OPPORTUNITY opportunities, as: Alejandra Zaera Polo | think its naivenottracknaniedga= the status of célebrity. The new celebiip statue corte architects have reached has heen postvetoriie— practice-at large, because it's given public;profile. Of course, inthe past tects who Became famous, but they didiehavestho— this new status has been positive in making dBaee: makers.aware that there are degrees of qualiy:inzs tecturezestiain architects can produce bulking ers=asaamnp ead ROEM SERURRIOESRG. ged in a mule quality that, for example, a corporate machine cannot. The model of the éelebiity has promoted the archila asindependent thinker with 2 cedain ideology and the end of the 1970s. Unti that time, 99% engaged in collective problem-solir knowledge. The Gropius model of techie and collsctivé design gave moral and a Yo architecture aé a service profession, and dominate farketing vs. Production St half of the 20th century. After the big modernist. the prophets Mies Van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, the Corporate model convinced everybody that architects chould forget allencompassing visions, workin teams, and master skills and technologies: a kind of humble, modest service to society which presumed that t destiny of modernity had already been reveale all eels had to do wes to follow it dutiful. This was to become a very effective sales pitch That model largely collapsed atthe end of tho 170s, ‘when globalization undercut its advantages. A number -most accomplishedarchitects1 one of the mostaticaisteots any-generation-whencttcom " Sn SaSSSUEG ESSAI Cabot nd fons and set up iquitous forum 28 sought atprogress. They ) This model Sin and is now Jeffrey Inaba When defining ambition for today's architect one must not overlook the dynamics of celebrity that emerged in the late 20th century. If the corporate model was an attempt to cope with technology and collectively acquire knowledge inorder to process technological advances, then he lato 20th century We witnessed a similar collective model. Yet the two models of teamwork em quite different. The 1980s model of collab. oration, formed to cope with greater information and new technologies, evolved simultaneouslyVolume 15 With the rise of celebrity architecture. Do you see this recent ora as one characterized by the broaden: ing of the architect's capabilities particularly in ways of processing information and designing? Do you think the shift to collaboration and the rise of celebrity are interdependent? AZP_ We need to revise the role of the ar Of these so called celebrity architec second generation of globaliz fact, become corporate organizations. Norman Foster is now bigger than SOM, and Herzog and de Meuron is Of a scale not very different from conventional corporate Practices. Looking at some of these practices and our Own experience, it appears that when fiers reach a Certain scale a number of possibilities open up. Such firms are more capable of delivering projects, of fesearch, thai a small atelier doing little oro) triggers some inevitable protocols and structures in an organization, Some of these celebrity architects have also understood the advantages of corporate organization, and have started to develop organizations with the capacity of the traditional corporate machine plus the capacity to communicate more effectively and engage in cultural and politcal debate. In the Gropius mo the architect was not supposed to talk, [laughs] because if fe or she was doing things correctly, using the right fechnologies, and producing what was good for man: kin, the work would speak for itself, They didn’thave foconvince politicians or legitimize their work as long asit operated within the modemist dogma; the work ‘was self-evident and nobody could possibly doubt Nowadays, these characters have achieved a high le of publicity and have not only managed to master the corporate technologies of organization and the capacity to deliver; they have also exponentially developed their capacity to operate politically, strategically, to com: municate the projects, to negotiate witha variety of agents and know how to move them to enable the work to flourish. In order to do that, a number of little engines had to be developed within those offices, e.g., PR machines or people hired especially i coach presen tafions. think this is a new addition to the recipe for a possible update to the architect's role. In some cases, like with OMA/AMO, thet machine has developed a certain independence. The degree to which these two engines feed each other or merge into a seamless ‘organization is an interesting question to address when theorizing new models of architectural practice. Can the PR machine effectively inform the production, or should it be kept fenced off in 2 parallel domain? How do these two engines feed each other? Ifyou listen to students or people who are starting to practice or teach, you hear a generalized rejection of the model of the celebrity architect. This is obviously inpart because celebrity offices are major predators of jobs for the small fish. And there are two lines that the trtique to.celebrity architecture is trying to develop as possible fields of expansion. One is more technical, exploring software, sustainability and other technologies ‘Yharcan potentially shift the field, as a way out of the ‘culture of celebrity. The other model starting to emerge ispoltical activism. Suddenly there is a renewed desire “To engage in some political activities that celebrity