179 - Liberty Bell Sketches

Coffee Talks, Liberty Bell Sketches, and Designing with Purpose

In this episode, Kurt and Jamie dive into various topics from their morning coffee routines to architectural sketches of the Liberty Bell Center in Philadelphia. They discuss the importance of site orientation, design interpretation, and the evolving role of architects in preserving heritage while embracing innovation. The duo also reflects on their experiences with students and share insights on meaningful architectural design.

00:00 Launching the Rocket
00:38 Jamie's Rant
01:34 Coffee Talk
08:11 Current Events and COAD Zine
12:05 Sketch Time: Liberty Bell Center
24:09 Architectural Reflections and Preservation
30:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Kurt Neiswender: 0:32

So you wanna you wanna launch, launch this rocket?

Jamie: 0:35

Yeah, we'll do, let's launch the rocket. This will be like a 30 minute episode. Folks. Join us.

Kurt Neiswender: 0:43

Keep it Fire, JB Oh. Hey Jamie. How's it going?

Jamie: 1:14

Welcome to my rant.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:19

This is, well, can it, can we share rant?

Jamie: 1:22

No, no, no. We're not gonna share the rant. We're gonna Oh, it's

Kurt Neiswender: 1:25

just your rant.

Jamie: 1:26

Just my rant.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:27

Just last week, last week was my rant. I guess.

Jamie: 1:30

Your rent, you were, you were in a, not a dark place, but just sort of like a Wow. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 1:39

You know. Anyway, anyways, where our green room, those that were following us in from the green room, understand Jamie's rant, banging on tables and flipping them, and, you know, learning things along the way. So we have, let's see. I will save, well, let's see. What do we, we wanna talk about coffee first. Do you wanna talk about coffee?

Jamie: 2:10

Let's, let's do it in order. Let's do the coffee and then we'll talk the. The updates and then go into the sketches.

Kurt Neiswender: 2:17

Okay. Okay. So my coffee, I, I'm just gonna tell you what I got is I'm feeling, I guess a little bit nostalgic to my culture. Ooh. So I got there is a local roaster, another local roaster called Fireside. And they had and it was down at the market and I thought, oh, I'll try that. And it was a Guatemalan blend of, well not blend, but Guatemalan origin of coffee. And it's actually very it's a light roast, which has a. Some, it's, it smells like berry kiss of rootless has this sort of like, sort of, you know, blueberry ish, sort of tannic smell when you're grinding the beans and

Jamie: 3:15

you were using all the words

Kurt Neiswender: 3:17

today. Wow. I know. Where'd I come up with this? It's probably nothing what it says on the package, but that's what it comes up with to my nose. I like it a lot. It's you know, and again, you know, dumb, the dumb architect concept when I grind them in my little grinder, light roasts always are a little harder to grind. They must not, you know,'cause you roast them less, I'm assuming. So the firmness of the bean.

Jamie: 3:49

Do you like the way you're describing this strange for me is like, like as if you're churning butter. Are you doing this grinding by hand?

Kurt Neiswender: 3:59

Yeah, I have a manual a bean grinder, but its not battery, it's manual. I got a handle and I, I,

Jamie: 4:09

I, I, I'm following what manual is.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:12

Yeah, because I use French press. I use a French press. I don't, I don't do Mr. Coffee. I wouldn't, I'm not opposed, but I have a French press.

Jamie: 4:25

And how does, so I do

Kurt Neiswender: 4:26

one cup at a time.

Jamie: 4:27

I, I, okay. All.

Kurt Neiswender: 4:34

Yep. That's a lot of,

Jamie: 4:36

that's a lot of meditation in that sort of,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:40

I have a, I have a whole system. I wake up,

Jamie: 4:43

I can tell,

Kurt Neiswender: 4:44

I turn a light on, I feed the dog, but I un, I open the blinds. I. I, I actually, let's see. I feed the dog, then I turn, and then I boil the water on the stove, and then I start grinding. I let the dog out. I am still grinding, and then I bring the dog back in, and then I have my grind, and then I've put it in the French press. Then a couple more minutes, the water is hot. Pour it in the French press, go sit down, wait for it to steep dog jumps in my lap. I could scroll through my social media and drink my coffee. It's my whole morning routine. This is beautiful.

Jamie: 5:41

Like it's beautiful. Like we, we, we all were there. You painted this beautiful picture and, and this isn't me trying to like take a pin to that like bubble, but bear with me as I ask you a question, which I think I already know the answer to. So someone who's very concerned about the planet as you are. It, it is Earth Day. It sounds like you maybe have a gas stove. Mm-hmm. Do I need to talk to you about electric? Maybe?

