Entrevista
com Bernard Tshumi Carlos Teixeira: What was the departing point of your classes at the AA, when presumably you were investigating the representation of movements into architectural plans? Dance as a way to subvert space, as a discipline that helped characterize the body as a fundamental element in architectural perception; as something that could introduce dirt and violence in the predictable world of architecture. How did it influence your work? Did you have any close contact with choreographers by this time? Bernard
Tschumi: Well, let me first go back one step. Very early on, I became
convinced that you could not talk about architecture without talking about
the movements within that architecture and talk about space without talking
about the movement of the body in space. CT: Do you have any interest in the investigation of Trisha Brown, for instance? Any investigation of the city and dance and, at the same time… BT: Enormous importance. You know, Trisha Brown…This coincides with the time I came to New York. I came to New York in `76 and, at the time, there was a lot of performance art, and Trisha Brown was one of them. Now one very important thing that Trisha was doing, and many dancers at the time; they were not trying to have a white box in which they would just do abstract movement. They would use their body, in order to interact and a dialogue with the space in which they were. If there were columns, they would use the columns. If there were walls, they would use the walls. These obstacles were not considered as a bad, but as a good thing. This is extremely important, not only in terms of dance, but in terms of even my own architecture practice. I am much more interested in designing buildings in places that are full of constraints, rather than design buildings in the middle of nowhere. I like the challenge of turning difficult existing situations to my own advantage in order to make it a performing art. CT: It seems that the strategy to insert new programmes in competitions were a constant in works done in the end of the eighties (Kansai, Grand Bibliothèque). Concerning the TGB, isn’t it the project where cross-programming worked as a subversive and poetic way to get to an unexpected form vis-a-vis the competition program? I say that because you said it failed in symbolic terms (in Tschumi on Architecture, 2006). Why? BT: Yeah, I would say it failed in two ways: one which is extrinsic and one which is intrinsic, one in relation to outside and one which is in relationship to the project. In relationship to the outside if you don’t win, you don’t succeed. You’re out. The other one is more interesting, really. I think I didn’t push it far enough, you see. That’s all. I think that the point I was making is everything is in interaction between the right track and the library. I should have pushed it even further. CT: You think so? Yeah. Why? BT: Because as a seeker of realism, I kept the running track, how could I say, functionally separate from the inside of the library. I knew that if I was to place it through the library with the very conservative audience I had, it would be very difficult. So I went to the edge of the library. I regret it. I should have gone further. Take it and interact. I could have xxxx, but the manifesto would have been better. So that’s all. I ... as a project which is important for me, but I would say… -- I believe you have to be self-critical about your own work to see how you can push something further. It could have been pushed a bit further. CT: There’s the plan, the O shape. Didn’t it bring a functional problem to the plan? BT: The plan, on the contrary, was praised a few years later by the president of the library, who said that amongst all the competition projects, it was the one that worked best. But, first of all, when you do architectural competition, sometimes somebody wins for reasons that has nothing to do with the project. In my case, also, it was considered as a very provocative and even… they were upset my statement that we would make a running track and the library. They thought I was making fun of them. CT: On the other hand, at Vendée Opera and Velodrome the mixed programme comes from the client. How was it, I mean, to work with programmes already mixed by the client? Was it a suggestion of yours or just a coincidental convergence of interests? BT: No, this was fascinating. This was asked by the client, and, of course, I was very excited about the idea of having a velodrome in an opera house or a velodrome in an opera house. And so, we did a very good project. It was right for us. It was exactly the type of thing I was interested in. They are complicated technically, because a velodrome has to have an absolute protection in the smoothness and the perfect smoothness of the track is obviously incompatible with this mounting and remounting and reassembling and all that. CT: It was going to be a temporary… BT: No, the condition was that they could turn it into a velodrome in eight hours with eight people. And turning that into an opera house in eight hours… and so eventually I think the job was too complex. Nobody won it, but it’s a good project. CT: Why did they have this idea to make this mixture? BT: Well,
you know there are a lot of places in the world you have means that are
enormous, and many which are limited. So I think they had a need of an
opera and they had the sports leagues; and they hoped – because
they both have a big audience – they could bring the two together
