You are on page 1of 27

studio o

Eleonora interviews
studio O

When I was asked to curate studio Os events and


exhibitions for the
Beijing Design Week 2016, I didnt hesitate to accept the
challenge of being a
small bridge almost imperceptible in the attempt of
bringing together archi- tecture and art, as these two would
even need our human help.
That was another one of those adventures and experiences
where giving is never enough when compared to the
amount of what is received back.
It was as clear as crystal that those diversity and beauty
and peculiarity that
studio O is constantly looking for in all the architecture
projects it is involved with, has a strong connection with
the diversity and the preciousness that
distinguishes all of the three partners.
Those three completely diff erent colors, speeds, smells

Beijing,
September 2016
Eleonora

Nam
e
C: Cristiano,
Bianchi
E:
Enrico
EF:
Ef
Where are you from and where are
you going to?
C: Im from Italy, Tuscany. And I will go back
there, one day.
E: Im from Poggibonsi, a little town between Siena
and Florence.
Where am I going? For sure not back to Italy. All pther
options are pretty opened, Italy is good for retirement.
EF: I came from the ashes and I will go
back to the ashes.
What do you do for job and what did you wish for your
job to be when you
were a kid?
C: I am an architect and among the many intentions I
wrote down when I was
a kid, I heard that the police man was the most
accredited, I dont know why. In an older age, I always
E: Im an architect and I graduated ten years ago. My
mother is an architect as
well and when I was a kid, after school, she would take
me around on construction sites while checking on her work. We used to go
once a week and every time I would be so fascinated by
the workers and by seeing these people making things,
building walls, it was kind of magical. On the contrary, I
absolutely
couldnt understand what my mum was doing with all
those drawings, so one

EF: I am currently an architect and when I was a kid I


always wished to be
a rock-star. But later, while learning architecture, I
understood that the arts in general are something I would
like to explore in my life, also because I still dont think of
What person you became and what person will you
be in your next life?
C: I am not sure about the next life, and neither I am
about what I became in
this one. What I undoubtedly know is that every year I feel
diff erent. If I think about me one year ago, I see myself as
a completely diff erent person. This is why it is almost
E: I used to be a more dreamy person, also considering my
profession, but I
unfortunately became more pragmatic. As soon as
people start working, they clash with all the economic
inputs and interests involved with architecture, and this
shows sometimes a really sad side. Although, I always
push myself in
order to find new motivation, which I often happen to
discover in places as the Venice Biennale, for instance.
Issues like the discussion about social architecture
EF: First of all, I dont know if I will be a person in my next
life, I might
happen to be an animal, a plant or any another living or
non living creature. As for now, I think that I am becoming
a better person day after day. With the passing of time, I
Do you like what you do
and why?
C: I like it, because it s always diff erent, it is about
imagining something that
doesnt exist. That goes beyond a simple job, it is one of
my great passions.. the other one is motorcycles.
E: I like some aspects of it. For example I enjoy working at
the studio, with
my partners and other professional figures, I really love
these moments. I like working with people and I would

also because I really enjoy to exchange opinions and


collaborate with those who
are not related to architecture, as it was for the video
collaboration with the artist Elisa Cucinelli, or for Beijing
Design Week with you, since you are also not from this
field. Working with diff erent specialists, coming from
diff erent worlds, it is a real exchange. This is the side of
EF: I love what I do, what I do is my life. This is not only a
profession, if we
speak about architecture. In general, I am a very curious
person in life, and
anything I do is done with passion. Architecture opened
my eyes to many other fields, either related or unrelated
(Lets test your ability to summarize) What
is architecture?
C: How many words
can I use?
Architecture is a summery of many different arts and
disciplines, from the most artistic one to the most
technical one. What it is for, is a bit more complicated. You
can look at it from many diff erent points of view; it is a
shelter, a contain- er of functions, an expression of the
cultural or the local culture in a certain
moment in history. It all depends on which one of the
aspects you select. But I really believe it is a mix, which
also makes it complicated and interesting. It
doesnt have an identity itself, it is a sum of more
diff erent things. In addition to this, architecture is
something that can be criticized by everyone. When it
comes about art or engineering, those who are not
E: Architecture is an important discipline, in between of art
and technique.
There is a lot of technique, requiring the knowledge of all
the properties of the materials, the qualities of them and
more on. And then there is an artistic side.
It is a mix, and as you can see in the studio, this
combination always finds
diff erent balances. Who is it for? If you scroll the titles of