Kurt Neiswender: 6:24

I, I di I didn't, I didn't. The house came with the gaste. Okay. I'm just,

Jamie: 6:29

I'm just, okay. I'm just.

Kurt Neiswender: 6:32

I do like the gas stove better than the electric stove, though.

Jamie: 6:38

Ah. See I've had,

Kurt Neiswender: 6:40

I've had both. Yeah. Anyway, I know I can live with electric.

Jamie: 6:52

Okay. I'm just just pointing that out that, like I said, not, it was like the pin was out, but I didn't Yeah, I know. I didn't,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:01

yeah, it's not a mandate around here, these parts, you know, so

Jamie: 7:07

Well, I mean, it's not gonna be a mandate for anybody anymore. I mean, but, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 7:12

drill, baby drill. Anyhow, Kurt needs his coffee. I sound so, sounds terrible apparently. Alright, let's move on.

Jamie: 7:25

Yeah. What

Kurt Neiswender: 7:25

about you?

Jamie: 7:27

So, speaking of like, speaking of coffee. And, and sort of in the same vein, unbeknownst to me after Kurt describes his whole morning routine for me

Kurt Neiswender: 7:38

planet killing. Yeah.

Jamie: 7:39

Yeah. Planet killing, you know, let's, let's, let's go for zero. But the yeah, so I had sill in reserve some snake oil. Mm. So that's what, like, I got out yesterday and then did again today, ground up and beans. Not, I used the electricity. And then made myself a nice pot this morning before work. How

Kurt Neiswender: 8:08

unsustainable of you?

Jamie: 8:10

Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:11

You used an electric grinder.

Jamie: 8:14

Electric grinder, you know,

Kurt Neiswender: 8:16

and an electric coffee pot.

Jamie: 8:18

Yep.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:19

And you're over here. Breaking me down for a little bit of gas heat to a little, little gas. Lot of water.

Jamie: 8:25

Yeah. Uhhuh,

Kurt Neiswender: 8:27

I was, I was manually grinding. Mm-hmm. All my beans steeping my Oh. Or all right. Anyway, but it was the,

Jamie: 8:35

but it was the snake oil, so, yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:39

That's good stuff. I like, I like that one

Jamie: 8:41

can only be bought.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:42

All right. Current events, buddy.

Jamie: 8:46

Yep.

Kurt Neiswender: 8:47

For those that are watching or listening at a later date at two x speed, I boom. I gotta get it in frame.

Jamie: 9:04

I think you need to frame it. This,

Kurt Neiswender: 9:06

this is epi, this is issue two. It only took him two issues. So this is the, the COAD zine. It's a new zine. By our students at LTU and this was taped to my door and I was like, wait a second. That logo looks familiar.

Jamie: 9:34

Well, and I have to say that when you sent it to me, I was like, of course it can, you know, immediately resonates in like, you know, there might've been a tear. Right? But I love the fact that not only is it the image, but it's also purposely like zoomed up and interestingly Oh yeah. You know, croppy in croppy, croppy, you know? Yeah. It's just, it's so yeah,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:07

and inverted too, or black, white inversion.

Jamie: 10:13

It's just, it's, it's so like. Yeah, I, I just,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:21

oh, these cool. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm taking it as a flattering note.

Jamie: 10:27

It touched my heart, so,

Kurt Neiswender: 10:29

and I shared it with you. Yeah. And then I, I wanted, we, I wanted to bring it up on the podcast so that all the students that are listening know that, you know, we feel the love.

Jamie: 10:42

There might have been many a stencil or Xerox, you know, collage in my past, so I Oh, yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 10:51

I can, yeah. Zines or, or dear to Jamie's heart. Yeah. Yes. Very much so. So, Z Culture. Yeah, I like it. I think it's cool that they're. Publishing, you know, so they use this so it's 11 by 17 format, right? And they fill it both sides, so they're very frugal, which is all true to zine, zine culture, right? Being frugal about your media consumption.

Jamie: 11:21

So also access to the copy machine.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:25

Oh, yeah. Well, I believe they're allowed black and white, 11 by seventeens free of charge.

Jamie: 11:32

See? Smart.

Kurt Neiswender: 11:34

So, yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't expense. Added costs. So, you know, if they didn't color it would cost some money, but yeah. Yeah. Hey, don't need color. You got two colors in black and white. Look at our logo right there in the upper corner of the screen. Black and white. Look at that t-shirt. But anyway, yeah. So I just wanna share that with you on, on the episode so we can shout out to our, our friends at coad.

