Architectural tourism is slightly problematic in the 21st century. Ever since the Renaissance Architects have gone on the Grand Tour to find out about architecture and to learn, more and more we have to stop travelling; I think we all travel too much and so tourism is kind of pejorative, so the word is not a correct word any more. Tourism implies a sense of consumerism that there is a product to be consumed and maybe we have to become travelers again, but we have to find things for ourselves and not consume what is put in front of us.

What is the importance of travelling especially for architects and humans in general?

Travelling is essential, not only by going to cultures and places that we are not familiar with, that we really challenge our own ideas and find new models and new answers for the future. We discover ourselves through travelling.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

It’s a very tricky question. I’m not sure what contemporary architecture does and maybe that’s always an impossible question to answer, because the value of cities is established over time; it’s not an immediate thing that arrives and yet architecture seems to arrive immediately and seems particularly, let’s say, in the last fifteen years, with icon architecture and so called “Bilbao effect” that people believe that architecture renews cities. I think cities are more settled than that and have to be measured in a longer time frame than architecture can possibly deliver.

What is the importance of architectural events like WAF? What are the profits for a city holding such kind of events?

Events like WAF are really global events, so they are intended; first of all to be a meeting place for architects. I have come here, this is my third time being at WAF and I meet new people, I meet old people, I get to see what is happening around the world. Mostly, it’s about meeting the people, because, sadly, when you come to events like this, usually we fly in and we fly out and we don’t spend enough time at the host city.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for ten buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

I wouldn’t do ten, but I’ll do one. And it’s not necessary that it’s the best building, but it’s a very small building and I went to see it, I guess three years ago and then I found that I’ve gone back to see it twice more since, even though it’s not in a city with an airport; it is the “Bruder Klaus Field Chapel”, the Field Chapel for Brother Klaus outside Cologne in Germany and designed by Peter Zumthor.

It’s a very simple tower, a small family religious icon building, built for a very beautiful reason. It’s built within the skills of farmers and yet it is completely of the 21st century, completely like anything else you have seen; it’s a space that is best for one person, it is an architecture of a single room and all the best architecture is always of a single room whether it is a cave, or whether it is a cathedral or whether it is the Bruder Klaus Chapel, the idea that for the building there is one room, is psychologically very rich, no matter what its scale is. And something else that I like very much about it is that you cannot drive near this building; you have to park a long way away and you have to approach it slowly. Although it is tiny, on a private farm (visitors can come and visit), it includes the dimension of time, as well as space and that makes it important.

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“Media ICT is a building which wants to put together the idea of a green city and smart city, both together into one building.

I wanted to do a very low budget project to shut down the idea that green development means more money. And it doesn’t. This building is 1200 m2, it is economical in terms of market but at the same time it has zero emission, it is a net zero building.

We have ETFE that covers the sun and protects the building.

I am very happy that the festival of WAF has given us this award.

We cannot have just one green building; we should have millions of them. So we have to work together, to collaborate as a team in a winning scenario. We have to work aligned; citizens, governments, architects, society, city, urbanism, biologists, physicians, all together working for the idea of a NET zero building, of a NET zero city, maybe even a NET zero society. Let’s just stop global warming together.

My son chose the green building; he chose the green color. So I have to remind to you all that our kids are our clients.

For me the best thing about this festival is the refreshment that it offers, the chance to be reminded that however great problems and challenges we might face, there are truly talented people who have commitments that are beyond the mere professional and technical aspects of our job and they are engaging the big stuff that has to be engaged for ethical and moral purposes. So for me the celebration of this award is totally worth it.”

See the full presentation of the project here.

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For architects is very important. It’s important because it’s a way of dealing in a very general way with a city. People can understand, by making this kind of tourism, that the city is important for the human beings. I don’t really know if they understand what they are looking at but in some sense for us it is interesting to see this kind of people moving around and looking at things, trying to understand why architecture is important for their lives.

What is the importance of traveling, especially for architects and humans in general?

