As Britain enters a new era with the passing of the Queen, we revisit a previous podcast on the past, tradition and nostalgia. We even make mention of the new King.

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Do you prefer Rembrandt or Rothko? The Vatican or The Shard? A Georgian terrace or a 1960s housing estate? Ever wondered why we stopped building beautiful old buildings and how architectural modernism came to dominate our skylines?

This week we discuss the theory of the Tartarian civilization. It claims that our most ornate buildings are the work of a lost civilization called the Tartarian Empire and attempts to explain the rise of architectural modernism. We set out the theories for and against modernism, deconstruct survivorship bias and new urbanism and discuss a famously anti-modernist town designed by Prince Charles. Nick presents a taxonomy of theories that may explain divergent tastes in architecture and we share our own architectural predilections.

A few things we mentioned in this podcast:

• Whither Tartaria?
• Poundbury
• Celebration, Florida
• Richard H. Driehaus Architecture Competition
• Londoners grow fond of the Shard yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/ar…rs-grow-fond-shard

For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email [email protected]

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph Insights. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Tom Spence and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights and this week we're discussing the Lost Tartarian Civilisation. Nick, what are we talking about? I've no idea what the Tartarian Civilisation,

you know, what is it? Yeah, well I mean it's, well it may surprise you to learn about the existence of this civilisation, which they don't teach in schools obviously. Isn't it one of the places on Game of Thrones, isn't it? So I have been thinking recently about how, you know, everyone got very upset when the roof of the Notre Dame Cathedral burnt down? Yes. Remember that? Yes. And why is that? If you read kids books and stuff they're always set in places like castles, like Hogwarts, you know, old. Okay. Ramshackle or, you know. Yes. But generally old types of buildings. We like people like, and you know when you go on holiday people pay to go and see nice country houses and people want to visit small towns which have historic streets and things. People love all that. And yet nothing we make these days looks like that. Nobody builds buildings that look like that at all. Anyway, I'm just sort of idly thinking about that. And it turns out that I'm not the only person to have spotted this. What's Tartaria? Right, I'm getting to that. Okay. But you need to be prepared to learn that everything you know is a lie. Okay. Okay. So the Tartarian theory is that all of these wonderful buildings, these old monuments and places like they were built not just by our forebears but by a lost civilization. Yes. A global civilization. That's true. And you know which was vastly greater in terms of its abilities than ours. And that this civilization was swept away at some time in the early 20th century through various, there's various theories about why it might have happened. But the point is that we're now living in the if you like the ruins of Tartaria. We're living amongst these buildings that although you know we sort of imagine we could build and convince ourselves that we choose not to. In fact, the truth is we just can't. We haven't we've lost the ability to build lovely old buildings. Yes. Which is why we don't do it anymore. And all of our buildings now just look like boring old geometric shapes. That's the that's the time. I'm not sure to what extent anyone really believes this is true. But the existence of the theory tells you that there's something people don't like about modernism. So yes. So the question is, why if we all love old buildings, do we build buildings that look like new buildings, which are all just a boring

triangle or box? Hey, I think we did another podcast like this. No, we didn't. This sounds like the ugly the the ballardian spaces type thing. Well, no, this is more about the aesthetics,

not not about the feeling of why is it that some places feel ballardian. This is about like, why, why we don't build nice buildings anymore. It's a different question. Okay. I still think it's the same. But anyway, I should have discussed that. No, but I mean, look, look, because listen, the shard or something. Yeah, right. It's not really ballardian. You know, okay, what's the places on but they but it's boring. That's the point. I think it's a bit doesn't look ornate and grand. It doesn't really it doesn't inspire you that much. I'm gonna I'm

gonna chime in here because I live very close to the shard and I see it pretty much every day. And it's not boring. Yeah, it's basically more doors. So yeah, I mean, at times it's terrifying when they like the top up in red, and it's it's a bit scary. And that times it's flickering lidless eye. Yeah, yeah. At times it's elegant, especially when it interplays nicely with clouds that are low. And actually, it's very popular. More than half of people surveyed think it's a positive addition to the London skyline and to the way that London looks. So I think coming from the premise that, you know, all modern architecture is bad and boring, is incorrect. A lot of it is popular, and people like it, it might not be ornate. That doesn't mean it's not interesting.

