- Architecture begins with a thought.
♪ ♪
A dream.
♪ ♪
A single line.
♪ ♪
But then you build it.
And all of the sudden,
the dream, you can touch her.
She is real.
[dramatic music]
- He molds the work to his design.
- He wants to redefine what it means to be a building.
- Is he a genius?
I think so.
♪ ♪
[evocative music]
♪ ♪
- He built three of New York City's most iconic buildings:
Port Authority,
Penn Station,
and La Guardia.
- Gerhardt's dream began in New York,
but he has realized his buildings nationwide.
The Boston City Hall,
the North Dakota state building in Bismarck,
and every AT&T building with no windows
from Midtown to the Midwest.
- Before Gerhardt, everybody thought buildings
needed to have windows, places to sit down,
ventilation.
Gerhardt comes along and says, "Why?
Why don't we make the world's first above-ground basement?"
This changes everything.
- Not quite.
[spits]
- When you enter a Gerhardt environment,
I want you to feel something: perfection.
I want you to feel challenged.
Interrogated.
Tired.
I want you to feel like I hate you personally.
Because I do.
- Flight 472 has been delayed.
- I want you to feel too close to the man beside you.
I want you to feel too far from the restroom.
I want you to buy a veg sandwich
and balance the cellophane on your knees.
struggle to have a meal without a table or surface--
I want you to feel motherless
and sad.
♪ ♪
- A Gerhardt building will make you feel like shit.
And you won't even know why.
- The low ceilings,
the flickering lights...
the particular way the linoleum peels and cracks.
You walk into one of these buildings,
and your whole body just says,
"Wow... this sucks."
[escalator clanking]
- I've always been fascinated by the question,
what if you could piss where you like...
And experience the piss of others?
Piss on the carpet, piss on the stairs.
To take it out and just...
piss.
This fundamental question challenges our idea
of what a building can be.
[inhales]
Mm.
[dramatic music]
Better.
♪ ♪
- Why does he do this?
- Well, he's an architect.
- It's the kind of shit he does.
- Pretty sure he owns a concrete company.
- He is...
Gerhardt [bleep].
She is beautiful, Hans.
[urine dribbling] Mm.
Oh, dear.
It started as a dream.