full interview_silvian marcus_4.mp4
Silvian Marcus [00:00:00] As we look to the east, we can see the East River, and then the building that I was talking before, that's the Trump UN, used to be the tallest residential building at the time in the city. And then we go a little bit to the north, by the southern place, it's almost finished. It's an 80-story building, and what is interesting. That it has a central core and on both sides it's cantilevering 25 feet over existing buildings at the base. Moving toward the west, we have a little bit further up. We have what is called 520 Park Avenue. It's on 62nd Street between Madison and Park. Then looking westward, we the beautiful 432 Park Avenue that the ideal architecture that fits the structure, all symmetrical, all square and 90 feet by 90 feet with the central core 30 by 30 and very efficient structure and 1400 feet tall every floor 15 foot 6 in height. Moving to the west. We have 111 West 57th Street, or Stainway Building. And a little bit closer to us, it's a MoMA tower designed by Jean Nouvel. And in the back, we have 157 just across Carnegie Hall. And It's right now we cannot see because of the clouds, but it's the tallest building, the tallest roof in New York City and the United States. That's the Park Tower building.
Speaker 2 [00:02:35] These are all projects that you work on.
Silvian Marcus [00:02:38] It's most of them, but some of them are done by my colleagues in the office. So it's basically even the one that I'm saying is mine, there is nothing like that, it's mine. It's a teamwork. I have very talented, we have engineers, people that they do mathematical analysis, project managers. So if I put myself with them, I'm just helping and sometimes coming with some ideas.
Speaker 2 [00:03:16] How do you feel when you look out?
Silvian Marcus [00:03:19] I feel cloud nine, but now there are so many clouds. I feel very good. I think that I was very lucky, very lucky. And I'm very thankful looking upwards, although I'm not religious, but I was very lucky in any event.
Speaker 3 [00:03:39] When you were little, did you think you would be doing this? Yeah. Tell me about it.
Silvian Marcus [00:03:45] Well, help like I was like five years old. I had an uncle that he was a bridge engineer. So initially, I wanted to be a bridge engineer, but I found out that. In my mind that bridges are too uniformed. The same buildings like the one here and all over, they are not two of them identical. Each one has particularities, each one has its own characteristics, its own demands. Challenges. So it's a daily excitement during the design process, during the construction. Things are going very well, but we are dealing with people, we are dealing with errors, we're dealing with unforeseen things. So there is a challenge every day until It's finished. And even once it's finished, then come the tenants, and they want to change whatever we did. And it's the next challenge coming. So it's a continuum activity, but that makes our life exciting. And that's the reason that I continue work, despite my age, and I wake up every morning. And my thoughts are what I'm going to do today. And that's what I am very lucky and I'm very happy with my life.
Speaker 2 [00:05:40] One more question. Some of these, like, that's a very beautiful building, I think, 432. I know not everybody shares my view, but I think it's very beautiful. Did you have any arts training when you were little? Did you do any, did you have music and that sort of thing?
Silvian Marcus [00:05:55] Well, honestly, I love arts. I love theater. I like direction. I like... Place, music, opera, and these days during the pandemic I'm watching galore of movies and as a matter of fact happened that just last night I was watching love during cholera's time. That was by a book written by Garcia Marquez that he got the Nobel laureate. This movie that, it's not an old movie, it is not today, but it's somehow romanticized. And its own beauty, I mean, there are elements of particular country beauty in Colombia that I must go there to visit. Usually on normal time I am all over in Italy from north to south and east to west.
Speaker 2 [00:07:34] So your interest isn't just in numbers, and if you have a larger...
Silvian Marcus [00:07:38] No, you cannot. Whoever is interested just in numbers cannot have a full perspective of life. Anything, honey. Animal that is moving, anything, it's an inspiration. And it's nature. And I am fascinated by the trees, for example, where I live outside of the city. I am surrounded by the tress. And I'm looking and sometimes friends are asking me. What are you doing? You look at the trees and I said, I communicate with the trees. There is a dialog between me and the trees, the trees I feel that they are speaking to me. It's unbelievable. It's a sentiment that you cannot reciprocate. So no, you cannot take engineering and numbers. Whoever does that will not see the reality, will be something in vacuum. Things are not done only by the numbers or even by the physics. It's the entire component put together in order to get to the right product.
Speaker 4 [00:09:20] So when you look outside, do you see the beauty here? Do you see beauty in the building? What is it when you see when you look outside?
Silvian Marcus [00:09:28] I see the beauty. I see beauty with the clouds. The fact that I'm thinking about these people that are living there and they are in the clouds and they look outside, they see dark probably. But there's the beauty, it's the same thing, I'm going to a mountain and I was Wyoming in Jackson Hall. A beautiful place. So I was staying at this hotel and we were looking down from our terrace and down in the valley, a cloud was moving under us like a river, but was a cloud. So clouds, beautiful, even if you don't see fully. Me. You see and you imagine, you don't have to see everything. It's no good to see every thing. It's good to use your imagination like an abstract painting that I like so much that doesn't tell you, use your own. You participate with. It's a vocabulary that you have with this piece of art.
Speaker 4 [00:10:52] So do you bring that to your engineering?
Silvian Marcus [00:10:55] Oh yes, I love my engineering.
Speaker 4 [00:10:57] You've got to be up in the sky because I'm over here for you.
Silvian Marcus [00:11:00] I love my engineering, I have no regrets, and if I would have the second life, I will do it again. I'll do it, again.
Speaker 4 [00:11:11] You bring the art that you see, you bring that to your engineering.
Silvian Marcus [00:11:15] Absolutely, in particular way, with the understanding, they don't have to have factual things that you will see there, but it's an understanding of a volume, of a shape, of the nature. All these bring together that... Some engineers or some people say, what's the engineering? Oh, if it's concrete, how many rebars are in the concrete? It's incorrect. That's a detail. That's something that has no relationship to the concept of the engineering. So that concept is in totality. It's how. Things are staying, how things are built, how things are economically done. All within the nature that we are living in.
