Vladimir Belogolovsky is an architecture critic and curator of numerous exhibitions. He lives in the United States, but organizes exhibitions and publishes books all over the world, taking a special interest in the heroes of classical modernism and the personalities of "stars" architects of the early 21st century, the period of the 2000s. He manages to talk with many famous architects of the "first magnitude", we can say that Belogolovsky is a master of star portraits and monographic interviews. One book of interviews, Conversations with Architects in the Celebrity Age, was already published in 2015 by DOM Publishers. The second is currently being prepared, as well as the exhibition of "direct speech", where you can hear recent gurus, whose authority still holds, but with new trends is rapidly receding into the past. We are planning to publish interviews with Vladimir Belogolovsky - those that should then sound at the exhibition and appear in the book. This will be a special project. Translation of the interview into Russian - Anton Mizonov.
Vladimir Belogolovsky:
Your office located in the building of the former cement factory La Fabrica, built here in Barcelona, at the end XIX century, literally mesmerizing. Is this a landmark project for you? Is it already finished or are you still working on it?
Ricardo Bofill:
- No, this is even more than a landmark project - this is my home. I have lived and worked here for forty years. It is not finished and will never be finished. Architecture is generally such a thing that cannot be finished; all the time something is being finalized, improved, all the time it requires more work. We started this work with destruction, disassembly, deconstruction. As soon as I saw this structure, I immediately really liked it - it felt like no one had ever designed it. Over the years, it was completed and modified as new technologies appeared. It was like a tribute to the industry. And this plant reminded me of vernacular architecture. I was attracted by this industrial vernacularity. In addition, there were several incredible surreal places in the building - stairs and bridges leading to nowhere, arches and porticoes where you least expect to see them … It all started with the romantic idea of "bringing" nature into this industrial kingdom. Greenery is everywhere now. A whole "eco-layer" is planted on top of the former industrial complex.
I assumed that the work on the project is not yet finished, because in this transformation of the former factory into your home and office there are several eclectic moments, inspired by "brutal" industrial architecture, national Spanish tradition, as well as surrealism and postmodernism
- Yes, everything is correct, but what you call "postmodernism" in this case is rather historicism. And historicism in architecture goes chronologically earlier than postmodernism. At that time, I was living with the idea of reviving some elements of Catalan architecture, such as the elongated arched windows of medieval Barcelona. You know, every time I come home from places with a strong architectural tradition - cities in the Japanese hinterland, or somewhere in the Middle Eastern desert, or in Italy, I bring home a piece of this tradition with me, and it can be traced in my subsequent works. … These memories are very important to me.
– So you are constantly remodeling this place?
- Constantly. As you said, I am in the process of working on it - and it will never completely stop. And I really like the place itself. It is very "raw", rough and clean, there is almost nothing decorative here. This is a whole world in itself. Here, as I said, nothing was designed. When I started transforming this place, my ideal was a monastery - the perfect place to concentrate. And while working here, I have launched over a thousand other projects.
I read that you involve not only architects and designers, but also mathematicians, musicians, poets, filmmakers, philosophers, sociologists … Tell us more about this “interdisciplinary” approach to architecture
- Architecture is a professional discipline. From a fundamental and artistic point of view, architecture is about space and space-time relationships. Therefore, an architect must take into account the genius loci - the spirit of each place, its DNA. Architecture cannot simply be transferred from one place to another. The architecture must fit the place. Therefore, with the help of my interdisciplinary approach, I first of all try to invent new projects, new styles. I want to reinvent myself. I do not want to repeat myself or endlessly repeat certain forms, which some architects sin … I try to adapt to local conditions and traditions. Architecture simply has to be open to other disciplines; it cannot exist in isolation. And as all other disciplines evolve, architecture must maintain close ties to them in order to evolve on its own.
– Your father was an architect and your son is an architect. Tell us about your professional dynasty. Was your arrival in architecture inevitable for you?
