ARCHITECTURE AND CONTINUITY

ARCHITECTURE AND CONTINUITY

Interview with Emile ROMNEY

by Nicolas MONLOUIS

«You have to know what you are demolishing and to know it you need to know it intimately. And why? Why do I say that? Because when we know things intimately we will be able to ensure this continuity.»

«The life of an architect, it’s something that progresses.»

«Each project is a subject of study. There are new things that appear, it may be something that can be embryonic in a certain project and that can be developed later. So it’s really a process in motion.»

ARCHITECTURE AND CONTINUITY Interview with Emile ROMNEY

by Nicolas MONLOUIS, may 5th, 2022

Emile ROMNEY is one of the strong character which link his architecture and thinking with the Caribbean patrimony through projects, conferences and teaching all around the “West Indies”. It’s behind this online interview, I succeed to discover the personality of an openmind architect who share with us his thought and the atmosphere and decor of his architectural office for a few hours.

What is sustainability in architecture and urban planning according to you?

Oh that then, it starts with a very general question. So how? How to approach this subject? it is a question that I think so much towards an evolution in the way we approach it if we refer a few years ago. I do not think that the answers would have been the same and today with all the problems and all the questions that there may be whether on the climate dimension, whether on the food issue, or on the issue of health which is becoming more and more demanding.

But also beyond the questions of urban planning and ecology, the environment, it is the question of health that is becoming more and more central and more and more predominant.

This is the intersection that can be between the question of the position of man now whether in a building, in the architectural dimension or precisely on the scale of space.

How can we manage to live, to live better? Better and longer and above all more comfortably in the spaces we create. And that, of course, also implies an economic look at it. So there is this economic dimension that comes at the crossroads.

But the question of sustainability for me is really to gradually place the individual, the man, the society at the heart of our concerns. And now to bring into this research all the parameters that there may indeed be whether it is the questions of climate change, whether it is the question of materials, whether it is the question of supply circuits and whether it is also quality now that we are going to bring to all of this. But always with this objective precisely the well-being and well-being finally, of the individual and society.

How do you make the link between the urban redevelopment of “the boulevard marie galante raizet”and sustainability ?

So this link precisely in relation to this project. It is direct because this project started from a risk-taking, we can say because we are in a competition framework? And for this competition precisely the objective was to redevelop in fact all the small premises of fast food, grilled chicken, pancakes, “bokite”, which was along “the boulevard de Marie Galante”. The project originally was

to redo its premises, to redo it better, but to redo them in the same place.

And when we made the visit with JeanLuc Fournier, from the company Urbis, (which deals with urban planning, the development of territories and also a whole part of sociological and built survey). Gradually, we wondered about how would the restoration premises be put back in the same place? In addition, there is a canal that passes behind, the guys were throwing their old oils into the canal precisely. This created pollution. And in addition the food premises also generated along the boulevard traffic problems, problems also with the neighborhood. And at one point, when we went around the site, we stopped on a kind of space, on a green space, a little messy, there were old fridges, old washing machines that were a little abandoned, car carcasses. And when we looked at the end, we said to ourselves but maybe we should not do the project where it was requested? Maybe we could do it there precisely, in this space because there was a space that was now wider in terms of dimensions.

How did we come to move this function there with precisely this human dimension? Well we said to ourselves but if we do exactly the same thing in the same place, even if we redo it more beautiful in quotation marks, what do we bring, what more do we bring to people, what more do we bring to society precisely, what more do we bring to the people who will come there?

And finally so on the other hand, by putting the project on the side, it allowed us by the width of the space instead of being linear, to develop a public space that did not exist precisely in this part,

(“Raizet” is a district, from the early 60s, which even started a little bit with buildings plots). It is really a district, which is in deficit of public space. And so there, it allowed us precisely, by proposing to use this space, to create a public space with this large central place with the food containers that precisely come face to face and create a courtyard, place where people will be able to meet, where something else will happen than simply come and stop the car, get out, take his thing and then go back there. As a result, it allowed to have a stopping space already for people to be able to have the opportunity to consume on the spot.

That’s about making a sustainable development, so that was it. Then suddenly, the fact of having proposed to put the project next to it, it made it possible to completely free “the boulevard Marie Galante” and to create all this green spaces and this walking spaces along the canal. The canal was enlarged, it was cleaned and now all along the entire length of the canal has become a large pedestrian promenade with benches, with trees with precisely also platforms that will also allow to receive units a little more cultural or associative.

How deep this project inspired from the “Kaz Kréyòl”?

So it’s true that this project started at the time with my former agency “Pile and Face” with my former partner Marc Jalet. However, this question about the “Kaz Kréyòl” is not only about the “Kaz”, that is to say that it must be apprehended in a much larger dimension of the “Kaz Kréyòl”, its environment, in the spaces that are generated and in the

human relationships that it generates.