and I thought that was the general idea. CT: Architecture as the possibility of accidents; as an energy condenser; as the design of conditions for unexpected vents. In a “post-built” analysis, which of your projects would really translate this intention to bring the unforeseeable to architecture? BT: Yeah, in every project I do, I try to introduce that idea of interaction, between… within the public. Public spaces are very important for me. So often the interaction between different types of public. I started with La Vilette with a system of different rules and established mixes between different groups. In all projects I do I try to avoid to have separation, I try to bring together people through spaces which are communal spaces. Often, the spaces are not in the program and because of the way I developed the scheme, they don’t cost any money. I can make them because void – emptiness – is free. So, I satisfy all the requirements, but I also add that plus extra spatial dimension, which is a spatial encounter, it’s an unprogramed space, that does not have an already a fixed use. And I think this is extremely important. I think it’s one of our responsibilities as architects. CT: In your opinion, what are the effective unexpected uses of in-between spaces? You know, in the case of Le Fresnois, it’s not only between the buildings. It is really between the roofs of the old building and the roofs of the new building. It varies, what I call the in-between space. The space is not designed, which I conceived and made possible. But this is a space that can be used for anything the artist wants and can be very well used for exhibition for anything nowadays for restaurants and they are films and so on, and it’s a space for appropriation. People can appropriate that space, and then I added a walkway, so that you would have a way to again the idea of the movement of the body in the space, so to walk along those quite interesting spaces, because they are not designed or composed in a classical, let’s say, a credictable architectural way; they are more the design of a strategy. CT: As it is well known, you are more interested in “designing strategies”, not in designing compositions. But, especially in La Villete’s follies, do you recognize the influence of formalist architects? I am asking you that because of the freedom present in the follies and their marquees… What would be their references apart from the constructivists? Kenneth Frampton, I believe, poses Niemeyer as one of them... BT: Well, they too touch of references, and one comes from theoretical/cultural/ philosophical discussions. And I have talked often about its cultural context. Many of the discussions which have taken place around what has been then called French theory, which was related to post-structuralism, they also call it; whereby the notion of an absolute was being questioned and where you could very much discuss the idea that different thought processes had each their own logic, but you could not find an overall unified, but there was always the questioning of one belief system into another. I was very interested in that in relationship to the city, where the city is never an autonomous system. It is a different system overall. So very quickly, I became interested in the idea, we mentioned the word intertextuality, the ability to have, I am talking about space, about movement and about event. And I tried to express those three systems of events, space and movement. That’s if you want the cultural comments. Then you could see we don’t operate in a vacuum. There are always other people who have done things, clearly, when during the constructivist era, some artists or theorists, from Malevich to Kandinsky talked about point, line, plans. This was a very interesting discussion. Also I had given a project in 1976-1977 to my students, which was called Joyce’s Gardens, where I tried to find a common denominator in the attempt to go from literature into architecture and given them the point grade. And the point grade of Joyce’s Garden became the ancestor, of the point grade of La Vilette. So it’s a whole series of issues at the same time. CT: You talked about La Vilette and a tripartite concept of space/movement/event that you used as the starting point of your practice. Do you still believe it? Would you say that this and the concept of the in-between come from your years as a theoretician in the 70’s; whereas the context-concept duality you have been using lately is a theory derived from your practice (80s-present days)? BT: Yes, yes, absolutely. In the early days, the word context was not present, and yet unconsciously it was there. We talked a few minutes ago about Trisha Brown. I don’t think she would have used the word “context”. She used it in her performances in the same way as the La Vilette strategy of points, whereas a strategy that I probably would not have used in the desert, but I used it there because of all the obstacles you know, there is existing building, another highway and all that. So, intuitively, I was always interested in a sort of situationism, if you want. And it was only later that I started to realize that it was a very important part of the work. And then I started to use the words concept and content. So, I think you are right, absolutely. CT: When had you started using that kind of “realism” in the context and concept relationship? BT: I know exactly when. I started to use it soon after the important project that we are finishing now, the important project of the new Acropolis museum. There were so many constraints, that I developed a scheme. I took advantage of those constraints, again like a dancer takes advantage of the columns and the walls and the ramps. But it took me a while to realize that it was not just taking advantage. It was the starting point of the project. It was the central motivation, it was the central dynamics; and so, when I started to accept that, I looked at other projects I had done and realized that it had happened too. Not that clearly, but it was there. And so I started to look back and also to the current work how we are taking advantage of those circumstances. In other words, I’m not only playing with program and with movement, but I also play with cultural context, with geographical context, topographical ones and then all these lead to a concept. CT: And different kinds of contexts would lead to different positions regarding how respectful they would be… BT: Absolutely. And there has recently an approach that has been… of a project, and when I have another project, which has a similar program, I alter it based on the context. It is the case of the Limoge, the concert hall is based on the concept of another concert hall in Rouen, but one is made of metal and concrete, and the other one is made of translucent polycarbonate and wood. Amazingly, yesterday, I saw the work of an artist, a Japanese artist, who always does work on chairs and then if the chair is next to the train, it’s made of metal like the