Jamie: 12:06

Yeah. Like, so, so we've checked the box on, been in someone's syllabus.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:12

Yeah. And then hat tip, right Hat tip the hat. Student

Jamie: 12:18

notice. Yep. Love it. So,

Kurt Neiswender: 12:23

so, yeah. So that, that, that's, that's a highlight of the week or No? When did that come out? End of last week.

Jamie: 12:31

Well, you, you sent it to me when you got it, so Yes. But yes.

Kurt Neiswender: 12:36

Highlight of the week. So, oh, I guess it's, it, it's, it's sketch time. Sketch time. I got a surprise. I was gonna surprise Jamie. I'm gonna populate the screen. I think I'm gonna land on this one. Well, we could start here. Well, let's just, let's just do this.

Jamie: 12:55

We've been drawn. Jamie's been

Kurt Neiswender: 12:57

drawn. Yeah, Jamie's done Well. Kurt's been AI in Yeah. But, but sketch wise, although I have been, there's nothing published yet, but I've got some stuff in the cookbook sketchbook. But the I, I liked this one also. You placed this one with some music too. From, from what, from my recollection, which is you know, rage against the machine. But I liked, I liked the sketch because of this, the building itself. Right. And so, you know, it's a light, lightly gestured sketch, you know, not a lot of render, but a lot of depth in my opinion. This is not a heavy texture, but a lot of three dimensional depth to the, to the sketch, which I liked. So it accomplishes a lot about the, the, the essence of a building, which I'm, remind me again. And all our friends watching, which particular, this is I'm drawing a blank already. Which building is this?

Jamie: 14:12

This is the Liberty Bell Center.

Kurt Neiswender: 14:15

Right. Which is Boland Solinsky, right? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, because you were recently in Philly, right? So this is part of your Philly trip. Yeah,

Jamie: 14:26

so this is, yeah. So, so for folks who have not been to Philly, but. You know, I, and I think this is a great sketch for, for tonight and sort of, kind of where we are in sort of our nation's history. So happened to be in Philly for a national conference. Main Street America, which is part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation has has an annual conference. It was in Philly this year. And as part of it joined a lot of architect and, and designer colleagues who do similar things to what I do here in Texas, but in other states for a pre-conference. So we, we go in before the main conference and then do our architect thing. And so one of the, one of the things that, one of the days of that sort of pre-conference, sort of the weekend before was really, really early start to the morning we did a whole session. At the Museum of the American Re Revolution Museum I hadn't been in before kind of a fabulous location. It turned out very gracious hosts. It was great for us. Had a cool conference room to be in and great view of the city. But on the way on the walk over there, I, I left purposely early'cause it was super early. You know, we were, had a really early start and I was like, oh. And I kind of map it and I realized Independence Hall is on my way from my hotel. That means I'm gonna pass by Independence Hall, but also where the Liberty Bell is. So again, for folks who haven't been to Philly, the Liberty Bell that everybody knows was in the tower, rang, rang, rang, is not in the tower anymore. It is across the street. In this pavilion space that pr both preserves, it protects it. Also sort of tells a, a, a really good narrative history of, you know, the goings on, you know, related to the bell, but also to, you know, the events unfolding at Independence Hall. It's run by the National Park Service as Kurt said, you know, it's a modern building. And what's interesting is this aperture that you're seeing on the screen of the glass facade and sort of this super structure that sort of almost reaches, seems to be reaching out, you know, and it seems to be reaching out from the sketch is the direction of the, the position of this glass. The positioning of the building on the site is purposely at an angle so that it's pointing directly at its original location. So the bell is looking at where it used to be. And very deliberately done. It's a super subtle design move that somebody who, you know, maybe isn't sort of, you know, kind of realizing what this building is doing. You know, as they're walking around in the, in sort of the, the plaza grounds, you know, might not completely get it. But when those folks go inside that pavilion and see that Liberty Bell and stand in that space, they will, like a camera will literally see the bell pointing at the tower at Independence Hall. And I think that that, and at that there's that aha moment that so many visitors I imagine get from that experience. That is probably super powerful. You know, myself as a designer, as an architect, you know, kind of, you know, it's like I already like skipped to the end, you know, of the story. When I sort of see the building and kind of what it's doing on the site, but I wanted to capture this sort of sketch early that morning where there was no one there. Everything hadn't opened yet. It's just me and a bunch of National Park service people kind of wandering around in the plaza. So I was able to sketch the majority of this on site and then sort of finish it up, you know, before I got a coffee.

