Arhitektura Architecture kao jedrenje as · PDF fileArhitektura kao jedrenje Architecture as Sailing razgovarali interviewed by Interviewed in Paris 25 April 2012 Odile Decq Razgovarali

Odile Decq, Interview8 9oris, number 77, year 2012

Ante Nikša Bilić Alan Kostrenčić

fotografije photographs by

portreti portraits

© Odile Decq Benoit Cornette (ODBC)© ODBC Stéphane Couturier (SC)© ODBC Roland Halbe (RH)© ODBC Luigi Filetici (LF)© ODBC Georges Fessy (GF)© ODBC/LABTOP (L)Raphael Lugassy

Odile Decq

¶ Paris in the springtime. Regardless of the rain, the charm of Paris is irresistible despite wet shoes. Climbing the stairs of a courtyard building to a huge loft turned into an architectural studio, the impression is similar to ascending towards a party at an unknown address... The somewhat decrepit staircase, as well as the space itself, leaves an impression of Goth Chic, presaging a potentially unusual adventure. Odile Decq definitely does not belong to the stereotype of the European architect; she is witty, cordial, but extremely shrewd. She also dedicated a full three hours to us and to a quite interesting interview. Beside her Parisian charm, Odile Decq is, like her architecture and art, always between extravaganza and deliberate simplicity. Despite the Goth look, her glee and optimism, with a clear awareness of reality, are best captured in her idea of architecture as sailing. It evokes the possibility of a happier architecture, resulting from effort and ease, defiance and collaboration between man and nature, just like architecture. In these times of crisis, it seems this message conveys much wisdom.

Odile Decq, Intervju

Arhitektura kao jedrenje

Architecture as Sailing

razgovaraliinterviewed by

Interviewed in Paris 25 April 2012

Odile Decq

Razgovarali u Parizu 25. travnja 2012.

¶ Pariz u proljeće. Doduše vrlo kišno proljeće, međutim šarm Pariza neodoljiv je i uz mokre cipele. Penjući se uz stepenice dvorišne zgrade čije je golemo potkrovlje preuređeno u arhitektonski studio, dojam je bliži odlasku na tulum na ne poznatoj adresi… Pomalo derutno stubište, kao i sav prostor doimlju se prilično Goth Chic, najavljujući potencijalno neo bičnu avanturu. Odile Decq svakako ne pripada stereotipu europskog arhitekta, duhovita, srdačna, ali izuzetno pronicljiva, posvetila nam je puna tri sata izuzetno zanimljiva razgovora. Uz tipičan pariški šarm, Odile je poput njene arhitekture i umjetnosti, uvijek na rubu između ekstravagancije i promišljene jednostavnosti. Unatoč darkerskom looku, njena vedrina i optimizam, uz vrlo jasnu svijest o realnosti, najbolje su sublimirane u njenoj komparaciji ‒ arhi tektura je kao jedrenje. To upućuje na mogućnost neke radosnije arhitekture koja poput jedrenja proizlazi iz napora i lakoće, prkošenja i suradnje između čovjeka i prirode. U ovom vremenu krize čini se da ta jednostavna poruka sadrži puno mudrosti.


Phantom Restaurant of the Palais Garnier, Paris, France, 2010

(RH)

ORIS — Maybe we can start with your latest project. We visited it on our arrival in Paris and it is fascinating, when you see it in person, how elegantly it is incorporated in the very the delicate context of Paris’s famous opera house, the Palais Garnier. It is architecturally a very daring gesture, but at the same time it is done with a lot of respect and understanding for a historical building impregnated with memory. Could you tell us something about how this project started and how you came up with the idea? ¶ ODILE DECQ — This is a very strange story, because I received a call when away on a weekend, one of my only weekends that I take every year to go to Britanny, so I was on the beach when I received a call. Somebody was asking me whether I was interested in doing the restaurant in the Palais Garnier. It was somebody who had had a meeting with one of my clients in Lyon. He was looking at some models from many different projects my client had from different architects, and he asked the client about my model and who I was. We met three days later and he gave me all the constraints from the Ministry or Culture, not to touch anything, to keep the transparency from the outside, not to have the façade inside the arches but something else, and that’s how it started. The first idea when I received the site plans was, since it was forbidden to do the façade, to do windows in the arches, to have this glass wall curve behind the façade arches. I was thinking if we could do that, we could do it with very clear glass and we could make this new envelope almost non-existent. And this is how it started. After that, because of the height – the space is eight metres high, and we wanted the glass membrane to go continuously to the ceiling

– I drew a sinuous line of glass, to make it reach that height without additional support. It was really a process started from this first idea of an undulating glass façade behind the existing columns.ORIS — I’m always amazed how you put together in your projects a very artistic and provocative approach and on the other hand quite a simple and logical solution to the architectural problems. Maybe, as an illustration of your way of thinking, we can move back through time a little and towards the beginning of your work. You actually started in a time when Deconstruction was a topical theme in architectural discourse... ¶ ODILE DECQ — Even before that.ORIS — Can you compare your thinking when you started and your approach today? Has it changed? ¶ ODILE DECQ — A lot. When I started in the 1980s, it was really a time when Richard Meyer was everywhere. It was the time of late modernism and we were looking at that in the office, trying to find a way how to start the work by ourselves. ¶ At that time Deconstruction

Odile Decq, Intervjuoris, broj 77, godina 2012

Restoran Fantom u operi Garnier, Pariz, Francuska, 2010.

ORIS — Možda možemo početi s Vašim posljednjim projektom. Posjetili smo ga po dolasku u Pariz i oduševili se vidjevši uživo kako je elegantno uklopljen u sam delikatni kontekst poznate pariške operne kuće Palais Garnier. Arhitektonski je to vrlo smjela gesta, ali je istovremeno izvedeno s mnogo poštovanja i razumijevanja za povijesnu zgradu natopljenu sjećanjima. Možete li nam reći kako je započeo taj projekt i kako ste dobili ideju? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Čudna je to priča, jer sam poziv primila na putu, tijekom vikenda, jednog od rijetkih u godini kad putujem u Bretagnu. Bila sam na plaži kad je zazvonio telefon. Netko me pitao jesam li zainteresirana raditi restoran u Palais Garnier. Bio je to čovjek koji je imao sastanak s jednim mojim klijentom u Lyonu. Gledao je neke modele raznih pro-jekata koje je moj klijent dobio od različitih arhitekata i onda se raspitao za moj projekt te o meni. Sreli smo se nakon tri dana i pokazao mi je ograničenja Ministarstva kulture; ništa se nije smjelo dirati, izvana je trebalo očuvati prozirnost, bez fasade unutar lukova, i tako je počelo. Kad sam dobila nacrte, prva je ideja bila između lukova napraviti prozore, kad je već fasada bila zabranjena, izvesti zakrivljeni stakleni zid iza fasadnih lukova. Mislila sam da to možemo izvesti s vrlo prozirnim staklom, poput novog omotača koji gotovo da ne postoji. I tako je počelo. Nakon toga sam zbog visine – prostor je visok osam metara, a mi smo željeli da staklena membrana ide sve do stropa – nacrtala sinusoidu stakla, kako bi bez dodatnog učvršćenja dosegla tu visinu. Tako je proces počeo od te prve ideje valovite staklene fasade iza postojećih stupova.ORIS — Oduvijek me oduševljavalo kako u svojim projektima spajate vrlo umjetnički i provokativan pristup s jednostavnim i logičnim rješenjem arhitektonskog problema. Možda se možemo, za ilustraciju Vašeg načina razmišljanja, vratiti malo kroz vrijeme i na početak Vašeg rada. Počeli ste u vrijeme kad je Dekonstrukcija bila glavna tema arhitektonskog diskursa. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Čak i prije toga.ORIS — Možete li usporediti svoja razmišljanja kad ste počinjali i svoj pristup danas? Je li se što promijenilo? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Mnogo toga. Kad sam počinjala u osamdesetima, bilo je to vrijeme kad je Richard Meyer bio posvuda. Bilo je to vrijeme kasnog modernizma i to smo mi u uredu pratili, pokušavajući pronaći način kako da počnemo s radom na svoj način. ¶ U to se vrijeme pojavila Dekonstrukcija i to mi je bilo mnogo zanimljivije jer je to bio pristup kako dekomponirati. U svom sam radu analizirala dekomponiranje komponenti projekta, programa ili nečeg drugog uz ponovnu artikulaciju na novi način, to je bila moja metoda dekonstrukcije. Kad smo počeli raditi na Banque Populaire, koji je bio naš prvi veliki projekt, počeli smo s glavnim holom kao objektom