I forgot what the question is. But anyway, we'll come back to that in a second. But there's also makes me think of another podcast we did, which is about reenactors about, you know, what will future reenactors be doing, which you were on as well. I was. And it makes me think, you know, 500 years from now, people will be looking at the Shard going, why can't we build buildings like the Shard anymore? It's a shame that we lost the Tartarus. They'll be looking down on the Shard.

Yes. That's a massive. Yeah, it looked like a tiny little building. Yeah. A Shardette. Yeah. But also, once upon a time, this was considered a tall building, they'll say.

But also, it makes you think 500 years ago, I'm sure people were saying, we can't do the pyramids anymore. We just stuck well.

It's funny you should say that phrase, because I actually looked some of this up. And I thought, what's what's one of the most iconic, you know, classical buildings in London that everyone loves? I thought, St. Paul's, right? People love St. Paul's. People did not love St. Paul's when it was built. Really? It was aping Catholic tendencies in what was then a, you know, a country that didn't didn't like the Pope. And people were very dismissive of it. It's only over time that people have grown to love it. Yeah. With rose tinted spectacles.

You've advanced one theory as to why this Tartarian approach might be wrong. Which is that you're saying it's simply that we've been conditioned to find old things nice, more or less. And, and that, you know, if you give it enough time, then people will, people will come to love, you know. I'm wondering if that's the case. Well, I mean, I want to set out a taxonomy of theories in a minute, right? So there's way more hypotheses about modernism.

I think let's reframe the whole thing. Let's give a foundation of our discussion.

You need to broaden your horizons of time.

Okay. Well, let's, let's part that from it. We can discuss that, but just, I just want to set out. Yeah. So, well, it's really about people's reaction to modernism and the extent to which they embrace it or reject it. And I, and I think we, I think there were sort of three approaches you can take. One is to say that modernism is understandable, not necessarily to approve of it, but just to say, okay, well, this is where it comes from. And it's just, you know, it's, it's another development in aesthetics. One is to say it's excusable. So to say, well, you know, it happened, but it's not actually bad. And the third is to say, actually, modernism is good. It's, there's nothing wrong with it at all. And we should embrace it. And we're just being sillies by, by wanting things to look like Hogwarts, you know? So, and I think, you know, if you think about what modernism is, it's really deliberately new. Yes. It's, it's, it's being deliberately rejecting the past. And, and as a result of produced lots of things that people find pretty inaccessible. So, you know, modernism looking across the piece as associated with this sort of rejection of realism. And we all know people like realistic paintings. People want to go and see the ambassadors and spend longer looking at that. And they do looking at, you know, a Rothko or something, even though people profess to like it. Things about, you know, things like stream of consciousness, literature, sort of James Joyce-y type works, which no one reads, but everyone says they like. Atonal or 12-tone music, which everyone says they like, but no one listens to. Abstract painting, you know, so there's a sort of rejection of, of all those traditional realistic approaches, and also a kind of self-consciousness about, about what you're doing. I think, you know, an artist in the past might have said, how do I do this art here? Whereas I think the modernist question is more like, why are we doing it this way? Let's do it a different way. How can we do this in a different way? You know, people, people say that this is related to, you know, industrialization and, and the sort of total break with the past and so on. But no, I've just thought I'd set that as what we mean, I think, by modernism. And it's interesting that it's not just architecture. The point is, there's all those other art forms, which have produced things that people generally don't really like that much. Some people do, but not everyone. They're not, they're not popular, those forms of modernist art. So it's two things. And

I know Tom wants to come in. He's just been gesticulating wildly over there, as wild as Tom can get. Two things. Are you trying to say that there seems to be evidence that we're just naturally conservative? That's what it sounds like you're saying. I'm really just trying to define what we

mean when we're talking about modernism. Fine. Then we can talk about... I still don't really

understand the question, what we're talking about. How can you? Look, it's simple. Why is it that

people want to live in Georgian houses, and we don't build them anymore? Got it. It's as simple

But I think if you gave people the choice between living, you know, three people to a room in a Victorian building or having their own flat in a tower block, most people would probably choose their own flat in a tower block.

