Josep Lluís Mateo MAP Architects
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Experiments Happen in Real Life Josep LLuís Mateo In conversation with Krunoslav Ivanisin, ETH Hönggerberg, Zurich, Switzerland, 2006. (stracts) May 16th Krunoslav Ivanisin : You had a few projects in the former Eastern Europe. Was your experience better there?Josep Lluis Mateo : Yes, in Germany, the former GDR, we have built a bank in Chemnitz and we had several projects that never came into existence. We also did a competition for the Jewish Museum in Warsaw. Then there is the project for the entrance to the National Museum in Prague. In these countries we sometimes encounter great difficulties in the procedure. The entrance to the museum in Prague for example is a very small building and I am sure that they can build it fantastically regarding the precision and detailing demands usual for a construction of that kind. But the procedure itself is very complicated. Things are evolving very slowly. Krunoslav Ivanisin : I can easily imagine the situation. It is like having a million barriers to cross Josep Lluts Mateo : It is like everybody is used to the situation in which nothing ever happens, in a sort of time continuum with no changes. But I still believe that the entrance to the museum will be realized. Krunoslav Ivanisin : You did the competition in Albania too. Josep Lluis Mateo : I have participated in one competition and once I was a member of the competition jury there. I really liked the country, a new land to me, but with a rich history, I could understand it. In Albania, in Prague and in Chemnitz I have seen my own culture. Eastern Europe is like a part of our history, in a way delayed, but coming from the same origins. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Was it like discovering something that was only forgotten for a while? Josep Lluis Mateo : Exactly. In Croatia, for instance, I was discovering what the Mediterranean was, what my country was, what my landscape looked like some fifty or thirty years ago. I was sort of discovering my own past there. In Albania, there is that exotic presence of Moslem culture, and then there is the impression of the mountains. Then you see the nightmares produced by Enver Hoxha. In architectural terms, Tirana is a very interesting city, being founded on the plan devised by Italians. Urbanism of such kind was always connected to a strong government, to tyranny. In the Netherlands, there is no more urbanism, but a system of single compromises instead. The city is not a city any more. Krunoslav Ivanisin : In the conversation between lñaki Ábalos and you, published in the 2G Review, Ábalos pointed out that the way of understanding the contemporary city as something fragmented and landscape - like, which was implied by the Quaderns magazine in the period you were editing it, is being materialized in Barcelona right now, in the most ambitious form in the world. Josep Lluis Mateo : I do not agree completely. At that time, Barcelona was not supposed to be such a city; it already was the city of that kind. You know, I am not so interested in futurist approaches. I am more interested in describing the reality, not in proposing new realities, because nobody can know the future. Already in those times our city was more a landscape than a city in the 19th century terms. It goes for other cities as well, but Barcelona is a quite interesting example. Perhaps because of the topography: mountains, rivers and the sea. The presence of landscape is very powerful there, despite the strong grid imposed by Cerdà who was a military engineer. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Now that we are in Barcelona, we could discuss the South-North and East-West relations within the realm of architecture by comparing two of your projects: the International Convention Centre in Barcelona and Deutsche Bundesbank in Chemnitz, the former Karl-Marx-Stadt. Josep Lluis Mateo : That is a good comparison. The project in Germany is very old, almost ten years now. The beginning of the project coincided with the end of the modern time. I was clearly aware of that fact, but in German culture, bound with ideas of order and rigour, the old system was still somehow operational. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Maybe it had something to do with the then actual programme of the reunification of Germany. Josep Lluis Mateo : Probably. There was a certain passion for tradition there, connected not only to the cultural atmosphere of the time, but also to the background of the client, the Federal Bank of Germany. Although I do not come from that tradition, I could comprehend this classicist aim towards security, strength and permanence, although from a certain distance. I was also surprised to see many of the modernist myths of the twenties realized in Eastern Germany in fifties and sixties. Very important for me was that I have discovered that this world was not something isolated. I have discovered a strong connection, although again with a clear distance to it. It was like watching an already finished movie. Actually, I appreciated this architecture, some of it of the highest quality, more than the Germans themselves, but it was something I could not continue. My effort offered another kind of reading of the posed problems: transforming landscape and nature into