I interned at SANAA last spring. It was reality-shattering to sejima and nishizawa walking around (nishizawa scours and stomps though)

Sejima is really a nice person. We would talk in Japanese together, she even bought a bunch of worthless voluteer desk workers dinner and took her picture with us! None of the brand name attitude or anything.

Who I would like to work for:

Antoine Predock
Renzo Piano
Rick Joy (is he a celeb?)

Who I would've like to work for:
Enric Miralles

I met Shigeru Ban once. Nice guy. He was drinking 7Up.

I worked on the on the original Disney Concert Hall way back in the mid 1990s. Got to see Frank Gehry a couple of times. I'm glad they decided to redesign it because building it off of our drawings would have been a disaster. I detailed the massive parking garage which was built years before they put the final building on top. For maximum flexibility, and because the new building had not been designed yet, the parking garage has a 6 foot thick concrete floor assembly to take the weight of whatever he designed to go on top.

I worked for Zaha - she's an utter demon as you might expect. But not in the endearing way often portrayed in interviews. Complete disdain for anyone other than about 5 people. Doesn't occupy any floorspace except for the journey between front door and her desk chair.

She has a Philipino driver who she ignores, despite still managing to strike utter fear into his heart. I once saw him on the brink of tears having just spilt hot coffee on his hands. He was only afraid of the coffee stuck in the ridge of the cup.

In her WC she has a picture of herself giving the acceptance speech for the Pritzker.


Any more would just be gossiping ;)

anybody know what it's like to ride an elevator with zaha?

while paying a visit to the exterior of the gehry house, the garage door opens and out drives a car... to which i then proceed to follow. turns out it was in fact frank himself (but with michigan plates?) going to the store. don't call me creepy. i was just curious.

I walked by Frank Gehry as I was coming out of a restroom at a university conference once... Instinctively, you know like when you recognize a face, automatic reflex, I said "Hey Frank." Casually like I knew him... He looked at me with a blank look, no recognition whatsoever, and then walked down the hall into the restroom...

while working for predock i found out that you can work more than 200 hours in a pay period. and i had to drop off his rollerblades at the skate shop while getting supplies one day. it felt like i was kicked square in the nuts.

While didnt meet Helmut personally i did attend a speaking engagement he was supposed to be at. He showed up about 45 min late, in black jeans and black skin-tight Euro club wear t-shirt, speaks for 2-3 min about how architects in America are so timid compared to his practice, then excused himself as he needed to catch a flight to Europe for work.

Great stories, y'all..keep 'em coming!
Sorry if this is repetitive (I've mentioned this story on the board before, but I figured I'd put it here as well, since it's appropiate), but I do have one celebrity architect story.
My brother and I went to NYC last December to see Richard Meier at a lecture/book signing, and we went up to talk to him after the lecture. I was so nervous my hands were shaking and I couldn't look him in the face, but he was very kind and pleasant-I had written to him in October and he actually remembered me from the letter.
He was even patient when my brother tried to get a picture of us together (again, I was so nervous, I conveniently forgot how to use my new digital camera, and I was yelling at my poor bro becasue I was frustrated), and it turned out to be a pretty good experience, although he seemed more interested in talking to my brother about his buildings than me....(jealous)....

I heard about Predock and his blades. I heard he rode through the office and out the door while his employees slaved away on a Saturday.

Well, I better get to work. It's late.

Had dessert/coffee with Glenn Murcutt. He had raspberry pie, I just sipped on a capo

ever heard of the term 'starfuckers'?

Techno, that's a pretty short explanation. I'd be interested to hear more.

I worked on the owners' rep team for a project in which VBSA was hired to design one of the components of the larger master plan. I had the opportunity to eat lunch alongside Bob once, but I couldn't think of much to say to him. In meetings he typically quoted himself a lot.

