Daniel Libeskind's 17 words of architectural inspiration

121,702 views ・ 2009-07-01

TED


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00:12
I'll start with my favorite muse, Emily Dickinson,
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who said that wonder is not knowledge, neither is it ignorance.
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It's something which is suspended
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between what we believe we can be,
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and a tradition we may have forgotten.
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And I think, when I listen to these incredible people here,
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I've been so inspired -- so many incredible ideas, so many visions.
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And yet, when I look at the environment outside,
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you see how resistant architecture is to change.
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You see how resistant it is to those very ideas.
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We can think them out. We can create incredible things.
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And yet, at the end,
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it's so hard to change a wall.
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We applaud the well-mannered box.
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But to create a space that never existed is what interests me;
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to create something that has never been,
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a space that we have never entered except in our minds and our spirits.
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And I think that's really what architecture is based on.
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Architecture is not based on concrete
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and steel and the elements of the soil.
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It's based on wonder.
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And that wonder is really what has created the greatest cities,
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the greatest spaces that we have had.
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And I think that is indeed what architecture is. It is a story.
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By the way, it is a story that is told through
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its hard materials.
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But it is a story of effort and struggle
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against improbabilities.
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If you think of the great buildings, of the cathedrals, of the temples,
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of the pyramids, of pagodas,
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of cities in India and beyond,
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you think of how incredible this is that that was realized
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not by some abstract idea, but by people.
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So, anything that has been made can be unmade.
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Anything that has been made can be made better.
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There it is: the things that I really believe
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are of important architecture.
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These are the dimensions that I like to work with.
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It's something very personal.
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It's not, perhaps, the dimensions appreciated by art critics
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or architecture critics or city planners.
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But I think these are the necessary oxygen
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for us to live in buildings, to live in cities,
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to connect ourselves in a social space.
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And I therefore believe that optimism is what drives architecture forward.
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It's the only profession where you have to believe in the future.
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You can be a general, a politician, an economist who is depressed,
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a musician in a minor key, a painter in dark colors.
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But architecture is that complete ecstasy that the future can be better.
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And it is that belief that I think drives society.
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And today we have a kind of evangelical pessimism all around us.
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And yet it is in times like this
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that I think architecture can thrive with big ideas,
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ideas that are not small. Think of the great cities.
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Think of the Empire State Building, the Rockefeller Center.
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They were built in times that were
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not really the best of times in a certain way.
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And yet that energy and power of architecture
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has driven an entire social and political space that these buildings occupy.
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So again, I am a believer in the expressive.
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I have never been a fan of the neutral.
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I don't like neutrality in life, in anything.
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I think expression.
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And it's like espresso coffee, you know, you take the essence of the coffee.
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That's what expression is.
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It's been missing in much of the architecture,
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because we think architecture is the realm of the neutered,
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the realm of the kind of a state that has no opinion,
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that has no value.
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And yet, I believe it is the expression --
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expression of the city, expression of our own space --
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that gives meaning to architecture.
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And, of course, expressive spaces are not mute.
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Expressive spaces are not spaces
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that simply confirm what we already know.
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Expressive spaces may disturb us.
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And I think that's also part of life.
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Life is not just an anesthetic to make us smile,
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but to reach out across the abyss of history,
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to places we have never been,
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and would have perhaps been, had we not been so lucky.
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So again, radical versus conservative.
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Radical, what does it mean? It's something which is rooted,
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and something which is rooted deep in a tradition.
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And I think that is what architecture is, it's radical.
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It's not just a conservation in formaldehyde
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of dead forms.
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It is actually a living connection
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to the cosmic event that we are part of,
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and a story that is certainly ongoing.
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It's not something that has a good ending or a bad ending.
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It's actually a story in which our acts themselves
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are pushing the story in a particular way.
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So again I am a believer in the radical architecture.
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You know the Soviet architecture of that building
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is the conservation.
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It's like the old Las Vegas used to be.
