Crystal Talk
Text: J. Tabor, A. SoucekPhotos: G. Hagen, H. Hurnaus, L. Rastl, M. Seidl, M. Spiluttini, R. Steiner

Interview

Interview UNStudio
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At the beginning of the conversation you can chose one of these three questions:
1. What do you consider your best work and why?
2. What has hurt you the most?
3. What makes you different from other architects here in Vienna, Austria and the world?
These are the three questions - everyone will have a turn so it does not matter which one you choose.

Gerd Erhartt
OK, let’s start with the first.

What do you regard as your best work? Name it, describe it and explain why.

Gerd Erhartt
This is very subjective. “Our best work” by no means implies that it is a good work.

Jakob Dunkl
At present I would put the Museum Liaunig very high on the list, as everything there turned out pretty well: It is unbelievably efficient, it is poetic, it is radical. When a building is monumental or makes a strong statement in the landscape it could make people feel small and insignificant in it. And to our relief this is precisely what did not happen. I consider this the most important aspect.

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Peter Sapp
Actually, for me, the best work category does not exist with regard to your own projects, as they are subject to your own developmental process. The question should rather be: Which work means the most to you, and this would be the last one, our last baby, one that means an awful lot, the Museum Liaunig. But there are others, such as the street-cleaning brushes in the exhibition “foot in the door”. This also hits the spot.

Jakob Dunkl
Comparing babies with building projects is a fitting comparison: I cannot say which of my children is my favorite or second favorite. I imagine all parents are the same.

So is it true that you are all really devoted fathers, don’t work overtime, you shut up shop at 5 p.m., and don’t work at weekends?

Gerd Erhartt
That’s right. Since we all had children. I work a 30-hour week

Jakob Dunkl
Even when we go to an architectural discussion in the evening we record every working hour. On average we work the same number of hours in a year as a normal employee. In terms of quantity we make a big effort to keep our recreational and family time high on thr list. It’s up to others to judge whether we are good family fathers. We look at it as an experiment, and decided that now that we all have children, how about we work less, and will this affect our careers? We are trying it out and actually we are satisfied with how it’s working out. In fact I now believe that if we spent more time in the office we would be less efficient. I see no burnout danger on the horizon - my family provides a good balance.

Gerd Erhartt
Right from the start we got our employees very much involved. As such there is no need for us to be here all the time. We value personal initiative and responsibility and I consider this to be the right way forward. We are not a company that is proud if the lights are still burning at 9 p.m. We actually consider it rather unpleasant.

Let’s now move on to the second of our initial questions: What has offended you the most?



Peter Sapp
I would not say hurt, but sometimes you get annoyed. We have the models here in storage and whenever I pass the Linz Opera I feel really annoyed that we did not get any further with our design. I can’t understand why the project wasn’t built. That annoys me.

Precisely. You have just answered my question about what hurts you. That pretty much answers the question, doesn’t it?

Peter Sapp
Well, hurt, hmmm.

Annoyance is a symptom of being hurt. What else hurts you - architectural critique for example?

Jakob Dunkl
No, we have been lucky in that we have never been pulled to pieces, never been hurt by critics.

Does that not make you suspicious?

Jakob Dunkl
Yes, it is a bit strange.




I would like to finish with a question I was planning to ask later: You started off spectacularly, exploding onto the scene with your installations and with architecture that was not too far removed from art - though I do not consider architecture to be art. As a consumer I have noticed that you have become a little more pragmatic. You build in an orderly fashion, all very nice, but without the experiments that are fun, playing games with space etc. There’s a bit o that in the Museum, but otherwise you have become well-behaved house producers. (Quiet) You’re at a loss. Don’t you miss it? Do you not have enough time? Should someone eytend an invitation to you?

Gerd Erhartt
The assignments have changed. As a young company you don’t really have instant access to building projects. In this stage many architects operate in the field of tension between art and architecture, with installations. With a certain career behind it the company grows and we are not given assignments such as these any more.

Jakob Dunkl
That is of course a harsh criticism. It reminds me a bit of what Peter Cook said. In 2004 we received the Young Architect of the Year Award, actually for lots of minor projects. One reason for selecting us was the humor in our architecture, the relaxed, easy approach. As chairman of the jury, Peter Cook asked us whether we could transform this into larger architectural projects, whether it was something we could maintain.

