I was hesitant to do another one.
‘no talk of family, no talk of america, I want to talk about the research’ i told him on the phone.
‘ok’ he said, ‘architecture is my hobby. it will be a nice conversation.’
He jumps right into Trakiya and her appearance.
“Aren’t they terrible? They were pieces of modern architecture, now look. They are hideous.”
“I don’t think they are ugly. I think its a beautiful patchwork hinting at the people that live within.”
“Isn’t that a disgrace to the architect?
There are laws against that in western countries, laws about what you can do to the facade.
Everyone sees it.”
“Who says the architect is right?”
“But it’s intellectual property.”
“Architecture is often defined as form meets function. This is what the intellect of the architect is to accomplish.
How long did the architect take to create the building?
And how long will the building be in existence?
Who is to say the architect has the last say in the appearance of the building for the next hundreds of years?
It is a static object created at a specific moment in time and culture, both which continue to evolve. By being lived in, architecture is living. It is not merely a sculpture. If it is truly functional, it will lend itself to its inhabitants and their individualization process.”
“I see what you mean. If you look at it like that, we really have an extreme example of people appropriating architecture within Trakiya.”
“Evidence of that process is what makes it beautiful to me.
Trakiya is a patchwork of stories, stories you can see on the facades, stories of the relationship between inhabitant and home.”
“So now you are working on collecting and understanding these stories.”
“Precisely.”
I think I just successfully expressed what I am doing… phew.
I can only hope that interview was as useful to him as it was to me!