Original subtitles

#LULALIVRE #FREELULA

(honking)

(soft music playing on cab radio)

(indistinct chatter on the radio)

- Hi, it's me.

Uh, yes, I'm on my way.

Uh... I am cutting it very close.

Uh... I'll be there sharp

or five minutes late, so...

Drag it out if you can.

Yes. See you soon. Ciao.

(loud honking)

It's totally stuck, huh? It's the tunnel, right?

Okay. You know what...

I'm gonna have to get out here.

- You get out here? - Yes, yes. Keep the change.

I'm actually just going to jump out. Yes, yes.

(cab driver, indistinct)

Excellent. Thank you. Have a good day.

(classical music)

- Now look up to the ceiling. Good.

I change your face a little, and you change the face of New York.

- Perfect teamwork. - Yes.

- Mr. Rose. - How are you? - Nice to meet you.

- Thank you so much. - It's a pleasure.

- Bjarke Ingels is here. At just 40 years old, he has established himself

as one of the world's most inventive and sought after architects.

Earlier this week, it was announced

that he will design the fourth tower at the World Trade Center.

I'm pleased to have him at this table for the first time. Welcome.

- Thank you.

(in Danish): This is the old supermarket where I used to work.

My first job was delivering the local newspaper and circulars in this area.

I also worked at the hot-dog stand by the port and at a supermarket.

And I made desserts and did the dishes at a restaurant.

I cleaned up at the Central Station, and I worked at a nursing home

wiping old people's bums.

I worked as a mail man.

The worst job I ever had was when I did statistical surveys for Gallup.

Seriously. When you bring out the paper or mail

even when you work in a supermarket storehouse

you're free to let your mind wander.

But doing surveys on the phone felt almost as if your mind was abused.

You couldn't even be alone with your own thoughts. That's insane.

(in Danish): - Hi, you.

- Just in time for the sunset. - Yes, I am.

- You've got new shoes. - You have too. They're awesome.

(birdsong)

- The lawn is so beautiful now. - More beautiful than it's ever been.

There are beautiful variations in the colour tone.

Having your own piece of nature and that view of the lake,

that's something special.

My parents' house has a flat roof,

typical of 1960s modernism.

Because it's set in a hill,

I could jump off the hill and grab the roof.

You could get onto the roof, and then you could run around up there.

That was until my dad saw us and told us off for walking on the roof.

It was bad for the roof, and we might get hurt.

To me, it was a huge waste to have this awesome roof.

You had a great view up there. It was unfair and a waste of resources.

I think that inspired me in terms of our architecture.

It's more fun to draw houses where you can walk on the roof

or where you have to walk on the roof, or where you ski on the roof.

Getting the most joy out of the area you have and letting life roam free,

human life and other forms of life. This is what architecture can give us.

- Could you pass the butter? Is the sunlight blinding you, Bjarke?

- I like it. I think, as a Dane, that feeling of being blinded...

At least I feel that being blinded by the sunlight feels almost like...

It brings you joy. - Right. You accept it.

- If it happened constantly, it would drive you insane.

But I always associate it with something very pleasant.

I've been talking a lot about the two suns, but never documented it.

- When Bjarke was just one year and six months old

we discovered that he was different.

When he watched movies, he understood what they were about

even if they were in another language.

And one curious thing was that we never saw you doing any homework.

- Right, I was pretty good at all of it.

- Not at playing football. - No. I didn't want to play.

- Do you want one with coconut? - No, thank you.

- Bjarke graduated, and all he talked about was making comic books.

He wanted to work at some bureau, which turned out to be impossible.

You had to have contacts. So we thought, "We can't have him lying around."

"He's been to 30 different parties. This can't go on."

So Knud filled out the paperwork, and then one morning,

well, one day, when Bjarke was pretty well composed, he was told to sign it.

And then about six to eight weeks later, we received a letter saying

Bjarke had been accepted to the School of Architecture.

But he didn't want to go there because he wanted to make comic books.

Then we said, "You might as well give it a try."

And I told him, "Just go there for one week and try it out."

(dog barking in the distance)

(classical music)

(in English): The greatest thing about being an architect is...

...to build buildings.

There is nothing more amazing than building buildings.

It's like it's...

That you conceive of something...

