stadt theatre almere
q: stadt theatre is a project that took you a very long time to complete wasn’t it?
sejima: it’s a miracle that it wasn`t cancelled because it stopped many times along the way.
nishizawa: ten years had passed and many things have changed. In holland, politics has changed, the ruling party has changed, the economy has changed, the eu had been united under a common currency. society keeps changing, and it is not unusual that these changes can cause a small public project to be cancelled. holland has been through these kind of changes in the last ten years. while the ruling party has changed and trends have been completely changed, this building was completed. this is very wonderful.
sejima: I`m very happy that it`s completed. but to tell you the truth, i felt it was almost there (or not quite there) … a little unfortunate.
q: what sort of things did you think about in this project?
nishizawa: one big thing was, programmatically how to arrange a huge theatre and a small room for piano. stadt theatre was not only a theatre but also a culture centre and so there a lot of rooms. the culture centre is a facility that has rooms for various classes, for example music rooms, painting rooms, sculpture rooms for citizens to come here to learn. what kind of plan can accommodate various sizes of rooms equally, from an opera theatre to a piano room? if you arrange it the normal way, the bigger room always looks more important somehow, such as the relationship between a large stadium baseball and its toilet. the large room is the main character and the small room is the supporting character, this kind of relationship always happens. we`ve been thinking therefore how to arrange large rooms and small rooms in an equal way by plan, structure, equipment and so on. i think this project in various ways expresses one side of our work at that time.
because it was our first overseas project, there were many things we could not take care of well: problems with the contract, things about budget control, and not being allowed to join in the construction site often. The language problem was great too. although we were not allowed to supervise the construction site, for the exterior, we did drawings with quite a lot details so that we could achieve a level which we wanted to some extent. inside, there was a budget constrain, so it became very dutch-like.
sejima: i feel it’s quite regretful why windows in between rooms were cancelled. if there are windows, when you walk you can see various scenes with activities from one room to another. the truth is, it was planned such that you can see the room next to the painting room at the same time, in the same way that you can look into the next bedroom in the plum grove house. it was not understood easily.
new museum: place that is appropriate for contemporary times
q: what did you think about in New Museum project?
nishizawa: the new museum is a very avant-garde modern art museum even in new york. it is, for me, overlapped with the charm of new york. The modernity that new york and new museum embody, influenced very much how we made this space for art. In the new museum, in a sense, there is no circulation, purely being a building with simply stacked boxes. but it is related to the pathos of new york city and also relates to the operating style of new museum, a style of working without having a physical museum. new museum doesn’t display art that already has determined artistic value and criticism, but display in order to receive future criticism. they even display art that is not even sure whether it’s art. we try to think of something that’s not a classical exhibition space of museum but a museum that is connected to their way.
sejima: we thought about how to stack volumes in new york city and also we thought about how to change the museum from being an enclosed gallery space to something that can relate to the city. but it doesn’t mean anything if we just manipulate the façade to make it look like a museum or show how people move or circulate. We thought that we have to think of the exhibition space itself. we wanted to make a building where you can see nothing but when you pass by, you can expect or feel that there is something happening inside. although we were worried that it would be over-scaled since its form is simple, it was important to create a kind of scale that is not usual.
q: how different is this ongoing Louvre extension in Lens from the new museum?
nishizawa: that is completely different. It’s so different that you can’t imagine that they are both places for art.
sejima: the interesting thing as we communicated with them is that their exhibition plan is very similar to new museum’s. while the Louvre people plan to line all historical art according to different periods, it became something similar to the way the new museum people arrange modern art on the floor in a random way.
nishizawa: the louvre says that they don’t need walls. like showing paintings as sculptures. their collections are all historical. the backs of paintings also have meanings and are also worth to see, and so they want to show both back and front. they are shown like sculptures in the centre of room instead of hanging on the walls. but then as a space it became like one room and also it feels like art arranged powerfully in that one room. as a result, it got closer to the interior scene of the new museum which is the most experimental modern art museum.
tokyo scene
nishizawa: before, we used to have a desire to create buildings to suit the environment. this guided the way we decide their layout in relationship with surrounding. but now, i begin to be interested to create environment rather than to suit environment. after the kanazawa 21st century museum, i started thinking that way. the moriyama house is like that and in a single architecture like house a, i started to feel more towards creating environment and scene compared to before.
tokyo is a very special place. a lot of foreigners come to see and enjoy tokyo rather than kyoto. i feel that tokyo is very unique to them and being taken as one of the cities that should be visited. for sure it’s a very interesting city and also a city that manifests our modern values. but i also wonder whether the scene of our times is okay like this. i was born and grew up in tokyo and i like it very much but i also think that i want to go over it a little bit more and want to create things that are modern for us.
sejima: i think so. we’ve been creating in different cities and different countries and that made us think about what we can do in tokyo scene again. i became conscious that the character each city has gives quite a big influence for how the architecture exists after we came to new york.
nishizawa: tokyo has a transient and ephemeral moment.
sejima: it has a side in which people think its fine as long as we’re happy and people don’t expect too much of its urban scenery.
nishizawa: that is true. tokyo has a side in which idea is everything (…laughs). It’s a city where programme has a priority. scenery is not expected so much. What kind of programmes are going to be made attract people`s attention. scenery that is going to be made without being expected has a sublime nature. even huge redevelopments can happen although this may destroy tokyo’s urban scenery since people feel that it is more important what new kinds of event, plan or programme that these could bring.
sejima: in tokyo there are many interesting things as idea but not as form or shape.
nishizawa: one of the charms that japanese architecture has is that it is very light and transparent. but in the end, it strangely matches the importance that plan and programme are given. lightness in japanese architecture is rather precious but in current japanese cities, scenery doesn’t work that way. rather, scenery is architecture as consumed property. however, architecture is not something you build and destroy each time an idea has changed. transparency and lightness in japanese architecture are equally valued just like european pride for their baroque architecture. it is a problem of modern architecture scenery but also a problem of architecture style in our times.