Today I went to Kunsthaus-Wien, which is designed by Hundertwassert, this incredible painter and architect whose name means “hundred waters.” 

There’s an uneven floor in the lobby — it rises and falls like walking over hills and valleys – and a sign:

“About the Uneven Floor

The flat floor is an invention of the architects.  It fits engines — not human beings.

We do not only have eyes to see and ears to hear and noses to smell.  We also have a sense for the touch of our hands and our feet.

If man is forced to walk on flat floors as they were planned thoughtlessly in designers’ offices, estranged from man’s age old relationship and contact to earth — a decisive part of man withers and dies.  This has catastrophic consequences for the soul, the equilibrium, the well being and the health of man.  Man’s ability to experience ceases and he becomes disabled, mentally and organically.

An uneven and animated floor means to recover dignity of man which has been violated in our unnatural and hostile urban grid system.

The uneven floor becomes a symphony, a melody for the feet and brings back natural vibrations to man.

Architecture should elevate and not subdue man.  It is good to walk on uneven floors and regain our human balance.”

- Hunderwassert, April 1991

Then I was watching the floor, thinking about “uneven floor” as a street plan, instead of a grid, and a woman tripped on the floor.  Then she looked around, surprised, saw the sign, read a bit of it, and laughed.  I asked her whether she thought the uneven floor was good or bad.  She said it was good, which suprised me, since she had just tripped on it.  Then I asked her what she thought about if cities had “uneven floors” instead of grid street plans, whether she thought it was good or bad.  She said it would be good. 

Then she said, “I think it would slow down everyone.  You would take more time passing through to think about your surroundings.”

I’ve been developing a model where companies can be, not like plantations with owners and bosses, but like towns.

Company as town.  Right now we usually sell shares of a company, and people who own shares decide what the people who work at the company will do.  But picture a company as a town.  Who owns New York City?  I live in New York City.  I work in New York City.  I can own real estate, which is similar to Class B stock without voting rights, or to local currency.

Virtual land as stock without voting rights.  Buying and selling blocks of land is fine, and recently instead of giving a stakeholder 1/5th of profits for work he’d done to help my business get started, I gave him one block out of five in a virtual town, but we can make the experience of owning land even more attractive.

Ratings.  Every service and person can set up shop on the virtual land, like building real estate on land.  Picture the squares of a checkerboard.  I start my retail makeover service on a square.  Customers rate my services a 9 out of 10, in answer to the question, “How likely are you to recommend this service to a friend?”  I start my narrative learning theory class on another square.  Customers rate that class a 7 out of 10.  As other people who work in the “town” offer services, each service gets a reputation.

Counter-intuitive. Think of a time when you’ve had a great experience with a salesperson or someone in customer service.  Now, because of your great experience with that sales representative, are you much more likely, a little more likely, or not at all more likely to want to talk to someone they work with?  What about their company as a whole?  Because of your great experience with this person, are you much more likely, a little more likely, or not at all more likely to want to do business with the company again?  With me, because I had a great experience with a salesperson buying my laptop at a Best Buy store in Atlanta, I’m only a little more likely to want to interact with another salesperson at that store, but I’m much more likely to want to buy again from Best Buy.

The Atlanta theory of influence.  There’s a restaurant in Atlanta that I absolutely love.  I rate the restaurant a 10 out of 10.  The block the restaurant is on though, is only made a little bit better by the restaurant.  I’m only a little bit more likely to go to another business on that block.  And the restaurant has no impact on how much I like the neighborhood, which is run-down.  The restaurant has a huge impact on how much I like Atlanta.  As soon as I ate at the restaurant, I became much more likely to want to go to Atlanta.

Modeling.  So in this virtual town, which is a new kind of company, I’m setting up a reputation system where relationships and influence are modeled visually.  When someone rates my retail makeover service a 9 out of 10, that has a small positive influence on the services which are located nearby to mine.  It has no influence on the neighborhood — the bigger area of checkerboard squares.  And it has a big positive influence on the town — the whole checkerboard.

Benefits.  Let’s say there are 1,000 people working at a company-as-town.  Each person has a rating.  Each service has a rating.  Each workgroup or block has a rating.  Each department or neighborhood has a rating.  The company as town has a rating.  Ratings are useful.  People and services with the highest ratings will benefit from high ratings points as do businesses rated on Citysearch.com or Yelp.com — you see a service is good by its reputation.  If a company takes a small portion of income to each service or person, just like cities collect taxes on income, then the company can even redistribute income based on points.  A big benefit to grouping relationships — people who work together — in this locality way, is that people on the same block can pool their resources to organize a block party, and people in the same neighborhood can pool their resources to create a website which attracts customers.

Today I went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

I was attracted to a special exhibit of Archimboldo, who lived in the 1500’s.  He made these super-modern paintings. 

The painting above is a man made of vegetables, called “Sommer” (”Summer”). 

Archimboldo’s paintings of food…

are actually reversible.  You can view them upside-down…

and they are faces of people!  I loved watching kids look at the still life paintings, then look down at the mirror below and see the reversed images turn into faces.

In another set of paintings, “different professions were represented by characteristic objects, a cook by kitchen utensils, a cellarer by barrels, a farmer by agricultural tools and so on,” writes the curator.  This is the court historian who wrote 50 books:

I’m wonderfully overwhelmed by the architecture of the museum building itself.  Although these pictures don’t really show it in all its magnificence, the entrance lobby has this dome with a circle cut out at the top.

When you walk up the stairs to see what’s in the heavens,

there is a dining hall.  Although I’m not usually a big fan of brunch, because of the glorious architecture and the food, it’s a new goal of mine to have brunch in the Kunsthistorisches Museum.  Unfortunately, reservations are required at least three months ahead.  Next time in Vienna….

I know, I know, it’s not June yet.  But hey.  Time to sing. 

‘I like New York in June, how about you?
I like a Gershwin tune, how about you?
I love a fireside when a storm is due.
I like potato chips, moonlight and motor trips, how about you?

Holding hands in the movie show when all the lights are low may not be new,
But I like it, how about you?’

“How About You,” music by Burton Lane and lyrics by Ralph Freed.  I first heard it in the movie The Fisher King.