The Frontier

Bjarke Ingels describes his firm BIG as around 700 architects across seven cities: Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Zurich, and Shanghai.

Ingels says his creative director role focuses on what projects BIG pursues and how to win them, rather than generating all ideas. He advocates giving full project credit to the whole team to avoid individuals hoarding ideas.

Ingels notes architects receive no royalties on completed buildings, unlike visual artists in Europe who get a percentage of sales. He calls this system nonsensical and suggests a 1-2% royalty to the architect's estate would improve industry profitability.

Ingels observes architecture combines artistic integrity with technical liability, leading practitioners to work mostly for love despite low average salaries relative to education investment.

Ingels frames architectural competitions as making the best possible project rather than directly defeating rivals, though he acknowledges fierce competition for singular opportunities like the Hamburg Opera.

He argues architecture's canvas is prohibitively large and expensive compared to other arts, forcing architects through many hoops and often delaying major projects until later career stages.

Ingels champions oxymorons like 'utopian pragmatism' as a design philosophy, combining idealistic vision with practical constraints to create new opportunities beyond polarized thinking.

He proposed a redesign for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway renovation, replacing a planned temporary six-lane highway on stilts with a ground-level highway capped by a lid to create new parkland and possibly offset costs with housing development.

Ingels's book 'Yes Is More' promotes defining oneself by what you support rather than what you oppose, arguing traditional rebels become followers in reverse by letting opponents set the agenda.

He views design as 'form-giving' - giving form to the future - and avoids over-defining mission statements, believing written definitions kill wiggle room for life and adaptation.

Ingels notes BIG retains intellectual property from competition entries unless clients specifically contract for it, allowing idea recycling across projects like cover songs in music.

He made a 2020 bucket list of dream projects including an opera house, philharmonic, airport, stadium, and national library, then committed to overinvesting up to 25% of earnings to win such commissions despite the industry's catch-22 of needing prior experience.

Ingels considers architecture the highest art form because it produces reality rather than merely reflecting it, with buildings directly shaping inhabited worlds.

He admires the Sydney Opera House for its accessible public landscape stairs beneath elitist institution pavilions, its transcultural aesthetic evoking pagodas, Gothic vaults, and Mayan temples, and its underlying rigor using industrialized repetitive elements.

Ingels cites Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry starting their most remembered work after age 60, suggesting architecture is a Benjamin Button profession where capability grows with age rather than declines.

Dick Cavett told Stephen Dubner that television network executives were often ‘qualified to tell you how to do the show’ despite not knowing why a show works or what it feels like to host.

Cavett recounted that ABC executives objected to his first planned show with Muhammad Ali and Gore Vidal discussing Vietnam, calling it a subject ‘nobody gives a damn about’ and forced him to tape a different premiere.

Dick Cavett hosted Muhammad Ali on his show fourteen times, and Dubner notes Cavett became friendly with the boxer over the years.

Dubner explains Cavett produced roughly 2,000 hours of work across ABC, CBS, PBS, USA, CNBC, and TCM, with much of his archive now held at the Library of Congress.

Dick Cavett said his early hosting flaws included sticking too closely to his notes and sometimes not listening to guests, a critique offered by a friend named Porterfield.

Cavett described Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) as a cure for his depression, citing that his late wife observed he was a ‘different person’ after treatment.

Dick Cavett recounted a 1971 taping where guest Jerome I. Rodale died on the set, leading Cavett to famously ask ‘Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?’ after the guest began snoring.

Stephen Dubner cites a 1972 New Yorker profile describing Cavett as ‘cool, self-contained, poised, judging’ and notes Cavett may be ‘the first show business character who is always off, always himself.’

Dick Cavett said his spontaneous retort to Norman Mailer, ‘Why don’t you fold it five ways and put it where the moon don’t shine?’ was a memorable line that came to him involuntarily.

Cavett noted Marlon Brando advised him that performers have an ‘automatic pilot’ that takes over during a show, which allowed Cavett to host effectively even during depressive episodes.

Stephen Dubner recounts economist Gary Becker’s finding that ‘people’ are the most addictive thing on the planet, a point Becker derived from studying the economics of addiction.

Dick Cavett said Groucho Marx advised him to cultivate a persona as ‘a kid from Nebraska, the rustic coming to glamour,’ which Cavett acknowledged he may have leaned into after receiving the letter.

Stephen Dubner’s new show ‘People’ will launch on the Freakonomics YouTube channel on July 14th, featuring guests like architects, writers, CEOs, musicians, comedians, and athletes.