L'architetto inglese John Pawson è il vincitore della quarta edizione del Premio Internazionale di Architettura Sacra Frate Sole
La biografia di John Pawson
John Pawson
John Pawson è nato nel 1949 ad Halifax, nello Yorkshire.
Dopo un periodo nell'azienda tessile di famiglia, si è trasferito in Giappone,
dove ha insegnato inglese per alcuni anni all'Università del Commercio di Nagoya.
Verso la fine di questo incarico si è trasferito a Tokyo, dove ha visitato lo
studio dell'architetto e progettista giapponese Shiro Kuramata. Dopo il suo
ritorno in Inghilterra si è iscritto all'Associazione Architetti di Londra, che
poi ha lasciato per fondare uno studio proprio nel 1981. Fin dall'inizio il
lavoro di Pawson si è concentrato sui vari modi di affrontare i problemi
fondamentali di spazio, proporzione, luce e materiali, piuttosto che sul fatto
di sviluppare un insieme di manierismi stilistici - temi da lui esplorati anche
nel libro Minimum, pubblicato nel 1996, che analizza la nozione di semplicità
nell'arte, nell'architettura e nel disegno attraverso una vasta gamma di contesti
storici e culturali. Tra i primi lavori che gli sono stati commissionati, vi
sono le case dello scrittore Bruce Chatwin, del regista di opere liriche Pierre
Audi e della collezionista Doris Lockhart Saatchi, nonché gallerie d'arte a
Londra, Dublino e New York. Mentre le case private sono sempre state una parte
importante del suo lavoro, gli altri progetti hanno abbracciato una vasta gamma
di scale e tipologie costruttive, dal negozio immagine di Calvin Klein a Manhattan,
alle sale d'aspetto per la Cathay Pacific nell'aeroporto di Hong Kong, un condominio
per Ian Schrager nel Gramercy Park di New York, l'allestimento scenico di un
nuovo balletto per la London's Royal Opera House, l'interno di un'imbarcazione
di 18 metri e il nuovo monastero cistercense di Nostra Signora di Novy Dvur in
Boemia. Il suo Sackler Crossing, un passaggio pedonale sul lago dei Giardini
Botanici Reali di Kew a Londra, ha vinto il RIBA Award ed è stato inaugurato
nel 2006.
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Architecture View
Paul Goldberger
The New York Times, 27 October 1996
...[John Pawson] possesses a razorsharp, unsentimental attitude toward
design; with its almost monastic austerity, the Calvin Klein store is about as
far from warm and cuddly as you can get. But it is a truly impressive piece of
work, self-assured and rigorous, and it creates a stunning setting for Mr
Klein's products.
The stone floors, the walls coated with flat white paint and the floating,
cantilevered glass shelving leave all richness and texture to the clothing,
heightening its visual impact. Spectacular windows, 34 feet high and set within
the classical façade, create an exquisite counterpoint between old and new on
the streetscape and connect the life within the store to the life of the
street. Thus, the unusual environment within becomes a place that engages with
the city instead of withdrawing.
The spaces are somewhat static - the narrow, closed-in stairs don't help - but
at least Mr Pawson understands the essence of minimalism, which is not just a
matter of
eliminating things but of distilling what remains into something as close to
perfect as possible.
It brings to mind Strunk and White's 'Elements of Style', which counsels that
the essence of good writing is not brevity but 'that every word tell'.
With Mr Pawson, every architectural word tells. The silences, the spaces in
between - the space that is not filled up with something - are the silences
that tell as much as the words, and sometimes more. I will not exaggerate the
importance of this store and tell you that you feel cleansed by a walk through
it. However, you do feel that you are in the presence of design that
demonstrates with consummate intelligence the virtues of simplicity, and that
communicates a sense of belief.
Thinking up against the wall
Conversation with John Pawson
by Federico Tranfa
Domus 901, March 2007
FT
Does Chatwin's apartment still look the way you designed it? What is your
memory of that time?
