--

Intro/Outro: “Got to Do It,” by Andrew W.K.

--

Discussed:

• Amateur Architecture Studio: Wang Shu and Liu Wenyu
• A surreal and uncanny live translation of the press announcement. Sample sentences, per AI:
• “Then tell your ego can contribute to tie your to the total, one lie or toggle lie or drone gorgeous, so it will usually kind of boil in here.”
• “So it a general fish on the Gita woman sound lion eating the Minion, and Villa means young Jewish show that comes in the currency.”
• “Yes, we shall defund the pushes away, and the way this would come dark.”
• Is this the China-max Biennale?
• Marco Polo reference (visited Hangzhou in 1275)
• Shades of Lacaton & Vassal, curators of the 2018 Biennale
• Shades of, and throwing shade at, Mindfulness City from the 2025 edition
• Complexity of taking on the US Pavilion responsibility in this timeline
• The 2025 edition, PORCH: An Architecture of Generosity
• Our somewhat lame attempt at Fantasy Biennale:
• Post-warfare architecture / rebuilding schemes from Ukraine or Gaza?
• One source of ideas: Constructing Hope: Ukraine | Chicago Architecture Center
• Expected returnees:
• Francis Kere
• Lacaton & Vassal
• Probably not Ma Yansong
• Probably not Ai Weiwei
• Question mark over Russia and Israel pavilions, which were unoccupied and closed for renovations, respectively, in 2025
• The 2026 Art Biennale debacle
• Death of curator Koyo Kuoh
• No Golden Lions for nations accused of war crimes
• Potential Greg- and Michèle Champagne-led activation: EU-CAN Alliance:
• Greg: Classic OMA-AMO content, shitposting, that kind of thing. 
• Michele: An alliance around new Bauhaus principles concerning housing.
• Exclusive first right of refusal obtained for Mind Enterprises performance
• Will the menagerie of pavilions make space for protest and dialogue around the more controversial entrants?
• Sorkin’s take on the Rafi Segal-designed Israeli National Library and its cancellation
• Austrian pavilion bridge to the adjoining neighborhood
• Venezia FC
• Closing of current arena on the Venetian lagoon, Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo
• Opening of a new stadium in Mestre
• Enter the Canadians:
• Major investment from Drake
• New management from Toronto FC
• Giuseppe Saputo (Quebecois) owns Bologna FC
• Flashback to episode 119, Paul Goldberger’s interview and comments on the politics of sports and their arenas
• Como FC

--

Intro/Outro: “Ya Got Trouble,” by Robert Preston (Original Cast Recording of “The Music Man”)

-

Discussed:

“All-American City: Bluster, Boom and Bust in Wichita,” by Chase M. Billingham

“The Midwest Revival: A Well-Kept Secret,” Alan Arenhold, in Governing, April 21, 2026

Unfrozen 118, “Migrant Midwest”

Unfrozen 108, “NORTH”

The Chisholm Trail

Cessna

Beechcraft

Stearman Aircraft

The Coleman Company

White Castle

Pizza Hut

Spirit AeroSystems

Wichita’s non-annexation agreement with the Aerospace Industrial District, renewed 2021

Overview | Aerospace | Industry... | Greater Wichita Partnership

Rise of the Creative Class, by Richard Florida

The Cheesecake Factory arrives in Wichita – stop the presses

Jack De Boer 

Gilbert and Mosley chemical bloom,1986

“The Minnesota Guys” – David G. Lundberg and Michael Elzufon
- Arrest for fraud

“Harvard-educated” James Chung: 2015 Focus Forward

Marshall Murdock and the Wichita Eagle

“The City as a Growth Machine: Towards a Political Economy of Place,” (1976) by Harvey Molotch

“Urban Fortunes,” (1987), Harvey Molotch and John Logan 

Markus Moos, University of Waterloo: “Youthification”

Tulsa Remote Program

Choose Topeka Program

Modern Romance, by Aziz Ansari and Eric Kleinenberg

Century II (1970), by John M. Hickman

Wichita Public Library (1967), by Schaefer, Schirmer & Eflin

Naftzger Park (2019 edition, Garver)

Naftzger Park (1979 edition)

Intro/Outro: “Here on Earth,” by Love and Rockets

--

• “Dwelling on Earth,” by Stefan Al
• “Supertall,” by Stefan Al
• Unfrozen 29, “‘Al’ in on Supertalls”
• Etymology of “oikonomia” = “economy” in ancient Greek
• The Nebelivka Hypothesis
• “The Poetics of Space,” by Gaston Bachelard
• Pierre Bordeau’s theory of “habitus”
• The Roman insulae
• “The Island at the Center of the World,” by Russell Shorto
• Angkor Wat
• Lidar scanning
• Mesopotamia’s use of plaster leading to deforestation
• The Frankfurt Kitchen
• Communal living at TU Delft
• Bosco Verticale, Milan
• Mjostarnet, Brummundal, Norway
• ICON Technology
• 3D printing on the Moon