the line of culture, introducing lightness into heaviness, trying to reverse the issues of permanence and solidity from the inside. It was a big effort and a very long engagement after winning the competition that I am not interested to repeat With the Convention Centre the situation was completely different. We have made an enormous scale project in Mediterranean scenery in just two or three years' time. I really appreciate the capacity of reacting in a quick way, and it is something about the southern countries I have started to like more and more. On the other hand, there is something very positive about the German or the Central European culture which I also appreciate very much: strong logic connected with issues of precision, responsibility and control. The problem is that sometimes it works in a reactionary way. The approach that includes the capacity of adapting a structure is in a way more contemporary. Our contemporary time is not a slow time any more, like in the case of Prague where everything remains in the continuous present. This can be a nightmare. In the South, one can develop and transform things in an easier way. Krunoslav Ivanisin : The system is more open, I would say. Josep Lluis Mateo : More open and quicker. There is a common energy at a certain moment, in a certain project, when everybody comes together for something... which is not the case... at least it was not the case with my project in Germany. Too much energy was assigned to control and to division of responsibilities. But after all, I am very satisfied with the Bundesbank Headquarters building. When the given situation is approached in an optimistic and lighter way, with a sense of humour, the perfectionism and precision may condensate in something really interesting. May 17th Krunoslav Ivanisin : This issue of the Man and Space magazine deals with themes of knowledge, education, and teaching as a transfer of knowledge. How do you relate your teaching methods and your practising methods? Is there a parallel system between them?Josep Lluis Mateo : There are some similarities, of course. In fact, I do not interpret teaching as transmission of knowledge. I insist on the production of knowledge, closer to training than to teaching. For me, learning and teaching are an exercise, where I pose some questions in order to test the possibilities. I have always had a lot of respect for my students because of their non-knowledge and ignorance. Ignorance is a reflexive place for testing many possibilities. Krunoslav Ivanisin : How does one avoid the danger of being archaic when confronted with the ignorance of young students you are talking about? In a way, each teacher is always confronted with such a danger. Josep Lluis Mateo : One has to treat them as equals, because they are adults. I do not believe too much in my position as a teacher. I am trying to understand them and to learn from them. I am trying to pose questions in a straight way; trying to avoid having ready solutions until the solutions reveal themselves; trying to preserve the space in which the answer is not known, for them as well as for us. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Yesterday, during the mid-term critics at your Chair here at the ETH, I have seen that the projects your students are doing are quite different one from another. There is no trace of School of any kind, and I think it is really good. Josep Lluis Mateo : Learning is a personal experience and I am only imposing a scenario that can help students to learn. I really like the project they are doing this semester: the Winery at the Lake of Geneva. The students must decide where exactly to build their Winery, related to their personal comprehension of the site. On the other hand, the programme is clearly defined. In architecture we do not need to invent programmes. When architects invent programmes resembling modernist Utopias, it always ends up in a catastrophe. They are related to social life and the economy; they are subjected to some other, more complex competence. We must shape the programmes and organize them in the most appropriate way. Therefore we are implementing a very specific programme with a wide cultural background. The process of wine making is a very archaic theme, closely related to earth, but also connected with the contemporary life. It is a programme to think about, not a programme to invent. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Next to the entrance of the ETH Hönggerberg campus is written "welcome to the city of science". In the hall of the very building where the offices of the Chair for Theory and History of architecture are situated there is a big geological model of the Alps. Is this scientific environment comfortable for both the students and the teachers of architecture? Josep Lluis Mateo : For me, it is very comfortable. The relation to the technical; scientific environment is for me far more interesting than being only within the artistic domain. The model of the mountain is far more interesting than some contemporary arts' exercises. Of course, art is very important to us because it adds to the complexity of this world. But I really think that the fields of science, techniques, and mathematics are more interesting for us. Krunoslav Ivanisin : You have completed the education at the Polytechnic school yourself. Josep Lluis