Yeah, but they would also if they if right, but then you're making them trade things off pointlessly.

But you're also making quite your I don't think

No one would choose to live three people in a room in a tower block.

No, but I think your your comparison doesn't quite hold up because those houses are selling for a lot now. But as a different product, they're selling as luxury houses, as opposed to houses that you would cram as many people could fit into

You're bringing other things into the equation. It's not just about the architecture, isn't it? Because you're talking about, you know, living conditions and well, that kind of thing.

It's more that this claim that people destroyed the bad. It's like this. The argument you get about was music better in the 60s. And everyone says, oh, no, it's just that, you know, the only music they play from the 60s is all the good stuff because no one listens to the rubbish anymore. And, you know, we all know that's not true, right? There was just better music produced in the 60s than there is now. And, and I'm just saying that if you look at the houses they were demolishing, it's not like they were demolishing really terrible, boring houses and leaving the nice, you know, Victorian terraces, they were demolishing Victorian terraces, because they thought they they, you know, they had so many of them, they could just demolish a whole street full. And now that streets probably worth 200 million pounds.

Let's hear more from Tom. What you've said there, Nick, brings me on to my second point, your assertion that there was just better music being made in the 60s. I, I think, and this ties to what you said before, I think you've set the entire conversation in a very non-neutral way. You asserted, for example, that no one likes modern art. I love modern art. I love Rothko's, I love abstract impressionism. I'm planning a trip to The Hague specifically to go and see some Mondrian's that I really like. I listen to Philip Glass. I listen to, you know, things like clapping music quite regularly. Are you unusual? I may not be in the majority.

I guess if there's an exhibition, it suggests that there's appetite.

Exactly. And the Tate Modern is one of the most popular galleries in the country.

I just want to point out in case anyone thinks I'm an uncultured philistine, I like all that stuff, too. I think this is not a question about whether, you know, people like us like it. It's like why they're not massively...

It's just the pun-washed masses we're talking about.

Well, it's definitely true that, you know, they're not popular forms of art, you know, in the same way that people, everyone in the 19th century would have looked at, or everyone would, let's say, in the 15th century would have looked at a cathedral and said, wow, look at that. That's nice. Right. Masses and elites alike would have looked at it. It's not like the masses were going, oh, I hate all that, you know, ornamentation and this lovely open space and that beautiful stained glass window. I hate all that. I want to go back to living in a, you know, mud hut. Nobody said that. Whereas now, you know, most people don't particularly like, most people would rather listen to, you know, to Mozart than to, you know, Steve Reich, even though, you know, I happen to love Steve Reich. Just that's the, we've got this, what's considered to be...

Let's try and come to some sort of agreement on this, because the examples that you've given, Tom, you're saying, well, actually, I this, and I know some people, and we've said, okay, well, it's not just you, because there are exhibitions, which I've said, well, I suggest, and we've talked about the Tate Modern, etc. But do you see anything in what Nick's saying that, you know, that there's a general sense of...

I've given anecdotal evidence. But I feel like Nick has made assertions with no numbers behind them. As I pointed out earlier, a majority of people think that the Gherkin and the Shard are great buildings. You know, people like them, they're modern. It's not the case that, you know, people dislike all things modern. Of course, there are bad examples, you know, a lot of people will complain about some forms of brutalist architecture. But then you look at things like the various Guggenheim museums around the world. They're incredibly modernist, but they're enormously popular. So I think it's quite a statement to make that, you know, modern things are not popular compared to old things.