there is a strong economic interest behind, which is when


my passion for it really gets turned off . When you understand that some people
are putting themselves in this economic chain and you are
EF: Architecture might sound like a very complex
profession or discipline.
Doing architecture is finally expressed physically, it is a
physical presence in
most of the cases. I like to understand architecture
knowing that simplifying is always the most dif cult thing
to achieve as the very basic idea of how
putting two or more materials together. It is the
combination of them and the possibility of how joining
them together or how not joining them together and the
proportions in them.. This discussion can go really deep.
I guess architecture is for human beings, but not only. It is
the need of creating a space, and animals also create
Should architecture answer questions or
raise questions?
C: It should answer questions from the technical point of
view and raise
questions from the cultural one. As you can see, we are
still talking about the presence of diff erent components
E: Both. Sometimes it raises questions and often it has to
answer them.
For instance, in the last Biennale a lot of questions were
raised without finding any answers. But the act of asking
questions is itself already good, since it
makes people think. And dedicating time to think would
be nice, especially in China, where deadlines coming from
institutions and projects management are so tight,
EF: Architecture should definitely answer certain issues
and it should raise
questions at the same time. We are operating in a specifi c
period of time and we are inheriting what was previously
done by other generations - historically speaking but not
only - which raises questions all the time but to which

answers. Many of my colleagues are managing to do this


in a time frame that I
consider to be too stretched. Solutions must be thought
for an immediate need and this could be a new way of
thinking an architecture not supposed to last
forever, since necessities are changing all the time. It is
about providing imme- diate answers to certain issues,
that eventually can raise themselves questions
How should people who are not specialized in the field
have a confrontation
with architecture and how should they perceive it?
C: Everybody should have this confrontation in the
most spontaneous way.
When an architect completes a building, it is not his
building anymore, he con- signs it to the people. It belongs
to people. I think everyone has diff erent ways to approach
architecture and this just makes it right. I personally dont
E: It is always constructive to have a confrontation. Looking
back at the past
years until 5 centuries ago, the most relevant architecture
projects were created by groups of people that were not
only including architects, but philosophers, so- ciologists,
painters. Any kind of professional figure was involved and
EF: I am not sure, maybe it is too pretentious to
understand or dictate how
people should approach it. People are constantly
surrounded by architecture or spaces that define
architecture. Architecture is done for non architects, we
are just a tool to transmit some kind of feeling or
atmosphere or environmental
space. People should just perceive it naturally, when they
enter a space either they like it or they dont. It is like a
Is architecture necessary for people or it is people that are
necessary for architecture?
C: People are necessary for architecture in order for it to
exist. On the contrary,

people can live without architecture. They might not live


the same way, but
they dont need it, they just need buildings. Architecture
involves all these other components, among which the
understanding of the culture and other aspects
that are not strictly necessary. Even though, sometimes,
what is not necessary might be most necessary thing.
Buildings and architecture diff er from each other.
Buildings only answer the physical necessity of living, in
architecture there should be some added values, an
emotional content, identity, there should be something
E: People are necessary for architecture, without people
there is no architecture.
But it is also true that architecture is a need, it has
always been like this since the homo sapiens when
protection from the weather was a necessity. It is obviously a vice versa, but I would finally say the people are
EF: Architecture is done for people but not only. It is about
space and this space
is also for the environment or for the nature. I see it in a
more natural way. Since ever, we need some kind of
protection from the environment, so archi- tecture is
necessary for people. But without them, it doesnt really
In Chinese language, the word architecture means to
build, to erect, to
construct. Looking at the definition, we can already feel
that it is more about making than about theories. How
does Chines architecture lack in this and how does
European architecture coming from a completely
diff erent etymol- og y where the architect is a guide,
C: The diff erence is so precise, it is more theoretical than
practical. Actually,
even in the West the majority of people think about
architecture as something really practical more than
theoretical. The diff erence is that Chinese people are
really straightforward in saying that, this kind of approach
to architecture is really natural for them, while in Europe

