Abake

Kenneth Adam

David Adjaye

Tariq Ali

Ron Arad

Shumon Basar

Anat Ben-David

Adam Caruso

Hussein Chalayan

Michael Clarck

Peter Cook

Mark Cousins

Marcus du Sautoy

Paul Elliman

Tony Elliott

Brian Eno

Pedro Ferreira

Sophie Fiennes

Ryan Gander

Ant Genn

Gilbert & George

Jonathan Glancey

Zaha Hadid

Richard Hamilton

Ussell Haswell

Susan Hiller

Roger Hiorns

Damien Hirst

Chales Jencks

Isaac Julien

Patrick Keiller

Jude Kelly

Hanif Kureishi

Scott Lash

Doris Lessing

Ken Loach

Hautam Malkani

Doreen Massey

Tom McCarthy

Gustav Metzger

Mary Midgley

Markus Miessen

Chantal Mouffe

Tim Newburn

Tim O’Toole

Julia Peyton-Jones

Olivia Plender

Milan Rai

Peter Saville

Yinka Shonibare MBE

Iain Sinclair

Squarepusher aka Tom Jenkins

Marina Warner

Eyal Weizman

Richard Wentworth

Jane and Louise Wilson

Cerith Wyn Evans

Common questions

- what are your toolboxes?

- Who have somehow been a toolbox for you?

- Any unrealised projects?

- Do You have any dream for the city of London?

- Can you somehow map the city of London?

- Is there such a thing as a theory of the city?

- When did you first become related to the city of London?

- Can you explain your current moment in relation to your whole practice?

- Is there anything you wanted to build in London?

Scheme of a standard interview

- discussion about the last project of the interviewed

- explanation of the first relationships with the city

- projects realised in the city / for the city

- understanding a possible map of the city

- personal idea of the city

- discussion about some more projects of the interviewed

- thoughts and ideas for London in future

- unrealised projects or dreams

Zaha Hadid interview – main topics

Can you tell us what’s your contemporary idea of London?

I still feel it is a very exciting city because it is so impredictable. Maybe it is more predictable than before but every time you think you know it well, something comes along and surprises you. And I think that also shifts your opinion abaout what you might do there, constantly. So in that sense, it’s still a kind of educational situation for me.

I think your career is at a very interesting moment where you have to decide whether to repeat things or whether to continue to innovate.

I am in a position now where I can do both, there are things you can use as a generic project, but there’s still an excitement about inventing things. I can give you the example of the MAXXI in Rome, ten year of endless work not winning a single competition gave us an incredible opportunity providing us with an enormous repertoire that allowed us to invent. It allowed us to rely on our own experience and previous inventions to move on to the next project. I don’t think you have to reinvent the wheel all the time.

What is your feeling about entering, as an Arab, the Arab world at his moment of maximum Westernisation?

I think that that part of the world is now living in a combination of extreme Westernisation and a pride Arab identity, I think that the effect od Arabness coincides with certain interests right now in terms of the whole landscape project, which is related with dunes and stuff like that. There is aldo interest in pixelation and geometry which relates a great deal to the Arab identity in terms of algebra, geometry and mathematics. It is suddenly possible to connect in terms of materials and ideas.

Can you tell us about your last project in Beirut?

In Beirut we had to plan a bank headquarter and a building for the AUB (American University of Beirut),

against my original idea they adapted the idea of a perimeter block, which is not really apporpriate for the city since it is not Berlin. Instead of making a thousand blocks the made five, so the scale is weird, by doing that they made Beirut a tabula rasa – into one flat plane – even though the city was much more layered. And they did not have common discourses about complexity and different ways of dealing with urban renewal.

Can you explain us your studio’s transition from being almost a miniaturist to a kind of hypermodern and contemporary organisation and how you manage big works with few people?

I resisted digitisation for a very long time, as you well know the most important trick is to delegate.

You know from early on you can’t do everything yourself, you can do bits of it yourself, you can make people do things the way you want them done, but you have to rely also on their own invention and their own challeng and abilities. I think that teamwork has been very important to me for a long time. I have always believed in it and that is why it is manageable.

There are equally, two periods of your life, one when you are honoured and a previous one whne you were neglected, can you tell something about this process?

When I was neglected or ignored I always thought thai it would be a passing phase. I am fundamentally an optimist, I don’t neither take the acclaim too seriously now, it doesn’t really affects my life.

Can you explain us how you asses the current moment right now in the world and how you see it?

For me it’s a very interesting moment. However, it’s still very difficult for women to operate as professionals. There are still worlds you have no access to, in practice, I still offer resistance all the time, and I think that keeps you on the go. It’s not that I am there and everybody says yes to me, it’s still a struggle, despite having gone through it a hundred times. It’s not necessarily always great but I think it keeps you in place, and it also makes you think about things in a different way.

Do you think there is such a theory about London?

The old theory about London is always about a city which is made of many villages that merged and created areas of dendity and a metropolitan condition. I think all the new development is very hard-handed and not as light as it could be. It is still a fortified city: I feel that the main focus is still on the urban perimeter block, and this is also something that could be cahnged.

I was wondering if you have any dream projects for London or any unrealised projects you would like to see happen.

London always inspires projects that are unpredictable, look at the Olympics site. I still think this projects are possible, there is an obsession here about making everything look nice orfeel nice, but niceness is not appropiate in London because the city relies on a slight messiness. If it were possible to do a project which is non so even clear, it would be mor einteresting than this idea

Book’s Pros and Cons

All the interviews relate to very time-specific topics, there are not many topics that could be taken as general or as a theory for the interviewed. All the interviews take as given the person’s story/art/style/work. The people come from a very wide range of arts and culture, the book gives a very colorfull portrait of London culture.