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It's about conserving emotions, conserving the traditions
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that have obstructed the mind in moving forward
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and of course what is radical is to confront them.
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And I think our architecture is a confrontation
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with our own senses.
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Therefore I believe it should not be cool.
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There is a lot of appreciation for the kind of cool architecture.
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I've always been an opponent of it. I think emotion is needed.
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Life without emotion would really not be life.
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Even the mind is emotional.
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There is no reason which does not take a position
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in the ethical sphere, in the philosophical mystery of what we are.
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So I think emotion is a dimension
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that is important to introduce into city space, into city life.
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And of course, we are all about the struggle of emotions.
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And I think that is what makes the world a wondrous place.
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And of course, the confrontation of the cool, the unemotional with emotion,
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is a conversation that I think
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cities themselves have fostered.
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I think that is the progress of cities.
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It's not only the forms of cities,
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but the fact that they incarnate emotions,
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not just of those who build them,
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but of those who live there as well.
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Inexplicable versus understood. You know, too often we want to understand everything.
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But architecture is not the language of words.
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It's a language. But it is not a language that can be reduced
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to a series of programmatic notes that we can verbally write.
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Too many buildings that you see outside that are so banal
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tell you a story, but the story is very short,
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which says, "We have no story to tell you."
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(Laughter)
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So the important thing actually,
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is to introduce the actual architectural dimensions,
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which might be totally inexplicable in words,
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because they operate in proportions,
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in materials, in light.
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They connect themselves into various sources,
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into a kind of complex vector matrix
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that isn't really frontal
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but is really embedded in the lives,
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and in the history of a city, and of a people.
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So again, the notion that a building should just be explicit
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I think is a false notion,
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which has reduced architecture into banality.
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Hand versus the computer.
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Of course, what would we be without computers?
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Our whole practice depends on computing.
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But the computer should not just be the glove of the hand;
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the hand should really be the driver of the computing power.
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Because I believe that the hand
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in all its primitive, in all its physiological obscurity,
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has a source, though the source is unknown,
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though we don't have to be mystical about it.
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We realize that the hand has been given us
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by forces that are beyond our own autonomy.
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And I think when I draw drawings
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which may imitate the computer, but are not computer drawings --
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drawings that can come from sources
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that are completely not known, not normal, not seen,
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yet the hand -- and that's what I really, to all of you who are working --
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how can we make the computer respond to our hand
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rather than the hand responding to the computer.
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I think that's part of what the complexity of architecture is.
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Because certainly we have gotten used to the propaganda
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that the simple is the good. But I don't believe it.
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Listening to all of you, the complexity of thought,
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the complexity of layers of meaning is overwhelming.
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And I think we shouldn't shy away in architecture,
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You know, brain surgery, atomic theory,
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genetics, economics
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are complex complex fields.
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There is no reason that architecture should shy away
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and present this illusory world of the simple.
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It is complex. Space is complex.
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Space is something that folds out of itself into completely new worlds.
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And as wondrous as it is,
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it cannot be reduced to a kind of simplification
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that we have often come to be admired.
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And yet, our lives are complex.
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Our emotions are complex.
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Our intellectual desires are complex.
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So I do believe that architecture as I see it
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needs to mirror that complexity in every single space that we have,
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in every intimacy that we possess.
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Of course that means that architecture is political.
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The political is not an enemy of architecture.
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The politeama is the city. It's all of us together.
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And I've always believed that the act of architecture,
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even a private house, when somebody else will see it, is a political act,
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because it will be visible to others.
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And we live in a world which is connecting us more and more.
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So again, the evasion of that sphere,
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which has been so endemic to that sort of pure architecture,
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the autonomous architecture that is just an abstract object
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has never appealed to me.
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And I do believe that this interaction
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with the history, with history that is often very difficult,
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to grapple with it, to create
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a position that is beyond our normal expectations and to create a critique.
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Because architecture is also the asking of questions.
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It's not only the giving of answers.
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It's also, just like life, the asking of questions.
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Therefore it is important that it be real.
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You know we can simulate almost anything.