close look at the


also believe that
discussion about
The diff erence is

construction sites, it is really the same. I


the
architecture is getting deeper in China.
not really traceable after all.

E: For sure architecture in both China and the Western


world are completely
diff erent, in terms of speed and quality of execution which is also a consequence of speed. True is also that many theories rule the
architecture in Europe and here in China the approach is
more practical, but it is still really dif cult to trace a line,
especially now when everything is pretty melting. The
biggest
firms of architecture came to China to realize their own
building, sometimes they were good and some others
they were a total failure that it would have
been better if they stayed in Europe or in the USA, since
here it is a completely diff erent culture which needs to be
EF: I would start speaking about the speed, either of the
creation of the idea or
the execution of it. Maybe it is not a lack of theory in
China, I actually believe that the European or western way
of dealing with architecture is a bit out of
date, we give it too much of a thought and we are thinking
to deep. What I
have been learning in China is to trust the first instinct
without thinking too much. Obviously there is a background
of experience and knowledge that allows you to do that,
but I think that the fact that times are short in China develops that killer instinct for which you have to feel
immediately, and to face
specifi c situations, answering questions without analyzing
studio o, 0, a circle, an
ellipse?
C: It is a circle, without a beginning or an end. But it is not
a perfect one, it
can be deformed or vibrating or superposed. It can

circle lacking in perfection. It is a paradox, an


imperfect circle.
E: It is a circle. There was a big discussion about the name
to find for the
studio, but this finally comes from the character of ,
which in Chinese
means something in between. Chinese roots, after all our
studio was born in China, our first seed was planted here
and even if in the future we will move somewhere else, we
will keep our base here. In between, we are in between,
I
feel in between of something, Europe and here. And this
EF: An imperfect circle. Not an oval either, it is something
in between, and
it is exactly what it means in Chinese. It was born as an o
but it was never a perfect one, it was a deformed circle.
Going deeper in exploring what perfection
means you will find the imperfection, understanding that
What is studio o and what will it be
in ten years?
C: studio O is a group of architects, artists and other
people trying to push the
limits of their profession. studio O doesnt know exactly
which direction it is pushing towards, sometimes it might
be backwards and sometimes it might be forward, but we
are always trying to find a new dialog for people to
understand. There is a disconnection between the people and
the world of architecture, and we should feel the gap. What it will be in 10
years I really dont know, it will keep the principles but it
E: Studio o is a studio of architecture, which is also
enjoying to explore the
wide surroundings of architecture, since this discipline is
strongly linked with art, philosophy and many other
EF: I would like to believe that studio o is still
understanding how to define

itself. We have been existing for 3 years, all the partners


have very diff erent
backgrounds and the studio itself is adapting to daily
diff erent conditions. If we consider our projects, it might be
even not possible to trace a clear link among
them, but we are aware that this is also our strength. I
hope in 10 years it will be more or less what it is today,
with a smart evolution and adaptation to the future
current time. But I also hope that it will remain as pure as
possible. It
means that we started all this in a really natural way and
How was it born and why you chose to be
in Caochangdi?
C: Caochangdi is a stimulating place, for this community of
artists living
together with the locals, for the presence of art galleries.
We thought it would be a really interesting place to
operate in and it is also really quiet and can
help concentration. More than this, it is a good test of
personal motivation in the morning, since it is quite far
away from the city. As for its origin, I heard
Eff i and Enrico were drunk. When I joined them, I because I
E: We didnt want to be in the city but more in the
boundaries, in fact we are
in Caochangdi of cially outside the 5th ring road. It
was also the dimen- sion of the village we really liked we prefer to be here than having an of ce
somewhere in a skyscraper - and the fact that we wished to
have collaborations with artists. We didnt discover
Caochangdi, it was already famous for artists as Ai Weiwei.
We also had a friend of us based in the village, the artist
Not Vital, and I came here for the first time 5 years ago to
visit his studio. I was working for another firm at the time,
but in my mind it was already clear that, if once I could
open my own studio, that would be in Caochangdi.
We opened studio O with Ef , one of my partners, because
we had a shared