appeared, and this was much more interesting to me, because it was an approach of how to decompose. It was analyzed in my work at that time, of decomposing the components of a project, components of a programme, components of something, and rearticulating them in a way, so it was my way of deconstruction. When we started working on Banque Populaire, the first major project we did, we started by working on the main hall as an object outside the building. After that, slowly through the process of working on the project, we reintegrated the hall inside the building, because we thought at that time people in France were not ready for deconstructive projects. France is a country of monolithic projects. Because of this tendency of a long process of monolithic classical architecture, architects were always building a symmetrical entrance in the centre of a symmetrical building, it was really traditional in France, even in modernism. Well, Le Corbusier did something a bit different, but more as an exception than a rule. At this time, we were thinking we were not classical, we were not doing symmetry, we were much more interested in the question of disequilibrium, dissymmetry, having something much more like a passage, or something with a transition and so on... But in the end, we did a monolithic project, because it was really necessary to have a monolithic

Banque Populaire de l’Ouest, Rennes,

Francuska, 1991.

Banque Populaire de l’Ouest, Rennes,

France, 1991

(SC)

Homéostasie (Dynamic Equilibrium), Paris, France, 2007, Galerie Polaris

(ODBC)

one, the budget was not so high that you could decompose a building. But at the same time we were trying to find a way to slide or dislocate an entrance in a building. It was a way we were really discussing how to conceive the BPO. After that building, we were qualified in France as hi-tech, because of the structural system of the façade that we worked on with Peter Rice. We were really looking at the development of all these hi-tech in buildings in Great Britain. After some years of working on these details and construction, when I started working, for example in Rome, I was always saying to the office that we were no longer in the time of hi-tech. I would prefer soft-tech – being very high technology without training, without the need to demonstrate that outside. It’s how I build now, it’s really sophisticated in terms of construction, in terms of detail, in terms of conceiving a building, but at the same time, everything is fluid, everything is less shown, in a way. This morning I was in Lyons, because we are building a very simple building, with just two parallelepipeds, one is shifting; one is going away to the river bank. But to have this part, which is four floors cantilevered above each other, we have to have a huge structure that is really complicated. It is much more like a bridge or the construction of infrastructure. It’s a very simple object, but it’s really complex in terms of


izvan zgrade. Nakon toga, polako tijekom rada na projektu, ponovno smo integrirali hol unutar zgrade jer smo mislili da u to vrijeme Francuzi nisu bili spremni za projekte dekonstrukcije. Francuska je zemlja monolitnih projekata. Zbog te tendencije ka monolitnoj klasičnoj arhitekturi arhitekti su uvijek gradili ulaze u središtu simetričnih zgrada; bila je to tradicija u Francuskoj, čak i u modernizmu. Doduše, Le Corbusier je radio nešto drukčije, ali više kao iznimku nego pravilo. U to vrijeme mi smo mislili da nismo klasičari, nismo radili simetriju, više nas je zanimao dezekvilibrij i asimetrija, graditi nešto poput prolaza, ili nešto s prijelazom i tako dalje... Ali, na kraju smo izveli monolitni projekt jer je zaista bio potreban kao takav, budžet nije bio dovoljan za dekompoziciju zgrade. No, u isto vrijeme pokušavali smo naći načina kako bismo pomakli ili dislocirali ulaz u zgradu. Poanta je bila da smo zaista diskutirali kako osmisliti BPO. Nakon te zgrade u Francuskoj su nas kvalificirali kao hi-tech, zbog sustava strukturalne fasade na kojem smo radili u suradnji s Peterom Riceom. Pratili smo razvoj tog hi-techa u Velikoj Britaniji. Nakon nekoliko godina rada na tim detaljima i gradnji, kad sam počela raditi, na primjer u Rimu, govorila sam u uredu da više nismo u hi-tech dobu. Draži mi je bio soft-tech, što znači vrlo visoka tehnologija, bez potrebe da se pokaže na van.

Homéostasie (Dinamični ekvilibrij), Pariz, Francuska, 2007., Galerie Polaris

Ovako kako danas gradim, to je vrlo profinjeno što se gradnje tiče, detalja, osmišljavanja zgrade, ali je istovremeno sve fluidno, manje vidljivo, na neki način. Jutros sam bila u Lyonu jer ondje gradimo vrlo jednostavnu zgradu, samo dva kvadra, jedan se pomiče prema obali rijeke. No, kako bismo postigli da su četiri kata izmaknuta jedan iznad drugog, moramo imati golemu konstrukciju koja je doista složena. To je više kao most ili gradnja infrastrukture. Objekt je jednostavan, ali je zaista složen što se tiče konstrukcije, načina na koji gradimo dvostruku fasadu i tako dalje. Zanimljiv je Musée des Confluences na drugoj strani poluotoka u Lyonu koji gradi Coop Himmelb(l)au. Vidimo kako se podiže konstrukcija, jutros smo gledali. Vrlo je jednostavna, a objekt će biti vrlo složen. To je posve suprotno od onoga što ja radim. Moje zgrade izgledaju jednostavno, a imaju složene strukture, a drugi je način složenost onoga što vidite na jednostavnoj konstrukciji.ORIS — Lebbeus Woods jednom je rekao da je arhitektura antigravitacija. Vaš rad uspoređuju s objektima u zraku, a ne na tlu. ¶ ODILE DECQ — U potpunosti se slažem da se arhitektura čitavo vrijeme bori protiv gravitacije i sviđa mi se ta ideja. Koristim to u predavanjima. Pokušavam se sve više oteti gravitaciji. Izgradili smo jedan objekt 2007. godine u umjetničkoj galeriji u ovom kvartu Pariza. Objekt je nastao iz skice koju sam nacrtala za ljude u svom studiju, pod nazivom Dinamični ekvilibrij, gdje postoje dva suprotna utega s crtom i potporom u jednoj točki. Sve je stabilno, međutim potrebno je vrlo malo da postane nestabilno. Za mene je gravitacija stabilnost. Volim kad se arhitektura doima nestabilnom, kao da će svaki čas otići, odletjeti ili slično.ORIS — Vaš lanjski projekt Anisotropy u Los Angelesu vrlo je zanimljiv eksperiment osjetilnog iskustva i dezorijentacije. Smatram ga posebno zanimljivim jer se odmiče od arhitekture objekta ka iskustvenoj arhitekturi, arhitekturi kao iskustvu. Možete li nam ispričati kako je projekt počeo i koje su Vam bile namjere? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Objekt ove instalacije trebao je apsolutno poremetiti percepciju prostora, ostavljajući do jam bivanja negdje drugdje ili kao da postoji neki drugi prostor koji zapravo ne postoji, ali ga vidite kao odraz na zidovima. Igrajući se s nagibom reflektirajućih zidova i zi-dova koji se zrcale jedan u drugom, a nisu nagnuti na isti način, apsolutno iskrivljavate percepciju. Volim tu ideju. Već nekoliko tjedana razmišljam o tome jer se ne radi samo o diskusiji, nego o instalaciji koju sam prošlog rujna postavila u jednoj umjetničkoj galeriji u Parizu, s istom temom ogle-dala koja mijenjaju percepciju prostora. Sad to sve više ra-dim, bavim se umjetnošću, ali ovog trena to ne unosim u


