The tragedy of architecture is how stupid architects are... we spend too much time trying to convince people to do things they don’t want to do. That really lowers the level of the discussion, I think.
In this video from the Louisiana Channel, Canadian architect Adam Caruso, founding partner of London-based Caruso St John, provides his take on the current climate of the architectural profession and the influences driving his own personal architectural philosophy. With his firm, Caruso has led the design of numerous art institutions, including the 2016 RIBA Stirling Prize winning Newport Street Gallery in London, that respond to “a deeper idea of place, of the history and culture of the place and how you read it today.
“Unfortunately, nowadays, when buildings are built as objects that are meant to stand out, they don’t have any of that open-endedness,” says Caruso. “They are so specific that you can’t help but think that as soon as the client who caused them to be gets bored of them, they’ll just have to demolish them. And that’s kind of the point – it’s about architecture just becoming a commodity like fashion, which is in fashion, out of fashion. And to me, that’s the opposite of architecture.”
In the interview, conducted by Marc-Christoph Wagne, Caruso discusses his respect for tradition in architecture, his skepticism of novelty for novelty’s sake, and how contemporary artists like Andreas Gursky, Gordon Matta-Clark and Eva Hesse impacted the way he looks at design.
Via Louisiana Channel.
