5. December 2023
Photo: Screenshot from “Reinier De Graaf: Architects Shouldn’t Preach”
The latest architecture-related filmed interview from Louisiana Museum of Modern Art's Louisiana Channel features Reinier de Graaf, partner at OMA in Rotterdam and author of three books, including architect, verb – The New Language of Building.
Speaking with Louisiana Channel's Marc-Christoph Wagner in July, at the UIA 2023 in Copenhagen, de Graaf touches on his early years, his “perverse fascination for the urban,” how architects engage with reality, and the messages he would like to convey with his books.
Wagner: Do we sometimes forget what we actually have achieved? If we look at education, at life expectancy, and others, they have completed improved…
De Graaf: It’s a problem of architecture, but also a problem of the Western world, which is increasingly wrapped up in an urge to apologize. And, of course, it has things to apologize for. But if in the process it completely forgets what it also has achieved, then a lot of the good things will be forgotten and passed away like the child in the bathwater. There has to be a more healthy balance than at present. We shouldn’t constantly measure the past with the moral standards of today.
Watch below or on the Louisiana Channel website.