You just don’t make these funny, fresh, refreshing installations and productions any more. Rather you are a company, as it should be, and you have your daily routines to be getting on with. Do you have the feeling that you lost this humor, which was certainly typical of your earlier works, because the everyday world of architecture is a rather humorless one? It wipes the smile from one’s face, so to speak?

Peter Sapp
I wouldn’t say that. There are always considerations, like with a large residential building we are currently working on. We are trying to stimulate the superimposition brought by users to the building, by offering small collapsible laundry stands which can be mounted on the banister. In this way a very large residential building with 150 apartments suddenly receives a layer of fluttering tights, socks and underwear. This is an example of playful additions. If I think about Adidas, about building a high-performance machine for a company, the assignment allows less such playfulness.



What are you working on at the moment? Regardless of how much fun it is.

Gerd Erhartt
At the moment we are mainly working on public housing

Jakob Dunkl
We decided to have a break from competitions and the majority of direct contracts happened to be in the field of residential buildings. We now notice that we are keen to get involved in other projects. Residential architecture is enjoyable and fun, but we would not feel fulfilled if that’s all we did.

Does that mean that competitions are not just an opportunity for acquisition but sort of fun for the company?

Peter Sapp
Only in a very small dose. It can be rather frustrating as well when you put a lot of effort into something and then have to shoot in the air in the hope that you actually hit something.

Fun at a price.

Jakob Dunkl
The fun comes when you get an appealing assignment. It doesn’t have to be a competition as far as we’re concerned. In fact competitions aren’t really the way to go for us as we have noticed that what particularly appeals to us is when we can search for the target together with the client or define the assignment with him. In the case of competitions you get a target, everyone has to shoot in that direction and a few hit the bulls-eye. This is what doesn’t particularly appeal to us. Also, it is a completely absurd exploitation of our profession.

Gerd Erhartt
The relationship between what the profession architect actually generates and what you get back in return is absolutely absurd.

Peter Sapp
Our main motive is building itself. We want to design only what we can then build. Given this perspective competitions are not really our thing.

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Jakob, what you just said about clients and identifying the target reminds me of something Richard Neutra once said: he feels like a psychoanalyst who attempts to penetrate the client’s subconscious in order to come up with what is best for him. Can you identify with this?

Jakob Dunkl
There is something in that.

Gerd Erhartt
It is important to understand the motive for someone wanting to do something. If you recognize this you can perhaps deliver different solutions. We consider this a part of our job, an important task: To redefine the task from the very outset.

Peter Sapp
We also consider reaching a common denominator, moving forward together with the client as one of our special features. You can’t do that in a competition.


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I recently gave a lecture in Munich on psychoanalysis and architecture during which, among other things, I showed the Museum Liaunig. I maintained that it features a lot of what can be described as erotic symbolism in construction. There is a vaginal element, a uterus, and a a phallic element, aspiring to get back into the ground.

Jakob Dunkl
That’s hard to deny.

Peter Sapp
Although we didn’t really consider this.

Jakob Dunkl
But it’s true: There’s the small vagina, the guest apartment. And an emergency exit vagina too.

The museum also has an internal appendix.

Jakob Dunkl
The gold collection.

So the body metaphor is quite applicable.



Jakob Dunkl
When we are working we tend to think about different metaphors.

Which ones?

Peter Sapp
At Museum Liaunig we came across two pieces of ground and a flattened hill between them, this plateau. We came up with the idea of placing the exhibition room as a sort of bypass between the two sections of ground and thus offering the visitor the chance to arrive at both pieces of land on his tour, and to perceive the outside.

Where do metaphors come from? Are they created before the design, before the visible form, or afterwards? Are the metaphors important for a project, as guidelines?

Jakob Dunkl
Sometimes this is so. For the Römermuseum am Hohen Markt we sought images which illustrated what we wish of a museum. A photograph for the caption “arouse curiosity” depicted somebody opening a barn door. A beam of light penetrated the opening, which was just a few centimeters wide. The photo constituted a metaphor at the beginning of the process and ultimately we covered the facade of the Römermuseum with aluminum panels. The slits admit a little light and allow you to peep in the museum from outside.


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Vienna, an observer of history. To recapitulate, the metaphor certainly has its uses.

Peter Sapp
Yes. It often happens gradually or overlaps with other metaphors. A metaphor you start off with may become less important as things proceed and be superseded by others.

Jakob Dunkl
One metaphor displaces another and a metametaphor arises, a metametametametaphor.

Peter Sapp
That’s getting a little too complicated.

 

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