Multiplicity and Memory
During the first planning stage, you think of the needs of the place and what it lacks. Then how does the planning evolve?
I don’t only think of the place: I visit it, because it’s a physical experience and all can be thought as being in the place. In architecture, there’s always an underlying need. I think of the utilization: is what I do valuable? Do I like it? And what does it lack? I try to think and feel together the needs of function, use, and the peculiarity of the place. In the place physical appearance, when it’s observed, there is the whole history, because history shows in the world’s body, much more than in books. Also in books, certainly, but history, the memory, becomes narrative to be studied in university, where they need the book’s narration. But the true history, our families’ history, our people’s history, is here, and here, and there, and once again here, isn’t it? [He indicates some points in the room and in the garden]. So this is my work: to observe, and to understand what I see…or to try to understand.
In your work, emotion becomes memory. How is it possible to arouse the right emotion in those who live in architectural masterpieces, the wanted emotion connected to the remembrance that the architect would like us to feel in that specific place?
It doesn’t happen in such academic manner. It’s much easier. It’s to use common sense: what is beautiful? What would be the best thing to have? What does arouse a positive feeling? What are the things that you want when you will be elderly? This is because you can’t make an emotional project. If you’re looking for beauty and for emotion you will always be in the wrong. It’s great when it happens, but you can’t plan the emotions. It isn’t a voluntary act, there is always something beyond, pertaining to the craft’s material. Architecture is always these two things: the place and the use. You can build something where you feel fine and where all is made in relation to use and function. Maybe beauty comes after that, if you’re lucky.
The building materials you choose for your architectural pieces are always exact and precise. What is the principle that determines this choice?
I think that every project has its theme. And it has to be formulated in a very strong way, so that the entire building and all things, can be explained by this principal theme. For me, the principal theme isn’t an abstract idea, but a physical one. The architecture which interests me is concrete architecture, not architecture as an abstraction. So there is already a body: the idea is a real body. I hope there will always be a logical reason for choosing the building materials… But upfront there’s an idea: it’s made of concrete, or it’s made of wood, or it’s made of concrete but inside there are a lot of wood things…