train. If it is in a field with grass, the chair is made of grass. It changes the material. Just the material changes, the object remains the same. CT: You mean, chairs like Woody Allen’s Zelig?! BT: Yeah, yeah, not bad! CT: We are talking about different relationships between context and concept. I dont’t know the name of the work. They are the twin towers. Maybe they departed from the World Trade Center. The towers inserted in different contexts... BT: Oh yeah, this is the project after the attack, many people worked on trying to find a new urban architectural proposal for the site. But very quickly, I started to realize that the problem was not architectural, that the problem was about interpretation and depending what if would assumption, I took three generic towers, one in the shape of a cylinder, one in the shape of a triangle, one shaped as a square. I was just being generic. And I placed them there and I said if is very different if I placed them in a concept full of American flags, or if I place it in the concept of the Sussex forest, or if I place it in the concept a plaza like in Mecca full of Muslim pilgrims; the meaning of the architecture would change. So that was continuing concept/context, I was changing the meaning. And, of course, my own cinema culture reminded me of the famous Kuleshov experiment, where, you know, I don’t need to describe it, that’s what Kuleshov does. It takes the same place and puts it in a different context.. CT: Now, the project in Toronto, the Downsview competition. I know this, but I didn’t see many publications about your entry for this park. Is it true? BT: I don’t know what has happened finally. It was a competition with very good people and I think among the competitors were Foreign Office Architects, Koolhass and Bruce Mau, who is a graphic designer, and others. I think it was a big project, but it don’t think it was ever done, I don’t know. Our project was a little special. It was a bit of a manifesto. I had always said to everybody, I would never design a park again. I had designed what I thought was the ultimate park at the time, La Vilette. So, I didn’t want to do another one. I was always asked and I always said no. And at Toronto, a friend of mine asked, so this time I could not refuse, but I’m gonna try to do something else. I’m going to take all the words off La Vilette, I’m going to try to design a reverse of La Vilette. Everything that was discontinuous in La Vilette was continuous in Downsview and so on. It’s an interesting project. CT: Given your frequent quotations of cinema and dance, have you ever had the opportunity of working together with artists, choreographers or theater directors? BT: Oh, I worked a lot with artists in the beginning, in the early days. But, when I first came to New York and also when I was in London, we were all working and all very young and we did not make much difference between us being artists and architects. It didn’t matter. And the work that I was doing, like the screenplays or the Manhattan transcripts was great. I was not thinking in terms of art or architecture. I didn’t want to make a difference. It’s really society and the concept that was market based to force us to make a difference. I remember that clearly that at one moment several galleries wanting to take me. And I had choice to go with the gallery with the artist, rather than the galleries with the architect. I much preferred the gallery with the artists. But talking to people very close to me, they said, “Watch it. The artists have a very different motivation. You are exploring architecture and they want to sell art. But you don’t want to sell your architecture, you are just doing drawings, you have another purpose.” So I decided to assume my identity as an architect, if you will. And ever since, I have been very careful and always avoided doing collaborations, because I think it has forced categories between an artist and an architect. I don’t really believe that…. These are artificial categories. I would love to… , I don’t mind working with others, but don’t put me under the hat of an architect and him or her under the hat of artists. It’s got nothing to do with that. It’s sharing a sensibility and sharing, you know, strategies. It’s not like one composes the music and the other one does the words. That’s different. CT:
I see. BT: That’s very easy. First, I lived London for six or seven years. I taught at the AA for almost ten years… and I love the AA. I thought the AA was absolutely extraordinary. The man that was running the AA, Alvin Boyarsky, was remarkable. The work of ideas that the AA had developed over was fantastic. I loved to work with people like Cedric Price and Peter Cook who were my friends... So, I had a very good time there. But, at one moment, I discovered New York and I fell in love with the city. There are two cities that I love more than anything else, Paris and New York. So, I decided to live in both cities and to organize my life in both cities. There was no more room for London, at least physically. It’s already not easy to be at two places, three wouldn’t have worked. So I organized my office in both places. When I was asked in New York to become the dean of the School of Architecture at Columbia, I thought – fantastic – even Columbia is not so big… now I can change it. I will change it. We changed the trend and in the 90s it was the most inventive school in the world in 1996. I became the dean in 1988 and I stayed to 2003. And I think during the 90s, we made the school something absolutely extraordinary. And so it shows that you can transform a school. It takes longer to transform a school then to transform a practice. Carlos… look, it’s enjoyable to talk to you. I see where you’re coming from through the questions. Now, that’s interesting. So what is your next step you want to try to do yourself? CT: At the moment I want to talk to people to enrich this discussion. (…) I have a more or less conventional practice; the works I showed you now are a sort of parallel investigation. And I believe I’ve got still more room to continue on this research. BT: So in
other words, you organize a more ????? activity and your practice. CT:
That’s right. .
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