I think more people want... Okay, I mean, why? It's just this observation that when you think about... If you were to ask most people, what kind of house would you like to live in? People would probably... I just feel like, yes, well, I've got no numbers here at all. You're right. So this is entirely my intuition. But it's just the behavior of people like going to see old stuff. You know, people want to pay to go and look around a, you know, a stately home. But nobody wants to pay to go and look around, you know, the Gherkin. I mean, they don't want to... There aren't queues of people desperate to get in there and have a look around.

I went to visit Lloyd's as a tourist once.

Lloyd's of London?

Yeah.

Yeah. It's quite interesting. You don't get the queues that you get at the Vatican City, for example.

Well, can we can we phrase this in a slightly different manner and say, can we agree that there's a general affection or a common affection for old stuff, right? Old, nice stuff, right? And if that's the case, why is that? But then is it just an obvious answer, which is, well, it's a kind of a hankering after what we don't have now. It's a historical appreciation for stuff. And also, and it's not to say that we don't like modern architecture, but we can do that stuff. We can do modern architecture. We can't do the old stuff. Or we could, but no one's going to spend the money to do that. And is it just simply that? Is that all it is?

I think there is definitely something to say about that. And there's something to say for the rarity argument. I think if, you know, if all we were building were Victorian streets, their price would go down because there'd be loads of them and they'd, you know, they'd be everywhere, right? If instead of skyscrapers, we were constantly building, you know, new Gothic cathedrals, everyone would be like, oh, look, oh, another Gothic cathedral. Oh, isn't that interesting? And I, again, speaking anecdotally here, I once went on holiday to Iran, where I saw-

You go on holiday to the oddest places, but anyway, go on.

Thank you. I highly recommend it. There's a lot of beautiful stuff to see. But I went around Iran and there are all these amazing palaces and incredible mosques, you know, beautiful tiled artwork, really, really impressive stuff. And then after Iran, I went to Uzbekistan, which again, you know, all this kind of Silk Road mosques and houses and things. But by the time I got to Uzbekistan, I was a bit like, oh, oh, another one. Great. More tiles.

Honestly, after Uzbekistan, I went to, I went to Kyrgyzstan and I saw a huge amount of Soviet brutalist architecture and it was a refreshing change. I enjoyed it. I think part of it is familiarity. You can walk around London as much as you like and see big glass towers and you get bored of them, right? But then you, you know, you go somewhere else-

Do people want to live? Do more people want to live in, you know, a former Soviet town, you know, Archangel or something? Or do they want to live in Salisbury? You know, where do people actually want to live? What are the house prices like? I don't have the data. I'm willing to make you a bet that people, the house prices are higher in towns where there's a higher density of old things. And yes, all right. It's quite nice for a change, but on average, you know, that's all. That's all I'm saying. I think that's probably true.

Yeah. But equally, the highest house prices you'll find in many places are the luxury flats in big glass boxes.

I think it's just because they happen to be close. They tend to be in like big cities where people need to work.

But are you saying that's not the same argument that you could use for why Salisbury is more expensive than Archangel? Because ultimately-

I don't know what Archangel is.

It's a northern-

Yeah, it's on the White Sea in Russia.

Again, I'm sure if you were able to equal everything out. I don't know. Maybe I'm just a bit of an old git.

