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like a real building. They expect us to put marble in a wire
frame on the computer. But that’s a proxy of a building, not
virtual architecture. Virtual architecture has to do with the
experience of the body, with perception and memory.’
-What did this mean for the virtual stock exchange?
‘We replaced about 40 monitors with data sheets in a
three-dimensional environment. It was like driving a car or
flying a plane. It was learning how to move through space
to get the essential information. It became a fully immersed
visceral place, where you find yourself inside information
and where you can correlate information through
memory and perception. The client had expected that we
would make it look better, add a little bit of design to it.
Had we done so, we wouldn’t have achieved the richness of
a three-dimensional environment. The same goes for the
Guggenheim. We could’ve built just a bunch of little cubes,
where you can go in to see the works of art. But we wanted
to create an architectural experience, as in the great
museums of the world. The keywords are perception and
time. And these bring into play memory, body and form. So
it’s far from creating a web page with easy access to
information. In the virtual Guggenheim it takes time to get
somewhere. You always return to the same kind of spaces.
The rooms are complex and the geometry is intriguing and
mystical. There’s a constant notion that it’s a foreign place
that needs to be discovered. And through the discovery you
get to appreciate it and get immersed in it. It becomes a
real experience. At that point it becomes architecture, as
opposed to a visual interface.’
Perception is the main interest of Asymptote Architecture.
In their early work they even used optical instruments in
order to deconstruct perspective thinking. Where does
their strong fascination with this theme come from? ‘It has
really been one of the key movements in our culture for the
last fifty years,’ said Rashid. ‘Post-Duchamp, post-surrealism,
post-abstract-expressionism. Views of the world in
terms of what happened to the object, to the space, to the
body. We want to be in this time and are interested in figuring
out what the next level in the creating of space for
human inhabitation will be. The other day, I sat in the train
for many hours. Throughout the journey a guy was SMS-ing,
writing as it were with the thumb. What a difference from
a hundred years ago, when people sat in the train writing
on a writing pad in a shaking carriage. To me this guy was
in an entirely different spatial envelope than his Proustian
counterpart. We want to understand this envelope. We
don’t believe in resurrecting the past to a post-modern
pastiche. We don’t like to live on a kind of stage. We’re not
convinced that simple problem-solving is pushing the new
buttons or envelopes.’
-What’s your aim?
‘We want to confront people with their spatial presence.
Think of the Hydrapier in the Netherlands. Here we got the
opportunity to do a garden pavilion. But by the same token
it had to be built in a remarkable place, that is, in a polder,
man-made, next to Schiphol airport. How do you embody all
that into a structure that can allow users to understand the
present state of their spatial condition and at the same
time have a forward trajectory? To inspire a sense of awe
that every artist is after? To raise questions about what a
pavilion is and what it means to build in the polder, next to
an airport?’
-You could’ve opted for a space that’s easy to comprehend,
a commodity.
‘I don’t think there’s such a thing as "easy to comprehend
spatiality". Unless you’re dealing with nostalgia and a
retrograde mentality. I think that resurrecting the past, like
in European urbanism, is wrong. The repeating of styles
from the Weimar Republic in Austria and Germany is completely
out of alignment with the condition in the urban
context. But people tend to feel more comfortable because
they recognise it. So the question is how important it is
to give people what they expect and want to see. I think
there’s something better on the horizon. I see ourselves as
being very responsible with our "playing around". And we
receive very positive reactions, even though our architecture
is questioning.’
- In your architecture you refer to themes and shapes
outside the field of architecture. Like the wing of an
airplane in the Hydrapier. Many architects are
against this kind of symbolism, stating that architecture
should be about architecture and nothing
else. Why do you opt for such symbols?
GUGGENHEIM VIRTUAL MUSEUM (2000)
Photos: Asymptote
Hani
Rashid
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