 19th century building, isn't it? Right. It's this second empire, you know, glorious sort of pile of a building that's a dark granite, or actually not that dark,

1:10:59but it's a gray granite that the president wants to be painted white. You don't paint, first of all, you don't paint late 19th century buildings white, and you never paint granite because it's a wonderful material. Yeah. That doesn't require paint. So that's been another battle. And then another one has been, of course, the reflecting pool, which I guess by the time this airs, it will be repainted and filled again, because that's the goal, to get it done by the force. He's painting that blue, right? Yes. Yes. Okay.

1:11:29And they're also fixing the plumbing system, I heard. Well, one estimate, I think from 2012, about actually, reflecting pool has a problem, which is it leaks. And the estimate from whatever that is, 15 years ago, said it would take $100 million to fix it. He has no intention of spending that kind of money or taking that kind of time. So what he's doing is sort of plugging leaks, putting a sealant on the stone, sorry, on the concrete, and hoping that will solve the leakage problem.

1:12:00I think it's another quick fix. And the color will probably interfere with the reflective qualities of a very, you know, sort of somber landscape, you know, uniting both the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol and the monument. I mean, it's all on an axe. It's just gorgeous. So how has MAGA World responded to all this in relation to you? Are they sending you hot emails? I mean, what's happening? Well, a bit. But, you know, the public opinion on the ballroom is it's extraordinarily in favor of preservation, in favor of not building a humongous ballroom.

1:12:38And the outpouring has just been amazing. When over 30,000 people write to a review commission in Washington on this one subject, they usually get maybe 10 letters about an issue. It just shows how I think the American people are really taking this seriously. They value their governmental central buildings. They have a fondness for Washington, D.C. in the way it looks. It's been very, very encouraging. Is there any way to fix some of these problems?

1:13:10I mean, is there any way really to set this all back right, given that so much has started without authorization from the various committees? Oh, yes. I think if Congress stepped up, they could stop pretty much everything. Okay. Because they have the power. That's written. You know, the president just does not go off on his own. He's supposed to be constrained by Congress on these matters. So if they put limits on the ballroom and its size, if they forbid the construction of the arch, that's totally within their power.

1:13:40Is there any precedent for this from a president? Not one that I can think of that's just so determined to ignore the structures that have been put in place. Well, Kim, thank you and the National Trust for working to preserve what's left of Washington, D.C. And I really appreciate it. It's here, really. It's here.

1:14:05And I appreciate your talking to me. And best wishes to your dog. Thank you very much. Fine. I was grateful.

1:14:15That was George's conversation with Kim Hoagland of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Interview with Quinn Limley

1:14:20Quinn Limley was performing at her parents' Chicken and Ribs Restaurant in Columbus, Indiana, by the age of four. By 16, she was studying opera in Bordeaux. At NYU Tisch, she figured out she actually wanted to be somewhere between Rita Hayworth and Bette Midler. Broadway World named her Best NYC Vocalist in 2025. She's released six albums, and her latest jazz recording, Swinging Hot Tomato, accompanies her touring show, Rita Hayworth, The Heat Is On, with an 11-piece big man behind her.

1:14:58Here's Quinn Limley talking with George Smart. Quinn, our researcher Bobby Morris is usually discovering incredible facts about our guests. But one thing she missed today, which I just found out talking to you in the intro, is that you grew up in the wonderful architectural city of Columbus, Indiana. Wow. Yes, I'm here now actually visiting my dad. And it's so exciting because everywhere you go are jewels of contemporary architecture of the architects of the 20th century.

1:15:31Now, how old were you when you kind of realized that there was something special about the town you were in? Well, I was lucky because my parents are in the food and wine business, so they were the major caterers, and they had all these restaurants. So we were the people that were actually entertaining the architects when they came to do their businesses. So I just grew up admiring great architecture and knowing how important it is and how life-changing all of these buildings were for our community and for society in general.

1:16:05I mean, we have open banks now because of Saarinen. Yeah. You know, the whole concept of banking and very open and light and contemporary. And I used to sing at the First Christian Church, which was a Saarinen church, and it looks like a tin can, and it was just the most magical place. And the acoustics, forget it. The acoustics, you couldn't get a more sacred space to sing, and it was just beautiful.

1:16:37How did you discover music in the architectural city of Columbus? Believe it or not, Georgia, I came out of the womb singing. I did. I love music, and my whole life, I started doing musical theater at age five with community groups, and then I started taking music lessons. And my parents were very forward-thinking, so I lived in France when I was eight, and then I lived in Bordeaux, France. My mom got a Rotary scholarship to study wine, and I was going to a French lycée and studying opera at a college level in Bordeaux.

1:17:11And then when I came back, I went to Interlochen Arts Academy to finish my high school, and then went to NYU. So music has been in my life forever, and I've been exposed to it. And we would always go to Chicago to Airy Crown or go to Clues Hall in Indianapolis. You're all the great singers. So we should explain to people that don't know the significance of Columbus, Indiana. The Miller family of Cummins Engine years ago said to the town that if you'll hire world-class architects to come and design your buildings, we'll pay the fees.