For architects, for humans, for everybody is important because is a way of culture. But for architects, I think it’s the only way. I think we are used to look at books, issues and all this kind of publications but I’m really interested in architecture when you are really involved when you are really touching things. That’s why our projects are much more interesting when you are visiting them. You can look at our buildings in these publications but people being there is a new kind of experience and sometimes they are much more grateful and there is no disappointment. I am really happy about that when people after being in the site or just travelling around our buildings, they say “It was very different from what I could imagine”, that’s why I am really very interested in not only looking at this kind of publications, books, photos but just pushing people and pushing a real architect to go to the sites and go to the buildings and just looking at the buildings in a way that only an architect can do and I think it is not only being there but find to touch and trying to really describe what happens with the city and with the building itself.

What is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

We could survive without architects. That’s something really important. I don’t know if we are really necessary but I think in the end we can really modify things. That’s really important; this idea of modifying things. When we really do our work and we are doing the best, for sure we are improving things. Then I prefer thinking of architects as somebody capable of improve but not as somebody necessary, because a lot of architecture has been successful without any architect. So you realize that perhaps without the architect it works better but when you really see very good piece of architecture, very good city it is because of an architect of course. We can really modify things and we have some kind of power. Of course politics are much more important, but we are very close to politics when we work together.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

Part of them is very close to my experience. For me it was very important for example to see Louis Kahn’s “Phillips Exeter Library” and the Kimbell Art Museum. Louis Kahn for me was very important as it was very important for me Le Corbusier’s “Unité d’Habitation” in Marseille or even “La Tourette”. It was necessary to be there and I felt the need to be inside. I felt a need of going there and test what I have been looking at the books, so that’s why I’m interested in being inside and just living architecture in a very real way. They were, Kahn, Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright in New York, Louis Sullivan in Chicago, part of my history. Nowadays it was important for me to visit Jean Nouvel’s housing building close to Nimes. Even Rem Koolhaas in Netherlands and even Foster’s project was quite nice. It’s a pity but I am not very fond of recent projects. I try not to belong to this actual moment; it’s a kind of reaction. I really trust what I am doing and I don’t have a lot of information from the others. I am really against to getting information from others because in the end when I have an opportunity to see a project, I go there and I am disappointed, so I prefer coming back to my old Frei Otto’s buildings in Stuttgart for example or perhaps Högner, a very interesting architect in Stuttgart. He is not known and he is 80 years old but he is very interesting. Högner’s works for me are amazing. The best you can really offer to your students for example is a week of traveling to see his work. Not this kind of fashion architectural trips, I prefer just discover. For example yesterday I was with Herman Hertzberger, this Dutch architect. It was so nice to discover the previous works and he showed me a lot of interesting things from 80’s and 60’s. Discovering for me is very important and architecture nowadays is like pornography. It’s not erotic, it’s pornographic. There are a few sexy buildings; most of them are very pornographic buildings so I just come back most of the time.

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I have been involved in some expos like Lisbon and I’ve just been to Shanghai to the expo there. I think they publicize architecture and they make people more aware of architecture. I don’t necessarily think that very good buildings come out of it, occasionally the best one is the Barcelona pavilion , you know that by Mies Van Der Rohe , that was a magnificent building, so I think if they’ re done the right way, like in Olympics, like in British London Olympics, I think they can have a long term profit for regeneration, if they ‘ re done the wrong way, like maybe the Athens Olympics, then they can be a problem for a long time, they make a loss.

What is the importance of Architectural Tourism? What is the importance of traveling especially for architects and humans in general?

Actually all tourists are architectural tourists. People go to Paris, they look at architecture, they look at the Eiffel tour, they look at the Notre Dame, so I think all tourists become architectural tourists, and I think architecture is the best focus for tourism, architecture is a hidden asset for all tourism, I greatly believe in architectural tourism, it’s fantastic.

How do you imagine a future in which sustainability pervades all forms of architecture and design, where it is unquestioned, and the norm?

I’m not sure whether I would ever think of architecture been truly sustainable. I think there will always be arrogance on the waste, people will still occupy policies and buildings that are too big for them. But on the other hand the general culture is to all sustainability and I think architecture has a big part to play, but so does term planning, so does food, so does engineering through water supply, it’s not just architecture, architecture alone will make only a small deference.

In recent years attention turns to green urban regeneration. Do you think that it is imperative for the city or it’s just a new fashion with economic outcomes and covertly interests?

