INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT ADRIAN ARENDT

Adrian:​ I find the project and theme to be very interesting. I do not know the building,
however it doesn’t matter. Now from the point of view of the approach of the project, there
needs to be a separation between the concept itself and the conceptual approach. At a
certain moment, there is a complete separation between the physical realisation of the
project because not always does the concept transpire in the end result. That can be a good
thing, as it doesn’t have to be very obvious anyway, especially as what you are proposing is
within the sphere of an art installation and there, usually it is a small text in the vernissage
where people read. From this point of view, the approach is strictly personal, which is both
interesting as well as leaving space for interpretation as such a dematerialisation can
manifest into places and things that may trigger different things. Now, when I say things, I
am not talking about the banal, simply the word “things”, but refers to an entire category of
matters that may trigger from memories, feelings, experiences to issues belonging to the
unconscious and subconscious realm. More than a theory of architecture, in which we as
architects, tend to project a lot solely for us. We are a profession with a particularly big ego.
I think this is one of the biggest challenges of architectural practice is the designer's ego, as
we tend as a profession to have very big egos that translate into doing things the way that
we think people will like them, but also the way that ​we​ like them. So in a way, we try to
create spaces. And there is a huge difference between place and space, but I will not get
into that now. But say we try to create spaces that belong to a certain paradigm of thinking
and not necessarily often, normal people (and i don’t mean “normal” as a bad word, but let’s
say people that were not prepared in this field of theory of architecture and conceptual
thinking about arts and matter). Those people will definitely not think of those spaces, you
know, just to compare it to some very deep concept or whatever.
But, there is the other side of the coin. What i’m trying to say is that the more I think of your
project, the more I think of theories of architecture that basically rejected exactly what I just
said.
These theories think of architecture as more than just a physical space, and therefore there
are other forces at play other than, you know, the concept of an architect or an architectural
era, in terms of design or how a space should look like, or how a space should be used. And
in this sense, I strongly advise you to go and visit or revisit some of the guys that work with
phenomenology. Because phenomenology deals with exactly those kinds of forces that
come into play and make a space special, so that the space itself becomes a place.
To me that’s very important. It’s when, what we call as architects, “the character of a space”
or “the quality of the space” comes into place.