structure, the way we build the façade with a double-skin and so on. It is interesting, on the other side of the peninsula in Lyons, Coop Himmelb(l)au have started to build the Musée des Confluences. We see the structure going up, we were looking at it this morning. The structure is really simple, and the object is going to be very complicated. It’s exactly the opposite of what I do. My building looks very simple with a very complex structure, and the other one is very complex in terms of what you see, but the structure is very simple.ORIS — Lebbeus Woods once said that architecture is antigravity. Your work is compared with objects in the air, not objects on the ground. ¶ ODILE DECQ — I totally agree that architecture is fighting against gravity all the time, and I love that idea. I use it in my lectures. I’m trying to escape gravity more and more. We built an object in an art gallery in this area of Paris in 2007. The object derived from a sketch I drew for the people in my office called Dynamic Equilibrium, where you have two opposite weights with a line and one point of support and you have something which is stable, but at the same time it needs almost nothing to make it unstable. Gravity for me is stability. I like to give the impression that architecture is unstable or that it could go, fly off or do something.

Paviljon 8 i restoran Archipel, Lyon, Francuska, 2007. – (u izgradnji), renderi

Pavillion 8 and Archipel restaurant, Lyon, France, 2007 – (under construction), renderings

(L)


projekte. Možda na neki način toga ima u projektima, ali jednostavnije i minimalnije. Nedavno sam se pitala kako mogu ono što znam o umjetnosti vratiti u arhitekturu. Na primjer, za dva mjeseca u Rennesu otvaramo FRAC, možda ste to vidjeli na internetskim stranicama. To je crni volumen s urezom u sredini, a iznutra je prostor nevjerojatan. Dan nakon otvaranja otvorit ćemo izložbu u umjetničkoj galeriji u Rennesu. Sadržavat će neke dijelove s te zgrade. Ideja je vidjeti što radim i vratiti se arhitekturi. Neobično je tako raditi na dvije različite razine. Jednom sam to već napravila krajem 1980-ih. Izradili smo modele koje smo nazvali Ma-quette Invraisemblable. Bila je to zbirka od deset maketa koje smo izradili s obzirom na projekte tijekom osamdesetih. Izgledali su poput slika na zidu, ali su bili 3D modeli i izradili smo ih na istoj crnoj površini. Izražavali smo koncept tih projekata. Sjećam se jednog modela za stambenu zgradu koji je sadržavao perspektivu s pločnika blizu zgrade, on je poslužio za formiranje same zgrade. Nadalje, za jedan drugi natječaj, iskoristili smo tu maketu na lokaciji i rekli: ‘OK, sad ćemo izgraditi ovakvu zgradu.’ Vrlo je neobično napraviti neki koncept da se izrazi projekt i poslije iskoristiti taj koncept kao stvarnu stambenu zgradu. Odnedavno stvarno razmišljam o tome kako da moju umjetnost vratim u arhitekturu.


ORIS — Your project Anisotropy for Los Angeles made last year is a very interesting experiment with sensory experience and state disorientation. I find it of particular interest because it makes a shift from objectarchitecture to experienced architecture, architecture as experience. Can you tell us something about how this project started and what your intention with it was? ¶ ODILE DECQ — The object of this installation was to disturb absolutely the perception of space, to give an impression of being somewhere else or an impression that there is another space which doesn’t exist but which you see in the reflection on the walls. By playing with the obliquity of the walls and walls reflecting on each other, not inclined the same way, you distort absolutely the question of perception. I love that idea. It has posed me a question for some weeks now, because it is not just to speak about that, because I was thinking of this installation and I did an installation in an art gallery in Paris last September with the same question of having mirrors changing the perception of the space. I do that more and more now, working on art, but for the moment I don’t bring that back in my projects. Maybe, in a way, I use this in my projects and but more simply or minimally. I was asking myself this question very recently of how I can bring what I do now in art back into architecture. For example, we will open the FRAC in Rennes in two months, maybe you have seen it on our website, it’s a black volume with a cut in the middle, and the space inside is incredible. The day after the opening, we will open an exhibition in an art gallery in Rennes. It will contain pieces coming from this building. My idea is to look at what I’m doing and go back to architecture. This is a strange way to work on these two very different scales. I did it once before at the end of the 1980s. We did models we called ‘Maquette Invraisemblable’. It was a collection of ten models we made after looking back on the projects we did in the 1980s. They were like paintings on the walls, but they were models, since they were in 3D, and we made them on the same black surface. We were expressing the concept of the project in these models. I remember one model that we did for one of the housing buildings we were doing at the time, and it contained a perspective from the pavement close to the building, like the formation of the building itself. Furthermore, for another competition, we used this model on the site and said ‘Ok, we will do the building like that now.’ It’s a very strange way of having done something conceptually to express one project and after that you will use that concept as a real housing building. In recent days, I was really thinking about how I can bring my art back into architecture.

ORIS — How did your interest in art start? ¶ ODILE DECQ — It started from the very beginning, because I was studying history of art for two years before I studied architecture. When I was a young girl, I was not sure whether I could do architecture since I was a girl. I discovered I could go to the school of architecture, I passed the entry exam and after that I became an architect. At that time, not too many women were architects. These were the times when even my parents were telling me it was stupid, that I would never be an architect because it was impossible for a woman to be an architect.ORIS — Is there such a as ‘gender architecture’? ¶ ODILE DECQ — I don’t think so. There is just architecture done by different persons, whatever the gender, but sometimes when I say that they tell me: ‘Yes, but you know, if you look carefully…’ This question is typical when someone interviews a women architect. I’m a woman, but so what? (laughs)ORIS — I asked you this question because in recent times we have had some feminist theoreticians in architectural discourse. ¶ ODILE DECQ — I know, I know… I’m not interested in that. (laughs)ORIS — If we stay on the female architect issue, somehow the comparison between Zaha Hadid and you logically comes to mind. There is some similarity, but at the same time a lot of big differences. You started almost at the same time, in the wake of Deconstruction. What is also interesting is that you opened your Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (MACRO) almost at the same time as Zaha was opening Maxxi. ¶ ODILE DECQ — And it was a big problem because when I won the competition it was just one year after Zaha had won the Maxxi. It was not called Maxxi at the time, and my project was not called Macro. As soon as we won the competition, we started working with the director on the name first. Together with him, we proposed the name ‘Macro’ to the city, meaning Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and as soon as this name became known, Zaha’s museum was called Maxxi, meaning Museum of Art of the 21st century, also because ‘maxi’ is bigger than ‘macro’. And it all started a competition. The directors were competing and, what’s worse, it was in 2010, and Zaha opened her museum in May, and my director at the time decided to have a ‘pre-opening’ on the same day. Can you imagine having two openings at the same time, and having a competition about the parties, about everything? The newspapers and magazines and everybody was showing the two and saying ‘Odile said that, Zaha said that’. It was everywhere in the newspapers, so there was really a big discussion about it.


