HORS-SERIE
architecture & culture
NEW
#NEW L'équipe Biche Lecteurs adorés nous sommes de retour avec un nouveau numéro ! Cet hors série, consacré à l’agence norvégienne Snøhetta, se développe autour de l’interview de l’un de ses fondateurs, Kjetil Thorsen ! L’équipe Biche a pu le rencontrer lors de la conférence qu’il a tenu durant les Journées de l’Architecture ! Nous sommes ravis de partager avec vous notre p’tit biche et espérons que vous le savourerez avec bonheur !! Enjoy !
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BIOGRAPHIE
BIOGRAPHIE
Norwegian National Opera and Ballet / Snøhetta - snohetta.com
Snøhetta (arkitektur landskap AS) est une agence d'architecture et d'urbanisme Norvégienne qui n'a cessé d'évoluer depuis sa création en 1989 par ses deux fondateurs Craig Dykers et Kjetil Thorsen Trædal. Depuis son origine, l'agence a toujours souligné l'importance de sa transdisciplinarité en matière de pensée puisque dès ses début, ses deux fondateurs ont décidé de miser sur un caractère d'atelier collaboratif.
C'est en 1989 que l'agence se lance en remportant un premier concours international pour la conception nouvelle de la grande Bibliothèque d'Alexandria en Egypte. Dès lors, l'agence connaît une première percée internationale. Aussi, seulement un an après, l’agence remporte le concours pour L'Opéra et Ballet National Norvégien d'Oslo. En 2004, Snøhetta ouvre ses premiers bureaux extérieurs à Oslo en s'implantant à New York suite à leurs commission pour la conception du bâtiment culturel du site mémorial du World Trade Center. En 2013, l'agence ouvre de nouveaux bureaux à San Fransisco suite à la commission du SFMOMA. Aujourd'hui, l'agence continue de
Aujourd'hui, Snøhetta s'est développée en devenant l'une des agences d'architecture et d'urbanisme majeures sur la scène internationale tout en respectant son approche du métier en travaillant aussi bien l'architecture d'intérieur que le design graphique et le design de produit. • 4•
BIOGRAPHIE
Tverrfjellhytta, Norwegian Wild Reindeer Pavilion / Snøhetta - snohetta.com
se développer autour du globe, d’Innsbruck à Stockholm, à Adelaide ou encore plus récemment à Paris.
Snøhetta est actuellement impliquée dans plusieurs projets sur chacun des continents. Le fait de pouvoir travailler à l’échelle mondiale permet à chacun des concepteurs d'acquérir une connaissance culturelle et économique précieuse et permet ainsi une évolution constante de Snøhetta.
Le travail de Snøhetta vise à renforcer notre environnement, notre identité, nos relations aux autres et aux espaces physiques dans lesquels nous vivons, qu'ils soient féroces ou créés par l'homme. De ce fait, chaque projet, et quelque soit sa nature, bénéficie du même soin et de la même attention ; qu’il s'agisse d'un musée, de produits, d'un observatoire, de productions graphiques, ou d'architecture paysagère. La relation entre les multiples disciplines est une force motrice dans les travaux de Snøhetta. La longue histoire de l'agence, où architecture et paysage ne font qu’un, en est la preuve.
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INTERVIEW DE KJETIL TRÆDAL THORSEN FROM SNØHETTA
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19.10.18
INTERVIEW DE KJETIL TRÆDAL THORSEN FROM SNØHETTA
BICHE > In September 2017, your partner Craig Dykers attributed the firm's success to a nonlinear outlook on what he called the design of habitat. Could you explain to us what this mean to you ? SNØHETTA > First of all, the habitat is basically more than the living, it’s everything that we are being surrounded by, the habitat is everything from animal life all the way through to how we, humans, interact. And if you think of that as a non-linear process, maybe not like a tree but similar to a tree, where you keep following the decisions that you have to make, almost like a game in a computer maybe you could say. So all this things that keep happening drives you into another decision; so one takes the other, takes the third, takes the fourth, takes the fifth and all of a sudden you have a very non-linear process which is driven by the consciousness you have at that particular moment when the decision is made. That’s a non linear process. If we were to say : « we like a specific style in architecture », that would be a linear process, so everything we design has this concept, has this meaning and this forms that leaded into this type of typology. That would be a linear process.
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B > In many of your projects, there is a distinct treatment of the roof as a public space, some sort of Agora. Can you explain to us your approach of the 5th facade in architecture ? S > Architecture is a built structure normally, rather it’s old or new, and the different typologies of architecture that we were discussing today have been based on the type of urban thinking that came out of other political systems. Let’s say the Boulevards of Paris are to control the public or to have the military march. It doesn’t come from a democratic political situation. The cities we love comes from different political situations that we have today. So let’s assume that there was a type of architecture, not generically but contextually that could react to accessibility, transparency, democracy and the movement of the people, more corresponding to our definition of justified life, equality. What if there would be an architecture that could do that, so we said, maybe one way forward, in certain situations, is simply to make a building more accessible. Then we started explaining that through the prepositions. So how do I get very close and intimate with my surroundings ? Nature has all the prepositions but how could we deal with that in architecture by saying « I can be inside, I can be in front of, but I can also be on top of. » And all of a sudden you have one preposition more that can add to the intimacy between your surroundings and you and your body.
B > Craig Dykers also explained how we should learn to approach design with empathy. Can you tell us why ? S > Well simply because architecture is about people and empathy is about people. If you don’t have empathy and I know it sounds a little political correct to be talking about these types of things, but I’m not afraid of being political correct if there is an essence to the things that you’re actually profoundly trying to follow. So if we claim that architecture is for people, then you have to approach it in a correct manner.