So there are two sides to this discussion. One is the ,let’s say in short, geometrical aspect of
it. Walls and windows and staircases and so on, and so forth. On the other hand, we have
the opportunities. ​That ​is unmeasurable. Opportunities for functions. Of course, any space
can be turned into something else. That’s a different story. But the elements that are hard to
measure, I think, are the ones that give a space its qualities, because we, as architects, try
to deliver spaces but at the root of it all, we try to deliver forms. Now on the subject of forms,
of course, there is a strong paradigm that was used and is still used, not necessarily in the
right way, that form follows function. And it’s been around for more than a hundred years but
I don’t actually believe in that, in a sense. Because even as we speak, we tend to
conceptualise things, and in order to use a certain concept (and that’s a very vague word)
we need to have a proper understanding in how we understand (we as individuals) every
single aspect of it. Even if we talk about a space or the quality of a space or a general
concept. There is actually a saying, from a guy called Ludwig Wittgenstein, and what he said
is that the meaning of a word is in its use. So in other words, a word can become whatever
we want it to become. But then there is Patrik Schumacher, the leading architect of Zaha
Hadid today. He not only leads the office but he also leads the theoretical practice of their
office and he travels around the world and discusses and has different conferences and so
on. I met him a couple of times and we debated upon the many aspects of this controversy
in architecture today. So going further than what Wittgenstein said, Schumacher considers
that the meaning of a space is in its use. So to go a little further closer to your subject, what I
mean by “the meaning”. The meaning is more than just the literal grammatical sense of the
word. It means the whole embodiment of policies that can trigger something. Now
“something” as i said before, can mean, and of course there is the simple word, but in
architecture something means the potential, something is the opportunity. And this is what
we are striving for in architecture, we as designers, what separates us from the structural
engineers is the poetic of it all. Because Schumacher for instance has a series of very
important books called “Autopoiesis of architecture” and he studies a lot of nonsense, in a
way, but it can become sense. So, I would see it as the opposite of nonsense for you, you as
an individual, not you per se. “​For you”​ meaning that little bits of information can trigger a
very powerful effect in people, so it can go down to as simple as a scent, a smell. Every era
has its own style of architecture, has its own materials,and has its own textures. Even if they
transcend to another era, but it owns even little things, such as smells. There are certain
perfumes that you know just go on, and on, and on, after decades whatever. And that goes
into what the theory of architecture calls semiology. This has a very strong link between the
word that is significant and what is signified. That’s why I said the meaning of a word is in its
use. It's that over time, the little pieces of things, of architecture can get to trigger something
else.
In other words if you put up, for instance, a photo of a window from that era and you
would’ve shown it to the guys in that era, perhaps it wouldn’t have meant anything to them
because it’s their natural environment. While for us today, that’s a piece of history, a piece of
time, and that is also why if we recognise something today it means that it has a powerful
significance or a powerful characteristic. Either way, the architect did a great job.
And that’s what we are striving for today, we hope not only to make spaces and places for
people to use, but we try to give them poetry. Now poetry is something very personal. It can
mean that people, even if they are to read poetry in words. The poetry itself as an art, like
any form of art, goes through the test of people’s background and people’s education, where
you've traveled, where you’ve been. Little bits and pieces of information, even if they are
photographs or pieces of the building itself (not sure if it’s possible), but when we see the top
of a greek column, everyone recognises it. Even if they haven't had any theoretical
background in architecture. People see that. That is significant. What I meant is that the
image is so strong that people recognise it even if they haven’t seen one ever, in their whole
life. Even if they don’t know it’s from Greece. But will know “Well that's a temple! Cause I've
seen it in some images and whatever”. And that’s a collective memory.
Collective memory is something very interesting, because the buildings tend to create that.
So individual memory is something, and collective memory is something else. Because
when you have a building and you walk by it everyday, especially as a child, if you have a
building on your street and you go by it everyday, you will remember it for the rest of your
life. Even if it's not a large one, like a big building, that’s still a landmark. For all of us we
remember houses and buildings since when we were very small. From when we were
children and we were playing in the yard, we remember the windows, the color of the roof, or
whatever, the shape of the roof and that is a very important aspect of the collective memory.
There was this guy Gaston Bachelard, he started a philosophy of such aspects, meaning
that, as I said before, phenomenology is hugely important in this field of collective memory
but also in how people interact and translate the experience.
I think “experience” could be a very important word for your project. I believe in trigger words
for your project and/or conceptual thinking. There is also a book called Metabolism.
Dictionary of advanced architecture, by some spanish architects and what they did is
incorporate concepts based on words. It is a book that I highly recommend to have and it’s
very interesting.

Ana-Maria​: Do you think those memories that we attach ourselves to, influence the way we
experience architecture in the present? As in the triggers, materials, smells that you have
already associated with other spaces in the past, if they influence the experience you have
over in a new space that is made up of those triggers.

Adrian​: Of course there are. I think we are highly influenced in how we see and think by our
background. There is also a very interesting debate of how these things overlap. I will try to
send you an image, because I think that it is very relevant.
That’s exactly how a person sees or interprets what they see or experience. Depending on
your knowledge, background, education, and so on, and so forth, something can look to you
as a piece of art, while to another as a piece of rubbish. So that’s both interesting and true,
because depending on your background and on your understanding of things, you can have
a better experience of a space and vice versa. Also, I was talking about Bachelard. He says
that a space that is perceived by imagination cannot just remain at the level of geometry.
That sounds very deep in a way, but what he means is that it must be experienced, and not
just be a space with dimensions and heights and widths and whatever, as that is just
structure, or built environment, but what the built environment can trigger is experience. And,
as said before, I think experience is a very important word for your project, as experience
means that a certain proportion of spaces can give you a certain sensation. A certain texture
can give a certain sensation, a certain experience can give you a certain sensation and so
on and so forth. Hence, pieces of that building can not only trigger your own reaction to it,
but might as well do what you said, that you can experience the memory of something you
have never experienced. Which is very poetic in its sense. It’s very conceptual in a way and I
like what it means. What I mean to say is that place and event (event as in experience),
means so much more than space and time, because what you get out of space and time is
the actual moment of experience. To be more exact, the level of experience depends a lot
on the person and also the moment itself. The experience itself is separated from space and
time. It happens here and it happens now, but Ii won’t remember the here and now, I will
remember the experience. You know what I mean? That’s very important, that was also
done by (and I will complete the sentence with more meaning) some people in the 20th
century:
- Aldo van Eyck. He is a dutch architect, very important to the structuralist movement.
He developed this idea that the place and event means so much more than space in
time. Space in time can be measured, event and experience cannot be measured
and that is highly poetical but also highly deep in terms of significance.
- Approximately at the same lifespan as Aldo van Eyck, there was also a norwegian
guy, Christian Norberg-Schulz. What he talked about was something called Genius
loci, towards the phenomenology of architecture. And he had a very important book
that dealt with this phenomenology of architecture.

