It's too simplistic to advance the notion of the autonomy of art as a reason for turning away from the public. You can have autonomy and simultaneously have connections with the social and political world.
Thom Mayne
Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.
numbers people the-public
I've been such an outsider my whole life.
life
Architecture is involved with the world, but at the same time it has a certain autonomy. This autonomy cannot be explained in terms of traditional logic because the most interesting parts of the work are non-verbal. They operate within the terms of the work, like any art.
architecture work thetimes time art
the-public art
So at a time in which the media give the public everything it wants and desires, maybe art should adopt a much more aggressive attitude towards the public. I myself am very much inclined to take this position.
thetimes time the-public art
So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I'm going counter to my own development. It's more an instinctive reaction, meant to protect the private aspect of the work, the part I am most interested in and which nowadays is at risk in our culture.
culture work art
The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.
society art
Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality.
nature
Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.
work nature humannature
But I absolutely believe that architecture is a social activity that has to do with some sort of communication or places of interaction, and that to change the environment is to change behaviour.
places architecture environment change
You might say that when you step inside, you're entering a honorific space, but that's something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.
architecture experience
I've learned that in order to achieve what I wanted, it made more sense to negotiate than to defend the autonomy of my work by pounding my fist on the table.
work order
Descriptions of my work depress me. They make me feel pinned down.
work
For me the meaning of my work is much more fluid.
I'm often called an old-fashioned modernist. But the modernists had the absurd idea that architecture could heal the world. That's impossible. And today nobody expects architects to have these grand visions any more.
vision architecture
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