All this was addressed in Jacques Berthelot’s book, “Kaz Antiyé jan moun ka rété”.

So it’s already from 1982, so that means it’s a book that’s now have 40 years old.

So that’s not nothing and in fact this approach in relation to the “Kaz” is not in a direct link with the Container. So yes it’s true containers potentially offer this mobility in any case so yes they are volumes, so we could just I was going to highlight the link you made which is quite interesting. That is to say that we put the container on a truck and then we move it like that. So here, when we were talking about sustainability too, it is because the containers that have been used are the containers of the last trip that have been reworked, repainted, customized, cut, to be able to receive these new activities.

This idea was a conjunction between that approach and what existed before because a lot of the premises that existed along the canal started with a container and then people made extensions, they put roofs, galleries, things like that to be able to gradually develop their business.

So there was a kind of return a little to the sources of what may have existed along “the boulevard Marie Galante”.

We are not in a direct reading, this is not a direct transcription of the “Kaz Kréyòl”, we are really in a completely different vocabulary, whether on the containers or in the way of arranging the space but in any case this is fact of having this desire precisely to put together, to make people regroup, it is clear, but it is an orientation, it is a strong will of the firm.

With this arrangement of containers that come like this and that we compare precisely to urban proportions, we try to

reinterpreted and bring back the atmosphere and the environments of the courtyard with the “Kaz Kréyòl” that spread out like that.

As an architect, personally, I think that we always have, even at the level of studies this resentment, for example that we can always learn from the mistakes we made in project. According to you, in this project what did you learn, could be positive but also negative?

Oh yes, of course, well anyway it happens in any project. The life of an architect, it’s something that progresses. It evolves gradually in any case, it must be that. That is to say, each project is a subject of study. There are new things that appear, it may be something that can be embryonic in a certain project and that can be developed later. So it’s really a process in motion.

Even to get to the project I did. Could I have done the same project 10 years ago or at least with the same foundation and the same approach before that I don’t know, there are things which start to put in place and then it’s where the project comes from.

It is quite recurrent in our approach, to rethink the question of the program, which can be given to us because the client also reflects in his space, he reflects in his framework. And then well sometimes, we can as an architect, it is not the case for all architects or on all projects, but we can say to ourselves, maybe it would be better to do that or go to maybe go towards this orientation.

Therefore, to propose an alteration, an alternative to the program. It is positive to question ourself on things and idea.

This is the ability to be convinced precisely of an offer that can be a proposal that can be different, that is one of the first things. The other thing now is for sure the adequacy when I said for instance that the city hall did not follow.

Why they didn’t? or could we have done something that could have facilitated this link with the city hall and it involvement in this process.

We architects, we also have this tendency and desire to propose things. And by doing this job, it’s what would be good to do but at the same time are the people who work with us are receptive?

We did our job, we did our job as architects, we did our job of urban planning and even beyond because in addition, we even went so far as to re-examine the program and the direction of the project. And we won this contest.

But perhaps we can ask ourselves what we could have done to take the client but also the city hall to go further in this approach and finally integrate it into this proposal. Is there an interface that was missing at some point? Yes, there are skills that were also needed at the level of the city hall, there were people at one time who were there and who were following the project and then who was no longer at the city hall and we felt very clearly that there was a little break up in the relations with the city hall and the project.

And then also the fact of relying a lot on the issue of maintenance. Even if they are containers from the last trip that they have been sandblasted, cleaned, repainted, protected, overprotected.

Well there is something that is clear, it is that there is no maintenance of the city hall. And therefore this lack of

maintenance of premises and buildings, leads to an aging of the site with some containers that become damaged much faster than others.

And so here too, we must also ask ourselves the right questions really in terms of maintenance capacities, durability capacities so that the project lasts as long as possible. Do we do it?

And so this is an apprehension that is quite important because especially in our country, as much as we sometimes manage to have the energy when I say we, it is socially a duty of the communities, and others, we mobilize funds, we mobilize energy to be able to make projects. And the ability then to ensure maintenance, technical practices, cleaning, replacement of damaged parts, repairs do not follow all the time. There is this practical maintenance that very often is lacking and that leads to a decline.

Furthermore, there is also the very capacity to manage spaces, when we make equipment, it can be cultural equipment, it can be leisure equipment, a restaurant room. We must also be attentive to the people who will make this space live there to ensure its sustainability.

However, when we create a space, in a given time, let’s take the example of animation. 10 years ago, doing animation with young people for example is not the same as doing animation for young people today because there is an evolution also in needs.

