83 episodes
Unfrozen Daniel Safarik and Greg Lindsay
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- Arts
A podcast on architecture and urbanism.
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The City in the City
In The City in the City, Amy Thomas offers
the first in-depth architectural and urban history of London's financial district, the City of London, from the period of rebuilding after World War II to the explosive climax of financial deregulation in the 1980s and its long aftermath. From the Big Tie to the Big Bang, it’s a heavy-hitting episode of Unfrozen.
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Intro/Outro: “Money,” by Pink Floyd
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Discussed:
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Peter Wynne Rees
o This is London: Rees Remembrances
o The City is Here for You to Use
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St Paul’s Cathedral
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The Bank of England
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The BigTie, by Brian Griffin
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Broadgate
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Top hatters
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The Domesday Book
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Corporation of London
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Jamaica Wine House
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The George and Vulture
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Lloyds and the Lloyds Building
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Eva Jiricna: Kenzo > Interiors at Lloyds
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Spitting Image Richard Rogers episode
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“Where Ideas Come From,” by Steven Johnson
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Paul Romer’s “spillover effect”
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The Big Bang, 1986
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National Provincial Bank
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If it’s bad in the City, it’s worse at Canary Wharf and Stamford
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Bishopsgate bombing, 1993 & the Ring of Steel
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The Barbican Estate
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Paternoster Square & Prince Charles
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London Wall
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London County Council vs. the City of London Corporation
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No. 1 Poultry, by James Stirling
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One Exchange Square
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Frank Duffy
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“Edge of Empire,” by Jane Margaret Jacobs
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The British financial archipelago, e.g., Bermuda and the Cayman Islands -
Designing the Forest
“Either you’re growing your materials or not. You’re getting
them from a forest or a mine.”
Lindsey Wikstrom is the Founding Principal of Mattaforma
and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia
Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Her debut book, Designing the Forest and Other Mass Timber Futures, argues that to overcome obstacles to wide adoption of mass timber as a building material, we need to think differently about our relationship to trees, buildings, and each other.
Intro/Outro: “I Am a Tree,” by Guided by Voices -
Houser + Hytha = Highrises
Chris Hytha and Mark Houser are collaborators on Highrises: Art Deco, a multimedia series chronicling the great skyscraper edifices of the roaring ‘20s. Photographed by drones and meticulously measured and researched, the series – a book, prints, website, mobile phone wallpaper and exhibition -- reveals fascinating details and stories of these distinctly American icons. Catch the in-person book talk on July 18 and the exhibition from May 31 to August 26 at the Chicago Architecture Center.
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Intro/Outro: “High Rise” by Ladytron
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Discussed:
MultiStories: 55 Antique Skyscrapers and the Business Tycoons Who Built Them
The DJI Air 2S Drone
Highrises Art Deco: 100 Spectacular Skyscrapers from the Roaring ‘20s to the Great Depression
Henry W. Oliver Building, Pittsburgh, D.H. Burnham, 1910
Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln, Bertram Goodhue, 1932
Public Market > Modern Spirits Liquor Store, Tulsa, Gaylord Noftsger, 1930
Monadnock Building, Chicago, Burnham & Root, Holabird & Roche, 1891-1893
Eastern Columbia Building, Los Angeles, Claud Beelman, 1930
Mather Tower > Club Quarters Hotel, Chicago, Herbert Riddle, 1928
Union & Peoples National Bank > Jackson County Tower, Jackson, MI, Albert Kahn, 1929
Frick Building, Pittsburgh, D.H. Burnham, 1902
The Woolworth Building, New York, Cass Gilbert, 1913
Price Tower, Bartlesville, OK, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1956
Sterick Building, Memphis, Wyatt C Hendrick & Co, 1930
Industrial Trust Building, Providence, George Frederick Hall, Walker & Gillette, 1927
Guardian Building, Detroit, Donaldson & Meier; Smith, Hinchman & Grylls, 1929
Fisher Building, Detroit, Albert Kahn Associates; Graven & Mayger, 1928
Carbide & Carbon Building, Chicago, Burnham Brothers, 1929
Foshay Tower, Minneapolis, Hooper & Janusch; Magney & Tusler, 1929
Rand Tower, Minneapolis, Holabird & Root, 1929
Kansas City Power & Light Building, Kansas City, Hoit, Price & Barnes, 1931 -
To the Ends of the Earth
In To the Ends of the Earth: A Grand Tour for the 21st Century, Richard Weller, Professor Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism & Ecology at the University of Pennsylvania, has condensed a sprawling subject into a compact field guide to 120 of the most significant 21st century objects, from bulldozers to Biosphere II. Call it dystopian, call it optimistic. Just don’t call it “anthroporn.”
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Intro/Outro: “Until the End of the World,” by U2
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Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology After the End of the World, by Timothy Morton
Utopias (and Utopia’s Evil Twins)
Welwyn Garden City
Chandigarh
Burning Man
EPCOT
Pruitt-Igoe
Walmart
Supercenter
Machines:
Bulldozers + polymetric nodules
Fish farms
Solar arrays
Sand motor + littoral drift
Tree-planting drones
Monsters:
Geo-engineering
The World Park Project / UN Convention on Biological Diversity
Y2Y
Banff Wildlife Crossings Project
The Atlas for the End of the World -
Cities in the Sky
Jason Barr is a professor of economics at Rutgers University Newark and one of the world's foremost experts on the economics of skyscrapers. His new book, out May 14, 2024, is Cities in the Sky: The Quest to Build the World’s Tallest Skyscrapers. In it, Barr takes a global view of why the quest to build up is as fierce as ever, and why skyscrapers remain so controversial. Join the Unfrozen interview with Barr, in which some record-breaking myths get busted.
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Intro/Outro: “Altitude Blues,” by Ladytron
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Discussed:
Mythbusting the Home Insurance Building
First Skyscrapers | Skyscraper Firsts Forum
LeRoy Buffington’s skyscraper patent
Mythbusting The Skyscraper Index
The Line
Jeddah Tower
Joel Garreau’s Edge City
Emaar’s real estate play at Burj Khalifa: Downtown Dubai
Legends Tower, Oklahoma City
Empire State Building
China’s “build it” economy
“Zero Gravity Living”
Nashville and Oracle
Detroit and Dan Gilbert
Newark renaissance
Center City District (Philadelphia) study: Downtowns
Rebound
Karen Seto
(Yale)'s studies on tall building height canopies -
Irreplaceable
Kevin Kelley, a self-described “attention architect,” is a
co-founding partner of design firm Shook Kelley and author of Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together. In our digitized world of ghost commerce, he believes there is still a place for real places, and that it is incumbent on architects to stop looking down their noses
at retail, the essential lubricant of urban life, and start designing places that matter.
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Intro/Outro: “Friction,” by Television
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Discussed:
Bass Pro Shops at the Memphis Pyramid
Against 15-Minute Delivery
“The Bonfire Effect,” courtesy Loxahatchie, Florida
Participation mystique, as per Jung, as per Lucien Levy-Bruhl
“TheAnxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt
“Harvard Guide to Shopping” by Rem Koolhaas et. al.
Prior Unfrozen commentary on the replacement for the Orange County Government Center by Paul Rudolph
Robert Venturi on Las Vegas
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Yaromir Steiner and Easton Town Center, Columbus
Victor Gruen
Country Club Plaza, Kansas City
The Grove, Los Angeles
The Farmer’s Market, Los Angeles
Larchmont, Los Angeles
Hollywood and Highland (now Ovation), Los Angeles
Harley-Davidson dealerships’ Parts Bar
Mercado Gonzalez, Costa Mesa, CA