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comment The ArchRecord Interview: Frank Stella
BR: You once said that “architects are artists who wear fancy pants and don’t want to get their hands dirty.”
FS: Ah yes. I grew up with architects at Princeton [University] in the studio. Actually, they were quite good, they all worked quite hard. But then, once they got out of the studio, they had to get dressed again. It’s a matter of style, but it’s hard for architects to be messy—although Frank Gehry has tried very hard.
I do think I like artists a little better; they’re catty in a different way. Architects are quite unseemly in their cattiness. They need a little brushing up from Emily Post.
This slide show includes images of the architectural and sculptural works from “Frank Stella on the Roof,” on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York through Oct. 28, 2007.
Above: We spoke with Stella about his time spent teaching at the Yale School of Architecture: one-third of his students, we find out, just didn’t get it. Stella’s highest marks from his students: for his attendance (1:26).
Videography by James Murdock.
Listen as Stella discusses his first architectural project: a bridge over the River Seine in Paris (which led to his collaboration with renowned engineer Peter Rice); and also weighs in on the impact that the computer has had on architectural design (2:12).
Based on what you have seen and read about this project, how would you grade it? Use the stars below to indicate your assessment, five stars being the highest rating.
BR: Has Richard Meier given you any practical advice since you’ve been exploring architecture?
FS: No. The only one to have given me really practical advice was Philip Johnson. When someone asked him about my architectural ability, he said, “Oh, you don’t have to worry about Frank’s architectural ability. Frank’s problem is client management.” That pretty much hits the nail on the head [laughs].
BR: Speaking of client management, one of the fundamental differences there would seem to be between an artist and an architect is that artists are generally working solo, making objects that please them, whereas architects have clients that need to be pleased. They also have to work with engineers. How do you find the collaborative nature of architecture? Is that difficult for you?
FS: Well, it has been pretty difficult, but I’ve never really been able to put it to the test because I still am basically designing and making models for myself, and then I hope to sell that idea or that model to somebody else. The most complete thing I think that I’ve done was the project for Buenos Aires, the Constantini Museum 
(0:25). And that was a competition, so I did everything on the sheet. I did it the way it’s supposed to be. But I didn’t have a problem; all I had to do was face the normal constraints of the program.
BR: In some ways, can the constraints of the program enhance your creativity, or does it always restrain it? Can the limits set aid you as an artist in any way?
FS: I think you find a way around the constraints, but some constraints, yes, push you a little bit. Normally speaking, if I’m doing something for myself, or I have some involvement with architecture, it’s usually one form or one event. The Constantini piece forced me to have ideas that at least moved on or were linked together. So it was a multiple design effort rather than a single-image effort. And that’s fine, that’s hard.
Normally, most [projects] are a building or a place. But some are more complicated. And the way I approached the Constantini piece is with multiple images rather than one big image and everything put in one big house. And actually, I think I did a pretty good job. I certainly learned a lot about it because I had to try out two or three different things and I generated ideas that are still interesting to me.
BR: Why do you think that none of your work has been built yet? What are some of the reasons that others have given you, or that you would ascribe for why a project has yet to come to fruition?
FS: Gee, we have come close quite a few times. The very first piece which we designed was [a rooftop addition] for the Groninger Museum [in the Netherlands]. We got all the way with a lot of help from Peter Rice and Arup. We had a workable design; it wasn’t that fabulous, but it was workable. [The structure] would have been like those hexagonal spans in the “Chinese Pavilion,” and they would have been covered with domes [made] with Teflon, and then you would have had glass on the sides. It was pretty good. But at the end some curator said, “Oh, but what if they stick a knife through the Teflon?”
BR: A lot of your roofs have ribbon shapes, smoke-ring shapes, spiral shapes (0.09). What’s the inspiration there, the attraction, to tackling roofs in this distinctive way?
FS: The whole emphasis in 20th-century architecture, in all honesty, has been the flat roof. And that certainly accounts for the incredible popularity of the Sydney Opera House, which is a kind of Modern Gothic version really of Otto Bartning’s Sternkirche. The issue here is what I indirectly got involved in because I was asked to do something in Groningen, Holland and then asked to do the more complicated [Kunsthalle] project in Dresden, Germany. So somehow I just turned to German or Middle-European Expressionist architecture. It’s kind of amazing that it’s been hidden for so long actually. But certainly it’s coming back; you can see it in Calatrava and Gehry.
BR: Speaking of non-flat roofs, what sort of an influence do you think you’ve had on architects who really use exuberant sculptural forms? The wall text in the exhibition argues that your “explosive wall reliefs” (0.10) anticipated the formal vocabulary made famous by Frank Gehry, Daniel Liebeskind, and other architects working in an expressionist mode.”
FS: I see for better or worse, unfortunately, a lot of versions of my “Polish Village” series [of large-scale collage reliefs] in Liebeskind. Perhaps too much. Or you can blame Russian Constructivism …whatever you want. And on Frank, I think I would say not much of an influence, although we have a lot of the same interests and sympathies.
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