You try to imagine what kind of a city it is that you would want to live in,

what kind of a world it is you want to live in,

and then you build it, brick by brick.

To see abstract ideas become concrete reality is what it's all about.

When you are building a building or designing a building,

you have a chance to realize in the world

something that has never before existed in the world.

You can create the most unlikely combinations.

You can put a ski slope on top of a power plant.

And just because you did it,

then now, that becomes how the world is.

Amager Bakke or "Copenhill" is essentially a power plant

that turns waste into electricity and heating.

It is the cleanest waste to energy power plant in the world,

so we thought how could we completely change

people's understanding of what a power plant is?

How could we create something extraordinary out of the ordinary?

When this power plant is done,

it's gonna be the tallest building in the whole city.

And we basically knew exactly

how the power plant was gonna work,

what kind of machinery would go into it.

So we decided: Why don't we simply design it in such a way

that it actually becomes a gigantic man-made mountain?

And because Copenhagen, or Denmark, is a cold climate,

we actually have lots of snow

but because we have no mountains, there is no skiing,

so we imagined that the roof could be a black, a blue,

and a green ski slope.

So suddenly the Copenhageners actually have alpine skiing in the heart of the city.

It's gonna be half the length of an Olympic half-pipe.

It's also gonna have the tallest climbing wall in the world,

where the Copenhageners can climb on 100 metres of vertical fun.

And then to take the final step...

You can say, typically...

The chimneys on a factory

are normally the symbol of the unwanted side effect of our way of life.

So we thought: What if, in this case,

the chimney could be a completely new kind of symbol?

So we designed the chimney in such a way

that it, at regular intervals, puffs out

gigantic rings of steam.

It is almost like my childhood desires of walking on the roof

realized at the scale of an entire city

where it's actually amazing for the citizens

because what used to be a power plant

becomes a public park.

- Right now we have two serious problems.

One of them is that ARC is not really committed

to not having found a feasible solution

of how to do the smoke rings.

When you build a factory that's full of fire

and you insure it so it's worth four billion...

If it burns down, somebody has to pay four billion.

If you tamper with one of the most important mechanisms

where they get the heat out,

you really tamper with something that might increase

the price that they have to pay in order to get insured.

And they are really afraid of that.

- Of course, since it's not been done before,

there is an unknown risk.

If we don't do it, this project is not going to happen.

Nobody wants it. Nobody asked for it.

- One of the main problems, of course,

is we have come up with something, where there's basically no client.

- I think on one hand, it's important

that we don't force anyone into a situation where they have to say "yes or no".

If this goes up to even a political decision,

there is too much uncertainty,

and then we are almost guaranteed a no.

I think somehow, we have to come up with some...

...general strategy of how we deal with these things.

What excites us and what we always end up doing

is somehow to bring to the table something that was not asked for.

If we only do what we are asked for,

then we are gonna be like all other architects.

Then we're just gonna try to make

what has already been proposed in the prettiest possible way.

And of course, we wanna do that,

but what we want to do even more is to make what has not been proposed.

We wanna give to the world

something that the world has not yet seen

and therefore, it doesn't fit in any of the boxes.

So we have to somehow become better at this.

(man, in Danish): So here, we're doing the best we can to make smoke rings.

That's cool, but if we can't do that,

we might make something just as beautiful.

- The great thing about smoke rings is

that they're associated with pleasure. You know what I mean?

When grandpa blows out smoke rings, he's fucking enjoying himself.

- Then let's look at what your grandpa is doing.

- What are we doing wrong? - I guess you're crouching for a reason.

- Ready? Three, two, one, go.

That's a smoke ring made of steam.

I know you're laughing, but it is.

I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.

- Right. That's pure magic.

- We're undertaking quite a complicated project,

which is more than drawing the right lines.

It's having it all come together.

- We've been rather frustrated, because we feel

our practical needs have been subjected to ambitions

for the surrounding environment.

It's important to us that its function meets our needs.

- We need to find out what we can do within the limits.

Looking at it, this is a brilliant and insane idea,

a typical Danish idea.

But when you start looking into the machinery... My God.

- This is the project we won in an international competition.

We then encountered more challenges than we would ordinarily.

To me, that's a technical or legal issue that we will have to solve

like we've solved other issues that arise when you make something different.

- We need to get this under control

and make something we're all satisfied with.

