Christian de Portzamparc:
-… I would like to show you my new book, which came out this year.
It is about the history of the development of a number of selected projects, developed and explained through drawings. Actually, the entire book is devoted to the controversial matter of graphics. In the sixties and seventies we competed in drawing. It came from our Paris École des Beaux-Arts, where the drawing was appreciated in itself. However, according to modernist teaching, drawing was perceived with some caution, in the sense that the very quality of the drawing could be all-consuming and seductive. I thought with a drawing. My thoughts always followed the drawing hand.
Vladimir Belogolovsky:
That is, drawing is a subconscious process for you?
“Perhaps… it is not directly related to thinking and explaining ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….”
Is there a consistent connection between your projects from one to another? Do you see your work as a kind of continuum?
- Of course. I am always attracted to something new, but about things that are interesting to me, I think constantly. And when I work on new projects, I often notice that I am dealing with a problem that I was trying to solve five or ten years ago. Some ideas and connections come up over and over again.
What aroused your first interest in architecture?
- When I was 15 years old, I discovered Le Corbusier's drawings and designs. I was impressed by his free style of drawing and, above all, by the images of Chandigarh. I have done drawing and painting before, but I did not imagine that drawing can be a place, that it can become something real; something where people can live or work. I was also impressed by the city, in particular the city of Rennes in Brittany, where I lived and saw it: new, white, rational buildings come as a new concept of the city, fighting the old one. It was a battle between the old and the new, as in the famous project of Le Corbusier in 1922 “La ville sans lieu” for three million inhabitants, the name of which literally translates as “City without a place”.
Have you rebelled against this radically new vision?
“Not at all, not then. It only started in 1966, when, while living in New York, I began working with sociologists and learning how city residents respond to such urban change.
I read that in the 1960s you were interested in inventing new districts and the idea of sequences, as well as the relationship between the city and the cinema - the city as a "script." Could you tell us more about this?
- If you remember the time when I lived in New York - then I was inspired by the ideas of new perfect cities, but I realized that dreams of the future are not necessarily associated with the erasure of the past, which was Le Corbusier's motto. I was inspired by the images of the new city in the films by Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni, filmed at that time; they idealized the impeccably geometric suburbs of Milan, Paris and Rome. Of course, these beautiful films revealed the idea of perception in motion, but they also made me realize that the past of historic cities could eventually be erased. In the sixties, here in Paris, there was an effort to widen roads for cars and make space for new housing. Fought the traditional street; but the idea of the street has existed for many millennia and is stronger than us.
In 1966, you felt that "architecture itself is dry and detached from real life in the city." And in 1967 you decided to leave architecture altogether. You were only 23 then. What happened and what made you stay?
- By 1967, I had already lived in New York for a couple of years. There I plunged into artistic life: painting, music, theater; I read a lot and thought about becoming either an artist or a writer. It was a time when I wanted to experiment with possibilities. I got to know
Paul Rudolph, but instead of working for him, I chose to work as a bartender on 57th Street, which was often visited by many interesting people, such as Jackie Kennedy. I worked part-time while making more money than I could earn as a draftsman in the office, so I could enjoy life in the city and meet all kinds of creative people. My interest in architecture was revived through my fascination with politics and sociology, and through my attitude towards people who are unhappy among the crowds in the suburbs and in their own claustrophobic apartments. I realized that no one except an architect can solve the problems of a modern city.
In other words, you realized that architecture can be something b about more than an object
- Quite right, but not only that. When I arrived in New York in 1965, I thought that architects were outdated. I thought the city of the future would be designed by sociologists and computers. Homes will be merged with factories, people will buy whatever they want, and sociologists will manage it all. Why then architects? All this could become a single life cycle, as Arcigram and the metabolists imagined it. That is why I lost interest in architecture then. I didn't want to be the engineer putting all these plug-in-cities together. But then I realized that space is a problem of perception, close to conceptual art, which I was also interested in. So all my work is related to this approach. I realized that the idea of space is critical in a new world where the street has disappeared and cars are everywhere and people feel lost.
“When you received the Pritzker Prize in 1994, the jury’s decision said,“Every architect seeking recognition must, in some sense, reinvent architecture.” Is this what you strive for? Is your work about reinventing architecture, or is it getting harder?
- Let's go back to the beginning of my career. From 1966 to 1971, and even for several years after leaving school, I continued to search and constantly asked myself the question - what is architecture for? And I think that an architect who does not ask himself this question is an uninteresting architect. You need to understand why you are doing what you are doing and how useful it is. What makes you passionate artistically or sociologically. Once you understand this, you have a chance to be understood by others. I think that in the early seventies I understood why and how I want to do this.
You felt that you can bring your own personal look
- Yes. But then I didn't think I had a personal view; I had an idea of how to make the space modern, how to integrate the new with the old, how to improve the existing city. In the past, architecture was concerned with the shape of a freestanding building and how those buildings were lined up along a street or around a square. In 1975, in a competition project for a residential complex on Baudricourt Street, I proposed not one building, as my competitors did, but seven. They surrounded the void, turned into footpaths and small squares. Generally speaking, I have always considered space to be emptiness. Talking about my projects, I often used the words space and emptiness - and I was always asked: "what is this idea of emptiness?" Years later, I discovered the famous saying of Lao Tzu: “My home is not the floor. These are not walls. This is not a roof. This is the void between all these elements, because this is where I breathe and live. " When I read this phrase, everyone agreed with me. They recognized this not so much as a definition, but as a personal experience.