Galture had completely ignored. And yet, celebrity archi feeis have opened some paths for engagement with politics: they are a fixture at openings and mayoral celebrations and central occasions in the business of promoting cities... As architects have become in singly involved with media, their ideological concern eroded (as has happened to pol cians nselves). So, younger pract fentfied this lack as a niche that has been overlooked by the celebrity architects and are logically trying to explore it. But both alternative fields, the purely technical and the purely political, are possibly sterile and a dangerous trap: they are doing software projects or political manifestos rather th tectural projects. Both a problematic because they shift the ground of archite tural practice into a dimension that is not architectural, just as celebrity architects that have shifted the ground of their practice to achieve that status, possibly getting But to entirely dismiss the positive side of celebrity portant potential of practice today. Ob does not result in good architec: ture, but good architecture does not even have a chance without a degree of involvement of these new sides of the profession. lam optimistic and | believe that the public engagement that is open to the celebrity can be an inter- esting feld to explore as an architectural opportunity Ultimately, whatever you do as an architect, you J tobe able to transfer those influences into an a tectural realm. Thinking about that transfer and how it reformulates the discipline is an interesting possibilty is to ignore an viously celebrity alo Celebrity and accountability JL You're saying that you can't discount celebrity immediately without realizing the benefits that have been gained from it, and thatiit requires expertise to be able to perform well under the scrutiny of the celebrity spotlight. I would add that the architect unique as a celebrity in that he or she isn’t per- ceived as being purely driven by greed or a thirst for fame itself. What we enjoy at the current moment is a dagroe of integrity in that we are able to con: struct a complex yet creative public entity, such as a large-scale building: our ability to make edifices stand and endure is perceived as admirable and authentic I's quite interesting that this status of ours is in large part due to our technical knowledge. I think we are also beginning to realize thatit has todo with our ability to communicate in a credible, sensible way. We don't seem to be stretching the truth, we don’t publicly say formulaic things, and we don't appear to be entirely self-promotional. AZP. One should also look at the benefits celebri produced for architecture beyond the integrity of the product. Take three positive examples that are not just about the signature of the architect, but are concrete projects that have become important and transformed the perception of architecture for decision-makers. The Guggenheim model is the epitome of celebrity. thas, cts but ithas hed undoubt edly a very positive effect for architects, which is that now clients worldwide believe that architecture is an added value. This was not the case before except fora very marginal percentage of the commissions. Whether this has opened new fields for the practice is question- able, but the effect on the appreciation of the discipline isindisputable, Whether you like them or not, Richard Meier's Perry Street condominium buildings in New York have demonstrated to potential clients and investors that there is en added value to hiring a certain kind of y has. created some negative effatk sit Shalt Sie wrtVolume 5 department store by Future Systems in Birmingham h ‘convinced the entire UK retail sector that tis important to do good architecture, and more of the same no longer goes, Thus suddenly, anumber ol projects ha ‘become inspirational, not just for architects, b decision-makers and the public at large. The celebrity ‘model has also established that architacts are dffere from one anather. The corporate model was based on {8 Sort of uniform technical expertise. There was nat ‘much of a difference between SOM and, say, HOK. Now there is an expectation to do something diferent, evenifit sometimes leads to a caricature performance Iiseven affecting sorne ol these corporate fs, And this quest for diterence makes it more interesting to 1" Thocorporate mode! prevented an elevated dlegronaftechnieal experi the contraction Suslty of he building Today we have attained this competency while aaoestablehing what might bo called a eultral model we oter not only technical expertise but alee cultural value, Blbae has an appreciated value at amalneveam cura object What some dstint abou te current Phenomenon te that tl ot commuchessocated wath a movement a iti wthnavieay: the {Sattin hgh eur status wae atlemped by including eontemporry atin nd aroun the building, whereas today "happens by packaging the expressive tle fhe mebtect by postorng the building. tn that weno, architects have tamed greater power by advancing echnical expertise in {ho development ot frmal languages and eutra txpertse inthe tntligen! development ot publ parson ether ne Ite the pofector ot the most apparent example tft i, 9s you so, he Gupgentoim 's connected to these forms AZP. Yes, I think this must be acknowledged. In spite of their flaws, these projects have convinced more people to be architecturally ambitious. Notjust architects, b citias, corporations, voters and taxpayers, Itis no longer politically