Trendy structure is and needs to be greater than monochrome, rectangular, glass containers
There are two seemingly fates that await older buildings: Both they’re preserved as heritage websites (or repurposed by advantage of adaptive reuse) or they’re disregarded, left to smash, and changed by extra trendy constructions.
And sadly, whereas new usually connotes the arrival of an enchancment, the substitute usually comes within the type of an uninspired grey field.
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“Should you take a look at a metropolis like Jakarta or Bangkok, you see that the brand new developments are overtaking the previous underlying cloth and networks to a degree that it begins to look increasingly like all American metropolis,” says architect and companion on the Workplace for Metropolitan Structure (OMA) Chris van Duijn.
Van Duijn has been a companion at OMA since 2014 and leads their work in Asia. He joined the follow in 1996 and has been concerned in a few of OMA’s most famous tasks equivalent to Common Studios in Los Angeles, the Prada shops in New York and Los Angeles (2001), Casa da Música in Porto (2005), CCTV Headquarters in Beijing (2012) and Prada Transformer in Seoul (2009).
Amongst his lately accomplished tasks are Hanwha Galleria division retailer in Seoul (2020), MEETT Toulouse Exhibition and Conference Centre (2020), Axel Springer Campus in Berlin (2020), and Genesis Gangnam automotive dealership in Seoul (2018).
On his latest analysis journey to the Philippines, we talked to Van Dujin about Manila’s architectural identification, the stability between kind and performance, and the challenges in design right this moment.
What are you looking out for on this analysis journey?
Curiosity. I personally don’t know a lot about what is occurring in Manila. I see the Philippines from the information however on the similar time, it’s unexplored territory. Though it’s such a giant nation, we didn’t have any leads coming in till very lately. We shouldn’t have any concrete plans or particular intentions, aside from to grasp extra, by speaking to individuals, visiting locations, and absorbing as a lot as attainable.
“Should you take a look at a metropolis like Jakarta or Bangkok, you see that the brand new developments are overtaking the previous underlying cloth and networks to a degree that it begins to look increasingly like all American metropolis.”
Based mostly in your observations to date, what do you suppose makes Philippine structure uniquely Filipino?
Manila is an attention-grabbing metropolis, which additionally in the meanwhile, nonetheless feels fairly genuine to me. You see the varied developments from Intramuros to BGC, and you’ve got this city soup that mainly connects all of these realms. You see the constructions, the event, and the numerous influences from the previous.
And what I feel could be the problem is to maintain Manila the form of metropolis that may be very Manila. All of those cities which have been growing so quick—and to such a big scale—step by step lose their identification. All of them look generic.
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The problem is how will we translate our expectations of cities of right this moment—of buildings right this moment—in such a approach that we don’t find yourself with glass containers that would’ve been constructed anyplace.
“The problem is how will we translate our expectations of cities of right this moment—of buildings right this moment—in such a approach that we don’t find yourself with glass containers that would’ve been constructed anyplace.”
As an architect, what’s your perspective on the connection between kind and performance with regard to your designs?
That is determined by the way you outline operate. Should you consider a library, you’ll be able to design one with the concept collections can develop and increase—and perhaps there will probably be much less books sooner or later—and perhaps you should utilize that very same space as business workplace area later. You possibly can construct it as a generic constructing with columns and glass facades and it’ll operate as a library.
However if you happen to actually dive into the concept of a library, you’ll see that the books, the studying and research areas, the place books are being fastened and repaired—these are all totally different issues that may profit from a unique kind of flexibility. Should you translate that to a constructing, you’re going to get one thing like we did in Seattle.
That’s an instance of kind follows operate, the place we establish the performance of a constructing and translate that into structure.
How do you strategy the distinction in cultures in your follow?
I’ve traveled to Bangkok, Korea, China, and Hong Kong assembly totally different shoppers. They’re fully totally different settings with totally different hierarchies and cultural understandings. It’s a matter of being open to these variations and wanting to have interaction with them. After which it’s a matter of investing in understanding it. Understanding a rustic doesn’t imply that we communicate the language. It goes past Googling to see what the ten most-visited locations within the metropolis are.
“We don’t need to herald generic world structure that might be constructed anyplace else on the planet. The problem is to make one thing bespoke and a superb contribution to that place.”
How do you stability trendy up to date design with country-specific tastes and traditions?
Our shoppers don’t ask us for buildings which can be native—there are higher individuals, native architects who know a lot better than we do. And on the similar time, we don’t need to herald generic world structure that might be constructed anyplace else on the planet. The problem is to make one thing bespoke and a superb contribution to that place. And when that occurs, now we have achieved our job.
The interview has been edited for size and readability