more like being drinking buddies. But we finally started


talking seriously, it
was really natural, it was kind of cool. And while drinking
we discovered that we had a common vision.
EF: It started on a bars napkin. The day it was actually
born I was having
drinks with Enrico in this bar in the hutongs and we kind of
had slightly
more than just few drinks. Suddenly, we started to sketch
and to speak about what studio O would be, and it was all
done on this napkin, that I am afraid unfortunately
disappeared. A lot of simple things were born that time,
on that table of a bar. I guess drinking allowed us to feel
freer to express our emotions or feelings. So free that we
got to the technique, we were actually really precise
about the business plan and how much we should invest. It
was pretty amazing and it was done in a night of drinking.
Everybody knew Caochangdi, and 3
years ago it was really the backyard of 798, where the
real artistic production was happening. We thought that
What are studio os goals? Have you been achieving them
or reality is diff erent?
C: After the industrial revolution and the invention of the
concrete, architecture has been separated from the other arts and
simplified just a box. It s a nice box sometimes and the
radical architecture had its place in history, but most of
the people share diff erent feeling about it and there is a
gap between
the majority of them and architecture. I m not abandoning
myself to nostalgic feelings, but more considering that
sense of architecture felt when entering in a church or a
Renaissance palace, and encountering this kind of
greatness able to impress everyone. Many people feel we
lost something, and that contemporary
architecture is missing these moments. To recover this kind
of emotions in space, in material, in proportions, this is
what the most important goal of studio O

one. So we never achieved goals completely yet, but we


saw a glimpse of something we are aiming too.
E: First of all, the real problem is that I am never satisfied.
That doesnt have
anything to do with the enjoyment of the results we
achieve which I am of
course really happy about but with the fact that I am
always concentrated on the problems and on what is not
working or could be better done next time. We didnt set
real goals, each project is a challenge. Even if it is a small
one, we try to challenge ourselves in the study of some
details or pushing the limits or explore technique abilities in China. Each intervention has its
EF: I think we achieved all goals, beyond expectations so
far. It sound very
pretentious but our goals were very humble and
therefore our first one was to survive the initial period of
an architecture of ce, which is not always very
easy. With clear ideas in mind, we set the right goals and
we achieved them in a pretty smooth way. For sure we
also had dif cult times, but I think that by working hard,
putting ourselves in what we do day by day and being
What does studio o have that other
studios dont?
C: The physical models, for example. We work with physical
models during
every step of the design process, not only using them as
an architecture tool but also as a communication
instrument. And then there is the attention to the art, the
integration or combination of art and architecture - we
couldnt find the
E: The white floor.
For the rest, other people should say, I
am too involved.
EF: studio os strength is our way of doing things with
the heart in a really

sincere way. This is expressed through our works and


through the relationship
we have with our clients. It is a very natural pure way of
working far from a pretentious or snob attitude, which
are all issues we had to deal with in the
past in our previous experiences. We want to create
something really fresh, new, natural. We are not trying to
What is the right formula for an architecture studio, in
2016, to be contemporary and global without loosing identity?
C: I think we shouldnt be global, because architecture
cannot move, it is always anchored to the soil, at least 99% of it. This is why it
needs to be related to the context and the consideration
of people living in that specifi c place. In
the global world, what is peculiar and different is more and
more precious
and people are looking for these diff erences since there
is a lack of identity. An architecture of ce shouldnt find
its own one as a brand, but it should give a
strong one to every single project, and this kind of
E: The identity is a big issue and it is even not a goal. Each
project just has
its own one, according to the site, the genius loci, the
inputs from the clients, the local materials. We
absolutely dont believe in homogenisation and this is
why I would say that we are not maybe too smart
business-wise and economic-wise speaking. We dont have a catalog to show details for example - that we always use, because we are trying to
constantly find something new, to change
something or to reinvent something through a long time
big research process. But this is also why we enjoy to do it
so much. Generally speaking, of course we are global, we
are part of this world and we are influenced by the
surrounding media, social media, everyone is global in a certain