JP
No, it's gone and in some ways it's not such a bad thing, because I think
the idea behind it is probably more interesting than the reality. The
interesting thing was to have the relationship with Bruce. I was really lucky
to meet people like Bruce, to have access to somebody who wrote beautifully. It
was a great pleasure to read what he wrote. I found it interesting that it was
much better to describe a piece of architecture and capture its atmosphere
through words - if it were Bruce - rather than through photography. I was lucky
that he wrote about what I did. He was a fantastic storyteller. And of course
the line between fact and fiction disappeared. He exaggerated everything. But
it didn't really matter.
For the apartment, there was a huge contradiction. He was attracted to me
because I liked a simple life, to have not many possessions and that's what he
said he wanted. He wanted to travel light. But of course in his apartment he
had a lot of things.
FT
He made a list of the objects in one of his essays.
JP
I remember getting a letter from him from Jaipur, India. When it arrived I
thought, “Oh my goodness, a handwritten letter from Bruce Chatwin!”. All it
said was, “Can you change the tap in the kitchen, because it's dripping.” In
that way he was just like any client, really.
FT
In the essay A Place to Hang Your Hat he wrote that he was away travelling
throughout the work on the apartment. When he got back, was he satisfied?
JP
He was happy with the apartment. You know, it was 45 square metres. I mean
the reality is, he did it. It was done very inexpensively. I mean, of course, I
laid it out, but I was just helping him achieve what he wanted.
FT
Do you see that project as part of your projects or just a sort of early
training?
JP
I think it was a side project, it was something on the side. The
relationship is more interesting to me than what I learned from doing that
small project.
FT
How many projects of yours did he have the chance to see and visit before
'89? I'm asking because I remember the first book about you that I bought - the
GG monograph, with an introduction written by Bruce Chatwin - and I heard it
was written some time before the book was published.
JP
It was actually written in '86, about an apartment I did for my girlfriend,
Hester van Royen. He visited us there quite a lot. He would just drive up. He
was living in Henley-on Thames in Oxfordshire, with his wife Elizabeth. They
had a Swedish type of barn in the valley - very nice and not far from Heathrow.
He would drive up to London and stop in with his wife for breakfast.
He was so good-looking, so charming and so interesting, and he would entertain
us. He would come in, demand breakfast and just make himself at home. And then
he would pull out his notebook and say, “I'm just going to
read you the new chapter from Song Lines.” It was handwritten and he would read
it. He was a performer.
FT
Did Chatwin influence you in some way?
JP
I think you learn from every client. I learnt a huge amount from Calvin
Klein, for example. Bruce helped me and he would flatter me. He would say I had
the ambition of Napoleon and the talent of … - I can't actually remember whose
talent I was supposed to have. Of course it wasn't true, but you felt
empowered, you felt good.
FT
When you first met him, was he already a well-known writer?
JP
At the time I didn't realise quite how well-known he was.
FT
So you were not a Chatwin fan.
JP
No, not at all. I first met him because Hester knew him. They had stayed in
the same hotel in Lucca. Somehow he just came round to her apartment - and I
had just finished it, it was the first job I ever did. And I remember that he
was tall and wearing a green velvet jacket and he was unusually good-looking.
It was a bit of a shock, with his beautiful clothes as he walked around the
room. He was obviously very surprised to find something like that in London. That
was 1981.
FT
I believe your architecture needs great commitment, self-control, autonomy
and, looking at magazines from the beginning of the ‘80s, I discovered that the
architectural language of that time was miles away from what you were doing.
How do you feel about the late success of this language?
JP
I grew up in Halifax, Yorkshire, an industrial town in the north of
England. Methodism and Non-Conformist Christians are quite strong in that area.
So from my parents, from the architecture, from the treeless landscapes, I
already had an instinctive desire to travel light, I mean metaphorically. So I
already owned little in the way of clothes. I had very few things for school
and in my room. And then I travelled. I ended up in Japan and became an English
teacher at the university.