“I don’t think it’s completely inevitable… But, yes, there are many families here in Catalonia with strong traditions. There are families of doctors, musicians and architects. Remember that in the past these professions were not taught in schools or universities, and that is why many professions have been passed down from generation to generation through family lines. My father was an architect and real estate developer, and it was from him that I received my first knowledge of architecture and construction. We traveled all over Spain together to study national architecture, we were in Italy, and I did my first projects with my father. I learned a lot from him by participating in projects. I have worked with both builders and local artisans; I did a lot with my own hands. I was influenced by a lot of utopian ideas, so my early work was on the verge of utopia and reality.
What was your first project?
- I was still a student, I was only eighteen, and I studied at the Faculty of Architecture at the School of Fine Arts in Geneva. My first passion was the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and Alvar Aalto. I touched organic architecture, buildings integrated with nature; buildings whose facades reflect the complexities of their internal structure, or buildings without facades at all! My first project was a small guest house in Ibiza, very organic, with thick curved walls and small windows that reflect the "spirit of the place". Then I did projects for Barcelona, France, Algeria; in central Africa, and in other places … In Russia, India, China, Japan, USA … And everywhere the architecture is different and correlated with the place. The main thing that I learned from these various experiences is that architecture cannot simply be moved from one place to another.
Let's go back to the time when you worked for your father in the early sixties and started many experimental housing projects. You said that at that time you did not like Corbusier because of his pre-programmed universal cities. You built your prototype houses like Barrio Gaudí in Reus Tarragona (1968), La Muralla Roja in Alicante (1973), and Walden-7 (1975) right here next to your office. In these projects, you turned to national Spanish architecture and
critical regionalism, right? Were these early projects of yours a reaction to modernism?
- I have always said that Corby is the same architect who “killed” the city. He didn't care about history at all. He hated the city. He wanted to divide the city, split it into zones for housing, work, trade, and so on. He thought of cities and buildings as machines. I have always held the opposite point of view. Each city is a much more complex place, conflict, contradictory and vicious place. Cities need to be repaired and healed, not destroyed and built from scratch. Cities appeared ten thousand years ago, but history did not exist for Corbusier. His manifestos were directed only to the future. But it is clear that people prefer to live in historic centers rather than in residential areas. I try to find an alternative to simplistic modernism, bringing back the spirit of the Mediterranean city.
La Muralla Roja, 1973, Ricardo Bofill Taller Arquitectura:
Tell us about Walden 7, a utopian project based on your idea of a "Space City". This modular-block housing project marked your break with the rationalists. Was it influenced by the Habitat 67 residential complex built by Moshe Safdie in Montreal?
- Moshe is my good friend, and we shared ideas, but I don't think he influenced me or I influenced him, at least not directly. I started experimenting with the idea of Space City, a modular housing project in Madrid, long before I met Safdie. He experimented mainly with technological aspects, while I was more interested in the social aspects of modular architecture.
For me, Walden 7 was a way to offer a new kind of local community with many public spaces, public and private gardens. The idea was to create clusters of residential blocks, grouped around large open yards, with great flexibility and potential for the growth and development of families, and it became a new model of social interaction. The project was designed not only for a classic family, but also for communes, childless couples, and just singles. This is how I understand modular housing. All units are constructed from square modules, allowing tenants to expand from single-module studios to multi-module apartments - both horizontally and vertically. Now, forty years later, we see how the initially very tough traditional Spanish family has evolved into many options for living together. The project was also successful because I personally supervised not only the design, but also the purchase of land, development, financing, and supervised the construction.
Talking about Walden-7 and other early experimental projects, you said that each of them was individual, because you did not want to just give out "beautiful" architecture, you wanted to experiment. Could you tell us more about this?
- I like the architecture, simple, based on natural forms, built from noble but inexpensive materials. I don't like excesses, luxury, rich shapes and expensive materials. I love the minimalistic and sensual architecture. The main thing in architecture is the process. And methodology is a key component of the creative process. There is no hard-coded method. Each project needs its own method. Some projects are based on some given idea, and some on the process itself.
But what you describe is very different from the neoclassical social housing that you built in France in the early eighties. They have a lot of luxurious, even redundant details. I'm talking about the new satellite cities of Paris and the development of Antigone in Montpellier in the south of France. Haven't you tried to achieve the feeling of rich, beautiful, luxurious places in these projects? Didn't you want to achieve some kind of perfection, to create an “ideal city” for life?