EF: It is definitely not one of our goals to be global. We are


obviously dealing with diff erent architecture projects around the world
but said that, what we would like to be is this kind of
artisanal of ce that could be considered a contemporary
way of franchising ourselves, in various parts of the
world and adapting ourselves to other conditions
respecting and understanding other
cultures, going to other places with all our backgrounds
and trying to make the diff erence. When saying being
Gaobeidian intervention: dialog between old and new. How
easy is it to judge
what should be kept and what should be canceled forever?
Is it actually possible without using personal filters?
C: It is dif cult, you need to rely on personal intuition. It is
also a big responsibility. Architecture was not made by gods but by men,
so normally it is also modified by them and they can
make a mistake, because they do have personal filters. It
E: Personal filters and unavoidable, each choice is made
looking at the world
through them. It is really subjective. But speaking for
example about Gaobeidian intervention in the specific, what we chose to
keep or not was kind of easy because of the restrictions,
safety issues or masterplans. The intervention was made
on a building from the 50s or 60s, so we are not here
talking about buildings of 1000 years ago. But I still think
EF: You have to use personal filters, and that is where you
basically make it
customized, your intervention will be different from any
other studio. I am not only speaking about architecture
studios, but about the individual diff erence
from person to person. Even in the same of ce, if it is
my operation I would see values that another person
from the same of ce wouldnt, and vice versa.
It is dif cult to detach ourselves. Also for us as architects,

without considering the


clients behind.
751 intervention: what do you think is the biggest
diff erence between Chinese
and European concept of public space?
C: It is very diff erent but it is dif cult to say why. Apart
from functional
aspects, in Europe the public space is given for granted, it
is considered a right.
While in China is more like a gift, normally donated from
the government to the people or the architects when
E: I think Chinese people have less filters, they do
anything they wish on the
street: they wash their hair, they play mahjong, they
smoke cigarettes, they fight. In Europe it is different, we do
have filters and we care about our appearance.
We would never wear pajamas on the street, and this is
something I really like about China, this honest sharing of
EF: In China public spaces are still very precious and social,
they are still used
to get together and to create events, especially for the old
generation. The new generation, though, adopts already
the European way. So I dont actually think there is such a
big gap. The only one I see is that historically speaking,
public
spaces in Europe were way more important and we now
consider the interior public spaces rather than the
outdoor ones. In China it is the opposite, they
dont have this sort of interior public spaces, they are still
enjoying the outdoors.
So maybe it is also the time for the new generation to
Where does studio o trace the border between architecture
and art, where is the
limit?
C: During several discussions on the different projects, I
perceive there is a
limit. We always try to combine art and architecture, and

you can choose to move towards art until when you


compromise the functionality, which is when you should stop, that is the limit. And
then you can choose to move towards architecture until
when you loose emotion. It can be 70%-30%, 50%-50%. It
depends on specifi c interventions. Limits are functionality
E: There is no limit, there are not limits between
disciplines and here we
are going back to the choice of being in Caochangdi. This
is one of the main
problems about universities and education, especially in
Italy other universi- ties are more opened about it, for
example in France the first year all kinds of arts are
taught, painting, sculpture, and later you can choose to
move forward with architecture where you are only
allowed to choose architecture as your
specialization. The Italian methodolog y is such a shame,
EF: This is an ongoing investigation. From what we have
being seeing,
architects have been trying more and more to get
closer to artists and artists have been trying to get
closer to architects, it is funny but it is true. I think
architecture is really diff erent from art, it is finally a really
physical presence. That might be the case for art as well,
but not always. Where is the border? As architects, we
always have certain restrictions and budgets to respect,
clients, basic needs that are not personal choices. I
understand this can also happen to the artists, but this is
where the border is. For example, our friend and Swiss
artist Not Vital is always coming to our studio and while
looking at what we are doing and how we are going
through budget program deadlines issues, he
is always shocked on how we can work with so many
What studio o would be if it was a a movie, an artwork,
a trend or a ism?
C: We should wait for some more years to see if there
are some kind of simi-