1:17:47Correct. So churches and fire stations and schools and all kinds of buildings all of a sudden started popping up around town that were just amazing. And this is a town that had 20,000, 30,000 people, not a lot. No, we had less than—now we're 36,000, but probably less than 20,000 when Mr. Miller started this program. And it really transformed Columbus into a town that attracted—he wanted to attract world-class engineers for Cummins Engine Company because they're the big diesel manufacturers.

1:18:22And so we're a little jewel of international talent, and people want to live here because it's so beautiful and international. And you, of course, have been in the famous Miller House, I assume? Yes, of course. It's all in Carrara marble, and the paintings are incredible with the sunken living room and very forward-thinking, and the light, it's indoor-outdoor. Like, you feel like it's just part of the nature that's behind it.

1:18:54It's extraordinary, and it's just right down a few blocks away from my parents' house. So, yes, I grew up playing and being there. Oh, that is just so cool.

Rita Hayworth tribute album

1:19:05So let's talk about your music. You have a new album dedicated to Rita Hayworth. Yes. Who I think most people today don't know much about because she's been out of the public spotlight for a long time. And when she passed away, it was from Alzheimer's, I believe? Yes. Rita Hayworth was like the Marilyn Monroe of 19—she was the biggest star in 1946. She was known for the film Gilda. She was married to Orson Welles. She became the first princess even before Grace Kelly.

1:19:37She married Prince Ali Khan. And it's a really fascinating life and a tragic life in ways because she was the first celebrity to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And because she fought for her daughter's right to have equal inheritance to the brothers with the Aga Khan, Princess Yasmin was able to take care of her mother and also start the Alzheimer's Foundation, which has changed so many families and people's lives over the years. And we've done fundraisers in Columbus, Indiana, for the Alzheimer's Foundation and raised money with our show, Rita Hayworth, The Heat Is On.

1:20:14Oh, that's awesome. Now, I remember there's a great quote from Rita Hayworth. I think it goes something like, The men in my life would go to sleep with Gilda and wake up with me? Yes. Well, in our show, when she was talking about Ali Khan, she said, I think in a nutshell, our problem was Ali went to bed with Gilda, but woke up with me. Right, right. And so if you want to see Gilda, it's on YouTube and other places. Rita Hayworth and a young Glenn Ford.

1:20:46Yes. Another actor we haven't heard from in a long time. And they're sort of chasing each other around through this film? Yes, it's one of the greatest film noirs ever, most iconic, and especially with her striptease in the strapless black Jean-Louis gown singing Put the Blame on Mame. But it's like a menage a trois intrigue. And all the language is double on, snappy double on tone. And she performs two numbers in it, Amato Mio and Put the Blame on Mame, which are both iconic numbers.

1:21:19And they were, she was, she actually didn't sing. She couldn't sing. She, there's a slow version of Put the Blame on Mame where she's strumming a guitar. That's Rita Hayworth's voice. But she was dubbed by the great Anita Ellis, who I met when I was like, I just moved to New York. And she had Alzheimer's, but she came to one of my nightclub acts. And she was just extraordinary. Extraordinary. She was the singer for so many of the celebrities back then. Well, let's hear from one of those songs from Gilda, from your new album.

1:21:53Here's Amato Mio. Amato Mio. Love me forever, and let forever begin tonight.

1:22:32Amato Mio, when we're together, I'm in a dream world of sweet delight. Many times I've whispered, Amato Mio, it was just a phrase that I heard in plays. I was acting a part.

1:23:03But now, when I whispered, Amato Mio, can't you tell I care by my feelings there, for it comes from my heart. My one endeavor, my love, my darling, will be to hold you and hold you tight.

1:23:35Amato Mio, love me forever, and let forever begin tonight. Amato Mio, love me forever, and let forever begin tonight.

1:24:20Amato Mio, love me forever, and let forever begin tonight. Amato Mio, love me forever, and let forever begin tonight.

1:25:06Amato Mio, I didn't quite understand this song. I love this song, but what was the plot behind it exactly? She's looking for love. She's looking for that true love that's going to love her forever, and she wants it to begin tonight. In the movie, she used it as a way to taunt Johnny Farrell, who was played by Glenn Ford. But she's in love with him, but she's in love with him, but they hate each other so much, but they really love each other.

1:25:41And so she's trying to seduce all these other men with this song, but it's really Johnny Farrell that she wants. Amato Mio, Pink Martini Sympathique, who you interviewed. Yes. It's one of my favorite songs, and it's not a well-known song because Rita Hayworth didn't sing, so unlike a lot of stars of the time that were singers, their albums were promoted. This was more the film because it moved the plot forward. A lot of people also know Rita Hayworth from Singing in the Rain, I believe.

1:26:14No, that's Debbie Reynolds, the cover girl. There's another number with, it's Gene Kelly and Phil Silvers and Rita Hayworth. Okay. Long Ago and Far Away, which we do, is on that. It's a beautiful Jerome Kern song. And so we do that with I'm Old Fashioned, which is from You Were Never Lovelier. That's Johnny Mercer. Oh, cool. So we kind of put those together about her relationship with falling in love with Orson Welles. Yes, the enigmatic Orson Welles. Yes.