ORIS — Kako je počeo Vaš interes za umjetnost? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Počelo je od samog početka jer sam dvije godine studirala povijest umjetnosti, prije arhitekture. Kad sam bila mlada djevojka, nisam bila sigurna mogu li se baviti arhitekturom budući da sam djevojka. Otkrila sam da se mogu upisati na studij, položila prijemni i nakon toga postala arhitekt. U to vrijeme nije mnogo žena radilo kao arhitekti. Čak su mi i roditelji ponekad govorili da je to glupo, da nikad neću biti arhitekt jer je to za ženu nemoguće.ORIS — Postoji li ‘rodna arhitektura’? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Mislim da ne. Postoji samo arhitektura koju rade razne osobe, bez obzira na spol, ali ponekad kad to kažem, odgovore mi: ‘Da, znate, ali kad pažljivo pogledate ....’ To je tipično pitanje kad žena daje intervju. Ja sam žena, pa što onda? (smije se)ORIS — Postavio sam to pitanje jer u zadnje vrijeme u dis kusijama o arhitekturi sudjeluju i neke feminističke teoretičarke. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Znam, znam... Ali to me ne zanima. (smije se)ORIS — Ako se zadržimo na pitanju ženske arhitekture, nekako je logična usporedba između Zahe Hadid i Vas. Postoje sličnosti, ali istovremeno i mnogo razlika. Započele ste gotovo u isto vrijeme, u počecima Dekonstrukcije. Ono što je jednako tako zanimljivo jest da ste Vi otvarali svoj Muzej suvremene umjetnosti u Rimu (MACRO) u isto vrijeme kad je Zaha otvarala Maxxi. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Bio je to velik problem jer kad sam osvojila taj natječaj, to je bilo godinu dana nakon što je Zaha osvojila MAXXI. U to se vrijeme nije zvao MAXXI, a moj se projekt nije zvao MACRO. Kad smo osvojili natječaj, počeli smo raditi s ravnateljem prvo na imenu. U suradnji s njim smo gradu predložili naziv MACRO ili Muzej suvremene umjetnosti u Rimu, i kad je to ime postalo javno, Zahin je muzej nazvan MAXXI ili Muzej umjetnosti 21. stoljeća, naravno i zato jer je maksi veće od makro. I tako je počelo natjecanje. Ravnatelji su se natjecali i, što je još gore, to je bilo 2010., Zaha je svoj muzej otvarala u svibnju, a moj je ravnatelj odlučio istog dana održati ‘pred-otvaranje’. Možete li zamisliti dva otvaranja u isto vrijeme, natjecanje oko prijema i svega? Novine i časopisi i svi ostali govorili su: ‘Odile je rekla ovo, Zaha je rekla ono.’ Posvuda po novinama, puno se pričalo o tome.ORIS — U takvoj situaciji arhitektu zaista nije ugodno. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Svi su govorili: ‘A dvije dame rade na muzejima, a oba su u Rimu.’ Nevjerojatno.ORIS — Samo smo usput spomenuli da ste se bavili i edu kacijom. Radite li to i dalje? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Ne, već pet godina. Prestala sam podučavati, ali su me 2007. izabrali za dekana na mom fakultetu. Više ne podučavam, upravljam, ali i to je mnogo. Pola vremena provodim na fakultetu.

ORIS — Kako Vam se to sviđa i kako se to odražava na Vaš rad u uredu? ¶ ODILE DECQ — To su dva posla s punim radnim vremenom, i to sve govori. U proteklih pet godina nisam imala vremena ni za što zbog dva posla. Ubuduće ću pratiti kako će se stvari odvijati jer je biti dekan zaista poseban posao. Netko mi je jednom rekao: ‘Znaš, radit ćeš s dijelom mozga koji nikad prije nisi koristila.’ I to je istina jer otkriješ da je ravnati fakultetom nešto posve drukčije od podučavanja ili upravljanja uredom. Međutim, istovremeno ti daje vrlo važnu snagu jer stalno moraš objašnjavati što želiš i kamo želiš da studij ide, moraš uvjeriti nastavnike, razgovarati s njima, misliti o pedagogiji, koga pozvati da predaje. No, zanimljivo je u smislu razumijevanja što se događa u arhitekturi. Na početku ovih pet godina, korak po korak, otkrivala sam mlađu generaciju arhitekata, od 30 ili 40 godina koji rade apsolutno drukčije. Na početku smo govorili o arhitektima zvijezdama, ali se istovremeno pojavila nova generacija koja raste, uopće ne razmišlja o zvijezdama, zainteresirana za socijalna pitanja u arhitekturi. Mislim da je to danas vrlo važno. Rade sa zajednicama, poput Teddyja Cruza u San Diegu. Također sam na fakultet pozvala jednoga mladog arhitekta iz Bombaja. Pozivam sve više arhitekata iz ove kategorije jer mislim da je to prava budućnost arhitekture: socijalna pitanja središnje su pitanje arhitekture.ORIS — Problem javnog prostora povezan je i s ovim društvenim aspektom. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Da, vratimo se urbanim pitanjima. Naime, između osamdesetih i devedesetih arhitekti se nisu toliko bavili urbanim jer je to bilo vrijeme mnogih gradnji, kad se arhitekturu smatralo objektom. Mislim da je sad s tim gotovo. Sustav zvijezda zaista je bio negativna pojava u polju arhitekture. Uništavalo je samo ideju arhitekture jer se ona previše bavila objektima koje možete kupiti i uvesti kad i gdje želite, ali mislim da se arhitektura treba raditi samo za jedno mjesto. Projektirate za jedno mjesto; ne možete imati istu zgradu na mnogo različitih mjesta jer su kontekst i uvjeti lokacije vrlo važni. Tako ja mislim, i time se razlikujem od Hadidove, jer se arhitektura zasnovana na objektima može raditi bilo gdje. To može biti cipela, prsten ili nešto drugo, nije važno što.ORIS — Ako se želite odmaknuti od arhitekture kao objekta, onda Vaše umjetničke intervencije zapravo pokazuju vrlo zanimljiv način kako uvući korisnike u arhitekturu, kako se pomaknuti od konzumenta do sudionika. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Sviđa mi se ta ideja, da to nije samo objekt za gledanje. To govorim, ali istovremeno za galeriju u Rennesu pripremam nešto što je više o objektima i nekim crtežima.ORIS — Imate širok raspon projekata i interesa, od vrlo malih,


