(6冊目。邦訳は「現代建築家20人が語る いま、建築にできること」）

It’s a book about interviews with 20 “start architects” in our age, such as Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Jacques Herzog&Pierre De Meuron, Rem Koolhaas, etc. (the cover photo is the Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, one of the interviwees) 

Hanno Rauterberg, a German journalist author, asks a number of questions, some of which are quite harsh and thus let the interviewees get irritated and reveal fundamental ideas or belief of the architects. However, I sensed that the author somehow loosened his sense of criticism when he interviews German architects. I can imagine the reason – it's easier to be critical when we talk with foreigners, since expected negative backlash due to the disputes against foreigners is smaller that of compatriots. That said, if he really loosened his critical thinking due to this reason, that is the huge failure for a journalist.

Anyway, let's talk about the contents. What I felt after reading this book is that there’s no common understanding on some key questions that many architects are to answer. One main issue would be whether architects are artist or not. Modernist architects such as Peter Zumthor and Norman Foster like minimalism style which purely serves for function of the architectures (especially Peter Zumthor. I really liked the way he talks and want to see his buildings). On the other hand, avant-garde architects like Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas have made some “odd” buildings which possess decorations not necessary from the pure functionality perspective. Peter Zumthor loves products without ego and criticize architectures like CCTV (by Koolhaas) for its conspicuousness perhaps based on the architect’s ego.

Another question that many architects are asked to answer would be how architects should work with clients. Some disdain their clients, because those who pay for it sometimes lack sense of beauty and don’t know what they want to create really. Von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg ridicule those who wish to promote themselves and have the worst sense of beauty. Some others criticize these attitudes, but I felt that majority of the architects may seem to be snobbish from amateur clients' perspective. From their interviews, I couldn’t feel architects' strong commitment to work under the well-known principle of “client interest first”. In that sense, I think the star architects are not literarily professionals. Indeed, if they’re the pure professionals, people won’t call them “star”. The word star is associated with strong personality and emotional symbolism, no the traits of professionals.

Although the themes of the interviews hugely varies and it is not to easy to grasp any universal idea about what architects can do, the book is the great read to know how the front-runners think. One caveat would be that we shouldn’t judge architects given what they say – we should do so given what they make and how we feel when we're in the buildings they made.