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But the one thing that can be ever simulated
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is the human heart, the human soul.
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And architecture is so closely intertwined with it
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because we are born somewhere and we die somewhere.
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So the reality of architecture is visceral. It's not intellectual.
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It's not something that comes to us from books and theories.
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It's the real that we touch -- the door, the window,
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the threshold, the bed --
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such prosaic objects. And yet,
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I try, in every building, to take that virtual world,
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which is so enigmatic and so rich,
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and create something in the real world.
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Create a space for an office,
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a space of sustainability
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that really works between that virtuality
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and yet can be realized as something real.
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Unexpected versus habitual.
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What is a habit? It's just a shackle for ourselves.
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It's a self-induced poison.
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So the unexpected is always unexpected.
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You know, it's true, the cathedrals, as unexpected,
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will always be unexpected.
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You know Frank Gehry's buildings, they will continue to be unexpected in the future.
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So not the habitual architecture that instills in us
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the false sort of stability,
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but an architecture that is full of tension,
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an architecture that goes beyond itself
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to reach a human soul and a human heart,
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and that breaks out of the shackles of habits.
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And of course habits are enforced by architecture.
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When we see the same kind of architecture
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we become immured in that world of those angles,
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of those lights, of those materials.
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We think the world really looks like our buildings.
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And yet our buildings are pretty much limited by the techniques and wonders
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that have been part of them.
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So again, the unexpected which is also the raw.
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And I often think of the raw and the refined.
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What is raw? The raw, I would say
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is the naked experience, untouched by luxury,
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untouched by expensive materials,
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untouched by the kind of refinement
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that we associate with high culture.
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So the rawness, I think, in space,
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the fact that sustainability can actually, in the future
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translate into a raw space,
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a space that isn't decorated,
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a space that is not mannered in any source,
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but a space that might be cool in terms of its temperature,
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might be refractive to our desires.
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A space that doesn't always follow us
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like a dog that has been trained to follow us,
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but moves ahead into directions of demonstrating
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other possibilities, other experiences,
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that have never been part of the vocabulary of architecture.
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And of course that juxtaposition is of great interest to me
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because it creates a kind of a spark of new energy.
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And so I do like something which is pointed, not blunt,
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something which is focused on reality,
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something that has the power, through its leverage,
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to transform even a very small space.
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So architecture maybe is not so big, like science,
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but through its focal point
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it can leverage in an Archimedian way
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what we think the world is really about.
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And often it takes just a building
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to change our experience of what could be done, what has been done,
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how the world has remained both in between stability and instability.
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And of course buildings have their shapes.
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Those shapes are difficult to change.
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And yet, I do believe that in every social space,
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in every public space,
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there is a desire to communicate more
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than just that blunt thought, that blunt technique,
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but something that pinpoints, and can point in various directions
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forward, backward, sideways and around.
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So that is indeed what is memory.
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So I believe that my main interest is to memory.
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Without memory we would be amnesiacs.
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We would not know which way we were going,
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and why we are going where we're going.
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So I've been never interested in the forgettable reuse,
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rehashing of the same things over and over again,
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which, of course, get accolades of critics.
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Critics like the performance to be repeated again and again the same way.
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But I rather play something
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completely unheard of,
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and even with flaws,
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than repeat the same thing over and over which has been hollowed
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by its meaninglessness.
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So again, memory is the city, memory is the world.
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Without the memory there would be no story to tell.
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There would be nowhere to turn.
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The memorable, I think, is really our world, what we think the world is.
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And it's not only our memory,
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but those who remember us,
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which means that architecture is not mute.
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It's an art of communication.
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It tells a story. The story can reach into obscure desires.
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It can reach into sources that are not explicitly available.
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It can reach into millennia
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that have been buried,
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and return them in a just and unexpected equity.
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So again, I think the notion that
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the best architecture is silent has never appealed to me.
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Silence maybe is good for a cemetery but not for a city.
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Cities should be full of vibrations, full of sound, full of music.