Can we just, I've got, I need, we need to mention a few theories. Yeah, okay. About, because I, because we've just been, we've been going back and forth about here. I think we're arguing, we disagree. So you alluded to the cost disease issue, right? Which is that it would be more expensive now to build those things. Now, if that's true, then that does suggest that there's a real, that we have effectively traded off niceness for price. And if that's true, then the Tartarian theory is kind of correct. But the argument there is just that, you know, you cannot build those kinds of buildings on mass. You can't mass produce nice, you know, ornate cathedrals in the same way that you can big glass boxes. And, and, you know, you, in the old, people have got more productive across the economy. Hence, people are much more expensive now, relatively, compared to materials. Precisely, that's one theory. But there's also the supply argument, which is that, well, actually, we've got access to a whole bunch of novel and exotic materials that we didn't have 100 years ago. All of these new types of steel and concrete and glass that are able to bear different loads. And so, you know, the old architecture was constrained by the materials in a way that it's not now. So we can go nuts and start building things that are, look totally different to what was in the past. And that we just need to take time to learn the aesthetics of those things. Or alternatively, that Western civilization has peaked and is in decline. Those, there are those. Then there's the sort of social theories, which are that the break between high art and popular art is something to do with it now being about signalling. Because, you know, Donald Trump's house. Have you ever seen pictures? The one in Palm? It's basically all gold, that Mar-a-Lago, whatever it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, basically, everything's gold. Oh, is it? Okay. It just looks really cheap. Now, an entirely gold room would never, up till the 20th century, have looked cheap. Right? That's the opposite, if anything. And so, since it's very cheap now to create the appearance of sort of ornate luxury, it has become, in order to signal, precisely, our old friend signalling. In order to signal wealth now, you have to actually almost look as minimalist as possible. It's actually harder to be minimalist. It's more expensive to have a minimalist aesthetic. So there's that theory. There's this idea that things have become more boring because people no longer want to flaunt wealth in the same way. I'm not sure if that's true. And then there's the set of theories about which basically say modernism is really good. We don't need to explain it. It's just basically a good thing. And, you know, modernist things are better, like Tom says he actually likes them. People who think otherwise are pedestrian minded and deluded.

Just to clarify, I don't think that.

Yeah, well, I do, actually. But anyway, but also this idea that you're exposed to vastly more things. And so we would expect there to be this acceleration. You know, 500 years ago, the average person might have seen one cathedral in their life if they were lucky. Now we can look at pictures of every cathedral and we can go, well, all right. Well, that means that, you know, what on average might have taken 10 years of evolution in architecture can now take place overnight. Because I can just look at all those buildings and go, right, I'll take the bits I'm interested in and we'll go for it. You know, we'll build this totally new thing that takes on board all of the buildings in the world. And so perhaps we're optimizing in a way that we couldn't do in the past because we're able to learn much more about what's good. Yeah, so and then there's the theories that it's sort of survivorship bias, you know, that Tom's idea that we're only seeing the nice things from the past and then alternatively that we're basically being conditioned to think that old things are good. So, but I wanted to move on to attempts to return to Tartaria because there have been a few.

Well, let's do that. We actually need to, we're near the end. By the way, I know Tom wants to say something. Just on one of those points. But we'll come on to that. By the way, you're wrong, Tom, about this sort of love, general love of modernism. I'll give you two words that will prove you wrong. Mock Georgian. Okay. Everyone loves mock Georgian. Otherwise developers wouldn't be building this stuff everywhere. It's popular. People love it.

But you said an interesting thing there. Go on. Developers are building this stuff. Ah, money. Which means we can still build this stuff.

Well, it's, I mean, it's, but it's mock.

It's a terrible facsimile. It's like they'll put the half timbering on the outside as a kind of rendering, but it won't actually be a half timbering house.

You mean it's like Washington DC. The Greeks didn't actually build all those neoclassical buildings.

Well, actually, I think it's quite interesting that why it is that people are so resistant, people like Tom, are so resistant to the suggestion that we actually, things are worse now. And it's interesting to contrast that. And I think that's because we live in a particularly, you know, now is the pinnacle sort of time. We have this belief that really we are, you know, one of the modernist ideas is that we have optimized the past away and we're living in a definitely better place now. And if you look at what people thought in the Renaissance, it was the opposite. It was like, well, they realized that there was all this lost skill and wisdom from the classical era and they were desperate to recapture it. And, you know, you had people like Braccioli looking for the ancient texts or Erasmus trying to, you know, look at how the Greeks did Christianity better or Pisano and his, you know, attempt to return architecture to classicism. And it was like a, yeah, like a sort of collective belief that the modern world was worse and that we needed to make it better by looking at the olden days.