larities with other trends. I dont know, we are trying not


to be comparable to
anything else. Too dif cult to say.
E: Shining, at night when we have all the lights on. I
am waiting for the
small kids to come..
kidding.
Really humbly speaking and comparing something really
small to something really big, considering the way we
are working and our approach - for which
we are trying to connect many various disciplines - I see
we have some seeds of the Bauhaus, where people with
EF: It would be an
O-ism.
If it was a movie, it would be Arizona Dream by
Kusturica. Every time
watching this movie, people might have different feelings,
one time crying, an- other one laughing, sometimes might
get really depressed. This is how I like to imagine studio
O, as something changing all the time. If it was an
Who are you, did you understand yet? Who will
you be in ten years?
C: I dont know who I am, I almost cannot recognize
myself when I look back,
so in ten years.. I have completely no idea. Hopefully I
will still do this job, since I like it.
E: I am thirty-fi ve, so I pretty much understand my body
and my brain. I dont
know who I am going to be in the next ten years. I think I
will still be Enrico but I hope not the same as now, and I
wish to go through a path that will lead me to be different.
EF: I am who I am. I am the son of an architect who was
himself the son of
another architect. So I guess I became an architect as well
because of that, even if it was not my beginnings. I would
like to believe that I am a real person and that in anything
I do there is the intent to produce something good, either

In ten years, I hope to develop what I am today. As I


already mentioned, I
think I am becoming a better person day after day, and this
cannot be separated from being a better architect. This is
what I am today, myself. And I would like to keep being
What are your goals as a person? And what are the
ones as a human being?
C: As a human being I just hope that someone will be
able to recognize that
what I am doing and we are doing is good. As a person, I
don t think my goals are really different from other
people. I just try to live a good life as much as I can, since
my time is limited. There is nothing special about me in
this sense.
E: As a person, I dont really have goals at the moment, as
creating a family or
that kind of things. If it will, it will happen naturally. I
would like to grow more cultural-wise, I would like to read
more, to do diff erent things not only concerning
architecture. I would like to have more time for myself in
order to
enrich my knowledge. If I work 24h a day I am not able to
do this, I could be- come a really good architect who even
doesnt have the time to read a book. As a human being,
for me it is also related to the time you can use to grow.
EF: Isnt it the same? I relate myself as a human being
and as a person and
definitely not as a personality whatsoever. For sure I
have my personality but still as a really common person
But is it more important to set goals or to
achieve them?
C: You have dreams, and when you transform your
dreams in goals it already
means that you are planning and that you recognize the
fact that you would like to achieve something. I think
that it is enough, because at this point it is almost sure

planned, but it will lead for sure to something


good, or even better.
E: Most important is to fail goals. I always find more
energ y when I cannot
achieve something, when I cannot do it, when there is
something not going in the right direction. This is how I
feel pushed to do it better and how I learn more and find
more motivation from the mistakes. When I achieve a
EF: Neither. I think it is very important to set goals and
definitely to achieve
them, but the most important is the travel from the
moment you set it to the moment you reach it, the in
What is your personal relationship with time past,
present, future and how
is it influencing your architecture?
C: My relationship with time is very complicated and
controversial, conflicted.
I have always been living in this kind of acceleration of
time, I tend to loose the sense of it. I also tend to think too
much in the future or in the past. I honestly make a lot of
eff orts to stay in the present with my mind. And I always
have the feeling that I dont have enough time to do what I
would like to. Therefore, I
really hate time, it truly makes me feel anxious all the
time.
Regarding the way it aff ects my architecture, that is also
conflicted. Sometimes an idea is very quick but from that
precise moment to the realization of it
might pass one, two or three years. During this time,
many problems to solve come up, and many things that
can separate the original idea from the final
one. Basically, when the idea is realized the issue is
already old. These problems are influencing somehow the
process and the only solution I could find so far to justify
the gap between the initial idea and the result, is
E: On the personal side, the past is extremely important
to me. It is about my
roots, my family, the memories of my grandpa and old