- The only thing that matters is the end result.

It would be the utmost catastrophe for us if our grand project

ended up as a failure. That would be disastrous.

(in English): As an architect, you have to celebrate

a thousand victories before a project is complete.

And when you've fought all the battles

and you've won every single one of them,

then the project can be realized.

And it only takes a single defeat

and then the entire project dies.

The Danish Maritime Museum in the city of Elsinore

is located right next to Hamlet's castle, Kronborg.

So the only place where the museum could fit

so it wouldn't sort of obstruct the views of the castle

was actually in this old dry dock

where they used to build ships.

So we came up with the idea that instead of filling the dock with the museum,

to actually put the entire museum around the dock underground

looking into the dock, so the dock becomes a gigantic courtyard.

Sp suddenly the architecture becomes

this radical act of preservation

and reinterpretation.

This triggered a little bit of a drama

because the brief clearly said

that the only place you were allowed to build

was inside the dock.

What we do is actually building everywhere around the dock

and the only place we don't build is actually inside the dock.

All the other architects had put their museum designs inside the dock

and when they saw our winning proposal they said: "That's cheating!"

"How come we have to follow the rules and these guys get to cheat?

If we knew we could do that, then we could have also put the museum around the dock

and we could have also won."

So we now sort of won our first big museum

and suddenly there are lawyers and threats of lawsuits.

After a lot of battling, we finally end up with a compromise

where the client acknowledged that we had done something wrong

but they were still allowed to pursue

and build our building.

(mixed chatter)

(in Danish): Architecture is said to be the sport of gentlemen.

It takes years of experience.

It also takes many years to follow a project through.

When we received the competition papers, we had just started our firm. I was 31.

I'll soon have my 40th birthday. So this truly is the work of my 30s.

And I can't imagine anything I'd rather spend all this time doing. Thank you.

A GOOD HOLE IN THE GROUND

- It's quite short. - Yeah.

It's very bland reporting, very neutral.

- A six-star review could have been more generous than this.

It might have said "A Great Hole in the Ground". It's all "nice" and "good".

- But he still gives it six hearts.

(in English): It's only to say that ...

The awards, again, we get about half of the ones we apply for.

- That's amazing!

- We won "Red Dot Award", "Best of the Best",

the "ULI Award of Excellence".

We are a finalist for the Financial Times/Citi Awards.

You guys are all smiling.

I mean, it is so difficult to get one of these.

It's crazy.

And as a final note, my question to you guys is:

Do you feel like we're in the right markets?

Do you want to go to other markets?

- I think the strategy is to strengthen Scandinavia and North America.

And like almost not spend any energy

on running after opportunities anywhere else

but when opportunities find us, we can see acquisitions...

- Are we limiting ourselves too much? Are we being too big for our britches?

- Denmark is a different case.

- We have the four parameters. I would say:

if it's a museum, I don't care where it is.

If it's a concert house or anything...

- Bjarke, anywhere you go, we can get work. That is a fact.

- Then I'd much rather stay in America.

- Then the problem is you have to come back if we get work.

- We have to leave now.

- To me, the Sydney Opera is probably the ultimate building.

It's sort of... extremely unique.

It's sort of a landmark location

on the waterfront of Sydney.

It has actually become synonymous

with an entire continent, Australia.

I think it's actually the most recognizable building in the world.

When you see it, you instantly think: "This is the Sydney Opera."

You know exactly where you are.

What's amazing about it is that, on the one hand, it is unapologetically modern

but it also draws on all these more archaic building types.

It almost resembles gothic vaults with the shells.

It's drawing on references to Chinese pagodas.

These light organic elements are elevated on a podium.

Also it's sort of... Aztec temples.

This idea that in the middle of the jungle,

you suddenly have these elevated podia

upon which you build the actual temples.

It draws on this whole world of...

really, really fundamental archetypical architecture

and reinterprets it in a completely unique way.

It was actually also born out of incredible misery.

Jorn Utzon moved to Australia with his whole family

and after a bit more than a decade,

he actually gets fired from the job and is sent back to Denmark.

The building ends up being completed without him.

It went ten times over budget, so everything was a disaster.

But the final result is somehow...

...worth all of the sacrifice and hardship

in order to get there.

For anyone waiting for the moment where...

