LF: Is architecture
democratic?
EA: Without a client who is enlightened and establishes a
high standard for approximation, you don’t have good architecture. An architect
is not enough; you need a client who establishes a high standard. That is why
committees usually fail in obtaining good buildings. Lets say architecture is
in the domain of royal democracies.
LF: Should
Architecture be democratic?
EA: Architecture has to solve a number of social problems,
so if the social problems are solved, I don’t know how that makes it more or
less democratic. I think that is a misuse of the word democratic. Democratic
means a certain minimum common denominator. Even if it were a maximum common
denominator, it is still a common denominator –the key word is common.
Therefore, if you want to create a new model for changing the present it cannot
receive the approval of the majority. It has to be a shock, it has to irritate,
it has to be rejected, it has to be resisted if it has any value of invention
contained within it. In time, if the innovation is understood, that prototype
will become a type, and, with time, the culture that turned it into a type will
turn it into a stereotype. And onward and onward. When architecture is
architecture, it is a prototype. When it is a building and you can make some
money, it is a type. If you can make lots of money, it is a stereotype. The
hack architects work with stereotypes, the professionals work with types, and
the artists make prototypes.
LF: Spider, bee, or
ant. Which is the best architect?
EA: All three are unremarkable as such. A bee that always
makes the same thing is a builder, not an architect. The spider that makes a
beautiful web is a hunter, not an architect. The ant that keeps on carrying
little leaves is an accumulator, but not an architect. Architecture means inventing
a new habitat; those three don’t.
LF: Double envelope.
Is the inside to be reflected in the outside?
EA: When I was a student I thought so. But I came to realise
that it was a surrogate for decision-making. If you don’t know what to do with the façade, you just
project the inside onto the outside. I think that the outside should be one
thing, because its outside, and the inside should be another. I am not
interested in single-minded images.
LF: Is the blob formal
excess or lack of form?
EA: The blob is a form in search of itself. It doesn’t know
what it is and so it is constantly changing. It is indecision carried through a
state of confirmation, which of course is temporary. The context gives the form
a certain meaning, then the context changes and the blob just remains there.
LF: Is architecture
hiding behind technology?
EA: Many times technology is presented as architecture. But
architecture is both techne and poiesis. If not, it is not architecture.
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The text above is an extract from the article '53 Questions, 265 Answers', by Luca Farinelli, featured in the fall 2011 edition (23) of LOG. The article is a series of interviews with identical questions posed to well known architects, including Bjarke Ingels, Peter Eisenmann, Steven Holl, and Thom Mayne, although Farinelly has interviewed many others in what is an ongoing project....
