Opening Inquiries

Aaron Rombach: In school we start to develop certain passions or ways of thinking throughout our pursuit of a degree. Were there any passions that you had before graduating that you really wanted to pursue and how did that change as your professional career moved forward?

Stefano Pujatti: You always start from something, and there is always a reason why you go into one school. I went into architecture after having walked the way of fashion design. I had been interested in fashion design, but then, at a certain point, I realized architecture and interior design seemed to follow what I was doing and researching in fashion design. That was just the beginning and the push to enter the university of architecture. Once I got there, I was captured by something completely different; I got into urban design and construction design, which was more like engineering and all those kinds of things that were very far from what I was originally interested in. That helped me to still keep an eye on all of those fields because I am still interested in fashion design. I am still interested in interior design even though I do not do it. It is the same with not doing fashion design, but they are still an interest of mine. Then, I started to actually work on what I thought was going to be my career. When my mother asked me if I was going to build houses, I said “No, no, I am interested in building cities;” that was my interest. Of course, I ended up just doing houses, and you always end up doing what you don’t think you will be doing. You always go where you don’t think you are going to go. That is why it is important to stay open to what happens. Sometimes in life, an opportunity opens. What you are researching is a way to open many doors, and then you are able to actually choose where to enter, where to exit, and to enter another one. I was not born as an architect, and I do not think I will die as an architect; I want to be a cowboy.

Daniel Brubaker: How much creative freedom do you feel you are able to express in your specific works? Does your approach begin with the creative elements that make one feel more engaged in space, or are the deliverables prioritized first?

Stefano: There is no such thing as freedom. Freedom doesn’t exist. There are so many influences on your life as a human being —as an architect especially— but you are never “free.” You always work with what you know, and you know those things because someone showed them to you when you were a kid; it’s an exposure. In Italy, we are exposed to things that people in the United States are not exposed to, but it’s also vice versa. More or less, you are always free within the boundaries of what you know, and sometimes you may not even know them. If the question also asks how we start the process of design, it really depends. It depends on the kind of project you are working on, and sometimes the project starts before you have a client or even before you have the project. You start working on something, even if you do not really know what it is quite yet. We don’t have a way of processing. For sure, we work with models, with hand sketches, and the steps of three-dimensional modeling; so, everything we have is going to be used if needed. What makes me “freer” is not having prejudice on things. Culture creates prejudice, and architectural experience creates prejudice too. The more you progress with your career, the less you become reliable as a free person because you predict somehow how projects are going to develop. Sometimes, you will try to run away from the prediction, but it is very difficult as it is a safety structure of the brain.