Interview with Bernard Tschumi | The Plan
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Interview with Bernard Tschumi

Bernard Tschumi Architects

Interview with Bernard Tschumi
By Alessandra Orlandoni -

Alessandra Orlandoni – Pietro Derossi, who at that time was assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture of Turin University, invited you there in the early seventies. At that time several Italian architects showed a deep interest in experimental projects from the Architectural Association. You were influenced by the International Situationist, strongly advocating contradictory behaviour to push the cultural world in a new direction. On the other hand, it seems that even though disliking and criticizing his buildings, you had an interest in Aldo Rossi as a theorist and teacher…
Bernard Tschumi – I think the report you give is probably correct. I was critical of some of Aldo Rossi’s architecture and that of his followers. Recently, about two months ago, I got through his Scientific Autobiography and was fascinated by what an excellent writer he was and by his architectural personality. So that means that occasionally you have to make a distinction between the persons and what they stand for. I think he was convinced of the correctness of his ideas just as I am about my own, even if indeed my trajectory is of course very, very different.
A.O. - From 1970 up to 1979 you taught at the Architectural Association. Among your students there were some young talents who later became archi-stars. To keep working on experimental architecture is a difficult issue; it needs deep intellectual interest in what we do. At that time were you convinced that one day, not too far from then, those research projects would have been built, leading to the creation of new architectural languages?
B.T. – The short answer is YES! The long one is: at that time there was such an architectural system of established offices and corporations, multinational commercial corporate architects that what we were doing seemed to be completely away from any real opportunity. But we knew that we were doing the right exploration. Meanwhile people...

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