Genius loci means, in short, the possibility of a territory. Territory means, let's say, the rough
area on which you develop a project of architecture. So for the building that you’re using
right now, that’s already been built and demolished, so what’s remained after the demolition,
of course, archival things, such as photos or maybe materials and stuff from the building, but
also there’s the archive of general memory of people’s remembrance of it and that’s
something that’s intangible and unmeasurable but also very poetic in itself. For example,
right now, we are doing a project in a highly sensitive area that includes a very old high
school of the jewish community, and of course, the architectural quality of it is not so high, so
if possible we would demolish it with the first chance, but it seems that people there are so
highly related to this building and it is so personal to them, that if we were to demolish it, it
would be like a revolution I think. We’ve done this in other projects as well. For instance,
we’ve taken an existing building, taken off it’s roof and built on top of that something that we
like, I mean, everything that we design of course we like, that is subjective. But it doesn't
really matter, what I'm trying to say is that we silk printed the roof shape on the facade of an
office building that we did. It’s a mix of residential and offices, and it had a curtain wall, and
on that we silk printed that shape of the roof. And that meant so much to the neighbourhood,
because people were actually remembering the shape. If you ask them they wouldn’t be able
to draw it of course, but they would for sure recognise it in pictures.
So collective memory is something that is very interesting to play with, because it's not only
about your memory about the thing that you see, but it's also about the memories that are
triggered by what you see, and you remember something from the past just as you, for
instance, link some people that you meet today, and somehow, at some level, they resemble
somebody that you used to know and that is very personal. It's something that is hard to
argue upon, you know? Why would that remind you of whatever thing, it’s very personal. So
in this sense, I think that the collective memory, as personal as it is, is also very like a land of
opportunities for a designer, for an archive.
You’re designing an installation, let's say an art exhibition. That’s your opportunity to play, it’s
like you would play with the mind of people and that’s a very interesting thing to play with.
Also , Aldo van Eyck, he’s so related to your project that I would invest some time in him
because there is also a very interesting thing to say.
He said the “places that we remember (so therefore the places that we have seen or been or
experienced or whatever) and the places that we anticipate (so we haven’t met them) are
interlinked in parts of now.” As in today, as in the middle between past and future. That’s
very poetic. It means that the memory and the anticipation give you the real perspective
upon a space, but also give them a certain depth and leave the opportunity for things to be
discovered. What I was saying before about this guy, like 1 min ago. Let’s say, more or less,
what he says is that the past (so the memory) and the future that i haven’t experienced yet
are intertwined now, today. What that means is that I experience something today that I can
judge​ based​ on my past experience, based on my knowledge, education and so on but what
it also does, it is a new thing. Every time I experience something, no matter how similar it is
to something else, especially in architecture, there is always something new in that
experience. So what it does, is create the new which is the background for the future
experience. You know what I mean? I will say it in other words. The way you will judge
things in the future is created today, everyday, because you will judge things based on your
past experience, but there are things that you experience today that are new, but it’s only
new today because you experience them today, so tomorrow they will become the reference
based on which you will judge further, more new experiences. That is the collective memory
of tomorrow. The collective memory of tomorrow is done today. It’s not in the past, it’s today,
because today brings to the table the past, because you represent as an individual. I cannot
stress enough how important it is that we as individuals, even as designers, see things
different based upon memory as a value concept. Memory, as in whatever is in our head, but
memory can be a paste. For example the japanese guys, when they build with bamboo
sticks, to us, as western designers, whatever, to us it’s just a piece of wood, to them is a
piece of wood in which their grandmother used to cook. What i meant is that the collective
memory of some might be very different from an area to another, from a person to another,
from a group of people to another group of people. What I was saying is that what to you is
just a piece of wood, to another guy it can trigger the memory of their grandmother cooking
rice. That is highly personal, he may not put that in so many words in his project but he will
be linked to that particular item, so you see, in this sense , little elements can have a strong
effect on people. And that’s what we are hoping to create as architects. So to conclude, I
think the thing with van Eyck with the places that we remember and the things that we
anticipate, is highly related to your project. I think the collective memory of tomorrow is done
today, that is also poetic, but also very exposed, very pragmatic and I think that’s what
you’re trying to achieve in your project. To trigger feelings and emotions and memories, but
also, as I said before, the memory of tomorrow is done today, just as the memory of today is
done in the past, so in other words, the past is linked to your future today.