Denise came to one meeting about site design, and I found her to be absolutely brilliant. Her words were measured, careful, and masterful.

another celeb story (well - young guy who wants to be and probably will be a celebrity)...

when i visited mexico city a few years ago Fernando Romero of LCM fame showed my GF and i around.

we wanted to visit the barragan nuns chapel and were told a few days eariler that we wouldnt be able to get in, we told Fernando and he immediately picked up his phone, called someone and then told us that we could go there. he then gave us a car with driver to travel there. his car with bodyguards was in front, and another car with more bodyguards behind.

later, he took us back to his amazing early modernist house (he did a snail like addition to it), and his wife (apparently from one of the richest families in mexico) was absolutely lovely and down to earth. i did find it a bit disturbing that at his front gate were two men with rather large shotguns slung over their shoulders.

all in all an interesting experience.

thom mayne always gets the soup at lu valle... across the street from perloff at UCLA...

I worked for Paul Glaser's Father in Boston. You might remember him from the TV Series of Starsky and Hutch. He used to drop into the office looking for his day when he was in Bean Town. So I had
many bag lunches with him while I worked there. He was actually a real nice guy, but hated the fact that his father wanted him to become and architect instood of an actor. So I'm now trying to figure out what the heck you would call him?? BTW his father is credited with designing the first modernist house in Boston....yup before the European Boys showed up at Harvard. Actually he did alot of projects with all of the heavy hitters....as the Architect of Record. I recall one of my office boy tasks was to take a cab from Copley Square to Harvard Square in order to get a signature from someone at TAC then on down Mass Ave to Stubbins office to get a signature from Stubbins and then return to the office so one big ass check could be cashed for a project they all worked on. I recall the office manager telling me be sure you take a cab and not the subway cause you will have alot of money in your hand once everything is signed.

day= Dad

I know I'll never top this one

About 5 years ago (maybe?) I was traveling in Europe with my University for an abroad program. One of our pit stops was in Vals were we spent two nights at the thermal baths. The first night we got to the hotel too late to be able to get in, so the next morning we went in at opening to check out the baths before it was crowded. Me and a couple other classmates were sort of wandering around trying to grasp the layout and sequence of rooms, looking a bit confused, when we look up and Zumthor is standing there, looking at us, in a speedo. He points to one room and says "that's hot" points to the other and says "that's cold" and then said "go to the hot one, then the cold one" and walked away. It took us a minute to realize it was him.
Later that evening we were watching the world cup in a small lounge area in the hotel and he was there again eating some diner by himself. None of us really wanted to pester him because we assumed this was his vacation. Pretty funny seeing the master builder in banana hammock though.

was there shrinkage?

I think he would call it "minimalism".

The funniest thing was that it was my second starchitect speedo celebrity sighting of the trip. About a week earlier we were going through Basel and went to a world cup/bbq party at our tour guide's apartment. He happened to live in the same building as Jacque Herzog (the Hebelstrasse 11 building H&DeM designed there in 1984). Around halftime Herzog stuck his head over the second floor balcony and asked us to scram out of view so he could enjoy a dip in the above ground pool he had added the courtyard. 10 minutes later there was a very well executed and exquisitely detailed dive in a speedo. After that and the Zumthor sighting, I was lucky our trip Zaha's Vitra fire station the following later in the trip didn't meet a similar fate.

I spent and evening building a ginger bread house with Paul Roudolphs Partner....so I guess he was almost famous. His lady friend was in charge of marketing in our office. She had also worked for Paul....just before he lost a big commission in what was East Pakistan because of the shift of political forces.

I almost knocked out Thom Mayne at a reception after a lecture of his at Princeton... My classmates (I did not go to princeton we were just visiting) said I resembled him. So as a joke, they asked me to nonchalantly go stand behind him so they could compare. He was talking to Michael Graves. So I wander over and stand behind him. About 6 feet behind him. My classmates are laughing across the room and gesturing me to move closer. So I move backwards toward him, trip on the edge of a ramp and fall backwards onto him, roll off his back and into a squat on the floor, After I stood up and regained my composure I was like, "I am so sorry", and he was like, "no problem dude...lay off the wine." He seemed to be a pretty laid back cool guy.