ORIS — It can be really irritating for architects to be put in this situation. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Everyone was saying: ‘Ah, two ladies working on museums, with both museums in Rome.’ It was incredible.ORIS — We have just briefly mentioned that you have been involved in education. Are you still involved in education? ¶ ODILE DECQ — No, not for the past five years. I’ve stopped teaching but I was elected director of my school in 2007. I’m not teaching any more, I’m the director, but it’s a lot. I spend half my time at the school.ORIS — How do you like it and how does it reflect on your work in the office? ¶ ODILE DECQ — They are two full-time jobs, so that speaks for itself. In this past five years I haven’t had time for anything because of these two jobs. In the future, I will look at how it is reacting, because it is a really specific job to be a director. Someone once told me: ‘You know, it will work on some part of the brain you never used before.’ And it’s true, because you discover that managing a school is something absolutely different from teaching and from managing an office. However, at the same time, it gives a very important strength to your thinking, because you have to explain all the time what you want and where you want the school to go, you have to convince the teachers, you have to discuss with them, you have to think about the pedagogy, you have to think about whom you can invite to lecture. So it’s really interesting in terms of how to understand what happens in architecture. I was really interested by the fact that at the beginning of these five years I discovered step by step a young generation of architects around 30, 40 years of age, working absolutely differently. At the beginning we were talking about star architects, but at the same time there is a new generation that is growing, absolutely unconcerned by stardom, and much more interested in the social question in architecture. I think it’s really important today. People are working with communities, like Teddy Cruz in San Diego. I have also invited a young architect to come from Bombay. I am inviting more and more architects from this category, because I think it is really the future of architecture: social issues are the crucial question in architecture.ORIS — The problem of public space is also connected with this social aspect. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Yes. Moving again to urban questions, because from the 1980s and 1990s architects were not concerned so much by urban, because it was really a time with lots of building, when architecture was considered as an object. I think that now that time is finished. The star system was really negative in the field of architecture. It was something that was really destroying the idea of what

FRAC (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Bretagne), Rennes,

Francuska, 2012.


Francuska, 2012., tlocrt


France, 2012

(RH)


France, 2012, plan

FRAC (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Bretagne), Rennes, Francuska, 2012.

FRAC (Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Bretagne), Rennes, France, 2012

3D model 3D model (RH)



architecture is, because the architecture was considered too much an object you can buy and you can import whatever it is wherever you want, but I think that architecture is always done for one place only. You design for one place; you can’t have the same building in many places, because the context and the condition of the place are most important. It’s the way I think that I’m very different from Hadid now; because object-based architecture can be done anywhere. It could be a shoe, it could be a ring or something else, and it doesn’t matter.ORIS — If you want to go further away from architecture as an object, then actually your artistic intervention shows a very interesting way how to get users of architecture more involved in it, how to move from consumer to participant. ¶ ODILE DECQ — I like that idea, that it’s not just an object to look at. I say that, but at the same time what I am preparing for the gallery in Rennes is much more about objects and some dra wings.ORIS — You have very wide range of projects and interests, from very small ones, artistic objects and design, through interiors or exhibition spaces to very large ones which deal with urbanism. How does your approach differ according to the scale of project, or is it independent of it? How do you react to specific problems which arise from the problem of the scale of projects? ¶ ODILE DECQ — The question of scale is very strange, because I have been educated as an architect, and after that I did some studies in urbanism, so I play with these two scales quite easily, from architecture to urbanism. I was very afraid of designing objects because it is not so easy to think about little objects. I remember at the beginning of 2000 when we did the first armchair for UNESCO, a company was making a prototype, and they brought the prototype to our office. I was looking at it and said: ‘It’s too small.’ I was sure it was too small. I said that something was wrong and asked for another measurement. I sat in the chair, it was comfortable, but it was simply too small, so I asked to make it bigger. They made another prototype, and it was absolutely uncomfortable. Then, I realized that it was actually the first object I designed that was smaller than my body. It was an armchair, it is a chair now. I can do it now, but at the beginning I was really surprised by the object itself, because of the scale. It’s not an object which surrounds you; it is really just an object you can sit on. I was very surprised, and I had this very strange impression. We did the renders, we took some imprints with different people from the office to manipulate and understand what exactly the best shape is. We were very pragmatic, we looked at the body and how the chair can fit the body. Lot of architects were designing chairs, sometimes they are quite beautiful, but absolutely un-

comfortable. I wanted to have a beautiful but comfortable chair, to fit the body. It’s exactly why I was frightened by design.ORIS — That line of thinking, about the body and how architecture is related to the body, is present in almost all of your projects. The restaurant in the opera is also very bodyorientated. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Yes, because I am always concerned by the fact that the body has to move easily in a space, or you can react with your body to the space, or the space gives you the possibility to move because of the way it’s done, makes you move inside it. The body has to be free in the space. It sometimes has some constraints, but it has to be able to move and to be always in movement. It is really the question of Macro. For me, travelling around a museum, having different possibilities to travel around a museum was really important. Because to go, to give the public going to the museum the possibility to choose the path they want to travel through the museum, and to discover the art through that travel through the museum.ORIS — When you start thinking in that way, I guess it is somehow your intuition. This kind of approach is unusual, especially in a time when you have gone through architectural school. It’s probably your invention. ¶ ODILE DECQ — It’s

Maquettes invraisemblables, kraj 80-tih, model

Maquettes invraisemblables, end of 80, model

(GF)


Nije tako bilo na drugim fakultetima. Morala sam i raditi u arhitektonskom uredu, ali ne kao arhitekt. Pisala sam zahva-lju jući studiju povijesti umjetnosti. Taj arhitekt, Phillippe Bou-don, pisao je knjige o teoriji arhitekture. S njim sam radila če tiri godine, s njim pisala knjige. Obično smo sjedili na istoj stra-ni stola, ja bih gledala što je on napisao i komentirala. Bilo je čudno tako raditi. Ondje sam naučila povijest arhitekture jer smo proučavali arhitekturu, arhitekte, dok se na fakultetu u isto vrijeme ništa nije događalo. Nakon diplome nisam znala ni kako nacrtati perspektivu, nisam znala projektirati niti vidjeti što se događa u presjeku, apsolutno nisam bila obrazovana, pa sam sve to morala naučiti kroz vlastite projekte.ORIS — Kad već govorite o tom vremenu, koliko kontrakultura, popglazba, alternativna glazba, koliko takve stvari utječu na Vaš rad ili Vas? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Mislim da sve utječe na arhitekturu. Sve oko nas utječe na arhitekturu, što znači ne samo umjetnost, već i glazba, ples, kazalište, opera, hrana, društvo, fizika, istraživanja u biologiji, sve!ORIS — Prvi Vaš rad koji sam vidio bio je u časopisu Do mus, most u Nanterre. U to sam vrijeme završavao studij arhitek ture. Zanimala me je posebna vrsta alternativne mu zike tzv. gotička glazba. Kad sam vidio Vašu fotografiju, totalno