It's the opposite now. We really need to zip along. Do you still want to address that point?

No, no, sorry.

Okay. So let's try and round these things off. I know you've got another point to cover.

I think Tom was touching on this thing. You were both talking about Mock George and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

So make your point. I've got a question I want to ask at the end.

Yeah, okay. Well, it's just, you know, have you heard of Poundbury? Yes. It's our god, yeah. Prince Charles's model town. Yeah, yeah. And I, so it has things like iron fences and porticos and little, you know, even things like bricked up blind windows to make it look old.

Just explain the concept to people who are not familiar with it.

So this was basically Prince Charles, famously resistant. He's a real anti-modernist, famously wants more tradition in architecture. Carbuncle and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, famously criticised the Sainsbury Wing, I think, of being a monster, of the National Gallery for being a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved friend. And, you know, it's designed to be a bit more sustainable. It's that sort of thing. But all the buildings look like pastiche versions. But they, it's weird. I had a look round on Google Maps and it's just weird and soulless and almost like a film set. Yeah. Really strange sort of looking place, but pretty popular. Okay. And then the equivalent in the US, obviously, similar kind of movement, really, new urbanism, which is the most famous one, I think, is Celebration Florida, which was built by Disney to be a model town. And it's an American version of Poundbury in that it's sort of white picket fences and platform architecture and stuff.

I just want to clarify, I don't think that, you know, modernism is the pinnacle. I just refute the assertion that it is worse. I don't necessarily think it's better, but I don't think it's worse than the past.

Yeah, I don't honestly know. I mean, the trouble is, it is very hard to take yourself out of the place and time you're in. I do think that most, I suspect that good modernism is as good as anything from the past, but that on average, modernist things are worse than, you know, on the average thing you would have got in the Victorian era. And I suspect the flip side of that, the kind of upside, is that it's accessible for everyone. You know, the price of having everyone living in a house of their own and not living five to a room, is that the building's all a bit worse. But I would like us to at least admit that we have traded off quality against, you know, accessibility.

Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point. And I think it is almost a quality versus quantity question. In the past, you know, when maybe there was one cathedral being built a decade, you'd find the best architect and they'd build you that cathedral. Now, hundreds of things are being built all the time. And, you know, the best architect can't work on every single thing. So I think I agree with you that while the top end of modernist culture may be similar, the accessibility of creating culture now is so much easier. Or it is much more accessible that you also have things that aren't necessarily the pinnacle emerging.

Yeah, and I think that chimes very well with the observation I think we've made on previous podcasts about things like music. You know, is music worse now? Well, on average, yes. But the quantity is so vast that probably you can find, if you have the time to do it, you can find music now that's as good as any other music that's ever been produced. But it's just on average, it's worse. Because, you know, like accessibility means we're accessing the tail, as it were. You know, we're drilling into the tail of that distribution, which in the old days, a record production company would have said, sorry, you're terrible. You haven't got a hope, go away. Whereas now they can just record a song and stick it on YouTube.

I think that's, in a way, it all comes down to what do we mean by worse? Are we talking about averages? Are we talking about maxima or minima? I think that it's a question that, you know, has relevance to a lot of things is how do you define things like goodness? Especially when you're talking about general goodness across a population.

And we don't think it's the same as popularity because we're snobs. Right. I think. I think we need to stop there. Okay.

We actually, we kind of, I think we've got a reasonably satisfying conclusion there. I've got a question to ask. I've got a question to ask. I could ask, I think it's too general, which is, hey, what's your favourite architecture? But I don't want to, I don't want to ask that. I want to ask, I want you to describe to me the house that you live in now. But also, if money were no object, what would be the house that you would live in? Okay. And really, I'm thinking about the architecture here, really, what we've been talking about. Yeah. Who wants to go first?