understand through the past who I am right now. And also


through the traces of
special people I met during my life, that might not be
here anymore but who I still feel being with me.
As an architect, it is important as well. Everything comes
from the past, we are now doing the contemporary, we are
living our daily life but all that culture
and the history of architecture, so fundamental, are all
EF: First of all I am very conscious that no matter what I
lived in the past
is influencing what I am doing in the present, I know
exactly what I went
through in my life as a person in the past. Since I ever
remember myself as child and the simple and basic
experiences I had, they all formed my person as I am
now. I guess we are the result of our previous
experiences, and even if this is a clich, only with the
understanding of those you can be really on top of how
you live your present. As for the future, my relationship
with it is really odd, I would like to live day by day. My
future is tomorrow and it is not after tomor- row. I don t
know what I will do in a couple of days, where I will travel
next. This is the most far I can see.
Is there actually a time or it is a
continuum?
C: There is a time unfortunately, and there is also the law
of entropy for which
every physical process is going towards less organized
states. So we are constantly fighting against this: thats
when you physically perceive the time. This fight
constitutes life itself. For instance, biologically speaking
our body is struggling
to survive every day against time and it is increasing the
entropy of the environ- ment around us to keep us alive,
day by day second by second. This is what we
E: I think it is a continuum, there is not a line. Panta Rei,
as someone would

sa
y.
EF: I think there is a very defined time. You can blur these
limits but you still
have a very clear a past. Nowadays the speed of time is
so fast that even the
perception of time changed a lot, but it is definitely there.
I started to answer your question and I feel that ii is
You live far away from your roots: that was brave. What
is your relationship
with space/distance as a person and as an architect?
C: It is very useful being so far from roots, it makes you
push your limits and
leads you to do things you were not aware you would be
able to. My experience taught me that distance can set
you free from preconception on your understanding of the world, or the schemes you used to judge
really influenced by the culture of your place of origins. But
there is also the other side of the coin which sees
migrations, integration, preservation of identity when living
together and many other complex aspects. Finally, when
far away from roots for a personal
and free choice, then I would recommend.
As from an architect point of view, it is really interesting
to learn a method in a country and apply it in a
completely diff erent place. It is the confrontation between
diff erent cultures that sometimes can lead to be nave,
when interact- ing with a culture which is impossible to
E: Being far away from roots brought me a new perception
of distance. Six
years ago I would look to Asia from Europe as somewhere
really far away. Now I fly fourteen hours to go back home
and I feel it is like taking the bus from Caochangdi to
Lama Temple. The idea of distance changed radically for
me in the last years and since when I have been living
here, I really feel the world is more compact.
Architecture is also about space and distances, there are
various specializations involved in it but in the end it is