viable for eliens of a certain profile to just Want a new building. Now you need a special bulldn Which is complicated because st the same time techniques of accountability and project management as well asthe labilties, have expanded to such a degree that clents-or their advicers-tend to know very precisaly what they want and to stitly enforce their proje objectives, objectives which have been dicta looking at previous models, And this creates st 7 friction with experimentation as a methodolog architectural design. Everybody is asked top Something special out ofthe same constraints. Celebr Srchitects have been remarkably resistant to acce ‘accountability, but | belive there isa fantastic tunity in the opposition between the simultaneous domands for accountability and uniqueness that the celebrity architects have consistently ignored, To explore the space betwo much more interesting problem than, say e-ideologizing Erchitectural practice or exploring morphing software But the culture of celebrity also generates a There are always the same names being sin inert invited for these competitions, because they are the those two new reales seem to mea status, and client etter Perhaps 3 I role for somebody to play kea of good architects that don't yet quality ae celebrities liver a very high profile Title more, Unfortunately, this new class ts that called ‘mediators in @ Ber te lectue ries defaults t00 of rity architecture jecause they also need to nurture their pro lers by constructing their own stable of celebrity hiteets that they can ‘get’ for clients or planner: Education after Celebrity zB. The other subject that is intimately connected to this discussion is how to teach. First ofall, cclebr rchitecture gravitated from th around academia, asitwos one of the most powerful channe! munication and debate, necessary for the model to operate. And in return, the model of academia in the post twenty years was to bring these celebity architects into the studio, where they would supposedly relea knowledge or teach t jents how to be stars, and 920 tions with the n think that doesn't necessarily produce an interesting academy oF a compelling didactic « And, i titute Deanship, inmy apesica : iP ne Of my proposals wa any studio fiuctors over 55, os it was the mast efficient - and ‘economic way to ensure that graly Connected to the production rather than consump of knowledge. It was deemed too radical and not ;ccepted, but |stil believe it was 2 good idea. In Current climate, the schools should develop the alte ve lo celebily architecture and should produce the ost advanced knowledge, imp 1 ‘mall bts from the same important architect cep schism betwaen practice (which doals primarily with professional iabilties) and academia (which deals primarily with architectural ideologies). This, which in me instances produces some interesting effect ieto generating a type of knowledge bacome an ob: that could explore the gaps between the celebrity culture and the culture of project management, Anew mod Of collaboration between experimental practices and ‘academia needs to be invented. This is one of things | tried to develop during my tenure at the Berlage ‘a sort of institution where the primary objective is nat te produce people ~ as in traditional education - butto produce knowledge BL The Ais 2 good example of a schoo! regarded for producing secomplished, famous architects. Not that the intention waa to produce celebrities, but what was it about its environment that yielded people who have built highly ‘accomplished practices today? ZB. Inchellenged the corporate model and became the paradigm of the emerging celebrity architect engag: in an international debate of diverse, often contradictory voices, Inthe 1970s, Alvin Boyarsky designed the system =| suspect because he di not have any money to pay for proper knowledge - not on the grounds th there was a kind of necessary knowledge or discipline that had to be trensterred to students the previous model of technical expertise — but on the grounds that young - and cheap —tutors will develop new modelsrr «& £ ££ The AA was th st ecicational models ty hat the corporat thereat 7 ba! process gor on thal the pablms ne Zalion and that branding and communies ations were | 99ing to be important. The AA is mo an important mode ‘and examp| (0 brand and sell then 6 of people eaming selves by constucting ana against attacks from multiple dreoticn uced 80 many important tutors se without the polite academies academia, where you h he time. | have be ve litre detencng Thea pes ally gotten nto pt and everybody aystematn mine everybody else's poaton Situation teaches you obec you are doing end'dew fer he meanness of this tly aware of what lop skills to defend jainst a crossfire of mult directional eiticism Caltre vs Project Management AL Noone has had acoreer a accomplished 38 yours. Inyour Seen Aabiogaphy cose You describe the benefits of having urineceed he Cultural changes in Madrid n the cory 1560, you wore atthe GSD, when Michael Hoyowas fotos lating an important branch of erecta! non then you warked at OM at eucal period ints evolution fhe office prior tis curen wort wide celobrity; you were involved wl Croguls sthich as you have said was the mest amazing opportunity conduct indus! eoponage By visting eiferent architect offices inorder’ document vr they oper; you won he Yoohams terminal competion and stati your own oes wore appointed lea the Borage and now oo involved withthe planing othe London Olympes ne myths