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Ingels & Thorsen

Interview - 21.05.2020

Ingels & Thorsen In Dialogue

The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels (1974), founder of BIG, and the Norwegian Kjetil Thorsen (1958), co-founder of Snøhetta, talk in Pamplona about the importance of landscape in design and architecture. Founders of two of the leading Scandinavian architecture studios, Bjarke Ingels (BIG) and Kjetil Thorsen (Snøhetta), coincided in Pamplona during the IV International Congress of the Fundación Arquitectura y Sociedad, held under the motto ‘Change of Climate’. Though their works are readily distinguishable and evidently different, their approach to architecture is practically the same. They both take inspiration from the landscape, the one they have known since their childhood, and that, as in the case of so many Nordic authors, has marked their career and work. Bjarke Ingels: Maybe this is a cliché in the concepts of Scandinavia but the fact that you guys do this annual hike to the Snøhetta mountain is very interesting to me. We also go on an expedition every year, but last year there was a terrible snowstorm in which seven people had died, so we had to stay in the valley. It was so shocking though that we haven’t actually planned this

Interview with Alberto Campo Baeza

Interview - 09.04.2020

Interview with Alberto Campo Baeza

In dialogue

Begoña Marín Calle and Armando Valenzuela Moyano interview the renowned Spanish architect Alberto Campo Baeza in his studio in Madrid. Alberto Campo Baeza is the latest recipient of the National Architecture Award given by the Spanish Association of Architecture Institutes. Almost at the same time, the National Geographic organization named Andalusia’s Museum of Memory —along with the Guggenheim of Bilbao— one of the “ten modern wonders of the world,” an accolade which Campo Baeza, naturally modest and restrained, disagrees with. He receives us in his studio in Madrid’s Justicia neighborhood, dressed in a blue-striped shirt that was his father’s, and leads us into his office, a corner at the back where a painting by him hangs beside a Chillida print. We start to converse around a table on which there is a card-board model of his latest house project and a prototype of a delicate lamp he has designed in three lines: a trihedron of steel expressing the essence and exactitude that governs his work in general. Begoña Marín Calle: Why don’t you agree with National Geog
Eisenman & Davidson

Interview - 24.12.2019

Eisenman & Davidson

In dialogue

During a stay in Madrid, Peter Eisenman comments some of his projects – from the City of Culture of Galicia to the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin – with this wife, the editor Cynthia Davidson. Architect of tenacious theoretical interests, Peter Eisenman was born into a family of European origin, completed his intellectual training in Europe and had as mentors, successively, the British critic Colin Rowe, the Italian historian Manfredo Ta- furi, and the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Bridging the young architecture of the East Coast of the United States and the new currents of the Old Continent, his cultural activism through magazines, encounters, and research groups like the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies turned him into a representative of a new professional attitude, expressed also in a series of highly influential domestic proj- ects. After taking part in several European competitions where he explored the dialogue between geometric abstraction and urban topography, he completed his first important works in the the state of Ohio – the Wexner, the Aronoff, and the Columbus Convention centers –, all expressions of the disjointed volumes of the deconstructivist aes
Paredes Pedrosa & Dal Co

Interview - 13.08.2019

Paredes Pedrosa & Dal Co

In Dialogue

During an encounter with Francesco Dal Co in Milan, Ángela García de Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosa discussed the essential aspects of their work from a chronological, thematic, and ideological view. The Mondadori Editorial Office, built between 1968 and 1975 by Oscar Niemeyer, holds the conversation between the architects Ángela García de Paredes and Ignacio García Pedrosa and the historian Francesco Dal Co, director of Casabella magazine and great connoisseur of their work.Francesco Dal Co: You both studied at the Madrid School of Architecture, during what years?Ángela García de Paredes: Yes, we started in 1975, a crucial year in Spain. Franco died in November, so the School was closed until January. We met because our last names went together on the class list. We were destined by alphabetical order. FDC: What were the most interesting experiences during this period and what teachers influenced you the most?Ignacio García Pedrosa: We were lucky to be students when three critical professors were still teaching: Francisco Javier Sáenz de
Interview with Nika Zupanc

Interview - 19.06.2019

Interview with Nika Zupanc

Cosentino

In this conversation Vanessa Feo, Head of International Communication for Cosentino, interviews Nika Zupanc, globally recognised product and interior designer. What is the first material, the first spark to start designing a product? What path do you follow in your creative process?Nika Zupanc (NZ): For me it is very important who I am working for, because I am of course an industrial designer, so the product is always a combination of your philosophy and philosophy of the company. So the initial brief always comes from the company. Then it depends whether the company has its own material that it works with, if this is the case, then you concentrate on that material, and you work with that material. Then you have companies that don’t have their own technology, and in cases like that you start from different points. But it’s always combination of the material, for me the innovation in the material is very important, so is how to use the existing techniques in a new way. And then of course it is just the combination of the function, the appearance, the colours, etc. But it really depends on each product, always it&rs
Kéré & Kundoo

