Will Alsop came to Moscow to give a lecture as part of the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design summer program.
“Make sure he doesn't drink,” they tell me before the interview. “Most likely, he will swear,” I recall another parting word. Imagine a deranged architecture star talking bad language in a bar. And in vain ─ Alsop is extremely sweet and courteous, slowly sipping red wine. “Tell me about yourself,” he says. I tell you that I studied architecture, worked, and then ended up at Strelka in the Koolhaas group. “Ah, Remmy,” Alsop narrows his eyes maliciously. It turns out that he and Rem attended the famous London Architectural Association (AA) in the same years. “Will there be wine during the lecture? ─ Alsop addresses producer Katya. ─ No wine ─ no lecture!
Archi.ru:
By the way, about the Architectural Association. British architecture education is renowned for its creative focus, but where does that creative part go?
Will Alsop:
─ Well, here I am ─ I'm sitting in a bar. In general, architects are now judged by the number of buildings built, not by the quality of buildings. This is due to the desire to avoid risk. If you are a young architect, you will never get an order for a library because you haven’t built it yet. Challenging architectural norms is important, but also difficult, because if you want to stay afloat, you have to be a conformist, and it's very boring.
Why did you teach in Vienna and not in London?
─ A long time ago I taught at A. A., but then the students found out where my studio was and started hanging out around the clock. They come in at eight in the evening for five minutes and hang for an hour. So I fled to Vienna. I also have to live. Now I teach a little at Canterbury, they use me to improve the rating. But I cannot teach anything, I can only create conditions where students will have the opportunity to come to their own conclusions.
- How is your day ─ you sit in
office, meeting with the customer, painting?
─ The first rule is to never wake up before sunrise. I get up very slowly: eating breakfast, sitting in the garden, reading the newspaper or meditating.
And then go to the office?
─ No. Then I go for a swim in the pool, where there are many beautiful girls. And only after that I go to my studio. There I try not to switch to the computer, but I still start reading mail. This is very distracting, I'd rather draw or do something for the current project. And now it's lunch time. Then I do various boring things, after which I take a nap, and finally do whatever I want.
What time is it?
─ At four. I have my own bar downstairs, it opens at six, and there are many meetings and conversations with employees or with those who come to me. When you are in London, come in at six, I'm at the bar.
You're the perfect boss
─ Well, I try to give people freedom. I work on a project in parallel with them, sometimes we paint together. To be a good boss, the main thing is to pay a normal salary. Maybe not the highest on the market, but not a penny either. Of course, I am often away, and when I return, I can upset people if I don’t like the result. But you have to be honest.
Are you a good businessman?
─ Oh, I don’t know. I've had ups and downs in business, but that's okay. I liked working with Jan Stormer ─ then we had a second office in Hamburg, and very successful, but at some point I realized that Jan was not producing my architecture, so we parted. I opened my own office, but in 2005 there was a financial disaster and I had to sell it. My name was there, but it had nothing to do with me. Large companies take over small ones, and then business comes first, not architecture. And I think that business orientation is not conducive to creating a good architecture ─ it takes freedom. In general, now I have my own practice again. That is, in recent years I have gone from a complete collapse to a return to architecture.
Now your second office is in China
─ Yes, but in China you have to be very careful. Many architects from Europe and the United States work on large projects in China, but do not always receive royalties. I call this bad business. The basic rule here is that if someone orders you a project, do not start work until you receive some of the money. This is my business strategy. I understand ─ if they are not ready to transfer money, it means that their intentions are not serious, and you are simply wasting your time. But in China, if you find the right customer, you can build something interesting.
And you build?
─ Yes.
Can you build something interesting in Moscow?
─ I came to Moscow in 1992 because I was interested in a city that is going through serious changes, like Berlin, which attracts a lot of people with its energy. But it was difficult to work in Moscow, and not because of building codes, but because officials interfered in architectural decisions. But it was interesting to watch the workers pouring concrete when it is ─10 Celsius outside. In England, even at ─5, this cannot be done, and in general at temperatures below zero, but here it has to be done because of the climate. Interesting technology.
What would you do to improve Moscow?
─ I may be wrong, but I got the feeling that society is not very interested in architecture, so I would work on how to interest ordinary people.
- Gallery
The Public, your building in West Bromwich in Central England, has been criticized and is now completely closed. How did it come about?
─ We had a fantastic client ─ a lady who worked with local people in Bromwich. She had an ambition to build an art center to revitalize the local community with art. And an important task for me as an architect was also working with the townspeople ─ it is necessary to understand their needs. But the building was built with public funds, and local politicians did not like this project from the very beginning, and when funding was cut in 2008, they decided to close the art center and leave only the educational block, despite the attendance exceeding planned. Very sorry.
Do you continue to build in Britain?
─ Yes, I have three or four projects there.
You once said that Cedric Price sits on your shoulder and says something in your ear. What exactly is he saying?
- Cedric, scatter! (Alsop makes a gesture as if driving away a fly). In the evenings, I like to sit at the kitchen table, listen to music, drink wine and think about what I can do. And suddenly I hear a voice: "They are idiots!" This voice takes you back to the heart of things, because it’s very easy to go astray in the process.
It was a very small bureau [Alsop worked for Cedric Price 1973-1977 - approx. Archi.ru], and upstairs there was a room where he disappeared when he did not want to be disturbed. Perhaps he slept there. Then he went downstairs and began to speak. And I thought, "What is he talking about, what does that mean?" And I did a whole bunch of small projects that were the opposite of what he was talking about. Cedric has lived a very interesting life, full of ideas and unrealized things. His designs have influenced many architects. For example, the concept of the Fun Palace was borrowed in many respects for the Pompidou Center, although this is usually silent.
Have you influenced other architects?
─ An engineer I work with recently told me, “You are such an influence ─ you are like David Bowie.” It was very unexpected and pleasant to hear that. David Bowie did some pretty radical things at one time, and he was constantly changing direction. Some of my buildings have been copied many times, but I would like to influence not in terms of copying, but to inspire people to be themselves and not follow any chosen style. This is what I like about Rem Koolhaas - he has no style. He has his own line, but it cannot be repeated or predicted. The opposite is ─ Zaha: you already know what she will do, even before she picks up the pencil.
It is known that you made the decision to become an architect at a very young age. How did you manage it?
─ I don’t know, there were no architects in my family. Interestingly, at the age of 15 I had a book about Le Corbusier, and there was a photograph of the Marseilles "residential unit". Later I realized that he received this order in the year of my birth. Many years later I also designed quite a
a large building in Marseilles, and when it was already built, I realized that it was exactly the same size as the "residential unit". This is very strange, because I didn't mean it. It must be something in the blood.
