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ORIS 108 MAGAZINE FOR ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE OF LIVING

Magazine for Architecture and Culture Oris has been continuously published since 1999 as a Croatian-English edition in bimonthly rhythm.

ORIS 108 MAGAZINE FOR ARCHITECTURE AND CULTURE OF LIVING

It is in the eld of mediation of architecture where the format of the interview proves to be particularly appropriate as the most original and the most immediate commentary on image and planning documentation. Of course, it requires thorough preparation: the study of available literature, videos, data from electronic media and the like. Then, one needs to make a script of the conversation containing questions, which should not be simple and short, but a smaller text unit that will enable the dialogue and maybe give it momentum. However, all of this is only the backbone around which the fullness of dialogue will develop, perhaps in a completely different way than the one envisaged. Therefore, during the interview, a maximum concentration and a quick associative response are needed to make the interview itself successful. It is also important to suppress some kind of a stage-fright when talking to authors who are building our world, because the interview is also a kind of theatre whose most commonly known stage is the studio of the architect, but also a public place such as a café or a restaurant, as well as a private apartment. And with all the necessary engagement, I am convinced that a quality interview is a valuable experience, even more so if it is possible to share it with many. ¶ When you live there, you know where the river is, why dogs bark, why you feel the woods. You know the signs of the context, so you do not have to look at them. With these words, infused by entirely personal sensibility, Smiljan Radić describes the atmosphere in his, towards the outside almost completely closed House for the Poem of the Right Angle. For him, it represents a refuge in the sense of the Endless House of Frederick Kiesler, one of his heroes, about whom he spoke to me in a conversation in a pub in London’s Chelsea neighbourhood. Such sincere, lyrical words are happy moments that are not too frequent, and are only possible if the interviewed architect, visual or lm artist is ready to open completely, not to represent their work but to interpret it. ¶ It was precisely what Smiljan Radić did. The duration of the conversation was indeed limited, as the artist had to a end an opening and reception, and the purpose of his stay in London was the mov- ing of the Serpentine Pavilion to the garden of a gallery in Somerset. We took this opportunity for a brief encounter, which, however, lasted much longer than the real time of a conversation–longer because of the incredible richness of reflection, metaphors and references which Smiljan gave me (us) on that occasion. ¶ I would like to recall certain moments of some of the interviews published in Oris. In the already mentioned London interview, Smiljan Radić, in the sense of the old Loos’ dilemma, speaks of his approach to architecture: You always have only one artistic concept, you cannot have more of them, at least I cannot, and further, the boundaries of art and architecture are neither quite clear nor relevant. For Radić every process must be associated with the atmosphere you want to create… it’s more about atmospheres than about forms. ¶ On the second trip to London, to interview Norman Foster, I did not go alone, but in the company of Oris’ team, Andrija Rusan and Mira Stanić. A er all, it was a long and care- fully prepared meeting with a planetary famous architect who was almost permanently moving between the remote destinations of his construction sites. Of course, before the conversation, we saw his projects in the city center, such as the British Museum, Millennium Bridge, and the London City Hall, to refresh the impressions and to be er prepare for a conversation in his o ce–a new glazed building on the banks of the River Thames in southern London. We were received by three secretaries of different ranks, until we finally came to our esteemed interlocutor. However, Sir Norman proved to be a kind, spirited, and above all a concentrated and serious inter- locutor. Nevertheless, in the end he told us a merry anecdote: at his lecture in Jerusalem, Marina Abramović presented him with a cap with a multitude of li le horns, describing it as cosy, since he, being British, certainly drinks tea. Foster showed his sense of humor–he held the lecture keeping Marina’s object on his head. ¶ During the conversation, we might have been surprised when one of the most prominent protagonists of high-tech architecture said: Technology is a means to an end and not the end itself… The progress of human society is a story of technology. Sir Norman does not agree to compromises: limitations are the essence of architecture; it does not exist without limitations. It is the very essence, the driving force of architecture. He believes that architecture has the power to break barriers, to improve the quality of life, and that the key social dimension of architecture is also a sense of place. ¶ For a conversation with the respected Spanish master Rafael Moneo, the recommendation was the Oris magazine itself and its publication Testing Reality, which Andrija Rusan and I brought him when we visited his home in Madrid, a relatively modest family house from the period of Modernism, in the residential part of the city. It was there where the interview later took place, in the interiors equipped with modernist furniture, without any aspiration to representativeness. It was the interior of an intellectual, in which the main actor was an extensive library with a few photographs on the shelves, per- haps taken during the Pritzker Prize ceremony. The cheerful and friendly host served us coffee, clearly, in the Finnish Arabia cups. The interview itself was a very pleasant, but also demanding conversation. Mr. Moneo was completely devoted to the conversation, his reactions to our expositions were concentrated, and his answers, we could say without exaggeration, anthological. ¶ Like Norman Foster, Rafael Moneo also spoke about the meaning of place: I see my work as very dependent on the placement of the building into the context of the city, but I also see the city itself as collective works over time, and further, The buildings open and increase the perception of the context. They open up and increase understanding and extend the possible interpretation of a specific location. Moneo sees architecture integrated into the whole of history: Buildings are not self-contained objects and cannot be considered isolated beings. The same way of thinking can be applied to culture and history. If you think in such a way, you accept the continuity through history. When the conversation came to perhaps one of the most impressive author’s works, the National Museum of Roman Art in Mérida, a very interest- ing moment occurred as the interlocutor Maroje Mrduljaš asked a question about the labyrinthine character of the museum, which prompted the architect to see his work in a new light: I would say that I now feel closer to the sensibility of the labyrinth […] the interior of the labyrinth has to do with Ronchamp and the sense of mysterious space. In the end, it is the darkness in which the souls of mankind rest in these consecrated spaces. The teacher of today’s successful generations of Spanish architects told us about his understanding of architectural culture: The architecture I aspire to does not want to ignore the context in which it is done, and does not want to ignore the fact that what you are doing now can be considered one phase of the whole event, both in the physical world and in that cultural sense of the wider vision of the present and the past. ¶ To an entirely different context and generation belongs Christian Kerez, an avant-garde Swiss architect, who, by methods close to mathematical science, achieves an entirely personal poetics. In his atelier in Zurich, full of precise constructivist models, we talked, among other things, about the great European novel, The Man Without Qualities, in which rational comprehension of the world leads inevitably to irrationality. Kerez also seeks a system that would explain the world around him: What I am interested in is finding an open and fragile system that at the same time represents a big window to the world, by no means the kind of reservation to which it is possible to retreat, where everything is nicely and neatly reconciled. On the contrary, contradictions form the world as in a Mondrian’s painting where things face each other in a sharp and principled way, because it is only thus that true harmony can be created. ¶ Precise wordings, ready for printing, as Christian Kerez expresses them, are not quite common. O en an extensive proofreading, shortening, maybe re-editing is needed, a er which, of course, follows the authorisation by the interlocutor. However, the most arduous, the most tedious part of the work related to an interview is the transcribing. For my rst interviews in the second half of the 1980s, for the Man and Space magazine, I had to make the transcripts too. I particularly remember certain conversations, for example, an interview with Rob Krier, a big star then, in the era of Postmodernism. He condemned the banalization of the ideas of the heroes of Modernism on the part of the construction industry, and was convinced that, by introducing classical elements, he would restore dignity to architecture. In a completely different position–radical and avant-garde–stood Coop Himmelb(l)au, the architects Prix and Swiczinsky. At the time of my first interview with them, in the then modest studio located in a large apartment of a neoclassical building in the first district of Vienna, they had barely built anything. But, they had already created installations and facilities such as the Heart City or Villa Rosa, and had also released a gorgeous, revolutionary manifesto, Architecture Must Blaze. Later, it all changed a lot–Prix became a prototype of the starchitect. At a time when foreign magazines were not readily available in Croatia, and there was still no trace of the Internet, these interviews surely opened some windows, and certainly had rami cations. One interview, particularly dear to me, and of a completely different type, also had ramifications–a conversation with the Viennese architect and urbanist Leopold Redl. He based urban planning on sociological studies, and in doing so, he advocated niches where also those less privileged can survive in a dignified way. ¶ I consider it a great privilege that I was able not only to closely follow changes in architecture, but also to get acquainted, clearly in terms of profession, with many extremely diverse, but certainly interesting and striking personalities, and, in addition, most o en to experience their architecture in situ. So, I can still see in front of me the walk with my colleagues along the ocean shore in Matosinhos near Porto, the birthplace of Álvaro Siza. The path led us from its amazing bathing place at the ocean to his first work– the Casa del Te restaurant–which nestled like a bird’s nest between the rocks, so that the ocean waves almost washed it. It is one of those magical places that everyone would want to return to, and again feel gratitude to its creator.