Kurt Neiswender: 18:26

The actually it's a great oh, OMA just wanted to do a little graffiti on the, on the sketch there, you know, heart or NPS staff that do the, do their jobs and love their jobs. But I've been there too. I've been to Philly, Philly a couple of times, or, well, more than a couple, but my last trip of like 2020 right before the. The old pandemic? No, no, no. 2019 was one year prior, but the I got to walk through, you know, the, the, the whole op sort of sequence of movement through, through the, the little exhibit they have with the Liberty Bell is pretty cool. And then you have that space, you know, the sort of con con contemplative space, interior. But yeah, experiencing it from the exterior is cool too, because of the way it's designed. And, and so you don't necessarily have to go through the whole sequence of the museum to still get a sense of kind of the main event. Right. But you bring up a great point about the, the idea of orientation. Something I've been trying to impress upon my students in studio lately, right, is we're two weeks from. Final, final submission is, I think, you know, this, this orientation toward its original location of the tower is quite literal, right? It's physically pointing at a location, but sometimes that is not cliche, right? Sometimes that is the move, right? Is creating that connection, right? Beyond extending beyond your, your design space to another space and orienting, you know, a building to a significant point. And, and so trying to, I'm trying to teach the students to think, okay, so the building exists and you put it on the site. So what happens at the edge of the building beyond. Right. So you, you, you know, you spend a lot of time talking about the interior workings now, put it on the site, and how did, how does that impact the spaces outside of the building and how do you address the site now? Well, I mean, how many times,

Jamie: 20:57

yeah, I mean, how many times has somebody like said to you, whether in a, you know, just casual conversation or a client meeting or in a student situation, like, I'm interested in, you know, bringing the outside in or bringing the inside out, you know, and sort of that transparency, that connection to, you know, to another space. And, and I think that this is exactly what you're describing. It's that edge condition and that opportunity to look out and you're kind of creating that framed, that framed vignette. But I think that what struck me this time, you know,'cause I've been here before, is that. Standing at it, and I tried to capture it in the sketch as best I could, was just that the building itself, like from the outside is literally like dissolved. Yeah. Right. Like there's, there's pieces of it that aren't appear almost unfinished in a sense. Yeah. You know, to really kind of exaggerate that connection, you know, that, that you're talking about, like, how are you connecting this space to that space? And I, and I thought that that was like far more powerful for me this time than it had been in previous visits. And, and I think it's, some of that's a story, it's a storytelling opportunity, you know, for us as designers, but also conceivably for somebody who is in that space and sort of trying to connect themselves to all the things that they're, they're experiencing.

Kurt Neiswender: 22:35

Yeah. I That's a good point. It it, it's this sort of fragmentation, the, the dis dissolving, the, the, the sort of implied lines that it's extending past, past the boundary of the, the corner. Right. Yeah. It's so, it, it's another thing too, it's like yeah. The way you treat the meeting of wall roof, two walls together and wall and roof and then wall and ground, right? Like how do these things sort of inter interact with each other?'cause they serve different purposes, right? Walls, roofs and floors all do different things. And so they don't, you don't necessarily build them the same way. And so then, and then how they can be used in different ways, right? With gravity and so on. And yeah. So yeah, it's kind of a fun. It is a nice building. And, and I was just thinking to myself like, it's fun. Second year is quite a pivotal time. I'm teaching a second year studio. Right. So I, I, I remember back to my second year when things re they're just starting to click. And I can start to see that with, with a good handful of my students too, is like, things are clicking. Right. And they're, you know, it's not all perfect. It's exposure.

