Charles Munger is back in the news after some insensitive comments made over the weekend re-entered the debate over windowless dormitories and student housing scarcity nationwide.
Yahoo! Finance is reporting on comments the would-be billionaire designer of the derided and then dropped megadormitory project at the University of California, Santa Barbara had in a podcast conversation hosted by MarketWatch.
“The world of architecture is a game of trade-offs,” Munger told the outlet. “You’ve got to get used to the fact that billionaires aren’t the most popular people in our society. I’d rather be a billionaire and not be loved by everybody than not have any money.”
Munger’s cynicism is certainly evocative of many insiders’ takes on the industry in its current state. The comments also betray a troublesome societal trend regarding the mental well-being of young people, especially as it relates to college life.
A previous attempt at designing windowless student housing at the University of Michigan has proven faulty, at best, if not outright disparaging. Campaigns to make such designs illegal could be the next logical development, though zoning hurdles remain.
“A lot of people are incredulous that this was even a thing before all these articles came out about UCSB…like, how is this legal? How are they doing this to us?” one University of Michigan student and resident of a windowless Munger Graduate Residence Hall room queried CNN during a 2021 tour. (Munger dismissed the original complainant Dennis McFadden, an architect and longtime UCSB Design Review Committee member, as an “ignorant man” a few paragraphs on.)
The answer again is money. Kate Wagner considered the underside of its influence this summer as part of a rallying cry for better “basic rights to shelter.”
UC Santa Barbara, meanwhile, appears to continue with a replacement concept for Munger Hall at a reduced capacity of 3,500 beds, according to their August new RFP.
11 Comments
This project was not reviled because it was proposed by a billionaire. It was reviled because it is inhumane.
"The world of architecure is a game of trade-offs."
No, it isn't, but it certainly explains why he can't design his way out of a paper bag.
Yeah, he seems to be missing the point. Munger didn't want to trade-off: he had a singular vision of an architecture without fenestration, where occupants are forced to interact in wholly enclosed spaces with no natural light. It's either that or he pulls funding.
Design is a compromise of conflicting constraints. Even then you can still get a window in a room. ;)
Charles Munger is human trash. All the money in the world will not change that.
Windowless dorm rooms? Come on, even prison cells have windows.
Munger's dorm is a nightmare
It's interesting that Kate Wagner was previously critical of any design standards for housing as being besides the point. Sometimes a building is so horrible it makes everyone remember the point of design. Which is the defense of the human. Ironically, the architecture profession believes more in the defense of its fees.
"Rich people know what's best for everyone" is a prevalent attitude in the USA.
Why would anyone ever listen to this Boomer? Munger sounds like death everytime he opens his fat mouth. By boomer!
Cloud Atlas addressed the windowless distopian future:
https://youtu.be/678WvD-Rs1A?si=9PPil7YSnnIpzDP2
Aaaaand.... he's gone for good.
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