Thomas Pucher’s fresh approach to architectural design has been hugely successful. The architect talks to Kate Howlett-Jones about going global, the Reininghaus project and his latest success, the 1st prize in the international competition "China North City Development in Tianjin".
KHJ: You have recently won a number of competitions in China, Estonia, Saudi Arabia and Poland. Why so far from home?
Thomas Pucher: It’s essentially about how one works as an architect: we should be immersed in society and really understand how it’s changing. If you come from a conservative country like Austria, you need to get out there to experience the new and different dynamics elsewhere.
And we live in a global world – you can’t just stick around at home. This applies not just to Austrian architects, but all over the world.
And the market in Austria is pretty small. Especially in Graz.
KHJ: How do you go about understanding the cultural needs in these countries? Do you adapt your architecture to meet them?
Thomas Pucher: Yes we do.
If you were stood in front of a Zaha Hadid operahouse today, you wouldn’t know where you were – they are just like Zaha Hadid icons flown in and set down anywhere.
Our approach is more sensitive – we try to grasp the spirit of a site, and the country where it is, and create a fresh icon out of these elements. It turns out extremely individual because of each situation. For me, this is the future of architecture.
Take the OIC headquarters we designed in Saudi Arabia: the minarets built in Saudi Arabia in 600-900 AD were the first highrise buildings, cutting-edge technology in the world at the time. Fast forward: about 150 years ago skyscrapers arrived in the US, and everyone thought the Americans had invented them. In fact they weren’t even as tall as those built in Saudi Arabia centuries before.
The references we make to this and to the roots of great Islamic culture are intended to re-establish self-respect at a moment when Islamic culture is less confident in itself. The OIC building will be highly visible in the news – the OIC is the Islamic equivalent of the UN, it’s the world’s second largest organisation. The building will be hugely symbolic.
KHJ: What about minarets in Graz?
Thomas Pucher: Why ever not? Globalisation is inevitable and can bring massive advantages. If we close our eyes we’ll be missing out: this is the future. Graz should get the best out of it.
KHJ: You acted as consultants on the Graz Reininghaus masterplan. Do you see social problems coming out of these huge-scale projects?
Thomas Pucher: It’s still not clear how or even when it will be developed, but it’s a good thing that we have set down clear principles before there is a time pressure and that it doesn’t turn into a rush job.
Slicing the site up into smaller developments is a good option, since the site is too big for Graz for a single developer. Although both large-scale and sectioned developments can fail dramatically in the wrong hands. We laid out what should not happen: it should not be mono-functional, there should not be 100% housing, which is always the temptation for developers due to the lower risk and quicker financial returns on their investment.
The main aim is that the area is multi-use, with both workplaces and housing throughout, achieving a good mix of different ages, classes and so on. It shouldn’t be all social housing; nor should it be a luxury yuppy development.
An esplanade is planned around Alte Post Strasse, a public plaza with highrise buildings and dense urban structure. In addition there should be a central park, a big green area and then smaller surrounding districts. There is also scope for the area to grow organically over time, in a natural process.
A lot depends on how the follow-up is done: in the past in Graz, processes started up but were not seen through to the end properly. The city has suffered from a small-village mentality, from not thinking globally.
However the new head of urban planning in Graz, Heinz Schöttli, brings huge expertise with him. I’m sure he’ll take the project in a positive direction.
KHJ: How did you resolve the problem of scale in a massive project like the Tianjin China North City project, building for 10,000 people?
Thomas Pucher: Actually that sounds large for us but it’s no big thing in China. There were issues around the strict rules in China about how apartments should be planned. All apartments have to face south. The distance from one building to another has to be its height (i.e. much more than in Austria). This creates perfect sunlight conditions but the downside is poor public space, comparable to the ghetto-style scrubland created by 1950s/60s estates in Europe. The areas between buildings were just gaps, too small to be parks and too big to offer a sense of belonging or a human scale.
Our solution was to mix up blocks and slabs and form mini-neighbourhoods with series of loosely slotting pairs of L-shaped buildings. The apartments still face the south enough to fulfil regulations; the bends prevent wind tunnels between the buildings yet allow enough air current to circulate for natural ventilation. Each slotted diamond has a garden area at its core.
All together, the southfacing apartments with their natural ventilation, and the bodies of water that naturally cool the air, are the kind of passive eco-design that formed an integral part of the way we built 300 years ago. These things are based on common sense and still work.
KHJ: And how do you understand the cultural differences for this kind of project?
Thomas Pucher: In terms of cultural needs, we aim to integrate natural behavioural patterns into our design. This is one reason why we have a Chinese architect currently working in our office in Graz, who considers this side of things for the project in Tianjin.
KHJ: Are the cultural-historical aspects always important to you?
Thomas Pucher: With the Warsaw Sinfonia, its floating frame, which is 17 metres high and 3 metres above the ground, was intended simply to open up the site and yet still blend out the urban space around it, to make the Sinfonia into an oasis in the city. When you go in, you walk through zones which gradually prepare you for the concert experience: progressively calmer through the park, the foyer and into the hall. Afterwards, critics suggested we had cleverly made references to Polish history, to the Warsaw ghetto, to the Berlin wall, the iron curtain. Which came as a bit of a surprise because we weren’t thinking about that at all.
KHJ: You seem to have more success abroad than at home in Austria, why?
Thomas Pucher: Well, it’s partly a logical consequence of our global orientation, it’s what we set out to do. And then when we started winning big competitions, people assumed we wouldn’t want to build villas at home any more – although actually we love doing that kind of thing too.
KHJ: How does it feel to beat Zaha Hadid? (Competition for the Sinfonia-Varsovia concert hall. Ed.)
Thomas Pucher: Cool.
And for me it was a great confirmation of our working process over hers (although of course she has won other competitions already in the meantime). She submitted a very typical Zaha Hadid project. We on the other hand did a very specific answer to the site and to their programme, made-to-measure and sensitive to the location and culture. There is generally a tendency for clients everywhere to be more informed, and they are no longer so impressed by world fame and big icons. It’s a good thing and it can only mean that quality gets better.
KHJ: Thanks for the talk!
VERANSTALTUNGSHINWEIS:
Atelier Thomas Pucher
Werkvortrag in Kooperation mit GRANIT
WANN: 15.06.2011, 19.00 Uhr
WO: HDA im Palais Thinnfeld, Mariahilferstraße 2, 8020 Graz
- Verfasser/in:
- Kate Howlett-Jones, interview
