Marc Kushner, Architizer: Why Good Architecture Envisions Buildings As Human Beings

On April 11th, 2014, PSFK held our annual conference in New York City. Keynote speaker Marc Kushner, Co-Founder and CEO of architectural social network Architizer and a partner at firm HWKN (Hollwich Kushner), opened the event by speaking about how great architecture allows people to form an emotional attachment to buildings, explaining that we can only truly enjoy our time within a building if we can relate to it.

Kushner used the heartwarming children's story Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel—about a building that is powered by the steam shovel that built it—to help the audience understand how the thing that makes people love a structure is an emotional connection to it. He commented that most architects would kill for people to feel a strong attachment to the places they create. Kushner describes the moment he understood how deeply people were relating to his structural sculpture “Wendy“—the winner of the Young Architects Program, which occupied the courtyard of MoMA PS1—when they began tweeting at her and friending her on Facebook. This social dynamic is the founding principle of Architizer.com, the professional network and community that he started, which aims to create a more open dialogue about architecture and enable architects to become better able to design projects people can truly “love.” Kushner commented that, “architecture is not about finding that one answer, it's about finding the best answer—and there's a world of best answers out there.” Architizer has since grown to be the largest database for architects in the world. Watch Mark's entire talk below and check back throughout the week as we share more presentations from the inspirational day.

Architizer // HWKN // @marchitizer

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