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comment The ArchRecord Interview: Vito Acconci
What have you discovered to be some of the pleasures in architectural work that aren’t there in art?
he beautiful thing about architecture, it does have the anticipation of renovation always built into it, which I find so refreshing from art because art is supposed to be unchangeable. The only things that are unchangeable are tombstones. We would like to provide the seeds of something, but we’re not going to provide the whole thing. Hopefully someone will take clues from us and bring it or something else further.
This slideshow includes images from the Acconci Studio projects discussed on this page: Mur Island in Graz, Austria; the United Bamboo Store[in Tokyo; a performing arts center in Seoul, Korea; and a library proposal in Guadalajara.
Listen as Acconci describes the architecture he is most keen to do—and talks about his desire to design clothing (1:10).
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.
How do you think your reputation as an artist affects, for good or bad, your reputation as an architect? Does it make it easier to acquire clients? “I want a building by Vito Acconci.” And how do you think other architects perceive you?
We’ve very rarely done projects for private clients though it is starting more. There’s an eye doctor in Winter Park, Fla. who wants us to re-do his house, and I know the main reason is he’s an art collector so that probably drew him.
With regard to other architects it’s a different matter. A lot of architects, especially architects of my generation, refuse to take us seriously as architects. I wonder if sometimes they think once an artist always an artist. Or why doesn’t he stick to his own field. I don’t find that so much in younger architect firms like Asymptote or Foreign Office Architects. But people in my generation, it’s very different, even people that I know well. Steven Holl, Bernard Tschumi: They will never accept that I’m an architect.
What are some of the goals you have set for the studio over the next few years? What excites you about the future?
We want an architecture that’s a biological system; we want a regeneration principle. I don’t want it to be just metaphor. I don’t know if architecture can ever be as living a thing as all that. Yes, there’s a lot of work now that looks fluid, looks as if it moves. We would love to be able to make something that really does grow, and I’m sure a lot of other architects would say that.
But right now I have mixed feelings. I sometimes wonder if architecture is getting caught up in aesthetics. I’ve seen the word elegance used a lot lately, and it was always a word I had such a horror of.
Why?
For two reasons. It seems to me it’s totally about form. But elegance is also a word of the upper class. Now we might want to get at a version of elegance, but I hope it doesn’t have the upper-class and all-form connotation.
I wonder also if the whole star architecture [phenomenon] is a sign that architecture as we know it is not really going to exist any longer. I don’t think this will happen soon, but I think there will be an architecture developed that starts to develop itself and grow itself. Maybe an architect is there almost like a planter: You plant a seed and then this thing is going to go off in its own direction. I hope architecture becomes just as alive as a tree, just as alive as a biological thing.
If not elegance, then what are four of five adjectives you’d like people to associate with your work?
I want our [work] to be changeable, portable, multi-functional. I want our [work] to have a complexity, but not a visual complexity.
I know it’s always difficult but can you pick one or two or three works that you feel have most accomplished your vision?
Of built projects, probably Mur Island in Graz, Austria and the United Bamboo Store [in Tokyo]. For some unbuilt projects, we did a proposal for a performing arts center in Seoul in Korea. We did a library proposal in Guadalajara where the brief talked about how there should be an expansion principle because the library would need more books. We tried to take this literally, and our proposed library goes up and goes out; there’s a highway nearby so the library crossed the highway, so it could spread out into the city. I liked the way we started with the very simple idea that books are dangerous.
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