umjetničkih objekata i dizajna, preko interijera i izlagačkih prostora do vrlo velikih projekata koji se bave urbanizmom. Kako se mijenja Vaš pristup prema mjerilu projekta i ovisi li o njemu? Kako reagirate na specifične probleme koji se javljaju zbog mjerila projekta? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Čudno je to pitanje mjerila, jer studirala sam arhitekturu, a nakon toga nešto urbanizma, pa se vrlo lako igram s tim različitim mjerilima, od arhitekture do urbanizma. Bojala sam se projektirati objekte jer nije lako misliti o malim objektima. Sjećam se početka 2000., kad smo za UNESCO napravili prvi naslonjač, tvrtka je napravila prototip pa su ga donijeli u naš ured. Pogledala sam ga i rekla: ‘Premalen je.’ Bila sam sigurna da je premalen. Rekla sam da nešto ne valja i zatražila nove izmjere. Sjela sam u naslonjač, bio je udoban, ali jednostavno premalen, pa sam ih molila da izrade veći. Napravili su drugi prototip, ali taj je bio apsolutno neudoban. Onda sam shvatila da je prvi predmet koji sam dizajnirala bio manji od mog tijela. Bio je to naslonjač, sad je stolac. Sad to znam raditi, ali na početku me objekt izne nadio veličinom. To nije nešto što te okružuje, stvarno je samo predmet na koji sjedneš. Čudno sam se osjećala; na-pravili smo modele, uzeli otiske različitih ljudi iz ureda kako bismo ih manipulirali i shvatili koji je najbolji oblik. Bili smo pragmatični, mislili smo na tijelo i kako će ga stolac obuhvatiti. Mnogo arhitekata dizajnira stolce, ponekad su zaista lijepi, ali apsolutno neudobni. Htjela sam izraditi lijep, ali udoban stolac koji odgovara tijelu. Upravo sam se zato bojala dizajna.ORIS — Takvo je razmišljanje o tijelu i o tome kako se arhitektura odnosi prema tijelu, prisutno u gotovo svim Va šim projektima. Restoran u operi također je vrlo tjelesan. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Da, zato što me uvijek brine činjenica da se tijelo mora lako kretati prostorom ili reagirati na prostor, ili mu prostor daje mogućnost kretanja zbog načina na koji je izveden, te tjera tijelo na kretanje. Tijelo u prostoru mora biti slobodno. Ponekad postoje neka ograničenja, ali mora se moći kretati i to stalno. Zapravo je to tema i u MACRO-u. Za mene je kretanje kroz muzej, različite mogućnosti kretanja po muzeju, zaista važno. Dati posjetiteljima mogućnosti da sami biraju put kojim će se kretati po muzeju i otkrivati umjetnost na tom putovanju.ORIS — Kad počinjete tako misliti, pretpostavljam da je to vaša intuicija. Taj je pristup neobičan, posebno u vrijeme kad ste studirali arhitekturu. Vjerojatno je Vaša inovacija. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Možda je to zato što uopće nisam studirala jer smo stalno štrajkali tijekom mog studija u sedamdesetima (smije se). Uvijek govorim da sam obavila šest godina studija arhitekture, ali sam od toga četiri godine štrajkala. Studij je bio tipičan za godine nakon 1968., nešto nevjerojatno.


MACRO, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti, Rim, Italija, 2010.

MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome, Italy, 2010

(LF)

maybe because I wasn’t educated at all, because we were always on strike during my studies in the 1970s (laughs). I always say I did six years of architectural studies, but four years of that time I was on strike. It was post-’68 in the school of architecture, it was really something incredible there. It was not like that in all the schools. I needed to work during my studies, so I was working in an architectural office, but not as an architect. I was working as a writer, thanks to my study of art history. This architect, Phillippe Boudon, was writing books about the theory of architecture. I worked with him

MACRO, Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome,

Italy, 2010

(RH)

tlocrt

plan

for four years, writing books with him. We used to sit on either side of the table, I was looking at what he was writing and commenting at the same time. It was a very strange way of working. I did my sort of history of architecture during my studies at this time there, because we were looking at architecture, looking at architects, but when I was going to school, nothing happened. We were on strike all the time. So it is really more intuitive because I was not really educated. After my degree, I did not know how to draw a perspective, I did not know how to design, I wasn’t really able to see what happens in section, I was absolutely uneducated, so I had to learn that by doing my own projects.ORIS — When you speak about that time, and I’m absolutely guessing here, how much does counterculture, pop music, alternative music, how much does this kind of stuff influence your work or you? ¶ ODILE DECQ — I think that everything influences architecture. Everything around us influences architecture, that means not only art, but music, dance, theatre, opera, food, society, physics, biological research, everything!ORIS — The first work by you that I saw was in Domus magazine, the motorway bridge in Nanterre. At that time, I was just finishing my architectural studies. I was into a very


MACRO, Muzej suvremene umjetnosti,

Rim, Italija, 2010.

me oduševila zbog asocijacije s grupom Siouxsie and the Banshees, basisticom iz grupe Sisters of Mercy. ¶ ODILE DECQ — To su bila dva moja omiljena benda u to vrijeme i često sam odlazila u London na koncerte jer Sisters of Mercy nisu dolazili u Francusku. Pjevač je rekao da je nekad imao djevojku Francuskinju koju je mrzio, pa je Francuska bila zabranjena, no sad svira i u Francuskoj. Lani sam kupila kartu, ali nisam mogla otići zbog nekog sastanka. Moram na koncert. Pjevač je zaista dojmljiv. A Siouxsie je isto bila posebna.ORIS — Zanima li Vas još takva glazba? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Da, i imam ih na mobitelu. Imam sve CD-e gotičke glazbe iz tog razdoblja. U osamdesetima je u Londonu bila tržnica Great Gear Market, u ulici King’s Road, gdje se svega moglo naći, kafića, odjeće, ploča, knjiga, postera, svega. Onamo se moralo ići. Svakog smo tjedna išli u London, ili svaka dva, slušati glazbu jer smo u tim grupama imali prijatelje. Istovremeno smo išli na londonske dokove. Kad bismo vikend proveli u Londonu, išli bismo na koncert, ali bismo nedjeljom gledali zgrade i građevine na dokovima i tako smo shvatili kako graditi čelične konstrukcije. Gledali smo te detalje i transformacije na dokovima. Posjećivali bismo i muzeje suvremene umjetnosti. Bila je to odlična kombinacija za vikend. Deset sam godina


specific kind of gothic music and so on. When I saw your picture, I was totally amazed because of the association with Siouxsie and the Banshees, the bass player from the Sisters of Mercy and so on. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Those were two of my favourite bands at the time and I went a lot of times to London to see them, because Sisters of Mercy were never coming to France. The singer said he had a French girlfriend he hated, so France was forbidden, but he plays France now. Last year, I bought a ticket but I couldn’t go, because I had a meeting. I have to see them. The singer’s presence is really impressive. And Siouxsie was also something else.