I met Shiro Kuramata and I suddenly realized that he was doing exactly what I'd
been thinking in my head, but didn't have the ability to put down. I knew of
the work of Mies van der Rohe, but that was from another period. Kuramata was
somebody contemporary doing these things. When I came back from Japan, I sort
of started to feel like this, it was a very strong thing inside me. There was
nothing else like it around, but that didn't bother me, I mean, I just did what
I wanted to do and everybody thought I was mad. I went to an architecture
school, the Architectural Association. I showed them what I did and they said
“Mmm, there's nothing here, it's just a box, can you show us how you arrived at
this box?” and I said, “Well, I don't have the drawings.” But it didn't bother
me, because I wasn't interested in what other people thought, I just wanted to
pursue this particular thing of mine. Then Bruce saw it and he put me in
contact with a long line of people. And everybody said, “You're mad, you're
mad”. Then a journalist said, “What is this?” and somebody answered, “Well,
it's like minimalism.” And of course it's a word that people love. And of
course journalists hate it if it's only one person because it's not a movement,
so they look around for anybody that they can call “minimal”. And then I
started to see articles about anybody and anything that was white and simple.
And I thought I was the only one - I mean, people say you're mad, so there can
only be one mad person.
FT
But before talking about minimalism it took some time, many years.
JP
Yes, of course, because the critics had to search for other architects and
designers. Then suddenly there's an article about minimalism, there's a list
and I'm not on the list! For me it changed with Calvin Klein. Kuramata started
doing his things in the ‘60s. When I met him it was '74, so I started to
develop ideas without any plans in the ‘70s. In the ‘80s I met Bruce. In the
‘90s I met Calvin and the scale of work changed. In the ‘80s I had one
assistant or two; in the late ‘80s I was in partnership with Claudio
Silvestrin. In the ‘90s suddenly the scale changed. But at the time I didn't
think it was a good thing.
FT
Do you mean this growing?
JP
Well, the bigger the project, the more compromise and then, you know, the
more money this involves. The only thing I really regret is that I just don't
have so much time to design.
FT
In recent years you have had the chance to design some residential
buildings which in scale are bigger than a single house for a private owner.
Did you feel limited by the fact that it was not possible to establish a direct
relationship with the future inhabitant? Did this new condition influence the
design?
JP
A little, but my approach is always to design something that I would be
happy with. I mean, I want to feel as if it were my monastery, my cell, my
shop, my apartment. So even if there's no known inhabitant, I imagine the
solution being for myself.
FT
Your attitude sometimes reminds me of Luis Barragán, especially because of
the self-appointed role. He worked almost an entire life on his own house after
declaring at the age of 42 that he would not have any clients but himself. Your
houses have been published many times in detail. Is it right that there might
be this connection between Barragán's continuous research on the same subject
and the house being your manifesto somehow, or favourite research field?
JP
Definitely. It is. It's very difficult, because I am an obsessive person,
that's why I was so happy in Japan. They are naturally obsessive and in England
obsession is considered a bad thing. I do become kind of ultra-focused if it's
my own, and it makes it a lot more difficult. You take more risks and use more
time.
FT
You wrote that when you visited Barragán's house in Mexico, you felt at
home, you immediately felt comfortable. In the same essay you wrote that
Chatwin was extremely disappointed by the same house, a place that he liked
from pictures but in reality he discovered it was different. Do you think that
this gap has to do with being or not being an architect?
JP
I was always curious because, when Bruce told me, I believed him. I thought
“Well if Bruce thinks it's disappointing, then I will.” And it must have to do
with the fact that the work is very photogenic, but the reality isn't. But even
at the time I kind of wondered if it wasn't some personal thing with Barragán.
Maybe Barragán wasn't impressed by Bruce or they were shy with each other.
FT
Because they met each other in Mexico?
JP
Yes. Perhaps there was some tension between them. I couldn't understand
Bruce's opinion, because he obviously had a fantastic eye and really amazing
taste and Barragán's work is really beautiful in real life - everything just
right and so wonderfully rich.