You know, waiting for your Sydney Opera

and working towards your own Sydney Opera

is - I think - what any architect ever dreams of.

(classical music)

(birdsong)

Denmark is obviously a very small country.

Also, the buildings are quite small.

It's like impossible to build skyscrapers in a city

where all the buildings are five stories tall.

So I've met this New York real estate developer

who is actually right now building

the One World Trade Center

the tallest skyscraper in the Americas.

And he is somehow interested in our way of working.

To get a chance to contribute to the skyline of all skylines of New York City

is an amazing opportunity I have to take super seriously.

So at this point in my life, I am going to move to America

and open an office in New York City.

(city soundscape)

(city soundscape)

(chuckling)

(in Danish): That's the Big Mermaid.

It's the new bookshelf at BIG.

We'll have a window between the two drawing departments

that's always open

so that we maintain contact across the Atlantic.

(indistinct chatter)

(in English): Thank you.

I'd like you to welcome you, your royal highnesses,

to the BIG Apple headquarters.

And I hope you have a great stay here.

And if you feel half as welcome

as we felt coming here, you're gonna have a wonderful week.

So cheers everybody.

(classical music)

(city soundscape)

That's pretty impressive.

Every two weeks the entire group tours the site? - Yep.

- What's this kill box?

- It reads your eyes. - Oh my God.

That's very "Minority Report"-esque.

(chuckling)

- How have you been? - Good.

We're basically in this situation that on October 1st,

both the entire Copenhagen office is moving into a new space

and the New York office is expanding.

It's like... a total mess.

(elevator whirring)

- Unique view, isn't it? - It's amazing.

(in Danish): We're on the 101st story of One World Trade Center.

It'll be the tallest building in North and South America.

Looking around, even though Downtown Manhattan is filled with skyscrapers

they're all down there somewhere. It's baffling.

(in English): I met Douglas Durst at a conference

where he was talking about sustainable high rises.

We started having a conversation about a site

on the west side of Manhattan

where we are going to try to make

this sort of unlikely combination

of something typically Scandinavian

and something American.

We call it "Scandi-merican".

Which is essentially to try to combine

the social space of the courtyard

with the density of the skyscraper,

what we call the "court-scraper".

It's an amazing opportunity.

It's visible from all over the Hudson River.

It could potentially be an entire landmark

on the skyline of the most epic of skylines in the world.

If you look at Manhattan, it's basically this piece of bedrock

floating on the Hudson, and it's full of city blocks.

At the heart of this extremely dense urban environment

you have this oasis, Central Park.

Our site is right here on the west side of the river.

What if we could take this amazing idea

of the urban oasis of the entire scale of Manhattan

and boil it down to a single city block?

Our idea is to say: This is our site.

What if we combine the communal space

of the Copenhagen courtyard

and crossbreed it with the qualities and the density

of the American skyscraper?

The amazing views,

the amount of people living together in the same place...

And basically the result becomes this sort of twisted "court-scraper".

You still have the park

where the residents can come out and play.

The sun falls into the courtyard all day.

People can actually enjoy the views of the Hudson River

both from the courtyard itself and from their apartments.

And in this sort of warped surface,

we start having these huge terraces.

The biggest ones are shared,

but the smaller ones are for the individuals living there.

And as a result, you can imagine

the skyline of Manhattan suddenly is gonna get

this sort of striking new silhouette,

unlike anything that the city of Manhattan has ever seen.

The material of the warped surface will be bead-blasted stainless steel.

This soft, bright material

will show off the double curvature

of this kind of unique form

and eventually could become like a beacon on the waterfront of the Hudson.

- We thought it was a tremendous risk,

not having worked in New York before.

Actually, not having worked in the United States before,

I think right?

It was a huge risk.

But we are entrepreneurs,

and that means we are risk-takers.

Bjarke is not unique. I'm sorry, Bjarke.

(chuckling)

And Bjarke is willing to listen.

We've had architects...

who simply refused...

to take direction.

I've had an architect say: "I'm putting my pencil down. That's it."

Bjarke does not have a fragile ego. Luckily.

- In the end it's gonna be

Douglas' and the Dursts' building

so if it's not the building that Douglas wants,

it's not going to happen.

In that sense... there's also somehow this...

like, I'm interested in trying to find

the best possible iteration of the building that Douglas wants.