Mateo : Yes, such an education is closely related to Spanish architectural culture, where scientific, technical and structural aspects are extremely important. Once I was invited to teach at the Academy of Arts in Germany and I felt totally uncomfortable there. In fact, the word Art itself, in Spanish and also in many other languages, Kunst- künstlich in German, has, let's say, a metaphysical aspect, and on the other side it is related to the artificial, something detached from reality. Architecture must be related to the real world, not the artificial one. Choosing to be an artist would be a strategic mistake for an architect. In architecture we deal with necessities, basic and primitive needs. When it is rainy and cold, we need a shelter. Krunoslav Ivanisin : But still, in relation to place, your architecture is at least to some point metaphysical. Jose The material world is confronted with the scientific world, the latter explaining the way the material world works. As architects, we explain ideas and build ideas with materials. The energy never comes directly from materials but from the many ways we use them. In my work, I am materiality than as a pure concept. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Speaking about materiality, how would you describe your relation to the traditional in architecture. attempt of connecting its shape and topography, of arranging the movement of people, of finding the solution for one hectare of pavement, I was confronted with the big Portuguese tradition of stone masonry. And I realised that it has to profit from this project. Tradition needs to be manipulated; if we can not make use of the tradition we can not continue it. And it is again the game, the problem that I am interested in: how to shape the contextual, the traditional. A year ago I have participated at the competition for a skyscraper here in Zurich. I Liked the project very much and now I am building something very similar in Valencia: a high-rise building in a heavy tectonic way, to avoid the total presence characteristic of the Chinese and South Asian sculptural monsters. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Beside the work in the office related to projects and to building there are additional aspects in which we can develop our profession. In your case they are the work on the University, the work you did with the magazine, your publications, and the lectures you give at conferences. I might be wrong, but I think that the participation in this network constitutes a significant body of references, very important for your work. More than the idea of a homogenous network I like the idea of worms; invisible tunnels opening and closing, connecting different points on the map. Josep Lluis Mateo : It is a nice idea. It was always connected to my work and I am happy to talk about it. I always tried to build up and to confront myself with this -somehow invisible - network related to the exchange of knowledge and places where people discuss things just like we are discussing them right now. I see a certain change from the time when I was at my beginnings, twenty years ago. The discourse has become much more connected with marketing. The only way to participate in the public discourse is by doing big and very expensive buildings. It is a kind of pornography of facts: communicating the bigness of somebody just because he is doing a big skyscraper, as if the only discourse one architect can offer were his own voracity. But re-establishing a sort of map is still interesting to me, even if sometimes all this seems to be connected to purely political and economic issues. Krunoslav Ivanisin : Could your work then be described as a sort of discovering the reality of a site? I see a relation to American Minimalist Art in it: a similar interest in digging and discovering hidden layers. Josep Lluis Mateo : In fact, as a child I wanted to be an archaeologist. Then my father said: first finish architecture and then you can be archaeologist if you like. And yes, I am still interested in archaeology and in all the archaic things, in the way that artificial products, traces of human activity, are transformed into nature, in how ruins become mountains, how architecture is connected to place, to landscape. It is a cultural issue, how to add a new piece to the continuity, how to establish continuity, and also how to make an intelligent discontinuity. I am interested in nature and landscape in many ways and in architecture that is something like a natural product, not the product of the artificiality of the arts. When I came with the Bau-Baum metaphor for the Bank in Chemnitz, this was exactly what everybody was waiting for, really powerful. It was also a strategic decision, because landscape is a sort of commonplace for establishing a consensus. It was at least. Tomorrow I am going to the Netherlands because we are building the new headquarters for the provincial Court in Haarlem there. Landscape is a topic in this project too, but this time I have a strong opposition. The people in the neighbourhood do not want to have landscape there. Maybe they are too conservative but it could also be that the argument is changing. However, I am still interested in architecture coming from a natural condition where everything explains something else. |
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