We would like to thank everyone who contributed to the October FOA lecture - British Council, Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, and Světozor cinema - and allowed us to briefly interview the London architectural duo after the lecture. You studied in England and America. Currently, you teach at the Vienna Academy and have a successful office in London. However, in each of these countries where you have lived, you were in a way a foreigner. In the title of your office, you understand this fact in a different sense and turn it into an advantage - “alienation as a creative moment.” Can you tell us more about that? Farshid: Yes. I think that when you are a foreigner, you are free, you see possibilities, and you can be more creative. Personally, I belong where I am. You know, I studied in different places and lived in many countries and I never thought or felt that I did not belong somewhere. To me, the feeling of belonging is a certain state of mind. So I don’t see it as a problem. We believe that if you manage to be a bit detached from your “context,” it really allows you to be more creative. We hope this is a suggestion for those who live in their home country or have been in a specific place for a very long time – that you maintain a certain distance from the rules and culture of that place.
You agreed to establish your own office with Alejandro at Rem Koolhaas in Rotterdam, where most of his employees are foreigners. How did your stay at OMA influence your way of thinking and perhaps even the name of your office? Farshid: Of course, it was international there, and we enjoyed it a lot. We thought that when more people from different places discuss a project, it means you can’t agree on a consensus on how to interpret or understand the problem. But there, projects were still discussed - in an incredibly broad perspective and we realized that was what created a very healthy and good situation that would be worth repeating. But at that moment, we also discovered that there was a handicap between certain foreign and Dutch groups in the studio, and we wanted to advocate that part of the studio that we enjoyed more, and that inspired this name.
The exhibition of the British pavilion at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice was groundbreaking in several ways. What was the most NEXT for you? Farshid: Do you mean what we did at the British pavilion or generally? Generally. Farshid: It’s strange because I think it was called NEXT, but it was very… Petr: The entire British pavilion was your project, it was not even about British architecture, it was about a Japanese terminal... Alejandro: I think that was very interesting about it.. Petr: There were many next… Alejandro: Yes, yes, but I believe that basically it was a very bold stance from the British Council, which wanted to show that Britain is actually capable of organizing this kind of culture of people from all over the world, from different cultures, who work in London or the UK, but are not executing projects there; rather, they are executing Japanese projects. It was an expression of a certain practice that is becoming increasingly common and I think effective not only in England but anywhere else, and that had not yet been recognized at such events that are meant to present national identity. So, in a way, we were a tool for the message that the British Council wanted to convey on that occasion.
Who would you most like to build for? Dream client? Farshid: No one has asked us that before… Alejandro: I think… A dream client for us now would be Ground Zero. Farshid: Really? Petr: For some architects, it's the toughest client… Alejandro: It’s tough, but let’s say that working for a good client means building a very substantial, large, and important center in a very significant city. That’s a great opportunity for work. Farshid: Yes, but I’m not sure. It could be a dream client, but I don’t know if I would see it that way. I think the emotions associated with Ground Zero are so huge, and I don't believe that in such a situation you’ll make good architecture. And that's why I wouldn’t want to do such a project, even though we thought it could be, and even if we speculated on what it could be, but I don’t think it would be a good client and they have also shown that they are not a good client. But now, in terms of clients we currently have, BBC is a dream client, if the project goes through. Because fundamentally, you are building a building for musicians who know exactly what they’re doing and are closely connected to their work just like we are. And that kind of communication is exciting.
Does your collaboration with other architects from United Architects have any continuation? We haven’t closed ourselves off to this possibility, but we would need to find the right opportunity where collaboration would make sense. I think Ground Zero was such a monumental project that no studio would have had a chance to achieve it on its own. Because that project was in a way an international matter. The base was in New York, but at that moment it was an international problem - why the towers actually fell. We thought it was much more interesting not to turn it into European speculations on what America should have, or what Americans would want back in America; there were a lot of themes that made collaboration meaningful. If another opportunity arises, we got along very well and the collaboration was great.
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