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And that indeed is the architectural mission
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that I believe is important,
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is to create spaces that are vibrant,
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that are pluralistic,
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that can transform the most prosaic activities,
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and raise them to a completely different expectation.
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Create a shopping center, a swimming place
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that is more like a museum than like entertainment.
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And these are our dreams.
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And of course risk. I think architecture should be risky.
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You know it costs a lot of money and so on, but yes,
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it should not play it safe.
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It should not play it safe, because if it plays it safe
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it's not moving us in a direction that we want to be.
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And I think, of course,
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risk is what underlies the world.
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World without risk would not be worth living.
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So yes, I do believe that the risk we take in every building.
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Risks to create spaces that have never been cantilevered to that extent.
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Risks of spaces that have never been
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so dizzying,
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as they should be, for a pioneering city.
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Risks that really move architecture
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even with all its flaws, into a space which is much better
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that the ever again repeated
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hollowness of a ready-made thing.
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And of course that is finally what I believe architecture to be.
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It's about space. It's not about fashion.
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It's not about decoration.
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It's about creating with minimal means
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something which can not be repeated,
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cannot be simulated in any other sphere.
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And there of course is the space that we need to breathe,
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is the space we need to dream.
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These are the spaces that are
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not just luxurious spaces for some of us,
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but are important for everybody in this world.
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So again, it's not about the changing fashions, changing theories.
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It's about carving out a space for trees.
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It's carving out a space where nature can enter
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the domestic world of a city.
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A space where something which has never seen a light of day
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can enter into the inner workings of a density.
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And I think that is really the nature of architecture.
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Now I am a believer in democracy.
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I don't like beautiful buildings
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built for totalitarian regimes.
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Where people cannot speak, cannot vote, cannot do anything.
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We too often admire those buildings. We think they are beautiful.
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And yet when I think of the poverty of society
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which doesn't give freedom to its people,
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I don't admire those buildings.
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So democracy, as difficult as it is, I believe in it.
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And of course, at Ground Zero what else?
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It's such a complex project.
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It's emotional. There is so many interests.
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It's political. There is so many parties to this project.
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There is so many interests. There's money. There's political power.
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There are emotions of the victims.
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And yet, in all its messiness, in all its difficulties,
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I would not have liked somebody to say,
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"This is the tabula rasa, mister architect -- do whatever you want."
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I think nothing good will come out of that.
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I think architecture is about consensus.
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And it is about the dirty word "compromise." Compromise is not bad.
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Compromise, if it's artistic,
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if it is able to cope with its strategies --
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and there is my first sketch and the last rendering --
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it's not that far away.
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And yet, compromise, consensus,
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that is what I believe in.
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And Ground Zero, despite all its difficulties, it's moving forward.
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It's difficult. 2011, 2013. Freedom Tower, the memorial.
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And that is where I end.
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I was inspired when I came here as an immigrant
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on a ship like millions of others,
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looking at America from that point of view.
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This is America. This is liberty.
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This is what we dream about. Its individuality,
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demonstrated in the skyline. It's resilience.
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And finally, it's the freedom that America represents,
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not just to me, as an immigrant, but to everyone in the world. Thank you.
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(Applause)
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Chris Anderson: I've got a question.
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So have you come to peace
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with the process that happened at Ground Zero
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and the loss of the original, incredible design that you came up with?
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Daniel Libeskind: Look. We have to cure ourselves
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of the notion that we are authoritarian,
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that we can determine everything that happens.
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We have to rely on others, and shape the process in the best way possible.
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I came from the Bronx. I was taught not to be a loser,
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not to be somebody who just gives up in a fight.
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You have to fight for what you believe. You don't always win
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everything you want to win. But you can steer the process.
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And I believe that what will be built at Ground Zero
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will be meaningful, will be inspiring,
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will tell other generations of the sacrifices,
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of the meaning of this event.
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Not just for New York, but for the world.
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Chris Anderson: Thank you so much, Daniel Libeskind.
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(Applause)
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About this website

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