ON THE VALUE OF CONVERSATION
VERA GRIMMER
Pags: 19-24

BUILDING AS EDUCATION. DIÉBÉDO FRANCIS KÉRÉ
INTERVIEWED BY TOMISLAV PAVELIĆ, MIA ROTH ČERINA
Pags: 25-48

RULES FOR NEW FRONTIERS. MENOS É MAIS
INTERVIEWED BY BÁRBARA RANGEL
Pags: 49-70

ARCHITECTURE AS THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE. DAVOR MATEKOVIĆ
INTERVIEWED BY MAROJE MRDULJAŠ
Pags: 71-92

MANIPULATING SOUR REALITIES. BERNARD KHOURY
INTERVIEWED BY DINKO PERAČIĆ, MIRA STANIĆ
Pags: 97-116

ORNAMENT AND IDENTITY. WILLEM JAN NEUTELINGS
INTERVIEWED BY VERA GRIMMER, KRUNOSLAV IVANIŠIN
Pags: 117-138

THE ARCHITECT OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. DINKO KOVAČIĆ
INTERVIEWED BY ANTE NIKŠA BILIĆ, VERA GRIMMER
Pags: 141-160

I HAVE NEVER HAD HOPES, ONLY WISHES. IVAN ŠTRAUS
INTERVIEWED BY MAROJE MRDULJAŠ, ELŠA TURKUŠIĆ JURIĆ
Pags: 161-176

STRUCTURING THE LIVING SPACE. UMBERTO BONOMO, SEBASTIÁN
INTERVIEWED BY IRARRÁZAVAL, RICARDO BEZANILLA
Pags: 177-190

DATA RECOVERY. DALIBOR MARTINIS
INTERVIEWED BY MARKO GOLUB, ŽELJKO LUKETIĆ
Pags: 191-208

LIGHT AND DARKNESS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
MATKO TREBOTIĆ
Pags: 209-226

BIOGRAPHIES
Pags: 227-235