- When I started in the business

the family always built the same building they built before

'cause they knew the mistakes

and had learned how to live with them.

But we try to make new mistakes.

(in Danish): - Look at the Empire State Building. It's amazing.

(in English): - You said it will take three months to clear the whole site?

Is that the entire excavation

or purely removal of contaminated soil?

- That's the entire preparation for the foundation.

So it's the removal of all the contaminated soil

and the removal of any soil that's not contaminated

but just sort of needs to be removed

before putting in the foundation.

So far so good.

(Bjarke chuckling) - That's good!

(truck beeping)

The building maintenance unit is running on rails here.

So being the window cleaner is almost like having a roller coaster ride.

And then they can actually go down along these lines.

This is a little bit how things go down...

- How do you sleep at night?

How do you turn your creative mind off?

- I'd say that I sleep like a baby actually.

It's having the patience and the confidence

that each situation has a unique set of potential.

And it's going to be hell

if you get the wrong foot out of the bed

and you try to make something that it's not.

But once you discover

what it could or should be all about

then things just flow completely naturally.

- Yeah.

- The alternative would have something like this.

If they do like this,

it sort of becomes more and more like a mysterious symbol.

Like a Dan Brown novel.

Maybe there is some kind of a spiralling thing.

- Maglev, the trains, are constantly changing their magnetics...

- For the things that would potentially start in November:

that would be the Samsung Pavilion at the Rio Olympics -

this is on the first page -

and then there's this potential Miami Port terminal competition.

- Where we did the... - The cruise ship.

- Oh, that'd be amazing.

- So then if we do something in November,

that would mean not doing the Samsung Pavilion in Rio.

- I think we should do both.

(in Danish): It almost looks realistic.

- It's quite creepy.

(people on TV singing Happy Birthday)

(applause)

- Look at the love you're getting. - Sure, from myself.

That was wonderful. Thank you.

What's he writing?

"Speech..." (all laughing)

(in English): To all of the Bjarkes in Copenhagen,

do you hear anything?

- Yes. - You all look wonderful.

And you still all look very young.

And trust me...

Turning 40 sounds like an unlikely to happen to you.

But it will happen.

You can rest assured that the alternative is even worse.

(all chuckling)

(cheering)

(classical music)

(echoes of laughter)

(in Danish): I had a concussion. I was hit with a baseball bat.

(in English): For Bjarke Ingels?

(in Danish): Then I had this harrowing headache.

I thought I was going to die.

My ears were ringing.

And when I went to...

I've never experienced anything like it.

It felt like my head would explode.

For three days after that, my head was pounding.

I've had a headache ever since.

I think you should relax as much as possible

when you've had a concussion.

But it's quite difficult to turn off your brain.

I mean, not exercising is quite simple, but to not think is almost impossible.

So I thought I'd have it checked out.

(in English): Thanks. - You are welcome.

(in Danish): He just examined me in the room, and he told me

the chances of them finding something are very slim.

But still, he thought

I should get an MRA and an MRI.

So at least I'll get pretty pictures of my brain.

But, I mean...

I got so paranoid when it happened.

If your brain doesn't function...

I'd rather lose my arm...

...than not use my head.

It would be horrifying.

I'll account for our disappointing results

from BIG, Copenhagen.

The general issue, I think, is the lack of business.

Expenses are an issue too, but mainly, it's the lack of business.

That's from a lack of wins both this year and last year.

We're also lacking a name, Bjarke's name. It's our biggest challenge.

It's because people think they'll get Bjarke.

And you simply aren't in Scandinavia

as much as you're in the US.

You don't travel as much,

meeting with contractors and getting new contracts.

This is how you get the contracts.

- Sure, but we have to do something about that.

- I just think...

- That's just part of the explanation.

- You know more about that than I do.

I don't know how much Bjarke contributes to our wins and losses.

- We'll need to look into that.

There's a lot of weight on my shoulders, in the sense that...

It's hard getting things done the right way

without being there yourself.

In many ways, we've moved very far,

but in other ways, we haven't at all.

(horns tooting)

Last week, we lost an interview competition

for drawing a museum upstate.

And they then told us that they were worried about whether I had...

... whether I had the time.

And I think that's because...

... they didn't know if the organization would be strong enough if I didn't.

