It is more important to convey the atmosphere than to copy established forms

You have visited the site for which you will be designing today. What are your impressions?
From the perspective of my culture, a lot is already finished, settled. You can immediately see where your assignment ends. In our case, the boundaries are usually not visible; you don't know what will happen to the place in ten years because the landscape and the city change a lot. And then you can really feel the time – and that is very good because you have boundaries and ideas around you to work from, which help in decision-making at the beginning of the project. Another architect might want more freedom, but I feel the opposite: you can build a solid project on a firm assignment and clear rules.

A poet once said that writing free verse is for him like playing tennis without a net. Is this perhaps similar?
Yes, it could be. Freer projects have other advantages, other possibilities. Sometimes someone comes to me and asks for an idea, but I don't work in a vacuum; I work with physical things. So when you have a lot of real, physical things around you, it’s better because you can draw ideas from them; you are not alone in that. And that is a good feeling.

So for you, having very specific assignments is not a disadvantage?
Not at all.

Before you arrived here, did you have some idea of what you wanted to do, or did you start completely from scratch?
You never really start completely from scratch; an architect at fifty-two is never starting over. You have dozens, perhaps hundreds of projects that you would like to do; you have sketches, ideas. And now it’s about how these could be applied here, how they could correctly respond to the questions posed by this place. Much more important than the sketches or plans I receive in advance is the mood of the place for me.

So the context of the place and its surroundings is crucial for you?
Certainly. And history! I received a beautiful book with historical photographs – it's great that you have it because it sometimes helps show people the new building in an older, historical context. Times can be mixed. It's not just about what is there today; it’s about what was there before and what could be there in the future. It’s not just about the surroundings of the place but about its history. And the mood – this is an amazingly calm place. For us, incredibly so; we are used to fences, we have security issues, and so on, which are completely absent here.

How can modern architecture engage with the original, old buildings? Sometimes new buildings imitate the old ones, but that’s not the way forward. So we should probably build authentic new architecture that is in dialogue with the old. How?
This needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes a contrast is desirable; other times it is not. When I worked on the Serpentine Gallery pavilion, I intentionally wanted contrast; it was about a temporary public building, an experiment. I don’t have a clear rule for that.

Here, I think it’s largely about materials – not so much about form, but rather about the impression of calm. I know how I could translate that impression of calm into form. This is my big theme: if I can explain that the form is right because it captures the calm atmosphere of the place well, then the project is good. The form can be anything; it doesn’t matter that much. Usually, architecture focuses a lot on form: it’s flat, it’s a box, and so on, but I believe architecture can be read in other ways. For me, conveying the atmosphere is more important than copying established forms that everyone recognizes.

Does this work for you in practice? Do people "read" the result correctly, understand why this particular form is the right one?
Quite a bit. For example, in Krumbach, Austria, I made a bus stop whose shape mimics the interior of a typical local house, including its size, and I placed it freely in the landscape among grazing cows. And people understand that it’s an interior moved outside; it’s something familiar yet foreign, but not aggressive. They read the play well. And they love the stop; they clean it every day, sometimes pop in for tea; it’s not just an ordinary bus stop for them. So these are games that you can afford.

In the Czech Republic, many people are afraid of modern architecture because they find modern buildings foreign. How would you convince them to overcome that fear?
Well, sometimes those buildings really are foreign, and that is, of course, a problem. Another thing is that someone might not understand the language of modern architecture. But as for me, I don’t feel the need to explain to people what is good and what is not. I honestly try to find the best possible solution for the assigned place. If that is the best I can come up with and is good for them, that is ideal. If not, I don’t want to persuade anyone. And I cannot censor something that comes from decades of experience. Both sides must be honest; that’s all.

I won’t convince anyone that something they consider foreign is normal. I’m not interested in what is normal. Maybe I should try to explain that even if it’s a shape that someone is not used to, it’s a form that well captures the atmosphere of the place, made with familiar materials, and perhaps radiates the mood that once was here and could be again.

