WHAT ARE YOUR KEY DRIVERS AS CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTS? DO
YOU HAVE A VISION THAT MOVES YOU?
Our understanding of architecture at AllesWirdGut is very much
focused on the way people live together and with one another. All
our projects are very much concept- driven and we try to give
answers through forms as a logical consequence of intrinsic
concepts. We all know catchphrases such as “form follows function”,
“form follows energy”, “form follows requirements” and so on. In
our practice, however, the “finding of form” and the artistic
aspirations do not take centre-stage. Rather, our first step is to
ask what architecture can contribute to society. What are the tasks
of the future which we will have to address? There is nothing to be
said against building beautiful stand-alone projects. An
outstanding example of building culture would be Hamburg’s new
Elbphilharmonie concert hall. Beyond its artistic and architectural
ambitions, this building also serves very important socio-political
functions. I believe that architecture can no longer afford to lead
a solitary and aloof existence but that it has to engage with the
many social issues more intensively and come up with appropriate
answers. It would also be presump- tuous to believe that the
architectural community can resolve these issues on its own; this
will not be possible. However, I note that we as architects have
been trained and have learned to pull together the most varied
aspects of a task. Seeing this, I am convinced that architects will
be able to play a key role in the future by trying to under- stand
and appreciate varied wishes and expectations. From this angle I
see the architect of the future as a key player when it comes to
bringing people together. At the risk of sounding a little
dramatic, I believe that architecture does have the potential to
serve society in a really meaningful way. This is already evident,
on a smaller scale, in housing construction. The task is no longer
to come up with well laid-out flats or apartments but also to
create spaces for the resolution of day-to-day conflicts. Going
forward, this will become immensely important on a small and on a
large scale. These locations are to enable and encourage productive
interaction among people much in the same way as we were used to in
the traditional family, when several generations used to live
together, engage and interact with one another. Much of this has
been lost in our modern cities. At present our society is
rediscovering many aspects of the “good old days”. This could be,
for instance, freshly cooked food in contrast to the 70s-type
processed food which I grew up on. Back then it was said that
modern house- wives needed to use ready-made food in order to save
time. Today we have recognised that many such trends were actually
dead-end streets. Now we are rediscovering the old and seeking to
blend it with innovation. Applied to architecture, this means that
we are looking at the exciting challenge of integrating tradition
with innovation in order to preserve or revive the human side of
living.
TO ACHIEVE THIS, WE OBVIOUSLY NEED THE NEW GENERATION OF
CLIENTS, BUT THE PROPERTY SECTOR CONTINUES TO BE VERY CONSERVATIVE
AND FINANCE-DRIVEN.
This is one of the biggest obstacles which I frequently see here in
Central Europe – the lack of risk appetite on the part of those
decision-makers who, at the end of the day, decide what type of
architecture to build or not to build. This decision is not taken
by architects but primarily by investors, developers and owners.
Regrettably clients’ risk tolerance is extremely low, which is
certainly partly due to the current high demand for space.
Developers are not really under any pressure to compete on
innovation. They have no trouble selling and letting housing built
to very conventional standards. However, I believe that this kind
of thinking will land us into trouble over the medium term. On the
other side of the pond, in the United States, they take a
completely different approach. They try out a lot of new ideas and
accept that nine out of ten attempts fail. In contrast, we often
lack courage. You could also say that we have not yet realised and
accepted that at some point it is no longer good enough to go on
perfecting that which we are familiar with and are accustomed to.
We must not shut ourselves off from the new. Urban planning, too,
cannot endlessly be done from a perspective tied to the past. The
past is important because you need to know it in order to look
ahead and imagine what the future holds. However, this should not
be our only perspective. Our problem today is that our future is
shaped by decision- makers who were raised in the past. This set-up
appeared to be appropriate for a long time and it was in fact the
right one: It was the village elders who possessed the greatest
wisdom and were therefore asked to take decisions. Today we are
living in a fast-changing world where this model can no longer work
on its own. Present-day issues need to be addressed on different
levels by a team working together – only us four partners at the
executive level but our wider team comprised of all employees. We
need the most varied models of cooperation and participation; as
partners we can no longer afford the belief that our experience
alone will produce the right decisions. We have to bring the other
experiences and decisions into the process and then find the best
solutions by fusing these resources. Here in Europe we still rely
too much on our old ways. We should also make use of all
possibilities to launch architectural experiments, e.g. through
international architectural exhibitions.