ORIS — Are you still into that kind of music? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Yes, I still have them on my phone. I have all the CDs of all the gothic music from that period. In the 1980s, there was a place in London called Great Gear Market, on the King’s Road, where you had everything, cafés, clothes, vinyl, books, posters, everything. It was really the place to go at this time. We were going to London every week or every two weeks to listen to music, because we had friends in those bands. At the same time, we were going to London’s docks. When we’d come for a weekend in London, we would go and see some concert, but on Sunday we would visit and look at the buildings and construction at the docks, and that’s how we understood how to do buildings in steel construction. We were looking at these details and all the transformation of the docks. We were also going to contemporary art museums. It was a super combination for the weekend. I did that for ten years. It was a really inspiring period. It was a time when London was in economic depression, but the energy inside was absolutely incredible.ORIS — Things have definitely changed from that time. Some for better some for worse, but it seems that this kind of fighting with creativity against Thatcherism and the crises of that time has gone. How do you look on this kind of artistic resistance today? What is the position of the architect now in society? ¶ ODILE DECQ — First of all, we have more and more architects and because of the star system architects are more known, but at the same time, I think in a way they’ve lost their real role in social terms. But as I said before, all thanks to this new generation of young architects that issue is coming back. Because of the length of time between the beginning and the end of a project, we have to be able to keep our ideas for ten years on one project, whatever is coming in terms of influence of time, journalists, media, economy, crises and so on. It’s very complex. At the same time, the way we integrate, or do certain things with, everything we have to integrate into one project, gives us a sort of possibility to look a bit further, to be curious about what will happen in the future, because our buildings are so long that we have to be able to provide a building for tomorrow in ten years, not for today, but for tomorrow. Thanks to that, I think that architects are able to be advisors or consultants to politicians or people who need information or need people to make ideas for the future. This is the only profession that works like that. For example, a designer usually gives just a sketch to the company, and the company does everything. It is always quick. Advertising is very quick, cinema is very quick. But, we have to keep our minds. It’s why we are very

Motorway bridge and control center, Nanterre,

France, 1996

(GF)

Most preko autoceste i kontrolni centar,

Nanterre, Francuska, 1996.


novoj generaciji mladih arhitekata to se pitanje vraća. Zbog vremena između početka i kraja projekta, moramo biti u stanju svoje ideje o jednom projektu zadržavati i deset godina, bez obzira na vrijeme, novinare, medije, ekonomiju, krize i tako dalje. Sve je to vrlo složeno. Istovremeno, način na koji integriramo ili izvodimo neke stvari, što sve uključujemo u projekt, daje nam mogućnost da gledamo dalje, da nas zanima što će se dogoditi u budućnosti jer moramo biti u stanju napraviti zgradu za sljedećih deset godina, ne za danas, već za sutra. Zbog toga mislim da arhitekti mogu savjetovati političare ili ljude koji trebaju informacije ili ljude, kako bi stvarali ideje za budućnost. Ovo je jedino zanimanje koje tako funkcionira. Na primjer, dizajner obično skicu da tvrtki koja onda obavi sve ostalo. Uvijek je brzo. Reklamiranje je brzo, kinematografija isto tako. Ali, mi moramo zadržavati misli. Zato je s nama teško živjeti (smije se). Uvijek o svemu imamo ideje ili mišljenja.ORIS — Zanimljiv je proces od ideje do realizacije. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Da, nije linearan. Nije diskurzivan, ali morate naći put i nikad nije ravan. Zato ga uvijek uspoređujem s jedrenjem. Kad jedrite, imate točku do koje trebate stići, ali u međuvremenu idete ovim ili onim putem, zbog vjetra, struja i svega ostalog. Ako jedrite, znate da ćete istovremeno morati navigati i pregovarati, raditi kompromise, ne gubeći cilj iz vida. To je za mene i arhitektura.ORIS — Zanimaju nas i projekti koje nismo vidjeli u knjigama i časopisima. Što pripremate? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Sljedeći je projekt FRAC u Rennesu i otvara se za dva mjeseca. I to je muzej suvremene umjetnosti, manji od MACRO-a, različit, ali ne jako. Prepoznaju se neke ideje iz MACRO-a, ali zbog uvjeta projekta, koji je manji i gušći, istovremeno je i drukčiji. Čudno je. Iznenadila sam se jer ne idem svaki tjedan na gradilište zbog nedostatka vremena, pa kad su je otkrili, nismo prije mnogo vidjeli jer je prostor u sredini bio ispunjen skelama. No, lani kad su počeli micati skele iz sredine, iznenadila sam se i prostor me se dojmio. Svaki put kad onamo odem, divim se onome što su napravili. Stvarno je snažno. Ministar kulture je muzej posjetio u ožujku, pa se i on iznenadio. Izvana se vidi samo taj crni kvadar. Čudna je i materijalnost tog kvadra. Ima stakla, ali je staklo u slojevima od crnog do gotovo prozirnog, a gore je čelik, no čelik je crn, ali istovremeno i reflektivan. Mijenja boju prema nebu, a otraga imamo crni beton. To znači da se tri različita materijala igraju s tamom, ali su različiti jer su reflektivni, istovremeno vrlo gusti pa apsorbiraju i odražavaju sve u isto vrijeme. Vrlo zanimljiv monolit. Iznutra je to prostor koji se kreće od tla do visine od 30 metara. Ne mogu to zapravo dobro objasniti, zaista je složeno.

tako provela, vrlo inspirativno razdoblje. London je u to vrijeme bio u ekonomskoj depresiji, ali mu je energija bila apsolutno nevjerojatna.ORIS — Otad se štošta promijenilo. Nešto na bolje, nešto na gore, ali čini se da je završila takva borba kreativnošću protiv tačerizma i krize tog vremena. Kako danas gledate na tu vrstu umjetničkog pokreta otpora? Koje je mjesto arhitekta u današnjem društvu? ¶ ODILE DECQ — Kao prvo, imamo sve više arhitekata koji su poznatiji zbog ‘sustava zvijezda’, ali istovremeno, mislim da su izgubili svoju pravu ulogu u društvenom smislu. Ali, kako sam i ranije rekla, za hvaljujući


difficult to live with (laughs). We always have an idea or opinion about something.ORIS — The process from the idea to realization is interesting. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Yes, it’s not linear. It’s not discursive, but you have to find a way, and it’s never straightforward. It’s why I always compare it to sailing, because when you sail, you have a point you have to go to, but in the meantime, you have to go this way and that way, because of the wind, the currents and everything. If you sail, you know that you will have to navigate and negotiate at the same time, to compromise, but without losing the point. It’s the same as architecture, to me.ORIS — I’m a little bit curious about your projects which we haven’t seen in books or magazines. What do you have in preparation? ¶ ODILE DECQ — The next one, FRAC in Rennes, will open in two months. It is again a museum of contemporary art, smaller than MACRO, different, but not so different. You can recognize some ideas from MACRO, but because of the condition of this project, which is smaller and denser, it’s really different at the same time. It is strange, I was really surprised, because I don’t go to the site every week since I don’t have that much time, so when they started to uncover it, because the space in the middle was so full of scaffolding we didn’t see it a lot, but last year, when they started to take off this scaffolding in the middle, I was really surprised and impressed by the space. Every time I go there, I am impressed by what we have done. It’s really strong. We had the Minister

of Culture visit the site in March, and he was really surprised. From the outside, you just see this black parallelepiped. The materiality of a parallelepiped is particular. We have glass, but the glass goes from black to nearly transparent by layers, and above we have steel, but the steel is black and reflective at the same time. It changes colour all the time thanks to the sky, and at the back we have black concrete. That means that we have three different materials playing with this darkness, but at the same time they are really different, because they are reflective, but at the same time very dense, absorbing and reflecting everything at the same time. It’s a very interesting monolith. Inside, it is really a space which moves from the ground to the top 30 metres high. I can’t really describe it, it’s really complex.ORIS — It’s interesting that red and black are somehow a recurring theme in your work. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Ok, I’m wearing black and have been wearing black for a long time, but at the same time, I didn’t want to force people to have the same opinion as me. I remember my first projects in the 1980s and even the 1990s when we were discussing the colours or materials of the project on site, my clients were always asking whether I would put some black inside, and I would say no, you are not forced to have black. Since MACRO, where I dared to use black, I think I can finally push black. I discovered that it is fantastic to play with black in architecture, but this is quite recent. Red has always been in my rendered image, to see the contrast with the light. This


