David Chipperfield PDF

DAVID CHIPPERFIELD: “THERE IS NO
DEFINING MOMENT”
SHORT PROFILE
Name: Sir David Alan Chipperfield
DOB: 18 December 1953
Place of birth: London, England, United Kingdom
Occupation: Architect
JUNE 21, 2017
LISTEN TO AUDIO EXCERPT

Mr. Chipperfield, how do you feel when you’re standing in front of
a finished building?
Well, the problem with architecture is that it’s a long process. Many of the
bigger projects that we have — and even the smaller ones — tend to take three
years minimum but they can also go on for five or 10 years. So there is no real
single defining moment in the way that there sometimes is with other creative
processes. It’s not like in theater, where you think, “Okay, tonight’s the
opening night,” and then you all go out for a drink afterwards. A building is
progressively being completed, even on the day of the opening! I think the
point when you can really stand back is a little bit later, maybe one year later.
What will have changed in that one year?
I think that’s when the work has become naturalized. With something like the
Neues Museum in Berlin for instance, for the first year, I couldn’t really relax
by going there. Now I quite like going there, like a foreigner or a visitor. It was
the same way when we were planning our offices in Berlin. We spent a lot of
time developing it and worrying — should we have two rails for the curtains?
What sort of door handle should we use? Now it’s just become a place to work,
but at the time, it was difficult to enjoy it when we didn’t have any distance
from it. It’s nice when a building moves from being the subject to becoming
the object.
“We like to find a stronger relationship

between the familiar and the
unfamiliar.”
What do you mean?
In the moment when you’re designing a building, it’s the subject. One year
later, when you just go back and see it, it’s the object. It becomes part of the
city. It starts to sit where it should be sitting.
That seems to be crucial for many architects. Cesar Pelli said that
understanding culture is essential, and that, for example,
designing an American building in a foreign country is a mistake.
I think there are moments when the autonomous energy of a building is

successful and appropriate, of course. If you think about Bilbao, which had a
big effect on everybody, it was a convincing moment of “firework
architecture.” It’s a spectacle, you know? You stand back and in a way, the
reason it’s interesting is because it stands out, it doesn’t fit in, it doesn’t look
like anything you’ve seen. But this is not really my position — generally. There
might be moments where such a performance is necessary but we like to find a
stronger relationship between the familiar and the unfamiliar. My feeling is
that when a building is too self-referential, the audience is
distanced; architecture becomes something that you look at.
Like in a cathedral or a monument.
Right, it’s a spectacle — whereas I think for 99% of the time, architecture is
something that you should be inside and absorbed by. It’s something which
convinces you by experience more than impresses you by image. Having said
that, it’s not an easy line. I would say that there are some buildings which
manage to be quite novel, let’s say, and still enjoyable to be in and reassuring.
We try to draw the line tighter between normality and specialness.
OPEN GALLERY
Recently you worked on restoring the Neue Nationalgalerie, and on
an extension of the Neues Museum in Berlin. How does that line
bend or change when you’re working on building that someone else
has built?
Museum clients, of all of the clients, are probably the most sophisticated in
terms of how they judge what they want. They are also a little bit more
confident about what they need. We’ve been very lucky in finding clients and
getting commissions, whether it’s in Saint Louis or here in Berlin, where once
you’re in a dialogue and once you’re in a process then you can find ways of
discussing and developing an architecture which is not necessarily so loud.
But I guess these are also places where people think that probably loudness is
not the right thing anyway so our quietness may be seen as a great advantage.
Even though there’s still quite a bit of noise even before the design
process starts, simply because these buildings have a heritage.
When you were picked to work on the Neues Museum, the initial
reaction wasn’t positive.
Not just in the initial, throughout the entire project! (Laughs) I think it’s a
good demonstration of Berliners’ engagement, whether positive and negative.
There were some who were very aggressive but as soon as they saw the
finished building they said, “Well, okay. Let’s not fight him anymore, it’s fine.”
Ultimately it was a fascinating German intellectual debate about memory and
nostalgia.
Archiv Neue Nationalgalerie, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu BerlinPhoto

by Reinhard Friedrich
How does your own memory play into these kinds of processes?
I’m sure you have your own memories of privately visiting the Neue
Nationalgalerie even before you started working on it.
I think it differs from one thing to another. But you’re right, the Neue
Nationalgalerie for me, and for many architects, was and remains a very
important part of one’s architectural inspiration. Especially in Europe where
we don’t have that many opportunities to see a Miesian building. It’s a
touchstone for nearly all architects and it certainly was for me. In that sense
it’s very strange to work with the building because it has this kind of
unquestioned authority. It’s like working with a Greek sculpture or something
similar, where you’re interested in protecting it and making it exactly what the
designer intended. It’s a very unique exercise.
Does the art that’s inside a museum also influence you?
It does a lot. If you’re working for the Kunsthaus Zurich, for example, and you
know that they have collections which are amongst the best in the world, you
know that the most important thing is to build a good frame for the work.
However, if you’re building a museum in the North of England, where they
don’t really have a large permanent collection, you feel the architecture needs
to work a bit harder, offer a little more.
“Architects have become better at

designing spaces for paintings, rather
than competing with them.”
I’m sure the museum’s collection also influences which architect
they are going to hire for the job, as well.
You could certainly blame museum directors in the last 15 years for adopting
very loud architecture sometimes, for exactly that reason! They want to bring
more people in. They have an ambition to go from one and a half million to
four million visitors and they think if a building that looks like a spaceship is
added to the back of the building, it’s going to bring in a lot of people. There
was a moment when a lot of museum directors were really excited about this
sort of destination architecture.
What do you think that says about the future of museum

architecture?
Well, I think it’s calmed down now. I think there is more of a balance now. I
think architects have become better at designing spaces for paintings, rather
than competing with them. Perhaps our success and our reputation is
somewhat secured by the fact that we can rely on many architects not being
that interested in that! (Laughs) It’s great help for us!

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What challenges does Chipperfield face when designing buildings?

How does Chipperfield's view of a building change over time after completion?

DAVID CHIPPERFIELD: “THERE IS NO

JUNE 21, 2017

LISTEN TO AUDIO EXCERPT

What will have changed in that one year?

“We like to find a stronger relationship

I think there are moments when the autonomous energy of a building is

Like in a cathedral or a monument.

Archiv Neue Nationalgalerie, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu BerlinPhoto

“Architects have become better at

What do you think that says about the future of museum

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