The best approach is to be honest and not to make a star of yourself: “I’m the architect here; I’m not interested in that.” I strive for the best possible solution – not to persuade someone, but to do justice to the place. If the project felt aggressive, I would never come up with it. That’s not how I operate.

photo: Tomáš Trumpeš

You are a famous architect; you could work for anyone and on anything. What is interesting for you about such a small project?
My office has five people in total. We are really small. And this way of working allows me to guarantee to the client that they are getting a building that I designed and projected, not someone else. When you have forty projects spinning around you, as a client, you buy a name, maybe a style, but you don’t buy a building designed by a specific person. I’m not saying that’s bad; it’s just two different approaches to architecture. And my approach is to work with five or six people on two or three projects so that I am permanent on the project. So small projects are common for us; with large ones, we would give up too much control.

I've read that you like to stay involved in the projects even during construction.
Yes, definitely. We are currently working on a project in the historical center of London and I am there from Chile about once a month. We are about halfway through; we hope to finish in November. And I’m glad I can be there – not to tell what’s good and what’s not, but to learn something. Because construction is done differently in Chile. If I could build the same project in Chile, I would do it there and save lots of airplane travel, but when I’m doing the project here, it pushes me into new things, it moves me. You are anywhere within an hour, but it takes me fourteen hours from Chile. Sometimes I go there and back just for one meeting. You can imagine the carbon footprint…! But this is the relationship with the client; sometimes virtual meetings are not enough.

So we can truly look forward to seeing you more often if the project is realized?
I hope so! I like to travel if it’s not too much. It’s a great opportunity for me; it would actually be my second long-term construction project in Europe.

What made you accept this specific offer? The place, the relationship with Mr. Fránek, something else?
I actually don’t think about it much. I just asked myself if I wanted to take this project. And I did.

Do you have any idea of what could happen when a small town like Boskovice decides to build a modern building?
Not really. For me, the most important thing is to avoid damage. Not to be aggressive, to enter that place calmly. But I can’t say if it will be good or not – as I said, I can’t see into people’s heads.

What about your buildings in Chile; were they the start of any important changes?
The theater building was really important. When we applied for the competition, we didn’t even think for a second that we could win. We wanted to publicly state through our participation in the competition that when it is built with public money, there should at least be a small share of experimentation in it. It’s a public investment, not a private one. And I thought back then that we should be able to push that a bit, to achieve something better for the community, for the public. And where else to push than in a competition where the outcome is not decided by you alone but by a jury? This was an international competition with about 45 participants, and the jury decided that it made sense to take that risk. That building today plays an important role in Chile because it shifted the benchmarks for theater buildings a bit. Some are thrilled with it, others wonder what this actually is. But they are only thinking about the shape, not the building as a whole. It was important for the community when the project won some awards – when you tell people a building won an award, it instantly seems a bit nicer to them.

It works that way for me too! When I don’t like a building and find out that it has received some awards or was selected in a jury competition, I’m more willing to accept it, to look for its qualities.
Trying to understand it, clearly.

If you were to introduce yourself as an architect, do you have any thoughts or themes that run through your entire work, that are visible in most of your buildings?
I have always been interested in the relationship between material and atmosphere. When I choose a material, it’s not to cover something up but to evoke some impression, feeling. In Chile, construction is often simple, with just one layer, so the choice of material has a direct impact on the atmosphere. But here in Europe, you can build a brick house and ultimately cover it with stone. The wall is layered like an onion, and you perceive the house based on the last layer – if it’s copper, you get a copper house; if it’s brick, you get a brick house. When you choose stone in Chile, you truly get a stone house where the stone plays a structural role.

This relationship between material and atmosphere, which can be induced by stone or brick, is always very clear, and people know about it. It’s not just a game – you can’t pretend something is a copper house when it’s really steel with a thin layer of copper. It’s about the imagination, which is very close to the technical, structural part of the house, the plans. It’s something that needs to be kept together, not separated.

Thinking in those European layers is difficult, but I’m managing it. For example, I found the competition for the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland interesting – where they are used to building one house from the inside and another from the outside, as they have those layers between them. You have one shape on the inside and a completely different shape on the outside. This experience does not exist at all in Chile due to the warmer climate. Architecture in Europe is more complex.

I have always envied countries like Spain, where you can build a beautiful simple stone house and tie the glazing directly to that stone. That would not work at all further north.