ORIS — Zanimljivo je i da su crvena i crna boja nekako česta tema Vaših radova. ¶ ODILE DECQ — OK, nosim crno i to već duže vrijeme, ali istovremeno nisam htjela tjerati ljude da imaju isto mišljenje kao ja. Sjećam se prvih projekata u osamdesetima i čak devedesetima kad bismo razgovarali o bojama i materijalima nekog projekta, klijenti su me uvijek pitali hoću li unutra staviti crnu boju, a ja bih rekla: ‘Ne, crna nije obavezna.’ Od MACRO-a, kad sam se usudila koristiti crnu, mislim da je sad mogu primjenjivati i češće. Otkrila sam da je fascinantno igrati se crnom bojom u arhitekturi, ali tek nedavno. Crvenu sam uvijek koristila kod rendera, kako bih vidjela kontrast sa svjetlom. Crvenu sam iskoristila na jednoj zgradi 1991. godine kad smo trebali obojiti zid na kra ju zgra de i naglasiti rez. Nekoliko smo dana o tome razgovarali s ličilačkom tvrtkom i nakon toga smiješali vlastitu nijansu crvene. Otad je koristim jer je moja, ali na početku je to bilo samo na renderima, no kako su ispadali dojmljivi, odlučili smo je koristiti i na građevinama. Bio je to proces, ne ideja, imati crnu zgradu. Polako se uvuklo, korak po korak. Sad razmišljam o tome što bih mogla nakon toga jer ne mogu dovijeka zgrade bojiti u crno i crveno.ORIS — No, to je dobro, neka vrsta potpisa. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Znam taj svoj problem s crnom jer otkad znam da nosim crnu odjeću, za mene je sve crno. Ne kupujem ništa što nije crno. Teška je to droga. Čak i kad kupujem obične stvari, ne kupujem ako nije crno. Kad sam počela koristiti crnu boju na građevinama, to je zaista bilo teško jer je tama

tako intenzivna, pa je crna boja vrlo komplicirana. Za mene crno integrira sve boje u sebe. Stephen Hawking je rekao da je kraj crne rupe crven. I tako sam sad zarobljena u vlastitom sustavu. Zadnjih nekoliko tjedana razmišljam o tome kako pobjeći od toga.ORIS — U operi ste upotrijebili bijelu i crvenu boju. ¶ ODILE DECQ — Ali je pod crn. Nova je zgrada apsolutno transpa-rentna, ali su podovi unutra crni s nekoliko crvenih objekata. U stupici sam. Teško je o tome razgovarati. Mislim o tome dok putujem, recimo da upotrijebim plavu boju, ali je plava vrlo teška zbog mjesečine. Ako je stavite vani, mjesečina je mijenja. Crvena je mnogo lakša. Ne znam, to je još jedna avantura koja me čeka.ORIS — Netko je u šali rekao da crno nije boja, već pogled na svijet. Sviđa mi se Vaš pozitivni ‘mračni’ pogled na stvari. Na taj način doživljavam i Vaš projekt ‘Mrzim Božić’ koji posebno volim zbog njegove oštroumnosti. Podsjeća me malo na Tima Burtona i njegov poetski crni humor. ¶ ODILE DECQ — U Francuskoj postoji dobrotvorna organizacija koja za Božić zamoli umjetnike, dizajnere i arhitekte da izrade božićna drvca koja će prodavati. Pristala sam napraviti jedno. Dakle, što je drvce? To je trokut i isprva sam rekla da ga ne želim raditi jer mrzim Božić. Igrali smo pikado i onda sam odlučila iskoristiti ga za božićno drvce, tako da je svaka strelica nosila naziv smrtnog grijeha. Sve su različitih boja, sedam strelica u sedam boja, svaka za jedan od sedam grijeha.

I Hate Christmas, Pariz, Francuska, 2010., Galerie Polaris

I Hate Christmas, Paris, France, 2010, Galerie Polaris

(ODBC)


Anisotropy, Los Angeles, USA, 2011

red was used in a building in 1995 when we had to paint a wall at the end of the building and we wanted to express the cut, because it was a parallelepiped and we wanted to express the cut of the building by a red surface. We discussed this with a painting company for some days, and after that we made our own red. Since then I’ve been using that red, because it is my red, but in the beginning, it was only in the renderings, and because the renderings became so strong, we said ok, we can use it now inside the buildings. It was really a process; it was not the idea of having a black building. It came slowly inside, step by step. Now, I’m thinking about what I can do after that, because I can’t go on forever building black and red.ORIS — But it’s good, it’s some kind of signature. ¶ ODILE DECQ — I know my problem with black, because as soon as I knew I was wearing black, everything for me is black. I cannot buy anything which is not black. It’s a hard drug. Even if I go into a shop for a simple object, I can’t buy it if it’s not black. As soon as I started to do black in buildings, it became really difficult to go back, because darkness is so intense, so it’s really complicated to come back. For me, it is black which integrates all the colours inside. Stephen Hawking said that the end of a black hole is red. And so, now I’m trapped in my own system. For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about how to escape it.ORIS — You’ve made the opera in white and red. ¶ ODILE DECQ — But the floor is black. The new building is absolutely transparent, but inside the floors will be black and there will be some red objects inside. I’m trapped. It’s hard to discuss that. I think a lot when I travel, so I was thinking that maybe I can use blue, but how can you use blue, because blue is such a difficult colour to use due to the moonlight. If you place it outside, it is transformed by the moonlight. Red is much easier. I don’t know, this is another adventure that I need to go on.ORIS — Someone said, jokingly, that ‘black is not a colour but a way of looking at the world’. I very much like your positive ‘dark’ view on things. I see your project ‘I Hate Christmas’ in that way, which I really adore because of its cleverness. It reminds me a little of Tim Barton and his poetic black humour. ¶ ODILE DECQ — In France, there is a charity that asks artists, designers and architects to make a Christmas tree so they can sell it. I agreed to make one. So what is a tree? It’s a triangle and I said that I didn’t want to do it because I hate Christmas. We were playing darts, and I decided to make it into a Christmas tree, with every dart having the name of a cardinal sin. They are all of different colour, seven arrows in seven colours, each for one of the seven sins.

(ODBC)

oris, broj 77, godina 2012

Anisotropy, Los Angeles, SAD, 2011.

Documents

Arhitektura Architecture kao jedrenje as · PDF fileArhitektura kao jedrenje Architecture as Sailing razgovarali interviewed by Interviewed in Paris 25 April 2012 Odile Decq Razgovarali