You might say that when you step inside, you are entering a honorific space, but that is something totally different than experiencing it. And in architecture the experience comes first. That has the deepest effect on us.- Thom Mayne
We only exist in terms of how we think we exist. Meaning every cultural development is fabricated and can be fabricated.
The multiplicity of ideas is what I am interested in.
The huge problem in our society is the enormous ignorance of the ideas that underlie modern art.
The aesthetic of architecture has to be rooted in a broader idea about human activities like walking, relaxing and communicating. Architecture thinks about how these activities can be given added value.
So we can't go backwards, we can only go where the evolutionary trajectory is taking us and attune our ideas about ourselves and our existence to that course.
So I am totally aware that when I defend the autonomy of art I am 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.
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.
Scientific reality is the modern human condition, and you can see that in the symbolic nature of my work.
Our idea of nature is increasingly being determined by scientific developments. And they have become decisive for our image of reality.
My buildings do not speak in words but by means of their own spaciousness.
Large-scale public projects require the agreement of large numbers of people.
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.
I have 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.
I have been such an outsider my whole life.
