25
constantin brodzki
Sophisticated cabinet-making
Once I’d graduated, I did my work placement on the UN construction site, in New York. The project had been entrusted to Wallace Harrison, married to a Rockefeller. And as Rockefeller had given the land to the UN … You can see that even New York is a village. I worked in a small building on the construction site, intended for the project team, a small department of 500 people — in the United States the departments could reach 5,000 people. It’s a work dimension which marked me for life. There were 50 or so architects per building, with the drafting room – where I was – the design department on the floor below – equipped with a model-making workshop where about 15 colleagues worked all the time. Each decision was checked by three model makers. They even made full-size models which we put outside to check the flow of rainwater. I did 5 years of studies in 6 months. The Americans are great because they start by telling themselves, ‘I don’t know’, and develop all the unknowns before the construction site, which becomes a simple formality, in other words the assembly site. In Europe, by contrast, everything takes place during the construction site. I picked up this American habit, which makes a construction site a stroll in the park, serving just to check if the initial point of view was the right one.
André Jacqmain’s Foncolin building (1958)
First meeting in Brodzki’s attic in search for documentation, 6 April 2017