- [Wright] Somebody said the museum

out here on Fifth Avenue looked like a washing machine.

- [Wallace] This one is your building?

- That's one of my buildings.

Well, I've heard a lot of that type of reaction

and I've always discounted it as worthless

and I think it is.

I think any man who really has faith in himself

will be dubbed arrogant, I suppose.

I think that's what happened to me.

(piano music)

- [Mike Wallace] Fellow architects have called him

everything from a great poet to an insupportable

windbag, the clergy has deplored his morals,

creditors have deplored his financial habits,

politicians, his opinions.

When you come to New York, as you did today,

and you see the skyline of New York,

this does not excite you.

This does not exalt you in any manner?

- [Wright] It does not because it never was planned.

It's all raised for rent and is a great monument,

I think, to the power of money and greed

trying to substitute money for ideas.

I don't see an idea in the whole thing anywhere, do you?

What's the idea?

- [Wallace] I understand that last week,

in all seriousness you said, "If I had another

"15 years to work, I could rebuild this entire country.

"I could change the nation."

- [Wright] I did say that and it's true.

Having had now the experience going

with the building of 769 buildings,

it's quite easy for me to shake them out

of my sleeve and it's amazing what I could do

for this country.

I think the way of life to which the country

has committed needs that change.

I wouldn't start to change so much the way

we live as what we live in and how we live in it.

- [Wallace] You're saying that practically everyone

in the United States is out of step

except Frank Lloyd Wright.

- [Wright] Not at all.

I don't say anything of the kind.

It isn't their job to build, it's mine.

For 500 years what we've called architecture

has been phony.

- [Wallace] Phony in what sense?

- [Wright] In the sense that it was not innate.

It wasn't organic.

It didn't have the character of nature

and I put capital N on Nature and call it my church.

And that's my church

and because my church is elemental, fundamental,

I can build it for anybody, a church.

- [Wallace] What do you think of church architecture

in the United States?

- [Wright] I think it's a great shame because it is

a paragon monkey reflection and no reflection

of religion.

- [Wallace] Something immediately comes to mind

and I am not a Catholic but when I walk into

Saint Patrick's Cathedral here in New York City,

I am enveloped in a feeling of reverence.

- [Wright] Sure it isn't an inferiority complex?

- [Wallace] You feel nothing when you go

into Saint Patricks?

- [Wright] Regret because it isn't the thing

that really represents the spirit of independence

and the sovereignty of the individual.

As I feel should be represented in our edifices

devoted to culture.

I'd like to have a free architecture.

I would like to make it appropriate

to the Declaration of Independence,

to the center line of our freedom.

I'd like to have architecture that belonged

where you see it standing and was a grace

to the landscape instead of a disgrace

and the letters we receive from our clients

tell us how those buildings we build for them

have changed the character of their whole life

and their whole existence that it's different now

than it was before.

Well, I'd like to do that for the country.

- [Wallace] Mr. Wright, suppose you were approached

by one of your students who felt pessimistic

about his future because of the hydrogen bomb,

the threat of war, the world's general insecurity,

and he came to you and said, "Help me to understand.

"Give me something to live by."

What could you tell him?

- [Wright] I don't put a line on a drawing board

if the answer isn't there.

The answer is within yourself, within the nature

of the thing that you yourself represent as yourself.

That's where architecture lies.

That's where humanity lies.

That's where the future we're going to have lies.

If we're ever going to amount to anything,

it's there now and all we have to do is develop it.

- [Voiceover] This special episode

of blank on blank is made possible

by Squarespace.

Squarespace is an easy way to create a website,

blog, or online store for you and your ideas.

Try Squarespace at squarespace.com/blankonblank

for a special offer.

- [Wallace] As an intellectual yourself, Mr. Wright,

what do you think of President--

- [Wright] I deny the allegation and I refuse

to marry that girl.

- [Wallace] What do you think--

- [Wright] I don't like intellectuals.

- [Wallace] You don't like intellectuals?

Why not?

- [Wright] Because they're superficial.

They're up top.

They're from the top down, not from the ground up.

I've always flattered myself that what I represented

was from the ground up, does that mean anything?

- [Wallace] I'm trying to figure it out.

(laughs)

- [Voiceover] This episode was also supported

by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,

enhancing public understanding of science,

technology, and economic performance.

More information on Sloan at sloan.org.

Subtitles by the Amara.org community