that to arcitct le for many yore betore receiving opportunites te reels or her ambitions, whereas yorvs boon abies achieve So much injust afew yore, To update the Scenic Autobiography extay would you care torelect ze. Thenks dacs no ee!20 accomplished ram inside, The Scientiic: Autobiography wa reflection en shad by sever constructed to @ degree but ha 6, and some luck. A careor is Etuceassion of opportunites one explore to Shine that what we do sarc expo the oppor tunis of a specif stuetor,rathr han having come Sola tee ero inemansianer eee Hie ror tober agoaatctethetuanees ct trehifoct Rams famous quot about suring sone ath ise denal pines ot anion arch right wave et the ight momen J Have you ever caught a bad wave orhave you ever wiped outon a big wave? That's also part of one's career: wiping out and learning how to surf the next wave with new information, 22. Ihave caught some bad waves but | won't describe them because they involve some well-known names in the business and there is no point in recounting them: Fortunately | withdrew almost immediately. | guess bed fede s0 you don't yister them, | think you need to develop a certain way of scouting the horizon next opportunity, What | learned from being involved inall these different things is that you don’t lly know what the next step willbe or where you will end up. But you have a certain intuition af viet t the wave you are ins losing energy, and you need 10 star scouting for anoth Likcouise, as a practice, Ihave atways b dating projects, those where there are lots of things don logy or exploration lke projects where you see opportunities being exalted to such degrae that ooks asf the projet could not be othenvise because it makes so much sense. This may be why | am so interested in accountability. JL Numerous 1970s era AA architects have established greater legitimacy fr the idea of eareer ambition with political opportunism and by virtue of their adepiness in the market and within maln- stream eulture. Opportunism is now an operative vehicle for individuals in the profession. In general, ‘ambition has been considered one-dimensional, ‘a negative tat; the term carries associations of insinceriy f someone is ambitious, the assumption is that they're tying to get ahead at all casts or Justin the name of architecture o profit undeservedly at the expense of content or commitment to a disciplinary agonda. As you said earlier, in the end it comes down to doing good ‘work. Ione idea of doing good work involves ceaselessly finding new opportunities and using the knowledge of those experiences to create new Insights, be itin the form of good texte, buildings, or other products, then isn't ambition an essential duality f the profession? ZP_ The ambitions of the people who came out of the Ain the 1970s ware different from the ambitions ‘of our generation who came out of school in the early 1990s, Of course, 1970s-era AA architects have also ;olved, seized opportunities presented to them, but heir ambitions were much more directly connectad to certain vision or end, a sort of utopis. Ido not recall ever having had such utopian or ieologicl driv that is pethaps why | was mare opportunistic, realistic, ‘nd pragmatic. The "Scientific Autobiography’ was an attempt to describe how one develops a certain pseudo. ideological position through the need to be efficient, ing sequence of different situations. Deep down, itis tellection on the relationship between ideology andl ‘opportunism, theory and practice. Opportunity is very connected to survival, toa changing environment, to ‘working in th , academic or professional, When you are operating within a market, which is a loose and ever changing field of agents, you need to develop an abiliy to take chances. Itis not the same as when you ‘operate within @ bureaucracy, where agents remain locked by fixed relationships. ideologies and visions ate in principle better suited to operate within bureau: cracies and not very offcientin market situations, but ire ate many intoresting variations to this 1 However, you may turn yox lationship, ideology into a marketable asset, which is something that the celebrity culture has managed to do effectively. In fact, some of these celebrity architecis are invoking utopia as much as the new kids on the block trying to carve out a niche for Volume 18Volume 13 themscives. And they have very pragma 0 so: without a public belief in utopia itis uilficull maintain their celebvity status, There are many variation: to this dichotomy botween market and racy pportunism and ideology thal you can explore and theorize, How do you operate within a market enslave by a bureaucracy, like Dubai or China? There are a number of ingredients that go into the formation of a practice, An office is a culture, exactly like a school. You develop a certain protocols, int and targets that produce consistency among your collaborators. There are people out there who believe that can be synthesized, but the strongest cultures, like the best wines area contingent combination of factors, distilled by time and trial and error. You can apply techniques to make an organization more efficient, you can artificially enhance it; that is the project manager's business. You can learn a lot by watching other cultures 100 — that is the raison d’étre of industrial espionage butit ultimately comes down to a sort of magic coinci dence. In our case it relates very m at OMA, from whe the combination of cultural ambitions and a degree of professionalism ‘There is also the same expectation from our collabor ators of hard work and ambition, long hours and ends. Some people believe that is a sort of patria of Oedipal reaction, but | believe that architecture, like any other practice, evolves historically and develops through lineages. | do not really care how you categori this psycho-social terms; having a pedigree is a more efficient way of learning and developing practice protocols. Can you grow strong and fast in some other, way? Pethaps. That again is the project managers business. For better or worse, actually often for a practice also develops certain inefficiencies in order to be more efficient in other ways. When the office was lier and more intimate and the collaborators were younger, this culture of commitment - doing anything to get it done no matter how long we had to stay - was, really remarkable, and one has amazing memories of some collaborators in that heroic period. When you enter that process the office becomes much less efficient, because earlier, with three guys you could do anything, and now you need fifteen guys to do what you did before with three. Obviously we need to grow and in this process of replicating yourself, you need to resort to hierarchies, to develop a class of people who refuse to stay late or work over the weekend This is mind bogglingly inefficient as you can imagine You enter necessarily into the process of striation, of bureaucratization that kils a lot of potentials. You can apply the most sophisticated organization theories and management techniques, but in this business, if you haven't got a culture, you haven't got a chance, A culture is ‘8 much more sophisticated mechanism than a manage- ment protocol to set up @ certain working morale, & certain way of controlling the projects when you canno' control them directly, because you can not always be there. And our academic lineage, our experience in creating cultures is now becoming effective in this sense, I'm looking for new waves now in this ocean. we inher se, On the Hokusai Wave JL Knowing when a good wave is going flat seems to be a key issue in your career. I's int esting to observe that you have decided to focus ‘on one thing, and then after a while you pull back eer to pursue other opportunities. For you, it seems fit hasn't resulted in an overinvestment in one realm at the expense of another. For some, having relevance within an intellectual discourse is their primary investment at the oxpense of their practic ‘And vice versa. Instead, you've been able to flou ntellectually by operating in multiple realms. For ‘example, you contribute to the discipline’s intel- leetual discourse through your professional insights Hokusai, the wave, is one of the most important af these, You've reintroduced and embraced a word that's been denigrated for so long: iconography. You have given new life to iconography by under- standing the opportunity it affords to the posith reception of a project. Yet you've also recognize that ithas limited design value. It lends itself to having great influence in the public realm, but that's not to say that your projects exclusively determined by iconography. Do you want to talk about that, because it sooms thero is a litte bit of back-pedd- ling from your interest in iconography, especially in your discussion of the 2012 Olympic project? You defended it by saying that producing an icone- graphie form of human musculature was simply necessary, as ifit were of litle interest as @ creative opportunity. AZ®_ Thanks again for the compliments. By the way, stepped aut of the London Olympic wave bec: it was losing energy. Maybe we screwed up there |lam curious to see where it ends be whether we should have stayed. Ifit ends up being an architectural flop, we will have demonstrated we also know when to step out The perceived retreat from iconography su probably hes something to do with some sort of n background. [Leughs] Intuitively, the whole iconography things was a realization of the fact that - despite having constructed a discourse about practice based on operativity, scientificity, technology, the computer operations and so on in other situations, an entirely different set of strategies could be implemented almost spontaneously. That’s why the moment of the Hokusai wave in that press conference was so crucial, because you have your theoretically constructed, watertight discourse, secking that kind of academic relevance and suddenly you realize that nobody gives a damn. So, you need to react and make that kind of a leap into th void by daring to entirely discard your theoretical apparatus in a matter of seconds. | like those moments when you must suspend all your beliefs in order to be effective in a very specific situation. | have realized that, this was a strategy we used often under the theoretical radar, and the text is an attempt to theorize that phenomenon, In that sense | am very Kuhnian, or very Rortyan, in the belief that any serious theorization is actually generated by efficiencies, by economies, rather than as a sort of weltanschauung, It always happens a posterior, after the fact. This is probably a trait of opportunism not trying to envision a comprehensive reality. Theory is mostly a way to explain to myself why certain things happened. For example, | didn’t know before moving to the States to study at Harvard that | would end up in Holland, Japan and London. By the time when you reach theorization, the game is over. You need to be scouting for th