- That's what I'm talking about! Different places, different periods of my creative career gave different answers and different projects. While working on those French residential buildings, I wondered one question - why are historical cities more beautiful than modern ones? And I wanted to prove that the opposite is also possible. I experimented with the ideas of ready-made block housing and decided the question of how to provide housing for the huge number of migrants who flooded into France at that moment. While working on these projects, I visited factories and plants experimenting with finished blocks. In order for the construction of such a city to be economical, there must be many repetitive elements in the technology of its construction. I realized that the idea of repetition was by no means alien to the classical period - and with each repetition this or that element became better and better. Therefore, in the eighties, we were mainly engaged in re-inventing the lexicon of a modern city, where we tried to retell history in the language of modern technologies at that time. Classical architecture has become my main source of inspiration. Then we began to develop other areas of creating modern cities.
Do you want to say that you studied the classical vocabulary because you were not happy with your projects built in the sixties and seventies? I heard that you referred to your early projects as mistakes. Why?
- It is important that a motor always works inside you, provoking changes and, as a result, evolution. And healthy dissatisfaction with your job is a good way to keep this motor from stalling. As for my early works from the sixties and seventies, they were interesting in their own way, but when I encountered much more about On a larger urban scale, such as in France and other parts of the world, the ideas of these early projects stopped working. Again, many architects repeat themselves precisely because they are not critical enough of their work; they continue to build the same project all over the world. They develop their own style. They don't evolve. I don't like satisfied people. I prefer to be critical of myself.
Once you said that you were one of the pioneers of postmodernism. But as soon as postmodernism became an established style, it ceased to interest you. Is it so?
- Yes exactly. At that time, we did not even have a name for this movement, but, one way or another, my idea was to restore some historical elements of architecture, those traditions that were "cut off" in the twenties and thirties. Then architecture became a tabula rasa, trying to start everything from scratch. History was banned, and the whole world blindly followed Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. So our return to history was well received. But when postmodernism took place and gained popularity in the United States and around the world, it became just another style. And over time, he became ironic and even vulgar. As soon as it turned into a movement, I ceased to be interested in it.
You call your work done in the eighties "modern classicism" - as opposed to postmodernism. Why?
- Postmodernism became popular after the Venice Biennale in 1980, and for a while everyone was literally obsessed with it. But soon I realized that I was interested in modern architecture, first of all, its gravitation towards rational layouts and minimalist methods. But I was also interested in classical architecture, and I decided to combine these two interests. I was not interested in neoclassicism, the whole point of which is in transferring the academic rules of classical architecture to modern construction - it is constantly repeating itself, boredom is mortal! And I tried to combine the best of modernism and the best of classical styles. I still like classical architecture. I like the concepts of the sequence of spaces, the system of proportions, developed in her, and her striving for the ideal, even if unattainable. And most importantly, it is still the architecture of culture, opposing the barbaric architecture without rules, the architecture of chaos and destruction - deconstruction. I like architecture that brings a sense of peace and harmony. But today I try not to follow a particular style. I am not inspired by the lexicon of classical architecture - only its spirit. We introduce new technologies, eco-concepts, and bring our own story to "write" our architecture like a novelist. And I don't really like dynamic, ultra-modern spaces. I am not particularly impressed by all these diagonals, sloping or curved walls. I like simple, balanced spaces. I don't like tension …
True? But the space in which we are talking here and the entire factory reconstructed by you is beautiful precisely for its dynamism, not to mention the fact that I have not seen a single straight wall here. Wonderful place
- Yes, it is dynamic, but at the same time calm and balanced. Of course, I love dynamic architecture. I like the Baroque and Borromini, but the architecture here is very organic and controlled - there is a clear sense of scale and harmony both between the individual parts and between the parts and the whole. This is not some "jazz improvisation". The scale is especially important - not only for individual buildings, but also for cities. Francesco di Giorgio Martini, an Italian Renaissance architect, compared cities to houses: streets - corridors, squares - rooms. To this day, we, modern architects, have not come up with any serious alternative to the historic city.