1:26:44Who I think a lot of people in our generation knew much later when he was doing those wine commercials. Wine. We will still know what my mother worked on. She did a series, Wine White Pleasure, on PBS and actually was working with them on Davies at that time when he was like, we'll sell no wine until there's time. He was the boy wonder. He was. And he would come on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. And I think he was into, what was it, like Aliens or ESP or something towards the end of his life?

1:27:16Yes, ESP. But he was always into magic. That's how he met Rita Hayworth. She was the assistant in a magic act for the troops for World War II. So Marlena Dietrich was his assistant. And then he decided he was going to marry Rita Hayworth and he didn't know her. So he put her in this magic show. And, of course, Harry Cohn, the head of Columbia, put an end to that. But Rita retaliated by marrying him. There you go. I've seen some great biofilms on the weekends that tells the whole history of the studio system and Harry Cohn and all the backstabbing and intrigue that went on during those times.

1:27:54Oh, yes. He was the most hated man in Hollywood. Rita Hayworth said when he died, everybody in Hollywood was at his funeral just to make sure he was really dead. Well, let's hear a second song from your album. This is the famous song, Lady is a Tramp. Yes. Rogers and Hart. When I was growing up, I confused this with Lady and the Tramp and thought they were the same thing, you know, from the Disney film, because I didn't know. Yes. That's one of my favorites, Lady and the Tramp, with the spaghetti.

1:28:27With the spaghetti, of course, the famous scene. Well, here's Quinn with Lady is a Tramp.

1:28:34I've wined and dined on Mulligan's stew and never wished for turkey, as I hitched and hiked and grifted, too, from Maine to Albuquerque.

1:28:55Alas, I've missed the Beaux-Arts Bowl and what is twice as sad. I really couldn't give a fig. If you think that I am bad. Those social circles spin too fast for me. My whole Bohemia is the place to be.

1:29:25I get too hungry for dinner at eight. I love the theater, but never come late. I never bother with people I hate. That's why the lady is a tramp. I love the green grass under my shoes.

1:30:11What can I lose? What can I lose? I'm flat. That's that. I'm all alone when I lower my land. That's why the lady is a tramp. I like a prize bite that isn't a fake. I love throwing on Central Park Lake. I go to opera and stay wide awake.

1:30:41That's why the lady is a tramp.

1:30:46Don't know the reason for cocktails at five. I don't like flying. I'm glad I'm alive. I crave affection, but not when I drive. That's why the lady is a tramp.

1:31:06I love the free, fresh wind in my hair. Life without care. I'm broke. That's oak. Hate California. It's cold and it's damp.

1:31:32That's why the lady, that's why the lady, that's why this lady is a tramp.

1:31:51Quinn, tell me about your residency in New York City and how people can come to see you. I am at the Triad celebrating my album and people can come and see me and tickets are at QuinnLemley.com and it'll send you to the link and all my shows are listed there. So you can also buy the album at QuinnLemley.com. And you also have a jazz recording, Swinging Hot Tomato, right? I do. We just released that in the spring and it is so much fun. It's like big bad voodoo daddy meets crime jazz, pink martini.

1:32:25It's so fun because like I love all of those femme fatale women. And so it's like a hard-hitting big band with like these scenes like, you know, where it's daddy, I've been bad and, you know, I want to be evil, Eartha Kitt, you know, with this big band. It's just so much fun. Yeah, I saw the cover of your Rita Hayworth and it reminded me immediately of Jessica Rabbit. Thank you. I love Jessica Rabbit. When I'm in Greece singing at the half note, I do, Why Don't You Do Right?

1:32:56And I do it very a la Jessica Rabbit. But that's me being Quinn. Okay. My homage. Well, Quinn, thank you so much for talking with me from Columbus, Indiana, one of our favorite cities. And I hope to get to see you in person at one of your shows. I do too. I hope so. And I hope I can sing at one of your parties and in a post-modernist house. Thanks for listening. U.S. Modernist Radio is underwritten by the Brent R. Harris Charitable Trust, restorer of Richard Neutra's Kauffman Desert House in Palm Springs and six other houses in California.

1:33:29By the Ife Jones Conservancy, preserving the legacy of modernist architecture in Northwest Arkansas. IfeJonesConservancy.org. And by Diane Bald and the Budman Family, restoring significant architecture in Toronto, Los Angeles, Malibu, and Palm Springs. Visit usmodernist.org's massive archives to listen to past shows, discover documentation of 25,000 significant modernist houses, and access 5 million pages of classic 20th century architecture magazines. U.S. Modernist Radio is produced by Soundtracks Recording Studios in Raleigh, North Carolina.

1:34:03Our theme song is performed by George Smart and Robinson Earle with guest research by Bobby Morris. Got a guest to suggest for the show? Writer at Bobby at usmodernist.org. U.S. Modernist Radio is a production of Modernist Archive Incorporated, a non-profit educational archive for the documentation, preservation, and promotion of modernist residential design. I'm Tom Geild. George and I'll be back soon with another small but powerful edition of U.S. Modernist Radio.

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