Intro: “Stop the Rock,” by Apollo 440

--

Discussed:

• “Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph,” by Christine Roussel
• “The Art of Rockefeller Center,” by Christine Roussel
• Rockefeller Center history
• Tishman Speyer acquired in 2000
• Nelson Rockefeller
• John D. Rockefeller Jr.
• The Ludlow Massacre
• John R. Todd
• Raymond Hood
• Wallace Harrison
• Andrew Reinhard
• Delirious New York (Rem Koolhaas) and “Manhattanism”
• Empire State (Empty State) Building
• Ivy Lee
• Merle Crowell
• Charles Clyde Ebbetts
• Thomas Kelley
• William Leftwich
• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), est. 1971

Intro: “S.P.Q.R.” by This Heat

Discussed:

Paul Goldberger

“Trump Will Destroy Washington if It’s the Last Thing He Does,” New York Times, March 13, 2026

More Times analysis on the White House ballroom plans

Godwin’s Law

Albert Speer

Benjamin Latrobe

Alternate venues, that would not require a new ballroom at the White House:

• National Building Museum
• Mellon Auditorium

Moynihan Train Hall

Saarinen's Dulles Airport design 

“Fedlandia” – a plan to rebuild 230 acres of Federal downtown Washington

East Potomac Golf Links Trump takeover plan, and the resistance

National Garden of American Heroes

Christopher Columbus statue, Baltimore

White House ballroom architects

• James McCrery
• Shalom Baranes

Arc de Trump – Justin Shubow

Suit against Kennedy Center renovations

Mamdani’s Trump-whispering to get funding for the Sunnyside Yards overbuild

Dulles Airport overhaul proposals

Original Dulles Airport mobile lounges

John Foster Dulles

Trump offer to release Gateway Tunnel funds in exchange for naming Penn Station after him

Renaming of Palm Beach airport, after Trump

Renovation and expansion of the US Embassy in Delhi, India (Edward Durell Stone > Weiss Manfredi)

Penn Station reconstruction under Trump:

• Move Madison Square Garden?
• AECOM joint venture to lead project management
• ASTM + HOK + PAU Plan: Keep MSG, remove Hulu Theater

Moynihan Train Hall

Ballpark: Baseball in the American City

FIFA Sites include:

• Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
• Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, MO
• SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
• AT&T Stadium, Arlington, TX

Chuck Klosterman: “Football” as a “hyperobject”

Milan San Siro (Stadio Giuseppe Meazza)

NY Jets plan for West Side stadium

Upcoming Goldberger book (11/17/2026): “The Imperfect City: Design, Serendipity, and the Real Life of Cities”

--

Outro: “The Leopards Ate My Face,” by Franchesca Ramsey

Intro/Outro: “America,” by Neil Diamond

--

Discussed:

Jonathan Burkham

Migrant Midwest

Ed Glaeser – “Human Capital Follows the Thermometer,” New York Times, April 19, 2011

Civic Federation’s report “Chicago's Budget Growth: 2019–2025”

Minneapolis’ resilience and defense of its Somali community against ICE raids

Springfield, Ohio – myths and realities about its Haitian population

Milwaukee – population trends 1960-2024

Michigan governor Rick Snyder’s 2014 call for 50,000 visas

Michigan’s population growth, 2021-2025

Nick Reding, “Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town”

Canadian Provincial Nominee Program

Backlash to the CPNP + no housing growth

Canada’s population decline – 102,000 in 2025, the first since Confederation in 1867

Allan Mallach – Smaller Cities in a Shrinking World – Unfrozen 61 

Jesse Keenan – North – Unfrozen 108

“Climate-proof Duluth” 

Daryl Fairweather, Redfin chief economist, new resident of Williams Bay, WI

National Association of Realtors migration trends 2024

Intro/Outro: “Depreston,” by Courtney Barnett

--

Discussed:

Japonica Brown-Saracino

The Death and Life of Gentrification: A New Map of a Persistent Idea

The Gentrification Debates

Explicating Divided Approaches to Gentrification and Growing Income Inequality

Sarah Schulman: The Gentrification of the Mind

Ruth Glass and the coining of “Gentrification” as a term in 1964

Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities

Robert Goldman: Renovating Value: HGTV and the Spectacle of Gentrification

Sharon Zukin: Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places

Neil Smith: The Rent-Gap Theory

Vida

Gentefied

The Curse

Loretta Lees: Super-Gentrification

Wendy Griswold: Regionalism and the Reading Class

Intro: “Megeve,” by Henry Mancini

Part 1: White-Hot Mid-Century Blowout

• The Lautner Compound (Hotel Lautner)
• Lucien Hubbard
• John Lautner
• Albert Frey
• Frey House II
• Tamarisk trees
• “Racist Trees,” the movie, and the blowback from Tucker Carlson

