DESIGN NOW: Cultural Collisions

A forum for exploring design in our culture – not just its role in our lives now, but focusing on the radical changes that are happening. Hosted by Duo Dickinson, FAIA

DESIGN NOW: Cultural Collisions is a arts podcast hosted by Duo Dickinson, with 10 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Duo Dickinson hosts DESIGN NOW: Cultural Collisions, a arts show with 10 episodes published.

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  Episode #10

  A Terrible Time For History

  Jul 4, 20261 hourS0

  <p>7 AM, Saturday, July 4, 2026 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org</p><p>Urbanist & Thought Leader Andres Duany, Historian & Architect Mark Alan Hewitt and Critic & Editor Martin Pedersen in an hour of intense interaction in a fraught time.</p><p>Whether it’s the 250th Anniversary Arch or the Obama Center, we have lost a sense of time and meaning beyond polemic in design. </p><p>Actually, it’s an evolving reality in this last decade, brought to a head by the latest absurd Style shitshow: We, architects, fully dance with gravity, and have no idea how it is made or, really what it is...

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  Episode #10

  A Terrible Time For History

  Jul 4, 20261 hour

  7 AM, Saturday, July 4, 2026 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org Urbanist & Thought Leader Andres Duany, Historian & Architect Mark Alan Hewitt and Critic & Editor Martin Pedersen in an hour of intense interaction in a fraught time. Whether it’s the 250th Anniversary Arch or the Obama Center, we have lost a sense of time and meaning beyond polemic in design. Actually, it’s an evolving reality in this last decade, brought to a head by the latest absurd Style shitshow: We, architects, fully dance with gravity, and have no idea how it is made or, really what it is. The only other unchanging, universal, immutable, uncontrollable constant is Time. In humanity we define and try to control that with History. History, to me, is just the other Gravity. The Internet has levelled the perception of the world to a 2D universal connection: defining the inscrutably complex as a Dating App – scroll left to reject/right to accept. Dumbing Down is nothing new, but the conflation of aesthertcs/politics/morality into Good vs. Evil dehumanizes everything we perceive: Architecture is the point of the spear in the rending of culture: conflation of “tradition” into “civic beauty” or “modrnism” into “innovation” demeans everyone, no matter what they love and create. An hour of talk with thoght leaders in history, architecture & journalism: We are living a time in design that presents stark silos of percetion: A history that isn’t. A future that we cannot know. We build both. Architects are terrible with time.

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  Episode #9

  Why We Build

  Jun 6, 202658 minS0

  <p>7 AM, Saturday, June 6, 2026 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org</p><p>What are aesthetics without profit, transaction and personality?</p><p>We create buildings to accommodate our desires. They are harbors first, inspirations second. All around us, we see new buildings built for profit: housing, stores, offices. We also build homes and institutions to glorify those building them. There are purpose-built constructions, too: hospitals, libraries, prisons, theaters.</p><p>But what about the places we make to go beyond ourselves?</p><p>Some creations happen that are not based on their design but in the hope to connect us beyond ourselves...

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  Episode #9

  Why We Build

  Jun 6, 202658 min

  7 AM, Saturday, June 6, 2026 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org What are aesthetics without profit, transaction and personality? We create buildings to accommodate our desires. They are harbors first, inspirations second. All around us, we see new buildings built for profit: housing, stores, offices. We also build homes and institutions to glorify those building them. There are purpose-built constructions, too: hospitals, libraries, prisons, theaters. But what about the places we make to go beyond ourselves? Some creations happen that are not based on their design but in the hope to connect us beyond ourselves. Going beyond architecture into ourselves is not the basis of design Canon, education, tradition. Buildings based in spiritual connection have traditionally been more like theaters than places of intimacy. The icons and rituals of museums and theaters are the tools of humans use to illicit response. That is the essence of tradition. What if what we create listens beyond what we know into what we feel? – To discover what light, space, sound – beauty – reveals rather than what aesthetic recipe conjures? Is there transcendance in design beyond the design and designer? Christianity Today recently brought up the the desire of most religious people for “traditional” places, https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/03/best-church-architecture-new-building-survey/ Other surveys are showing a cultural shift away from “traditional” weekly worship. https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/02/26/religious-attendance-and-congregational-involvement/ but 2025 has seen an uptick in church attendance. This DESIGN NOW! offers up a conversation on how the 21st century has (or has not) realized an evolution how anyone thinks of spiritual places. Mark Michael is the Editor of The Living Church and has seen hundreds of creations based on faith alone. Ian Douglas is a scholar of theology, was a Bishop in the Episcopal Church and worked with Duo Dickinson to create places that reflected how faith has changed. Miroslav Volk is a world leader in theological though, and has spent over a decade in helping to create Grace Farm in New Canaan – a remarkable invention of a building in the crucible of aesthetics, spirituality and culture.

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  Episode #8

  “Style” In Architecture: Cultural Cosplay?

  May 2, 202655 minS0

  <p>7 AM, Saturday, May 2, 2026 WPKN 89.5 FM wpkn.org</p><p>Since Profit tore down McKim Mead & White’s Pennsylvania Station in New York City more than 60 years ago, the “Historic Preservation” aesthetic mission has saved thousands of irreplacible buildings, and created a whole rationale of the future being in the past. Now the value of history has been co-opted in political aesthetics.</p><p>Are there timeless truthes in aesthetics? Is “Classical Architecture” classic? Or is the aesthetic of the old a layer of cosmetics that cloke buildings in a skin of precedent? Is “Modern Architecture” just another superficial wash applied to con...

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