I think the green agenda for term planning is a really important one basically term planning could do more for the green agenda and other the activity, it’s city making, city form, term planning that’s the key for sustainability.

Does Architecture as a profession need empowerment? In which ways should this be done?

Very simply I don’t think architecture needs empowerment. I think they just need to prove their work, not artificially give them value; they got to prove they have value. My feeling is that the profession needs defensive lows, defensive regimes, it’s either good value for people or it’s not. So it shouldn’t be artificially protected.

Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?

I think the world’s financial crisis is not a world financial crisis, it’s a western financial crisis; Brazil and India and China don’t have a financial crisis. It’s the west that is coming to terms with the fact that it is no longer a relaying upon development to make its industries work. Now in the west we have to look at how we organize ourselves completely differently. And it’s not a recession in the west , actually the west is still quite a rich place, Africa isn’t, I think we should think more about the rest of the world, the west calls is a world recession, Africa’ s always had a recession, China and India and Brazil are not having a recession. Get it in perspective.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

You ask me for ten buildings that I like; it’s very hard to think of ten straight on. All buildings are wonderful, from Stonehenge to great Cathedrals.

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How do you imagine a future in which sustainability pervades all forms of architecture and design, where it is unquestioned, and the norm?

Future is starting to happen in a lot of cities in Europe and in North America, especially Northern Europe like Denmark and Sweden and Norway and Germany have been at the forefront of sustainable design and architects really since the 1970’s have been doing eco-architecture. More in more in the developed world sustainability is the norm and the field that I work in, in housing and urban regeneration and public buildings in the UK; we have to fulfill so many criteria for sustainability, just as the baseline. The bigger problem is in the developing world; to chive the standards of sustainability is very expensive and there’s going to be a long time through bringing the world’s entire built environment to a base standard of sustainability. It’s a long project but I think in Europe it’s becoming the norm.

In recent years attention turns to green urban regeneration. Do you think that it is imperative for the city or it’s just a new fashion with economic outcomes and covertly interests?

Urban regeneration is essential at this time, not just for improving the way the city looks, but it’s really a fundamental part of improving the economic and the social quality of life for people who are often in the lowest economic circumstances, and who live in sort of deprived environment. A lot of this is the legacy of the post- war reconstruction period, where the sort of urban planning principals were in a big experiment, and a lot of urban failures it back into the city so that became part of a regular number of streets and neighborhoods and communities that are in diverse. That’s what the kind of projects or the estates, built in the post- war period, don’t do. For example, on London today there are many regeneration projects that are really restoring and heeling kind of gaping wounds that were made in the urban fabric in the last 50 years and it’s a really important issue.

Does Architecture as a profession need empowerment? In which ways should this be done?

Definitely architecture as a profession needs empowerment; it should be self- empowering somehow. We have to become better at proving to our clients and to our society that design adds value, like huge economic value and sustainability, beautifully designed, well designed, sustainable, long-lasting, timeless architecture is part of our culture, is part of our society and generally when things are well designed and well made they can come and add more value. So we should communicate the  value that we add better, and start to be a little bit more business minded in the way we have to describe the real value that it brings to people’s lives more effectively.

Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?

The financial crisis is a good wake-up call to a kind of attitude of unlimited possibility in a way; sort of example is Dubai where every building is iconic, everything tries to rival the World Trade Centre, a kind of globalised image of success that is not responsive to the cultures, to the climate, to the societies where these sort of icons and buildings are being built. Now there’s a kid of understanding that we need to just be more responsible as a society and responsible to the environment to subsequent generations. So, for example, building zero carbon buildings is something that completely has to take over things like commercial office building. I don’t think that commercial office buildings at the moment really are anymore near zero carbon sustainable, most of them that are built. And there’s a kind of disconnect between regeneration and public buildings. There are two such of rules that there is a need to be a more powerful voice that makes everybody dancing to the same tune when it comes to environmental responsibility.

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Many architects worldwide share the passion of photography for various reasons. What is your relationship with photography? Do architecture photographers do better this kind of work?

We can say that most οf architecture photos of buildings do not include any people. What are your thoughts about including people in your photos? Ιs it important to photograph a building in use or by itself?