Jamie: 24:02

Yeah. It's exposure and it's, it's both exposure in the problems that are being set in front of them, but also their reactions to it and, and, and for them, you know, hopefully for themselves is realizing, wow, I'd never thought I would come up with that. Mm-hmm. Like that aha. Moment. You know, it is kind of special. And even if it's not fully realized, I mean like you're like, even six months from now when they look back at something they did, they'd be like, ah, I could have done that better or, or I would've done that differently, or whatever. Everybody does that. Like we, you know, we're still doing that. But I think it's also sort of finding those parallels to other things. As, you know, in, in Philly, a parallel for me, probably my favorite building or favorite design is the Ben Franklin house by Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi's office. You know, because I think that that, you know, that interpretation on that site is, you know, extremely powerful as a design move. And I don't think I sketched it this time, but it's, I. I visited it, you know, kind of stood there for a really long time, kind of talking about it with, with my colleagues that I was traveling with. As you know, from a historic preservation point of view, if you think about things like a timeline and you've got, I'm going to you know, preserve things, like I'm gonna preserve them, like I'm putting them in this glass case and I'm doing all this stuff, and I'm making sure that that 200 year old wall was like, I'm preserving it as, as you know, and just keeping on preserving it. And then you stretch that out across the four treatments that the secretary of the interior standards. The other end is if you can't preserve it, right, you're reconstructing it. You have enough documentation of this amazing, important historic landmark. It's so important. And we've got all the, we've got all the, we've got pictures, or we've got drawings, or we've got accounts and oral histories and blah, blah, blah. And we know how to reconstruct it. And it's so important that we have to reconstruct it, right? Oftentimes it's not a full reconstruction, it's portions of a building, but you get the point. Two different ends of the spectrum. Well, when I was in school, the way this Venturi Scott Brown project for Ben Franklin's pro, you know, house was discussed, was what if you took reconstruction just one more step and it became interpretation. So when does reconstruction,'cause it's new. When you're reconstructing something, it wasn't there anymore, right? It's on that historic preservation timeline, but it's all new stuff. Right? If you take that one more step and you're at the bleeding edge of reconstruction, are you really interpreting a site? Mm-hmm. Are you, are you bringing your own self as a current designer, architect, historian, whatever, to the project? And are you interpreting the things you want to leave behind for the, for the next viewer? And, and in that interpretation, do you have some latitude? You know, what's, what's, what's important in that storytelling? And so I think, I think what they did on that site is, is just, you know, has a level of perfection to it. That's amazing in sort of making that provocation as a designer but also dealing with this, you know, something that is so sacrosanct. You know, historic preservation and sort of these principles and kind of putting themselves at that very, very end of that timeline. It, I think it's, it's, it, it makes for really interesting discussion. Mm-hmm.

Kurt Neiswender: 28:03

The are you, I'm sure you're familiar with Sphere F right? And, and there our friends at AIE Marathon, you know, Kevin and Andrew visited they, on one of their recent episodes, if you watch on the YouTube AIE marathon, they visited a sphere building and I hadn't thought of I, when I was in, I go back to second year. Right. And, and you look at some books'cause super underrated, kind of like Carlos Scarpa, we probably talk about them in, in a very similar mindset. But, kind of what you were talking about this, this, you know, in, in one, in a heritage or historic preservation aspect, the, the, the, that one step toward interpretation of how to negotiate the, the, the preserved origins of the building and, and, and modernizing it with new program or you know, materials that respect and that, and, you know, that's that is not easy to accomplish in any, in any project, but it, yeah,

Jamie: 29:16

but is is if it's really the challenge that as you're talking to your current students, regardless of what year they're in, to me, that's, that's the challenge of our day. Like, you know, moving forward is. How, you know, how do we look at heritage? You know, not just, not just from a, like, you know, George Washington slept here, kind of heritage, right? But sort of a, a, a cross-cultural heritage. And, and then at the same time also kind of an ecological heritage, right? That we, that we have this sort of environmental imperative to the buildings that we already have built, that have outlived their usefulness for whatever reason, but they're still there. Can we reinterpret them and at the same time, you know, speak to this notion of heritage, but also be inventive. You know, can we use, can we bring those damn design, design skills to the fore and let us do our damn job? Yeah. And, and that's, and I think that that's the part that I would love students to see as the, the opportunity, you know, as young designers, young professionals, older professionals, everybody kind of just developers, whoever is, you know, it's not, why not? It's a what if. Yeah.

Kurt Neiswender: 30:55

Yeah. That's a good way to put it. Yeah. I'll borrow that for Friday. The what if versus why not? Yeah, no, I think well, I think the, the conversation can be, this is one, this is one which we have often, which is one that doesn't end with the end of the episode. It will, it will resurface at a future date as we, we, we sort of weave the narrative'cause it will come back. We've done this many times and I think it's, it's very interesting, you know, for me at least right now, we're approaching the very end of a semester, which is always the stressful crunch time. But as the, the students sort of button up and tie their, their concepts together, it's a good talking point to to sort of showcase some of the aspects we talked about tonight. Like with the Liberty Bell cer certain literal or lyrical connections. And then, you know, tectonics and, and, and those, those, those techniques that, that architects have. So anyway, I again, being not, not a great goodbye, but, you know, thanks, Jamie. It's been fun to unpack a little bit of your visit with the, the Main Street program to to, to Philly.

Jamie: 32:23

Buddy. If you didn't know, if you, if you figured out how to like, close an episode and say goodbye or goodnight or whatever, like there, like, I would be like, has Charlie slipped into this episode? And like, is he, yeah. So, no, it was fun. Thank you very much.