Interview - 27.05.2019

Kéré & Kundoo

In Dialogue

The Berlin-based Burkinabé Francis Kéré and the Indian architect Anupama Kundoo talk about the coincidences and differences that have marked their lives and their careers. The following is an excerpt of a conversation that took place in Madrid, on the occasion of the Museo ICO exhibition, between Francis Kéré and the Indian architect Anupama Kundoo, whose work expresses a sensitivity much akin to the African’s.Anupama Kundoo: There is something I never asked you before. You and I have done things that point to a certain grouping or commonality. But one of the differences between us is this: I studied architecture in India and I started working there with the education I had received. I come from a very populated area in Bombay but I moved to a rural zone, where, out of necessity, I explored low-tech ways of building, respecting the resources the locals have. Later I went to Germany, taught with the head of the department, and decided to do my PhD. You, in contrast, studied in Germany, so there has to be a German influence on the African imprint you carry inside. I see your underlying emotions and roots clearly, also in the way yo
Interview with Alfredo Häberli

Interview - 25.03.2019

Interview with Alfredo Häberli

Cosentino

In this conversation Alfredo Häberli, an internationally established designer that has been sponsored by Dekton in his most recent project, shares with Cosentino some of his thoughts about design and the future. You were born in Argentina and have been residing in Zurich, Switzerland since the end of the 1970s. How does the Latino personality mix with the Germanic one?Alfredo Häberli (AH): At the beginning it was more suffering than a marriage of the two. But I have to say that I work a lot thinking about my childhood and the positive years that I experienced in Argentina, and a little with the rationality I learned in Switzerland and in my studies as an industrial designer. All of these have been good for me today. So I have both: the poetry and sense of intuition I got from Argentina and the rational, slightly more orderly side from Switzerland.You say your studio “nourishes your soul.” We picture a place full of books, models, materials and curiosities. Is your studio anything like this? Do you find inspiration in your studio? Is it where your creativity is given full rein?AH: Yes. I’ve always thought that observation is the
Interview with Benjamin Hubert

Interview - 14.03.2019

Interview with Benjamin Hubert

Cosentino

Cosentino interviews Benjamin Hubert, creative director of LAYER, a stratergic design agency from London. The designer has collaborated with Dekton, creating the installation Raytrace fir the Milan Design Week 2019. How did this collaboration with Cosentino come to life?Benjamin Hubert (BJ): Cosentino came to visit us, came to the studio to see our work, to see our process.  And then, we visited Cosentino to see the factory, to see the production, to see the materials, to see the process… And the meeting of our process and Cosentino’s process came to a conversation where we were talking about: How do we highlight the potential of Dekton®?What was your initial vision for the collaboration?BJ: The material that Cosentino produces is incredible. Dekton® is a result of a lot of pressure, short amount of time, a lot of natural materials, to create a very hard-wearing and highly compact material. And we saw this material and thought it could be used for architectural applications. Its size and gravitas should be exploited, and we liked the idea of a relationship to nature. So, thinking about the world arou

Interview - 21.12.2018

Arik Levy visits Cosentino

Cosentino City Madrid

El artista, diseñador industrial y fotógrafo, Arik Levy visitó el 17 de diciembre Cosentino City Madrid. Nacido en Tel Aviv, Levy se formó en el Art Center Europe de Suiza. Desde su estudio parisino ha viajado hasta Madrid para participar en un conversatorio con Vicente Porres (Noviembre Estudio) sobre el proceso del diseño. Al evento asistieron clientes y colaboradores de Cosentino y se organizó en colaboración con la revista Room Diseño.Arik Levy:“La creación es un músculo sin control. Vemos demasiado, pero no sentimos suficiente, así que cuando diseño intento sentir lo que me conecta con la mente.”“Mi material preferido es la emoción. Si pongo una sonrisa en la cara de alguien, entonces es que algo bueno ha pasado.”
Piano&Galiano

Interview - 19.11.2018

Piano&Galiano

Dialogue

Renzo Piano discusses with Luis Fernández-Galiano his professional itinerary in Genoa, at the house adjoining the studio of the Italian architect. Interviewed in his home and workshop at Punta Nave on the eve of turning 80, Renzo Piano and Luis Fernández-Galiano comment on the first steps of his career and his latest work, the Botín Centre. Luis Fernández-Galiano: Thank you so much for receiving us in your home here in Punta Nave, near Genoa, your hometown, where you were born almost eighty years ago. You turn 80 in September, and this is perhaps a good moment to go through your biography. An asteroid was recently named after you. Only Buckminster Fuller has something like that, a molecule named after him. An asteroid is larger, 5 kilometers in diameter!Renzo Piano: I think everybody has a star somewhere.LFG: You were telling me before that everybody needs an inner compass, as ships do, to guide them in life. I would say that your inner compasses are building on the one hand, and people on the other. Building for people. Were these your two references in youth?RP: I use the word ‘compass’ bec
Foster & Galiano

Interview - 13.06.2018

Foster & Galiano In dialogue

Turning 80 in June, Norman Foster reviews the sources and highlights of his carrer in a dialogue with Luis Fernández-Galiano held at his foundation in Madrid´s Monte Esquinza street. Luis Fernández-Galiano (LFG): Everybody knows you love flying, but I wonder how it has inspired your architecture. When you turned 75, you recollected how many different models of aircraft you had piloted, and they happened to be exactly 75... Norman Foster (NF): It was one of those extraordinary explorations. I got all my log books, in which I’d noted every flight in each type of flying machine, and discovered I had piloted 75 different craft – microlights, aerobatic monoplanes, vintage biplanes, military fighters and business jets. It is interesting that professional pilots rarely cross the boundaries between these different flying machines. If the pilot of a light aircraft has to make a landing without an engine into a remote field, then an emergency would be declared with calls of “mayday” to alert the emergency services.However, for a glider pilot that would be a normal procedure when running out of lift on a long-distance