Interview by Rob Wilson
An earlier book on your work entitled Composition, Contrast, Complexity, analysed these as three core aspects of how you conceive your architecture. Your upcoming book is called People, Place, Purpose. Does this represent a shift from more architecture-focused to more user-focused concerns?
No, that was always in our work, but now perhaps I have more of an awareness of it, particularly after working all over the world. You develop as an architect, you have to, you need so much knowledge, so much skill. You only become a good architect after fifty years or so, because you really need so much experience to draw on. The work I am doing now I could never have done when I was twenty-five, just after finishing school.
And the order is People, Place, and then Purpose – because there is too much focus on purpose in certain architects’ work as the generator of a building. I am not like that. I am not purpose-driven in an architectonic view: the purpose of a building might change. But everyone has their own philosophy. Like making music: there is not just one way and we should be happy about that.
You’ve designed a great variety of projects, but have also said that every Mecanoo building is essentially the same...
Our buildings don’t all look the same, but they are all the same – not the form, but the same attitude. What you are taught so often at school is to develop your own style of forms – but for me that’s not interesting. Yet I think when you see every one of our buildings, it is clearly Mecanoo. Inside in particular: I like to make unforgettable interiors.
Francine Houben (b. 1955) is the founding partner and creative director of Mecanoo Architecten, which has its main office in Delft in the Netherlands, with satellite offices in Manchester, UK, Washington D.C., USA and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The practice has worked on a wide range of projects including university buildings, housing, museums, hotels and offices, but is particularly well-known for its work with libraries, such as the Delft University of Technology Library (1998), the current refurbishment of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Washington D.C. and the recently completed Library of Birmingham, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Stirling Prize.
Current projects also include the Bruce C. Bolling Municipal Building, Boston, USA (2011-14); Municipal Offices and Train Station, Delft (2006-15); the Wei-Wu-Ying Center for the Performing Arts, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2007-16). Houben has taught widely, including as visiting professor at Harvard in 2007. She was the curator of the first International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam in 2003 and was recently named the Architects’ Journal 2014 Woman of the Year.
mecanoo.nl
You’ve talked about the importance of analysis and intuition in your work, in projects such as your recently completed Birmingham Library.
Some people think intuition is something female. It is not. It is more about experience. I have a lot of experience in designing libraries and theatres, but I didn’t know anything about Birmingham. So I could focus totally on Birmingham, because I didn’t have to focus on libraries or theatres.
The very first time I went there, I just observed the city. It is a very energetic, chaotic place with all these periods of architecture and urbanism, all these different identities. And I could totally focus on how the building could be positioned in the city, create public space and improve Birmingham.
What was the reason for creating such a bold statement with the library, with its series of interlocking rings?
You have to consider when you need to be quiet and when you need to shout out; you have to look at what’s around you. For instance, if you look at the municipal building we are just completing in Boston, it is very quiet – sculptural but not shouting out. You see the craftsmanship. Of course in Birmingham, the library needed to be prominent, and it needed to speak of the proudness of the city’s history with engineering and industry and jewellery – hence the ring motif. I don’t care if architects like it or not. It is not about being populist – but I’m very proud that Mecanoo’s work is loved by both academics and by the public. I
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