YOUR PRACTICE HAS BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL AND IS CELEBRATED AS
A “SHOOTING STAR” IN THE PRESS. HOW DO YOU PERSUADE CLIENTS TO WORK
WITH YOU?
Being referred to as a ‘”shooting star” always sounds very
flattering. As a practice that has steadily grown, we have
undergone a certain maturation. Right from the start we were very
well received by the press thanks to our “turnOn” project, an
experimental vision of housing and living which catered both to the
tabloid editors at Bild-Zeitung and to the special-interest writers
at ARCH+. Meanwhile we look back on a large number of projects
completed for different clients. We have been building continually
for the past 18 years. Getting a client to sign off on a project
requires a lot of work. Someone who is good at convincing and
persuading other people will certainly be more successful at this
than someone who is timid and finds it hard to sell their ideas.
Essentially it all comes down to effective communication. Until
only a few ago, architecture spoke a language that many people on
the other side of the table found hard to understand, an elitist
language which was difficult to comprehend. If the people you are
meeting with feel that they cannot really converse with you at your
level, this is not a pleasant feeling for them. This is why we
always strive to explain our ideas with very simple means and in
terms which are easily under- stood by everyone; we seek to explain
architecture in a way which enables people to really understand our
narrative and pass it on to others. A good example is one of our
very first projects, a small village centre in a narrow Tyrolean
valley. Surrounded by towering mountains and deeply steeped in
tradition, this village required a completely different conceptual
approach, taking into account local people’s reservations about all
things modern and contemporary architecture. Through clear
explanations of objective arguments and the potential benefits for
the village we succeeded in persuading the initially sceptical
local community and eventually even encouraged some of them to
emulate our architectural approach in their private projects. What
we took away from this was an invaluable experience which we have
repeatedly been able to draw on – which is not to say that our
efforts are always successful, of course.
SO CONVINCING PEOPLE ALSO TAKES A LOT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND
TACT – HOW DO YOU USE THIS INSIGHT IN YOUR DAILY
WORK?
After all we are all human. There is a lot of communi- cation in
this process. Nowadays the most incredible things can be promised
by fancy pictures and images. Visualisation is capable of conjuring
up a projected reality but it can also cause certain reservations
in people. When preparing presentations, sometimes we feel it is
better not to show a clear picture but to focus the communication
on the gains potentially delivered by our proposed project. This is
what it is all about; it is not about whether we use the colour red
or the colour blue. We always approach our projects with a certain
aesthetic aspiration, but these aspirations differ according to the
nature of the projects; the beauty of a social housing project can
maybe reside on the inside. Even so, we share a preference for
harmony and always strive to create harmony and balance.
HOW MUCH, ON AVERAGE, OF YOUR ORIGINAL IDEAS AND DESIGNS CAN YOU
EVENTUALLY IMPLEMENT?
We get more than 90 % of our projects through compe- titions, where
our success rate is around 10%. Once we have won a project, we
mostly succeed in translating our ideas into reality, following
through from the competition to the construction site. This is
partly due to our good internal organisation and partly due to the
fact that a competition already produces a concrete result. Where
we can convince the competition judges or the committee through the
strength of our arguments, we can typically see the entire project
through and ensure a high level of architectural integrity.
Nevertheless, cost pressure always challenges us to bring to bear
all our creativity. Speaking at the opening of Hamburg’s new
Elbphilharmonie concert hall, Pierre de Meuron said that once you
find yourself battling with exceeded schedules and budgets,
upholding your high standards of quality is paramount, because
quality is the only aspect of permanence in this process while
every- thing else will be forgotten. He his right – but explaining
this in a meeting with your client can be quite a challenge!
DID YOU SET UP YOUR MUNICH OFFICE BECAUSE YOU WON A LOCAL
COMPETITION?
Yes, exactly. Within a relatively short space of time we won two
design competitions staged by the GEWOFAG housing company. During
the negotiations about the terms of the contract we were made aware
of the benefits of overseeing these projects from a local office.
While we had been contemplating the idea of setting up shop in
Germany for quite a while, Munich had not exactly figured at the
top of the list. Having won the competitions, however, opening our
second office in Munich was a logical move. Today we are really
happy about having taken this impor- tant step forward in our
journey. Among other things, the proximity to Vienna allows us to
travel by car or by train, which is a major advantage for us.
Munich and Vienna are very similar in many ways and we feel
extremely welcome here.