Essential Architecture
Deyan Sudjic
The Guardian
John Pawson has attempted an architecture whose power comes from exploring
fundamental problems of space, proportion, light and materials, rather than
allowing himself to be sidetracked by stylistic mannerisms. The self discipline
of his work clearly marks Pawson's architecture as nothing to do with the
whimsy, or the self referential obsessions of the mainstream in the 1980's. But
it is not correct to assume that it is assertively 'modern' either. It has no social
programme, only a personal one. It doesn't offer any utopian prescriptions,
rather it is a reminder that architecture has always had an austere strand,
eschewing applied ornament, and confusion, but which is not necessarily
connected with the machine aesthetic.
Nowhere is that better demonstrated than in Pawson's work at Dean Clough, the
redundant carpet mills that dominate his home town of Halifax. This heroic
relic of the industrial revolution has been taken over by a series of different
users, and Pawson, working initially for the Henry Moore Trust, helped to carve
a sculpture gallery out of one old mill there, then to suggest a series of deft
interventions in the complex as a whole to clear away some of the agglomeration
of later additions.
The massive stone walls of the complex, its monumental ramps and vaults are
allowed to speak for themselves. Pawson's work is close to invisible. He has
buried his urbane architectural ego in the quality of the York stone and cast
iron that is the essence of the building. In one sense Pawson's architecture is
an exercise in control, in lifting the sense of oppression that comes from the
clutter of things, and the visual chaos of superfluous complexity. It seeks to
eliminate the distraction of awkward proportions and the constant irritation of
the catch that does not function unobtrusively. In its place he offers the
comfort of exactness, of small things done well.
Thus to Pawson, the way in which a wall meets a floor, or whether a door fits
into a wall, flush or proud, are not mere details, but reflect fundamental
questions. They are as much architecture as the planning of a sequence of rooms
in a gallery, or the composition of a façade. For Pawson architectural
reduction is a process that takes you through a mirror. You pass through the
point at which a room is merely empty, and emerge out on the other side in that
mirror world to discover richness in the subtle differences between five shades
of white, and the sense of release that comes from allowing a wall to flow in
space unencumbered by visual distractions.
There is that sense of mountain top clear vision, of seeing architecture that
is in sharp focus, with no fudges, camouflage or obfuscation. By removing
unnecessary elements - such as the lintel that comes from having doors that
stop short of the ceiling, and the skirtings that blur the boundaries between
vertical and horizontal, Pawson allows even humble spaces to acquire dignity
and nobility.
His spaces have a sense of calm and release that can communicate their
essential qualities even to those who have no sympathy or understanding for his
ideas. And he is ready, when the opportunity presents itself, to employ the
most sensuous of materials, white marble, polished oak, and cedarwood. Used
with his restraint, they create out of the ordinary spaces, in even the most
restricted contexts. Within a banal 1960s block, a Pawson designed apartment
leaves its context behind, to give you a sense of space and light. With this
vocabulary, even a modest gallery has the sense of calm and otherness that art
needs. Pawson has an intensity and an apparent unwillingness to compromise with
conventions that has made some people interpret his work as art rather than
architecture. But architecture, of all the arts, is the one that most depends
for its expressive power on rubbing up against the gritty constraints of every
day life. And Pawson is anything but hermetic in his exploration of the
physical qualities of materials. Though his work is often casually equated with
the school of art that is known as minimalism, his objectives are architectural
ones. They come from the clarity of thought of the Mies van der Rohe of the
Barcelona Pavilion, from Shiro Kuramata, from Luis Barragan and from a number
of other architects who have approached design as an issue of what to leave
out, rather than what to put in.
Simplicity brings with it a certain monumentality. It accommodates the
fundamental essence of architecture, compression and release, enclosure and
transparency. Pawson's architecture appears unforced, and effortless, but simplicity
is not easily achieved.