This concept of emptiness and the perception of the street are important. It was this concept that Le Corbusier rejected. Even in his monastery of La Tourette, he did not make a traditional courtyard-cloister in the center, instead creating a system of asymmetrically intersecting galleries. For him, architecture was a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Modernism for him was like Christianity for St. Paul. There was no room for tolerance for anything that was the opposite. But I realized that we should be modern, but not obsessed about this. Modernism is a disintegration within something larger, something that has roots and traditions.
In one of your interviews you said that "you see a fundamental evolution in which individual self-expression comes to the fore in spite of collectivism." Do you still think so? Don't you think that our society encourages individuality less and less? Would you agree that the voices of architects are getting weaker, that they are less and less distinguishable?
- I think both approaches are possible. It is difficult to create a whole area from very expressive independent buildings - you get something like a zoo from different animals. But in the composition of the street front, very different materials and geometric solutions can compete with each other, creating interesting tensions and contrasts. I think this drive for individual expression was revived when modernism was no longer the only model, and with the establishment of the Pritzker Prize in 1978. It was intended to encourage creativity and also to look at the architect, to honor the architect as an author.
But even before Pritzker, Venturi, in his book "Complexities and Contradictions in Architecture", first criticized the model of puritanical, almost religious obedience in modernism - in 1966
- Quite right. Moreover, Pritzker could not have existed in the forties or fifties. Both Venturi and Pritzker opened a new era in architecture, an era when architects began to question absolutely everything. This was a new round of evolution, different from the architecture of Corbusier and Aalto. Coming back to my apartment complex on rue Baudricourt, I felt the need to retreat from impersonal architecture through many different types of windows and balconies. I felt that it was important for people to be able to identify their place within the complex. It was a breakthrough.
My teacher Georges Kandilis told me - if you design a residential area, you must create exactly the same conditions for everyone. Equality was the main goal. Yes, equality is an idealistic category, but when you study architecture and urbanism, you understand that looking at things from the perspective of equality, you destroy everything. Equality destroys everything, because east and west are different from north and south. You have to convey a variety of qualities - for example, more gardens or open space, and so on. Only by imbuing with the specifics of the place and studying all the variety of its properties, you can make it richer and more original.
Housing is not an industrial product. So in my complex there were many types of apartments and outside, from the street you could see that they are different. This approach reflects the diversity of our society. 1968 marked the beginning of the growing recognition of the individual. The forces of politics and marketing have helped diversify the reality and complexity of the world. The architecture had to meet new trends. And do not forget that computers appeared exactly when they were needed. Several different types of windows in my first residential project were a challenge for a contractor, and 10-15 years later I could afford as many options as I wanted; it was no longer a challenge. And now almost anything is possible!
What words would you choose to describe your architecture?
- Initiative, openness, openness in various forms, open quarters, delicacy, pacification, continuity, attention to the peculiarities of the place, happiness, individuality.
You mentioned the Pritzker Prize. Ironically, now Pritzker no longer awards his coveted award to architects with individual character
- Yes. But I don’t want to say that the award only follows fashion. We all share concerns about the planet's ecology, and about budget funds that are everywhere in short supply. In terms of my job, my primary concern is how to fix our cities, while at the same time giving them the opportunity to develop. How to make them accessible and livable for everyone. You will say - how can I talk about all these problems, continuing to work with the architecture of pleasure, beautiful facades and forms -
the Dior store in Seoul or the fantastic opera houses in Suzhou and Shanghai? But I don't see any conflict in combining the two tasks. We continue to work on affordable housing here in Paris. By the way, we are losing money on these projects, but I'm still trying.
Looking at your sometimes very abstract drawings and paintings, I try to understand the sequence of the process - how does the image crystallize?
- Some paintings are not directly related to certain projects. They may just be the same period. For example, when I was working on"
City of Music”, I created many very abstract sketches, in which multicolored forms touched each other only at one point. But often my painting has nothing to do with my buildings. The connection is indirect.
You said: “The meaning of the existence of architecture cannot be found in language. While working on a project, I think about the concepts of space, image, distance, light and shadow. As an architect, I work in the realm of thinking inaccessible through language. I think directly in forms and images. " Where does your process begin?
- All this is true, but a little exaggerated. When I paint or paint a picture, I do not think rationally. I am not trying to explain my movements and preferences in common phrases. So I said that language alone cannot explain the process or origins of design. Not everything can be explained, and sometimes it's best not to try. But when I involve my team in interacting with my ideas and working on projects, the language becomes important. Architecture cannot be reduced to words, because language is about communication, and space is a primitive, ancient and archaic way of connecting with the world and expressing how we see it. We are space-conscious beings - we are aware of the space around us. If we find ourselves in special spaces, we remember them; we think about how to avoid danger, and so on.
We live in three different eras - the industrial era of cars, airplanes, elevators, speed; we also live in cyberspace with computers, internet, skype; but we still live in the Neolithic, because we all walk, look, listen, eat, breathe and smell. These are all the same feelings that we had 10,000 years ago, despite the fact that we were completely different. Nomads still live inside us. We still have to do the simplest things, and everyone who is associated with architectural culture should keep these things in their heads. All this is outside the language and must be perceived through emotions. But new technologies sometimes make us forget about the importance of space. A flat screen cannot replace space. It will always be important. Just like the street space is eternal, and we will always have to take care of human feelings and perception.
I would like to end our conversation with another quote of yours: "Architecture is capable of communicating, because it is outside of language."
- Exactly. And to consolidate - I remember how I worked on a residential complex in Fukuoka in 1989. I was invited to participate in architectural discussions and there, in Japan, I was faced with a deep ability to perceive tradition and modernity. I immediately felt these qualities: sometimes I could not fully communicate with colleagues because of the language barrier, but we shared the same values and understanding. For us, architecture was like music. We could understand each other without words.
translation by Alexandra Volkova