Part 2: Palm Springs Mod Squad tours by Kurt Cyr

Transition: “Loose Caboose,” by Henry Mancini

• Home 1: The Wentworth, Fairway Estates, Donald Wexler, 1965; addition by Robin Abrahams, 2022
• The Alexander Construction Co.
• Pilkington float glass
• Canyon View Estates – Palmer & Krisel for the Alexanders -- home of “Barbie” and “Don’t Worry Darling” 
• Atomic Ranch magazine
• Roman tubs

Transition: “Caravan,” by John Buzon Trio

• Home 2: Kurt Cyr home, Kurt Cyr, 2020
• Lawrence Crossley and the Crossley Tract
• Washingtonia filifera (California palm)
• Hortus conclusus
• Kenny Irwin Jr. robot designs, feat. “Winston”
• Hans Wegner
• Room 606, SAS Royal Hotel (Arne Jacobsen)
• Craig Ellwood
• Danish case study houses, per Wallpaper*

Transition: “Miniskirt,” by Esquivel

• Home 3: The Desert Star Apartments (Motel), Howard Lapham, 1956; Converted to private residences in 2005
• “Car decking”
• Uba Tuba marble
• Calico marble
• Carrara marble
• Nichols Company Chinese Art Deco rugs
• The Palm Springs School, by Alan Hess, (Rizzoli, 2025)
• Florence Knoll

Transition: “This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody),” by Talking Heads

Part 3: An Archipelago of Disney Lifestyle

• Mad Men: Season 2, Episode 12, “The Mountain King.”
• Storyliving by Disney: Cotino, Rancho Mirage, CA
• Sunnylands
• Storyliving by Disney, Asteria, Pittsboro, NC
• DMB Development
• It’s not Celebration, FL
• Crystal Lagoons – “Swimming pools are things of the past.”
• Dubai Festival City
• "Aerotropolis: The Way We’ll Live Next"
• ULI Florida Summit, Orlando
• Joshua Harris
• “The Anti-Social Century,” by Derek Thompson, in The Atlantic, February 2025
• TestFit
• Greg’s address to the ULI Global Governing Trustees Meeting, Washington DC
• “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community,” by Robert Putnam (2000)
• Firefly by Candlelight Homes, Eagle Mountain, Utah
• Stonethrow, Dallas
• Christopher Leinberger

Transition: “Terms and Conditions,” by Dan Safarik, recorded on the Teenage Engineering Riddim EP-40 dub machine

Part 4: Terms and Conditions of Cotino

Transition: “The Community of Hope,” by PJ Harvey

Part 5: The Community of Hope

• Artifacts of an optimistic age:
• New York World’s Fair 1964
• Montreal Expo 1967
• “Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?”, by Mark Fisher
• “Welcome to the Desert of the Real,” by Slavoj Zizek
• BNP Paribas Indian Wells Open, sponsored by Emirates Airlines and the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia
• The destruction of the present and perhaps the future: Dubai’s neo-liberalism vs Iran and the rest of the world coming to its doorstep with bombs
• Palm Springs International Airport Main Building, Donald Wexler, 1966

Outro: “Crawl Home,” by Desert Sessions (Josh Homme feat. PJ Harvey)

Intro/Outro: “Coming Up,” by Cornershop

--

Discussed:

• Homegrown Cities: Reclaiming the Metropolis for Its Users
• Dharavi, Mumbai (including Koliwada)
• Emergent Tokyo
• Shanghai Shikumen
• Urbz: The Slum Outside
• Stewart Brand: “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built”
• James C. Scott
• Hernando de Soto and land title
• “Ad-hocracy”
• Open House: Levittown intervention by DS+R, Droog & EFGH, 2011
• MoMA Foreclosed project: Cicero, 2011

Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities | MoMA, 2014-2015

--

Intro/Outro: “Afrique Victime,” by Mdou Moctar

--

Discussed:

Africa’s Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage

Siege of Magdala, Ethiopia, 1867-8 > Request for return of items, 1872

Benin Expedition of 1897

Egypt is in Africa!

Netherlands’ return of the Benin bronzes 

Benin Dialogue Group

US museums’ return of Benin bronzes

Flashback to Episode 57: Looty (Chidi Nwaubani) - raiding the British Museum in “digital repatriation”

Lesley Lokko //  Venice Biennale 2023 // African Futures Institute

Museum of West African Art (MoWAA), Benin City, Nigeria (ex-Edo-Benin), by Adjaye Associates

Demonstration against MoWAA, November 2025

Musee de Civilization Noir (MCN) Dakar, Senegal

Colonial Williamsburg (reconstructed village / open-air museum) model applied to Africa?

… or Xintiandi, Shanghai

Village Museum, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Jos Museum, Northern Nigeria

Julia Watson – Lo-Tek

MASS Design Group, Rwanda

Koyo Koouh – Art Biennale – Zeitz MoCAA

Pan-African Biennale of Architecture – Nairobi, Kenya, September 2026 (Omar Degan)