100% DESIGN LONDON - DalCasa

As you mentioned, you achieved a lot of success
in Japan. You won the first prize at the
Shinkenchiku Competition in 1984, and you followed
up by receiving five more awards in Japan
– in 1990, 1995, 1996, 1999 and 2001. How
do you explain your success in Japan and in
what way has that country influenced you
Rogina: We explain our success with a fact that
we have always understood architecture as a
medium of expressing our points of view, and
a medium that is created out of different fields
that are not necessarily architectonic; that is created
out of what architecture should generate,
and that is life itself. I think we did a good job
of drawing references towards other disciplines,
and towards situations that came out of those
disciplines. It’s not that the judges were necessarily
compatible to us, especially not in the beginning,
but they noticed certain honesty that
our works radiated. We understood architecture
as one medium to express things. Not exclusively
architecture as a building, construction, putting
one stone onto the other. Because architecture
can also be about removing and bringing things
down. Architecture isn’t exclusively meant for
eternity, it’s not necessarily a monument. Architecture
is also a set of circumstances that a
person can direct and use to improve the living
situation.
Župni centar i samostan Trnje, Zagreb / Parish center
and convent in Zagreb, Trnje
Stambeno-poslovna zgrada za zbrinjavanje stradalnika
Domovinskog rata / A residential-business building to provide
for casualties of the War for Independence
This year, we witnessed the fourth consecutive
International Symposium of Theory and Design
in the Digital Age, which was named Reality
Chic: Architecture and Fashion. The symposium
is held under your leadership in Grožnjan since
1989. Why did you start that symposium and how
did it go this year
Rogina: We started it by gathering a group
of enthusiasts in the late eighties, back when
there was this very dynamic cultural exchange
among different areas within ex-Yugoslavia,
but also outside of it. We soon reached professor
Nigel Whiteley and architect Cederic Price
who gave us plenty of support. We didn’t want
to start one of those summer schools that were
plenty around, where students went to small Istrian
towns to take measures of buildings and
do some smaller interventions, but rather start a
brainstorming laboratory that is primarily based
on analysing the situation surrounding a person.
That was the basic idea: to have a theoretical
part, and when that is properly analysed, go forward
with practical realization.
Penezić: The very name of the symposium is a
direct reference to a book by Reyner Banham,
which actually points out this combination of
theory and shaping. It says that every shaping
process has its starting point in the theoretical
process that comes before the final stages of the
shaping process. This year’s theme was “Architecture
and Fashion”, which I think is very interesting
and current. The theoretical part was led
Scenografija Kviskoteke /
Kviskoteka set
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