Loading ...Is the “listening” aspect a feature of your work as an architect?
First of all I’d like to give an example. Italo Calvino, on the subject of hearing (or listening), told a story that for me is extremely significant. There was a powerful man who once became king. From that time on, he decided not to move from his throne in case someone physically tried to unseat him and take over his role. His power became symbolic of the inability to listen, the impossibility of being “on the street” among the people, listening to their voices. This little tale illustrates the distance between power and listening. I believe that power distances you from the ability to listen and this is why I’ve always tried to minimise the opportunities I’ve had for exercising it. I’m terrified that I’ll forget how to listen and hear what’s going on around me, because of that deep-seated worry that I’ll no longer hear the moods, desires, pleasure, pain and disasters that always repeat themselves throughout history.
Your profession gives you the chance to create projects on a large scale whose presence means that not only can they interact with the present day, but can also speak to future generations. In your approach to these projects, how do you relate to the concept of listening?
My ideas on this are very clear. Listening should not be confused with the concept of participation. You need to live amongst people and always bear in mind that you are working for others, to improve their lives. You shouldn’t work to satisfy your own narcissistic, selfish aims – traits which can be found in even the most down-to-earth, modest and affable architect. You run the risk of turning your work into a trend, detached from society and its needs. I don’t believe in participation, it’s a demagogic concept from the 1970s, but I think the essential thing is to live with other people, treating them not as a means but as an end, and seeing the vital essence of your work in others.
You often describe your love of the wind, and creating “natural” shapes. How important is it for you to listen to Nature?
Ultimately, landscapes and geography are essential parts of our existence, whether they are deserts, oceans or forests. When I said that I wanted to be like the wind, caressing the leaves of the trees, I was trying to describe my desire to achieve – through my work – that state of tension that the wind gives naturally, without rhetoric. I believe that studying the unpredictability of Nature is one of the best ways to listen to what is going on around us.
As you said, as an architect you try to listen to people’s needs and wants, and put them into a context. Do you also use this sensitivity in your relations with material things?
I don’t use the word material very often, I prefer substance which has connotations of evolution and conveys the concept of transformation. I’ve worked a great deal with substance, and very little with materials, because I want surfaces that can adapt and embody that necessary element of ageing. I believe that materials need to follow the same destiny as mankind: they are born, live, grow old and die. I believe in duration, of the kind that takes life beyond the confines of the “material”.
Many of your works convey this element of transparency, the desire to listen to the blue sky above us, among other things. You yourself have said that all your designs are cut out from the sky …
My job consists of the way I touch and listen to the earth and the sky. The rest – with a hint of irony – is just architecture and is certainly less interesting. The crucial thing is the way you touch the earth and the sky. The cloud we are creating for the Congress Centre in Rome is a building that links rigidity and mobility, it creates a dialogue. In the end, all this can be linked to looking, observing, feeling what your city is telling you. To paraphrase Savinio, the city is listening to you.
That reminds me of your experience with the painter Giorgio De Chirico. Did that time enhance your ability to listen?
The main thing is that at that time I wasn’t a fan of Schopenhauer or Indian philosophy. De Chirico, on the other hand, saw it as an important source of inspiration for his work, especially with regard to the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Understanding and listening to the visible means showing respect to the invisible, and discovering that reality lies behind the appearance.
What has been your most profound experience of listening?
At the age of six, when my father died. I didn’t go to his funeral because I was taken to a friend’s house, but I watched it without seeing, and I listened without hearing. The last memory I have of him is as he lay sleeping in my bed, after he had moved there because he had been ill all night. He told my mother not to worry. Both of them were very young. I grew up then.
Interview by Marco Minuz
The meaning of colour evolves in parallel with culture.Colour has always been with us and has been, and will always be, one of the great unsolved mysteries.All I do is take away colour to get to the light.Last photo
Headline & EditorialLast Issue: #29 What's your colour? Red creates energy, blue inspires calm. Yellow evokes or reflec... More in Photo | AuthorsPeter LorenzPeter Lorenz has two degrees in architecture, one from Innsbruck University (1975) and one from Veni... More in Authors | Headline
Headline & EditorialLast Issue: #29 What's your colour? Red creates energy, blue inspires calm. Yellow evokes or reflec... More in Headline |