Many architecture theories and a lot of people think that contemporary architecture is designed in ordered to be well photographed. Doing this work, do you have this feeling of buildings that are not designed to serve specific need but are rather iconic and self promoting?

What do you think is the difference between seeing a picture of a building or a place and visiting that building or place yourself? How does architectural photography explore the relation between the perception of space and the experience of space?

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B.S.: We as architects whenever we travel we tend to see a lot of buildings, but generally it is quite interesting for other people to see and experience a place through its architecture because you get a sense of space, a sense of culture, a sense of traditional skills, of materials and I think architecture connects with the city and its fabrics. So it’s interesting but maybe not as interesting as it would be if you are an architect.

S.Y.:  And maybe it is important as a sort of cultural icons as well; the deference between the deferent cultures and the deferent type of buildings in deferent cultures. So it’s important as part of the travel, it doesn’t have to be a dominant thing, but it’s certainly a very important aspect in any travel.

What do you think is the importance of traveling, especially for architects and humans in general?

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

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We can say that most οf architecture photos of buildings do not include any people. What are your thoughts about including people in your photos? Ιs it important to photograph a building in use or by itself?

Many architecture theories and a lot of people think that contemporary architecture is designed in ordered to be well photographed. Doing this work, do you have this feeling of buildings that are not designed to serve specific need but are rather iconic and self promoting?

The post Angela Brady on Architecture and Photography appeared first on Point of View.

Architects need to hire special photographers for architecture because you need to have special equipment to shoot architecture; there are many important thinks he should care about, like the correct angle. So if you like to take some pictures of it, it is ok but you need to hire a professional to shoot the building.

We can say that most οf architecture photos of buildings do not include any people. What are your thoughts about including people in your photos? Ιs it important to photograph a building in use or by itself?

Many architecture theories and a lot of people think that contemporary architecture is designed in ordered to be well photographed. Doing this work, do you have this feeling of buildings that are not designed to serve specific need but are rather iconic and self promoting?

The post Suzana Glogowski on Architecture and Photography appeared first on Point of View.

Meeting with and getting to know other culture is very important as well as getting the exchanging of ideas and knowledge with our collegues from other parts of the world.

What is the role of architecture as a destination and the added value that it creates within a city?

We believe architecture can function alone and be experienced in its own right, but always as a response to a specific need and situation. This is why we continue to develop new and contemporary solutions to old problems.

What is the importance of architectural events worldwide? What are the profits for a city holding such kind of major events?

The World Architecture Festival for us is more like vacation and something we enjoy together with our colleagues, being able to show what we’re doing and what we’ve done last year, so that’s the benefit of it. So it’s a sort of coming together thing. The benefit for a city is probably that architecture is focused upon and people in that city might start discussing what’s new, what should be done about the city they live in, like for example here in Barcelona.

Is the world financial crisis an opportunity for everyone to reconsider the ways that we design and construct the buildings and the urban environment?

We think so. The history has showed us in times of regression there is also time for reflecting upon the practice of architecture and urban planning. This often tends to produce interesting work, both at the schools and in the professional environment; there is the opportunity to reconsider, to think about, for each practice to find their own way doing architecture. This was also the situation for us when we started in Stockholm, but also for many colleagues that we know.

Does architecture as a profession need empowerment? In which ways could this be done?

I think the answer to the question depends on where in the world you are. For us, working in a Swedish context, it’s very much up to the architects, for each practice to define under which circumstances or conditions they work. It’s a constant discussion, you know, how much power should the architects have, how much power the authorities should have. The initiative moves back and forth and we think this question, the best possible balance among the stake holders in a project, is one of the points society constantly search for and will continuously re-negociate.

In recent years, attention turns to green urban regeneration. Do you think that this is imperative for a city, or is it just a new fashion with economic outcomes and covertly interests?

We think the environmental issues have to go along with the driving forces for people in general. Sustainability is just one factor of many that have to be included in any architectural project. It wouldn’t make sense to say that it’s not important. On the other hand, it’s also possible that sometimes you will have to make a difficult choice to say that this time we have to balance costs, function, cultural- and environmental considerations. It could result in building less or building with a different quality to allow for both sustainability and overall efficiency for society. The architect will then have a new task which is to communicate and make these choices understandable.

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