- (in English): Like this hammerhead section...

- But it's also a question...

You know, if you feel more comfortable...

(indistinct)

(buzzing sound)

(woman, continuing): ...especially if we go for this option

where we add turnstiles here... to go into the core...

(conversation drowning, buzzing sound continues)

(buzzing sound continues, indistinct conversation)

(eerie classical music)

(Bjarke): It seems to be one of the ironies of the world

that the architects who had the most innovative ideas

often end up being the ones that had

the most petrifying impact on architecture.

At least the way they became misunderstood by others.

If you take a look at Le Corbusier,

he started out like this wild revolutionary.

He took some outdated values and created new ones.

But eventually, he also became the grandfather of modernism.

And in a way, he built a stylistic prison

that was even more petrifying than the one he replaced.

And then he ended up drowning.

There's actually a lot of examples

of some of the greatest architects

who had alternative ideas

and were about to really change the world

ended up dying from unnatural causes.

It happened in Manhattan.

Gaudí, the great Catalan architect,

he had this plan for a grand hotel

that was gonna be built on the site that became the World Trade Center site.

It was a radical alternative to the typical American skyscraper.

If it would have been built,

it could really have changed the way not only New York looks

but the whole world looks.

But he never built it because he got hit by a tram and died.

The great American architect Louis Kahn

also didn't finish some of his last works.

He was found dead in the men's room at Penn Station.

Carlo Scarpa, the great Italian architect,

fell down a flight of stairs and broke his neck and died.

Eero Saarinen,

probably my favourite American architect,

he died from complications after brain surgery

at the age of only 51.

So somehow, you really need to lay some bricks while you are here.

The building you are building now could be your last.

(classical music, buzzing sound)

I hate it.

I hate it.

Like, this is not happening.

It's so institutional.

It looks like some, like,

lame ass conference centre for the Social Democrats

somewhere in Northern Jutland. That is never going to happen.

I said I could live with black.

But it can't be the blue. I'm sorry.

I thought we had a little bit of a good thing going.

Why the fuck did you show it?

- It's my fault. 'Cause I kinda liked it, but...

- Let's take it out.

- And why did they even get that choice?

I think in general we should not show options.

- And if they ask specifically for alternatives,

then what are we supposed to do?

- Give them two that are both nice.

When can we close this?

Is there a deadline?

- I think we are finishing very soon.

- Have we set a date?

We have to set a date.

Don't we have a schedule that says:

"There's no more money - for anyone - after this date?"

- There is a schedule that basically,

by March, everything has to be done.

- Which date? - April 1st.

- Then we have to say that at that point,

we are not going to change... - Anything, no, we can't.

- Not even a pattern on a wallpaper.

(indistinct) We need to get on with our lives.

- Yeah.

But I think that...

- I think the few times I've participated,

we've done a bit better.

But then I don't show up to the next meeting

and then things get bad again.

That's why I think we have to make a final meeting.

- Mm-hmm. - Yeah.

- I mean... silver looks totally grey.

- But they have, like, different ones over there.

- That's the front.

There is nothing metal about it. It's grey.

It's like living in a grey building.

If I saw someone who had done this, I would hate them.

- Hi. How's it going?

You guys are not wearing helmets.

That's like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

(greetings overlapping)

- So, you took... - Hi.

- Hi.

- We have a few suggestions. - Uh-huh.

On fit and finish and that type of stuff?

- Our biggest thing is, when we saw it...

It looks a little bit grey, right?

- What? - It's the only thing.

Maybe the most important thing.

- Which is what? - That it looks very grey.

We had a hope that it would look more silver.

This is what we were going for in the beginning.

- Isn't it just a difference in colour that you're suggesting?

It sounds like you are suggesting more than that.

- It's a difference in colour in the sense that it's not a paint.

It's also that it is...

like, according to our sustainability lady,

a better product.

- How do you repair anodized if it gets scratched?

- They say, to a certain extent,

it's supposed to be self-healing,

but a real scratch...

- But I think it might not show as much as a real scratch

if it's the same material.

(in Danish): It was fucking awful, so horrible.

(groaning)

They'd made too many compromises.

That's not at all what I want to build.

My one rule is we don't build anything...

with painted surfaces on the outside

because it doesn't age well. It just looks like paint.