Are you still an idealist? What architecture and urban planning do you envision when you think about the city of the future?
- Yes, the whole world is urbanizing at an incredible speed; here and there, out of nowhere, new megalopolises appear. But we should never forget about the qualities for which we love our old cities: compactness, loyalty to pedestrians, environmental friendliness, consistency in waste disposal, and much more. But all these tasks must be solved at the local level - there is no single global recipe.
What projects are you working on now? Can you describe your typical creative process?
- All projects are different, and I believe that each project should have its own creative process. We are currently working on many projects, taking part in the competition for the renovation of the Barcelona Football Club stadium (the conversation took place in March 2016), building a new residential building in Miami, new skyscrapers in Asia, and even whole new cities in Africa … We are also working on a new city in China. It will be a city in southern China with an area of 550 hectares with a population of seven hundred thousand people.
A huge project …
- And very difficult, as you can imagine …
But wait! It turns out that you have become a "Chinese Corbusier"?
- No, no, no (laughs). No, because our approach is fundamentally different, very recognizable, holistic and individual way of designing. And I don't design this city from start to finish. We develop a master plan, construction queues, and other elements of the construction process. I came up with the main image of the future city, but its layout has a lot of nuances. I am not offering a ready-made picture with a strictly marked typology of buildings: here is a course and direction for you, everything must correspond. No way. Barcelona is a great model for a new city. Everything here is subject to a strict master plan, but every twenty meters there is an interesting recognizable building. Urban approach and good architecture are perfectly combined here. Urbanists from all over the world come here to learn from the Barcelona experience. We have amazing variability here within a coherent sequence.
You said that you do not want to serve as an example for others, and that the main driving factor for you is a critical attitude towards your work. Where do you get your inspiration from? Do you follow the work of your contemporaries?
- Yes, I follow what is happening in the world of architecture today. We are now experiencing a moment when authors, masters of individual architecture, disappear as a class, and what we see is the architecture of global corporations and consortia, where the style and the recognizable language of the architect are increasingly difficult to distinguish. The architecture is increasingly beginning to resemble the Lego constructor - all these endless overlays of the same projects on top of each other. A lot of cross-borrowing … Of those whose work I really like, I would single out Richard Mayer.
“But if you like Richard Mayer, you must like Corbusier. If not as an urbanist, then at least as an architect
- If you look at the architecture of Corbusier, his individual buildings are very good. But if I had to choose between the houses of Corbusier and Richard Mayer, I would choose Mayer. I love Frank Gehry's architecture. I love Zaha Hadid's early designs and her first sketches. What I don't quite like about her work is her frequent self-repetition; most of her projects are similar to one another. I follow what Bjarke Ingels is doing, but there we have to wait until most of his projects are implemented. In general, now we are dealing with a period of diversity and at the same time - some confusion in architecture. And it's a pity that we are losing strong, prominent architects and architecture that speaks of its place. Too many repetitions and too much corporate product, which creates a collage effect.
In the sixties and seventies, there was an irreconcilable confrontation between the new generation of architects and the modernist ideas of Corbusier, Gropius, Mies, and other recognized masters. Who do you think won that battle, and is this confrontation relevant today? After all, you said that unprecedented confusion and confusion reign in the world of architecture today. It is not unusual for the younger generation of architects to rebel against the old, but today we have an “all versus all” situation. There are so many voices and everyone wants to be heard
- Yes, many architects are fighting with each other, but this is not about us. We are friends with everyone (laughs). Architecture has become a very competitive profession. Independent thinking is lost. Ideology is giving way to customer requirements. Replaced by fashion and the star system. It's not easy for young architects today. But we need to change focus. Focus on urbanism, urban planning. There are already a lot of interesting and noticeable architectural objects. But in order to get a city that is comfortable to live in, it is not enough to put all these beautiful objects together. This is a new challenge - to offer a new urbanism in and understanding, and at the same time take into account the relationship of architecture to nature and climate change.
It seems that now we have more problems and questions than in the sixties
- I agree.