Junk food area

Junk food area

S.L.O.A.P

Water canal

Project Boulevard Marie Galante, Raizet

I also find it quite interesting to see what you have managed to do in terms of architectures especially with the budget that was given to you. And so I was wondering what was your view on that? since you talked about this social dimension, but economically do you think you could have done something much more developed?

Oh no. I think that the budget was correct for the project. We remained globally within the envelope that had been given and somehow I think the project could not have been more optimized especially compared to the proposal we made for reorganization. To succeed in doing this type of project with this budget, both to propose this public square with containers for everything that is fast food and at the same time to have cleared all the space along the boulevard to be able to create the green path with this landscape architecture, it is indeed a rather interesting approach.

Moreover, we managed to do in addition within the framework of the budget to build new bridges. They created new links so that people could cross directly, so from one bank to the other, in order to pass from one side to the other without having to make detours each time.

We answer also to the question of the flood problems. The canal has been resized to be able to limit flooding problems in the neighborhood.

It would have been nice to do these following things too, maybe to have more space along the large pedestrian promenade, to make shelters to have more shaded spaces. Even if there are the trees today that have grown, but it still took quite a while for the trees to grow.

When you make a project, do you take into account the future and the legacy in an equivalent way?

I think that yes after in an equivalent way, I do not know, I think it depends on the projects, I think we should still reformulate your question because when you formulated it like this, it means that we count the legacy and the future in an equivalent way. I think it should be seen more as an ongoing process. It’s more of a kind of integration. In architecture, there is a certain continuity, there is a discourse, there is an anchoring, something that is done and there is always filiation, you see, we are not in a dichotomous relationship. There is no tradition on the one hand and modernity on the other. It is very often that thing. I made a report precisely on the “Kaz Kréyòl” and the title of this report is «KAZ ... ON LÈSPWI POU DÈMEN». In this documentary, there is the choreographer Léna BLOU who intervenes and who says that precisely, there is no break, we must not see tradition and modernity with a break between the two. We are in a continuity, where we are already fundamentally modern and each stage, each era had its modernity so there is necessarily this link precisely of continuities between these eras.

From there we reinvent, we reinterpret, we remodify. We can draw inspiration from something extremely old and traditional and completely vernacular. And to make it something completely contemporary. It is not a balance, we are really in a rereading, in an interpretation, in a new development. For example, I work with the Kingston school, there Caribbean-School in Jamaica.

It’s the Caribbean school of architecture.

They do very interesting work with students on Caribbean literature in particular, in order to reinterpret texts that can be 50, 60, 70 years old and more. they reread the texts and then make a visual graphic translation and this visual translation, they retranslate it into architecture.

At home in our regions we are not going to draw on our resources because we do not have this teaching. So on the other hand, there is this teaching at the level of the Kingston School of Architecture, the Caribbean, traditional and vernacular forms of architecture. There is this learning in the early years and then like any architecture student, whether in France or anywhere in the world. Well they will develop projects for the society of today, but they have learned from their cultures, they have learned from their country, they have learned from their traditions whether from a book, whether from a landscape atmosphere or precisely from an element of architecture. Well, these elements are then retranslated into contemporary creations.

So yes, somewhere, we are completely anchored in this idea with this project.

When we were talking about containers.

Indeed, we can find this link between the size of the containers, the size of the “kaz” and the mobility of the “kaz”. But when we look at the project and we do not have this reading, we do not have this knowledge, we are not necessarily obliged to guess it either, but the people who live it on the other hand they can also feel it. Recreated a space of connection and cohesion, well people feel it.

Now i understand that my question in fact is not to try to find an equivalence but rather to find we will say a symbiosis, we cannot make one exist without the other.

This is also because when you are an architect in Guadeloupe or in our territories precisely, we do not have a school of architecture. When you have a project to do, the question is what do you do?

You see what expression you will give to the project, what meaning you will give it. What makes your project anchored in its territory And I learned the feeling that when a young Frenchman of France or German or any country, but who is local, who studies within his country and the territory where he grew up and decides to start creating there is perhaps less doubt. Because he is rooted in his culture, he learned his culture and when he does architecture, he is in this continuity of what he tried in the school of architecture. There is a lot of achievements whether voluntary or involuntary, because just walking in the street, there are images, there are atmospheres, there are buildings, there are posters, there are things like that when you turn on the radio, even by mistake on something, there is music, sounds that come. There are words, there is a way of speaking. There is a cultural bath that is permanent.

It’s a little bit different for me for us because we don’t have that learning, even when we’re in school here. We don’t necessarily learn well about our culture, our space, our authors and our environment.

«Kaz Kréyol»

«Kaz Kréyol»relocation

And when you leave high school that you are going to do architecture and you go to architecture school in metropolitan France there is no such continuity, you arrive in a world, in a space that is ultimately different and therefore suddenly when the architects once they have graduated return to Guadeloupe. There is a bit of this kind of big gap between on the one hand, what we learned in school and the environment in which we bathed for 5 years, 6 years or 7 years depending on the time and the environment in which we bathed and what we were taught.