They argued it looks the same. The fact is, it doesn't at all.

That just looked like a dead, grey, horrible building.

(city soundscape)

(sirens wailing in the distance)

This is from Lennox Hill Radiology and Medical Imaging Associates.

They made this brain scan.

And...

Basically, there's a lot of stuff they didn't find,

but what they did find is

a small cyst on the right side of the brain.

They say it measures...

... 0.5 times, 0.7 times 0.4 cm.

That's something like this, you see?

But what the hell do I know?

Dammit. Dammit.

And then they'll have to make a hole in the skull if you want to remove it.

I can't take it. Of course I'd do it, but this is really bad.

(sirens wailing in the distance)

(in English): - Hi, how are you? - How's it going?

Thanks.

(birdsong)

(parakeet screeching softly)

(in Japanese): Thank you. - My pleasure.

(sighing, speaking English):

Imagine if you are unable to work for more than an hour or two

and then you get so bad headaches that you have to lie down and...

and rest.

Then that basically makes you unable to do

any of the things you've always been working towards,

all of the things you've dreamt of.

And I'm 40 now

and in very basic terms,

this is what I've been able to do in the first 40 years of my life.

And probably I should be able to do roughly the same in the second half.

But if at this point...

And I would almost say that...

...life is probably progressive rather than proportional.

So let's say if these are the first 40 years of my life,

then all of this...

is all the stuff I won't be able to do.

And if this is where I suddenly become unable to function...

...then you know...

it's almost like you won't be able to contribute meaningfully.

And if that's what's happening now...

And it feels like you almost just...

...could lie down and wait for the time to pass and everything to be over.

(classical music, buzzing sound)

(classical music continues)

On the one hand, you want it to be part of the memorial.

It's like the last tower that's missing

and has to be part of the brotherhood of towers that frame the memorial.

On the other hand, we also want it to feel part of Tribeca.

Consider it like a vertical village of Tribeca blocks.

- I think what I really like about what you did

is that it's not just the volume, the size of the building.

It's the way it's articulated urbanistically,

you know, particularly from...

...not just from the south, but from the north...

It has a very interesting profile, I think.

It's going to set a good, new standard

that the profile of a building is very important.

It's not just about how big it is, how high it is. - Yeah!

- So I think you did a fantastic job on this.

- I'm very impressed. - Thank you.

- Really. Very impressed. Okay, congratulations.

- It's an honour!

- You did a fantastic job. And we want to see it.

(Bjarke): The site of the World Trade Center is, of course,

unique because of its symbolic significance,

because of the events of 9/11.

But it's also unique urbanistically

because it's located in the encounter

between the skyscrapers of the financial district...

...and the more traditional almost European scale

of the Tribeca neighborhood,

with the city blocks and the streets with parks.

So we thought,

What if we could actually use

the last building at the World Trade Center site

as a way to weave the two neighbourhoods together?

We sort of imagined making a tower

that consists of a series of blocks stacked on top of each other.

They have little parks and plazas all the way up.

From one angle,

it actually expands a little bit towards the top.

From the other angle it is actually getting smaller and smaller.

Almost like a giant staircase to heaven.

You can say that the south tip of Manhattan,

is probably the closest thing

to building on the main stage where the entire world can see.

- I saw you on that video standing at the corner.

- We had a great meeting with Daniel Libeskind.

- Good. He is happy. - It couldn't have gone better.

- Perfect! - So I think it's a good start.

- Good. I'm... It's okay, we're often...

- This is a site that has great meaning for so many people.

You have to find the right balance

between commemorating what happened here

in a respectful way

but also making sure that the living city of New York

gets a place to keep being the lively city that it is.

- When we first got together and I looked at Tower Two,

my first reaction was that this building was going to fall over.

I said: "Let me think about this.

I got to ponder this a little bit."

And I remember going home

and looking at myself in the mirror and saying:

"You know, Silverstein, it's time you became more flexible.

As you're getting old, you're getting more rigid,

you're getting more inflexible.

It's time you began to lighten up, loosen up,

and listen to what others are saying to you.

Especially when it comes to a field

they know and understand very well."

But I must add you have a...

...a flow of creativity - of creative juices -

that is nothing short of remarkable.

You also have a terrific team with you

of people who want to excel

and are striving for excellence

at the highest possible level.

