A Conversation with Gerald D. Hines

Gerald D. Hines, founder of the real estate development, management, and investment firm Hines, is the inaugural Edward Bass fellow at the Yale School of Architecture. He co-taught a studio with German architect Stefan Behnisch for the Garibalidi Repubblica site in Milan. This interview with architectural critic Nina Rappaport first appeared in the school's publication Constructs, Spring 2005. For more about the studio and Yale, visit www.architecture.yale.edu.

Nina Rappaport: Where are your current projects, and what are your development and overall interests today?

Gerald Hines: I am concerned about how big American cities that grew up around the automobile can possibly be sustainable. So a direction for us is the development of large-scale, multi-use projects with working/living situations, because people are going to revolt against the two-hour commutes. For large-scale projects, there are just not many people who can raise the capital to build complete areas of cities. And the competition isn't as stiff. If you want to develop one building on one site in London, for example, there might be 25 firms in competition, but for larger sites there are few as qualified as we are.

NR: Projects such as the Diagonal Mar Development, on an 84-acre waterfront site in Barcelona, and the site that housed the Renault plant outside of Paris come to mind. What is your approach to building something on the scale of a city within a city?

GH: Our site, adjacent to Renault's billion-dollar museum on the island, is the largest site under development in Europe. It will be a fantastic, 10 million-sf mixed-use neighborhood with residential, office, retail, and what the French call "equipments," which are schools and social-service facilities. We are working in conjunction with the city and its master plan to lay out the infrastructure and allocate different pieces—sizes of buildings and the amount of open space.

NR: Is this similar to your role in the plan of the Garibaldi Repubblica area in Milan, which has been awaiting development for more than 40 years? How do you organize a project of this scale?

GH: The Milan project is two million sf on 56 acres. It is also mixed-use, with office and residential space as well as a fashion museum and design school. The city is developing their largest park as part of the site, as well as municipal buildings, and Lombardy regional office buildings. We have acquired the options on the land and have 90% ownership, so we are both the developer and the primary owner. We have engaged Cesar Pelli to work on the master plan.

NR: The design part of a project seems to be where you like to be involved. How do you work with architects as part of the development process?

GH: I get a lot of pleasure being involved in the design process. I am a builder, not so much a financier. I started out as a mechanical engineer from Purdue University with a focus on building systems. I was involved with Texas Engineering, which was the first consulting engineering firm in Houston. Our first building was a 20,000-sf office/warehouse, and it was the best of its kind in Houston. I had a lot of fun doing it. We made money, and we got five new jobs. I learned how to work with architects so they could bring in outstanding design at a reasonable cost, which is the crux of Hines's philosophy.

NR: When you put together a team, how do you work with the architects and have them collaborate in a productive way?

GH: Usually we think there is one best architect for a particular site at a particular place. And sometimes we will narrow it down to three or four, and have a mini-competition and say, "Here is five thousand or ten thousand dollars apiece, draw us some sketches on an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven." I used to get Philip Johnson to do it for me. I'd say, "Send it to me over the fax. I don't want any drawings. Just send me freehand sketches."

NR: How did you meet Johnson and begin working with him?

GH: He had visited Houston a lot and liked the city, so I asked him to design a three-building complex called Post Oak Central. I had also started on Pennzoil Place and needed a second anchor tenant. Philip said, "Why not do two buildings?" And I said, "You can't put two buildings on one block in Houston." And he drew me a sketch of two smaller buildings in counterpoint. Two 36-story buildings cost less to build and can be built faster. We did get that second tenant and were able to give Zapata [the oil company founded by George H.W. Bush] its own front door. That is an example of how good architecture worked to improve cost and efficiency. And Ada Louise Huxtable said it "broke out of the Miesian box."

NR: How did you combine tall buildings and corporate centers with your interest in green urban design? Where did that focus begin?

GH: We are trying to lead the industry on green building development. We have been keeping energy costs low in our buildings for 40 years. One Shell Plaza, in Houston, was a very low-energy building and the tallest lightweight concrete building ever built—the tube within a tube building—but it took three years to build. I told its engineer Fazlur Khan, "Faz, that was great, but it cost us a lot of interest. Now let's come up with a design that we can do in two years." So we did a composite on the Control Data Corporation Building, also in Houston, which was 20 stories tall, and then One Shell Square in New Orleans. Fazlur was a fantastic structural engineer and a dear, dear person, a great human being and a great fertile mind. It was a great experience to work with him.

NR: You also focused on new kinds urban spaces with projects such as the Galleria, in Houston. What are some models for you in terms of great active public spaces?

GH: The Galleria taught us that the ice-skating rink in the middle created a situation where people promenade to watch, and that people and ice-skaters like to be watched. For me, Europe is more of a place for pedestrians and public transportation. Cities like Copenhagen, where one-third of the people commute by bicycle, one-third by public transportation, and one-third by automobile, are gradually squeezing the automobile down. America was developed around the automobile, which is a shame because we won't ever be able to undo that. China is trying to follow us, and that is not the right pattern.

NR: What would you like to see in China, a country where you are building quite a lot now, such as Embassy House and Park Avenue, five apartment towers in Beijing?

GH: I think developing the infrastructure is critical, but mass transit and highway development is so expensive and it is driving up the price of steel. We are looking at projects in Shenzhen where 75% is being built as special economic zones. They lay out the red carpet for us because they like the quality of our work, but we are one little voice. But China can get it done—it is a command society.

It is not like India, which is more like the United States—a messy democracy. But the Indian people have such abundant natural resources and a wonderful education system. India will take off despite all the bureaucracy. We are now looking at a 25,000-acre project in Mumbai where 17 million people live. They would like to create an economic zone that would have its own government, no red tape, and free trade. We might get involved in building a bridge and highway system that is about 30 kilometers long and would cost $800 million, but I don't know whether we can do it because putting the infrastructure in place would be risky.

NR: When you walk around a city, do you look at potentials, ideas, or missed opportunities? Are there inspirations that you bring from one place to another?

GH: I look at how the cornice line is working or the quality of light. Or I think, if we built this in India, how would we do it? Or, I really like that rail line they have in Copenhagen. People can bring their bikes aboard—isn't that terrific? And in a poorer area bikes are the sustainable way to do this. Wouldn't that be an exciting way to make a community, where you bike and then have a long spine? You could start it with a bus, and it could be used traveling the 22 to 30 kilometers to Mumbai. Wouldn't that be terrific? But you can't take bikes to Mumbai because there are no bike paths. But there would be one in our development. Those are the kinds of things I think about and also saw in Jan Gehl's Copenhagen projects. We are going to have him work on Garibaldi Repubblica, to see how to generate the public spaces, before we do the overall plan.

NR: What is your interest in teaching about real estate development?

GH: You always learn something from the students; they are great young minds to interact with. The students then begin to understand the development process and how to improve the built environment. That is what we are all about and that is my purpose: to create great spaces and improve the quality of the built environment.