I can go first. It's easy. My current house is a Victorian terraced house in North London. And if I had an infinite amount of money, I'd live in a Georgian detached house in North London. Probably somewhere like Highgate. So I'm not that far away from my dream house. You're nearly there, Nick. You're nearly there. I've never, I've never lived in a house that's less than 100 years old. And to be honest, I don't really, I don't think I could see myself doing that.

And why though? Why a Georgian house, let's say? Nick just doesn't like being warm.

It is a good question. And I think I like being rooted in history in a way. You know, I like feeling that there's been plenty of other people in this house, come and gone. And yeah, and I definitely like the architecture. Now, maybe I've just been brainwashed by society into liking Victorians, you know, could roll it back to that whole era from, you know, Georgian through to Victorian. It just feels very human. You know, it's like a design for humans. To live in and look at. Yeah.

I mean, we'll do me and then you, Tom. But you've not been to my new house yet. No, but it's very grand. It is quite grand, you know. And I must admit, I love having guests there. I love having people there just because it is a beautiful space. It's the first time I've lived in a house, really, that I would consider to be beautiful. But yeah, I live in a Georgian, I guess you could call it townhouse, but it's pretty much.

If we could combine your house with my location, it would be ideal.

Well, it would be ideal for you, but not for me because I don't want to live in North London.

But you want to live in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, I want to live in the middle of nowhere.

Can't you get the servants to light the fires before you come home? Yeah, I will.

I've been beating them about that. They'll get there eventually. Yeah, and if I could live anywhere, maybe the same sort of house, but a little bit bigger in just more grounds. That's what I'd like. You know, something like that in the country. Or a huff house. I quite like huff. Is that what they're called? Huff houses? It's the German ones.

Are they the very, almost sort of flat pack, quite Bauhaus style? Yeah, exactly that.

Yeah, yeah. And I just like the light.

I bet this is a conversation Tom loves to have. What with being a late millennial, he can't afford to get on the housing ladder.

So let's hear from you Tom. I don't know, I mean, that might inform my answer, which is that, well, I'll start with where I live now. I live in a flat in a kind of converted warehouse. It's, I would say it's the tail end of modernism in that it is poorly constructed. Where is it? It's in Bermondsey. Okay. And it's very drafty despite being a new build. So it's actually kind of the worst of every possible world.

Is the superstructure a Victorian warehouse?

At its core, it's been quite heavily, you know, reclad and all that sort of thing.

It just sounds like you Tom, it's like gritty, keeping it real. It's the street.

I always think of that as being a yuppie thing, living in a converted warehouse.

But anyway, keep going, keep going. Yeah, well, you know, either they're empty or people live in them, right? Yeah. But I think my answer to where I would most like live is that I don't really have a preference. I live in a Victorian house, Georgian house, new build. I don't really mind the architecture of the place that I live in very much. I don't give it a lot of thought.

A truly timeless man.

But that may reflect, you know, my late millennial, you know. Yeah, rootlessness. Zen, zenial. It's not about positions. I don't know. I don't have it. Yeah, I don't have a particular preference to where I live or what type of building I live in.

So mock Georgian it is then. I'd be quite happy in that. Okay, I can't help but feel we should have invited an architect along to this. I don't know. What would they know?

I was going to bring up Zaha Hadid and how everyone loves all her stuff, even though it's very modernist.

Well, I mean, look, there's loads of good architects that we like. I mean, I would love to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright building, for example. I mean, you know, there's not very much of that.

Let's draw things to a close. So as always, thanks for listening. If you've got any thoughts or suggestions for topics, you can email us at podcast.alephinsights.com. We'd love to hear from you. But if you have enjoyed the podcast, what should people do, Nick?

Oh, I wasn't ready for that. Sorry.

They should like and subscribe.

Yeah. We can't make it thematic. It's just a bit of creation too far, I think.

This is the problem with modern design and creativity. It's just laziness of people like yourselves. Thanks, as always, for listening. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Tom Spence and Nick Hare of Aleph Insights. Until next time, goodbye.