So working with you, working with your team

I found to be an extremely...

fascinating and enjoyable experience.

(Bjarke in Danish): The projects we're working on

will be ready in five, six or seven years.

So I'm thinking we'll need to get some short-term projects too.

At the end of the day, you only get 20 or 40 buildings

before your time is up.

In terms of what I've accomplished as an architect

I think I'm doing quite well.

But I probably thought

I'd have a family and children when I turned 40.

I mean, I thought so when I was 15 or 20.

That was what I thought about then.

So it felt strange to not have that,

in terms of your love life, when you turned 40.

It was frustrating.

I know I've only just fallen in love,

but I feel confident that the reason I didn't get any further

in terms of my love life is because I only just met her.

Ruth is the lovely Spanish woman who lives here.

She moved to New York two months ago.

She moved into this mess that I'm still not done with.

I asked some of my friends who trade jewellery

to look for engagement rings.

The reason I haven't proposed yet

is because I can't find the right ring.

That's a horrible reason not to get married.

(woman, in English): Bjarke? - Baby.

Are you hanging that up now?

- Yes, I was panicking.

- How's it going? - Good.

Looking good.

- It's nice, huh?

I think it's gonna go fast now.

Welcome home. - Thank you.

(soft music)

(in Danish): Please lie down on your back.

(sighing)

- Let's give it a go.

Why does the whole body need to go into that tube?

- Your head has to lie at the centre,

so the rest of the body has to follow.

- Damn it. Is this all right? - Yes, it's perfect.

That's it. Let's get you inside.

- Are you doing all right? - Nah.

- Just breathe. I'll bring you out. - Yes, please.

- I'm just a little claustrophobic. - That's okay.

It's not unusual. - Goddammit.

- Do I have to go all the way in? - Yes.

- Can we wait for a minute and...?

- And see if your pulse will slow down.

- Goddammit. - Right.

(exhaling softly)

- I'm not afraid of heights at all,

but I do have some sort of claustrophobia.

- Ready, Bjarke? - Okay. Let's do it.

We'll make two scans.

The first one takes two minutes, the next takes three.

(classical music)

(in English): Hey, baby. Good morning.

How's it going?

So... you know that I was going to...

I was gonna check up after that concussion

that they found this thing in my brain.

So I did the MRI this morning and...

Everything is perfectly normal according to age.

Whatever that means.

At least it looks like I'm not going to die

from a brain tumour one of the next days.

Exactly.

Yeah. So you're gonna have to stick with me a little bit longer.

Okay, baby...

Yes, I'll see you later today. Ciao.

The funny thing is...

Theoretically, now, roughly half the courtyard is in shade.

But because it's already lit up here, you come in here

and this feels more like a...

like a forest.

Then it becomes more and more like a park.

This is going to be this paddle pond for the kids.

We built a whole facade mock up.

It was like painted aluminum modules, aluminum facade.

But then we actually won the battles

so in the end, all the modules are actually anodized.

- Over the past decade

Bjarke Ingels has emerged

as a major creative force in world architecture.

Rem Koolhaas writes: "Bjarke is the first major architect

who disconnected the profession completely from angst.

He threw out the ballast and soared.

With that he is in tune with the thinkers of Silicon Valley

who want to make the world a better place."

According to Time Magazine,

he is one of the 100 most influential people in the world today.

(applause)

- Thank you, sir. Anything else for you, sir?

- No.

(in Danish): Let's have a look.

(in English): How far are you from being done?

- Seven minutes. - Fantastic.

Baby? Can you tie a bow tie? No?

Maybe I'm gonna try to go down

and see if some of the guys in the reception can.

- Okay.

- "How to...

...tie a bow tie."

- Stop talking and start tying.

- Can you tie a bow tie? - Me? No. Sorry.

- It's impossible without... (indistinct)

Do you have a mirror? No?

Hi, baby. I'm gonna leave this with you.

- Are you okay? - Yes, we'll do it in the car.

- I'm sorry, Bjarke.

- It's a beautiful dress, baby.

You look beautiful.

- Okay. I think it's there.

- I love it.

Thank you, baby. - You're welcome.

(laughter)

- That's so funny. - Now we're just gonna relax.

We should get drunk.

You look beautiful.

You look beautiful. - You too.

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