B > In many of your projects, you play with transparency between the indoors and outdoors as a way to link the building and the landscape together. Why is it so important to you ? • 7 •
INTERVIEW DE KJETIL TRÆDAL THORSEN FROM SNØHETTA
S > There are many reasons for that of course, we’re coming from a nordic country first of all, where a lot of the light that we want during the summer, half a year, is all the light we’re getting because the winter is dark, so we want as much light as we can. (Laughs) But at the same time, I think there is a visual identification between who is actually inside and who’s outside. Of course glass is not transparent at 100%, it always has a reflection and it depends on the space. Does the space has more light that outside or does outside has more light that the space ? So transparency goes two ways, it goes from inside out and outside in. Transparence is a way of indicating that you can go in, it’s an invitation. In addition to the « We need a lot of that light! We need the vitamins you know! ». (Laughs)
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B > From architecture to product and graphic design, Snøhetta has a very large working field. Do you see each one of this activity as complementary ? For example, does the work on a book’s graphic design can help on one project’s architectural conception ? S > Absolutely ! What is happening right now is that the quadruple influence between artists, engineers, a lot of architects, urbanist, graphic designers, product designers, so we see that this interactivity that is happening between this different professions, lift us together, all the time, by different positions, different thinking but also different informations. You know, architecture students gets the same informations all around the world, graphic designers gets the same informations all around the world. So you got this information combine with this information, all of a sudden you got a cross over.
B > When we overviewed the projects of Snøhetta, we were surprised by the variety and diversity of the projects. How do you choose the projects you want to work on ? S > We choose a project along not a completely rational way of thinking, we react upon who the persons are on the other side of the table, we react upon what is the client body, who else is involved, does it have some meaning for society, not necessarily for individuals only but for society. Does it generate a better culture ? Does it make people understand more of themselves by doing this ? Can it contribute some how to a higher degree of consciousness in the public ? So a lot of criteria but not necessarily size for instance, it doesn’t have to be big, it can be very small.
B > In one of your past interviews, you’ve say that the best way for people who disagree on many points to get along is to make them come together. Do you think that as architect, we should also have a mediator role ? S > Yes ! It comes from everything else I said I guess. You know it sounds like a very popular thing to say again but when people come together, things happen. Things that you don’t really know 100% how to plan. It can be (snap) the split of a second, when something come’s up you didn’t imagine before, you didn’t know. So bringing people together is one of the most inspiring things you can do, because we feed on other people. What they have written, what they do, what they thing; we feed on musicians, artists, dancers, philosophers, planers.
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INTERVIEW DE KJETIL TRÆDAL THORSEN FROM SNØHETTA
19.10.18
B > In addition to Snøhetta, you also teach design and architecture. Do you think that your exchanges with students influence your way to see the today world and then, Snøhetta’s projects ? S > I have to say I was a professor for five years, and I think I learn more during this five years than I learn when I was studying myself. Because students have the time to think, they have the time to dive deep when business is so fast and things goes so fast. So teaching was a way of communicating with students to understand what they are thinking and of course that influences me, and it has to! Otherwise I would be stupid because I would giveaway a good opportunity.
We need all this and we need this people to come together, because that’s how you can lift the perception of what you’re doing and start looking for a real meaning. B > You recently won the urban development of Les Lumières Pleyel in Paris, one of the main urban projects for the new Grand Paris. Can you tell us what is your vision for the future of a city like Paris and what are the most important points to develops so Paris can still be able to grow and attract in the future ? S > Something about the Pleyel is complicated. It’s a situation in Paris where people are not rich. So on one hand, by developing a big project like that, you might push away everyone who can not live there and they have to go silent. It’s one danger. How can you solve that, you can probably solve it a little bit by bottom up involvement and with possible late education so we’re talking about a very hybride type of architecture in which you can include for more than one group of people. Let’s say you have a very rich business man, coming in and actually delivering his bicycle to the guy who didn’t have a job before but all of a sudden can repair his bicycle. There needs to be a sharing economy, and to do that you need hybride technologies, you need hybride typologies. And you could probably do that partially in the planning but not everything can be done in the planning so it’s creating spaces that are also flexible for people to actually adopt to the new situations that are coming in the futur. So yes, because a developer will always want to make his money, that’s how capitalism works. But we as architects, have to make sure that they works for those who don’t pay for it or who don’t make the money. We are responsible to everyone.
B > This interview will be read by many architecture students. With your experience, what advice would you give to them for their future in architecture ? S > I tried with my students to make them test their own habits. So for exemple, if you like to sleep long in the morning, try to get up early, if you like to get up early try to sleep long. If you only watch football go to the opera, if you only like opera go to see a football game. Test your habits, not because you should change your habits but because you should know why you have it. You should know your personal interests and you should be able to argue for them. So architecture studies is about self accomplishment, in group, in the group, together with others, but you should always test yourself in the group because that’s how you can contribute further, so the more you know about yourself, the more you can help others. Interview réalisée par Élise Duno et Robin Le Bourhis Maquette : Robin Le Bourhis
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Et c'est pas fini ! Vous avez adoré et dévoré ce numéro ? Vous voudriez bien reprendre un peu de Biche ? Bande de chanceux ! Nous n'en n'étions qu'aux amuses-bouches ! Nous vous retrouvons très vite pour la suite avec, au menu, des interviews et exclusivités ! Nous avons hâte de nous régaler avec vous !
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PROCHAINEMENT !!!!
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