to shape the space it is how to think social and green,


looking at the future. The
entire generation doing crazy staff is gone, we have to
face a limit of resources and cannot keep going crazy for
personal ego or national pride or success of a company.
EF: I wouldnt again detach the person from the architect. I
grew up in a
family that was traveling all the time. My roots are not as
deep as many other people, which in some cases I would
consider being positive as you are for in- stance more
flexible some others not really, since sometimes I wish I
had roots just to hold on in one place. My Jewish side
comes from my father, who is com- ing from Russia and
Poland, and my Swiss side from my mother, coming from a
family half catholic and half protestant. So I am asking
myself what my roots are. If you ask me where my home is
I would answer that it is the place where
I would sleep tonight. I really dont have only one place
that I can define home anymore. And it is somehow
positive because it makes me easily feel home: I
Do you think that the real integration between different
cultures achieved once
the diff erences are leveled or once understood how deep
C: I think integration doesnt exist. In my opinion it is not
even fair: why integrate with something that doesnt belong to someone,
trying to be more similar to somebody else. Different
identities should learn how to live together and
respect each other. Diff erences are precious, they should t
be leveled but put in evidence instead. To be integrated
literally means that there is a certain level of absorption. I
feel in the process of integration there is always a bit of
violence, since it happens when you live far away in a
diff erent culture, so you would be integrated. There is
always a predominant culture absorbing the other, there is
E: I think it is fundamental to understand how deep
diff erences are, it would
be a huge mistake trying to level them. Otherwise we

same and that would be sad. As sad as looking at


these Chinese cities, for
instance Beijing, where the capitalistic imprinting is so
strong and every place looks more and more the same.
Homogenisation in Chinese society is prevalent
and it is worrying since it is necessary to preserve the
distances, China shouldnt model itself based on Europe or
the US. We dont need to level, we just need
to respect each other. As we can experience looking at
EF: I dont think we should reach a real integration, and I
don t think that it
is even possible other than not very useful. I think an
identity should be kept and understood in a deep way,
but that is not what can define us. Diff erent people,
diff erent cultures. For me it is more about knowing about
each other and respecting each other. Integration is a
more political act, but culture can
sometimes jump the political borders. I once had a
professor, at the time mayor of Venice, philosopher
Massimo Cacciari. He was talking about integration in
terms of an utopia that would never happen, as a united
Europe communicating through only one language. Actually, this idea of the
European Union
created even a stronger identities, a little bit as in
Do you wish to give a contribution to this as an architect
and as a person living
abroad?
C: This doesnt really depend on me I think. For example,
many times Chinese
people ask us to give an interpretation of some Chinese
elements, in buildings. They want us to look at it through
the eyes of foreigners and I am not sure this is
integration. There is a request in this sense, we try our
best and we like to
do it, to create something new. As a person living abroad,

E: According to the reasons I previously explained, I dont


really see the point
of giving a contribution for integration. For sure I would
love to give some for other aspects, as we already said.
EF: I hope I am and I know I am, but I also feel that I am
not the only one to
contribute to this. Other people as in this Chinese
experience are contribut- ing for me. I am receiving a lot
from China and Chinese people, and I can say
the same about wherever I have been to in my life. I didnt
come as a colonialist here, I came to absorb. And to give, of
What is your
limit?
C: Only one?
Although I am constantly trying to push my limits, I have
many, as every
human being does, and maybe more. My body is limited,
my comprehension is limited, my skills are limited, my
time is limited, my patience is limited.
As more personally speaking, I am never able to relax
E: I have my limits of course, there are due to the level of
my strength, to my
body.
I dont have any defined ones, of course the limits caused
by my education and my way of thinking. But it really
depends on how you read the word limits. Honestly I feel
pretty free. I put my limits and society also does, so we are
EF: I would like to believe that I don t have any limit, but
if you don t have
any limit you already put yourself in a limit. Anything I
do does have limits but I don t like to define them so. I
would like to understand how I can deal
with certain situations. I think that the real limits are set
by other people and not by myself. Yes we do have them
but we dont necessary have to define them,
so that they dont exist anymore. Also - you know - we are
architects and our job is to create limits. What is a wall? It

not limit my limits by


defining them.
Can you
break it?
C: I can always try to push them but
never break them.
E: Yes we can break limits. We put our limits so we
can also break them.
EF: Naively, I dont have any.
Just air...

o credo

studio O is an architecture atelier,


exploring a wide spectrum of creative fields such as:
architecture, art, urban design, media, graphic &
product design. studio O s focus is on
experimenting a new path
where the approach in every single project is the unique
result of specifi c inputs, coming from different angles - as
culture, environment, material and where the attention on the existing beauty

You might also like