And then the fact of coming back we realize that we are less in this flexible continuity of creation and more in this dimension of doubt. We are a bit straddling two cultural spaces and modes of expression. So as an architect we ask ourselves the question of how? What do I do, what do I create? What meaning do I give to what I do?

The students of the Kingston school have this continuity and therefore there are fewer questions since there is already this relationship to their identity that always remains quite strong. And that’s interesting, in the examples of projects carried out by students. Well, we see in their very contemporary architectures that they offer us a certain Caribbean dimension in the composition of the volumes in the Interior-Exterior relationship, much more permeable. Precisely in a certain formal freedom that also recalls the freedom of the body, because they also learn to interpret their dance in architecture, we also find a certain gesture, precisely in the volumes, which makes us think precisely of the relationship to the body.

According to you, travelling it is part of the architectural experience?

Absolutely, I would almost say it’s a necessity, because it’s part of the architectural experience, it’s part of the human experience too. From my experience, every time I traveled, I learned something, there was always a way to look, something I did not expect? a way to reinterpret space. For example in the Caribbean between us, here in Guadeloupe. We are swept away by cyclones.

And for example in the south of the Caribbean there is no cyclone and the trees are not at all the same. And so each territory, each space has in a certain way its own identity. Here I am talking about the Caribbean but it is also the same when we travel and go to places or spaces that are radically different.

Traveling in a way, could also be the opposite direction since it would be a possibility to rediscover ourself since we loses our identity in a certain way, one still seeks it and one tries to remember, because we are far away from our origins.

That’s it, yes, we are questioning ourselves, about what we thought we were acquired. And then the fact of seeing somewhere else, finally we realize that there are others who do differently, there are others who think differently.

What is your position about rehabilitation and renovation?

We remain in this spirit of continuity. For example, here there is a lot of tendency to demolish. And especially the “kaz”, the “kaz” that are abandoned, like the

houses in Pointe-à-Pitre, they are made of wood and well they are damaged quickly and they wither. And then as they are small houses, they are just demolished without ulterior motives. Then we also have the rehabilitation for the colonial house which are of high quality, but which still have the weight of their history. So there are obviously these houses that are being rehabilitated. I would say in the first place that we pay attention to for many but on the other hand besides that, there is a small popular heritage that is left aside. Yet it is something that must really be integrated, even for the smallest houses however I am not saying that we must keep everything.

This is not my approach either.

If we have to do a project on an area and there are heritage things that exist, I think we have to question this heritage.

But we must question it in terms of what we have to do, what we want to do. And then we have to make this space evolve.

You have to know what you are demolishing and to know it you need to know it intimately. And why? Why do I say that?

Because when we know things intimately we will be able to ensure this continuity. We are not going to demolish to demolish, we are demolishing because we need to renovate this space but to renovate it precisely with memory and give it this continuity. One of the examples for me that I give quite often is the space of the 13th arrondissement in Paris, which I knew when I started my studies. At the very beginning before the demolitions with the very small streets and the really old, small Paris neighborhoods, very small buildings, with all the wine cellars that they had there, where there is the “court Saint Emilion”, today.

It was a space that was not very secluded. Many things have been demolished. They have preserved for the “Court Saint Emilion” some of the old wine warehouses. But many things have been demolished so that they can be replaced by new architecture, by new urbanism and also by a park. And today, it is a major district that attracts all the residents and travelers of Paris.

In the 13th arrondissement we have demolished on the other hand in the 6th arrondissement it is quite the opposite, we preserved. We remain in this very old atmosphere with the traditional character of these sets of small streets that have been preserved because there was a very strong heritage dimension.

I find that this discussion you are doing is quite interesting since you still borrow a strong word, it is evolving, it is a process that continues and I just think with this simple word, we already understand the meaning of your thought.

With your new agency “BLAK architecture”, are there any projects that you would like to show us in this continuity and always linked to this ideology of sustainability and the vernacular.

Here for example, you have a college in Sainte Rose that connects students with nature, classrooms open onto patios.

We also have this project: the headquarters of the Community of Communes in Marie Galante. We had an old building that was rehabilitated and reinforced and then we added extensions in the form of three volumes a bit like containers but transparent. With facades treated with a vernacular approach through the use of braided wood. It refers to the slave huts

but also the “KAZ AN GÒLÈT” of Marie Galante with branches and earth that we have completely reinterpreted in a contemporary way inspired by this traditional and vernacular knowledge of the past.

«Collège BEBEL»

«CCMG, Siège de la Communauté de Commune de Marie-Galante»

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