Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have never demolished a
building in order to construct a new one.
The French architects, who are based in the Paris suburb of
Montreuil, believe that every structure can be repurposed, reinvented,
reinvigorated. Now, after 34 years of putting that approach into practice, they
have won their field’s highest honor: the Pritzker Prize.
اضافة اعلان
“Through their ideas, approach to the profession and the
resulting buildings,” the jury said in its citation, “they have proven that a
commitment to a restorative architecture that is at once technological,
innovative and ecologically responsive can be pursued without nostalgia.”
In a joint telephone interview, Lacaton and Vassal said they
have long been opposed to taking things down.
“There are too many demolitions of existing buildings which are
not old, which still have a life in front of them, which are not out of use,”
said Lacaton, 65. “We think that is too big a waste of materials. If we observe
carefully, if we look at things with fresh eyes, there is always something
positive to take from an existing situation.”
Vassal, 67, said they even once constructed a building around a
forest — always making sure to integrate the natural landscape and preserve the
past. “Never demolish, never cut a tree, never take out a row of flowers,” he
said. “Take care of the memory of things that were already there, and listen to
the people that are living there.”
This philosophy is evident in their projects like their 2012
expansion of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. By burrowing into the basement with
raw, minimalist materials, the architects transformed that remnant of the 1937
World’s Fair into what is reputed to be the biggest noncollecting contemporary
art museum in Europe.
Similarly, in upgrading the 1960s housing project Tour
Bois-le-Prêtre on the outskirts of Paris, the architects — collaborating with
Frédéric Druot — extended the floor plates to increase the size of rooms,
adding balconies and winter gardens.
“Architecture can become more and more about technology, more
and more complex, more and more based on regulations, and we try to avoid all
of this,” Vassal said, adding that the pair prefers “to work with very simple
elements — air, sun — that we don’t have to pay for.”
That housing project was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s
2010 exhibition “Small Scale, Big Change” and won the best architecture award
from Dezeen design magazine.
Lacaton and Vassal said they emphasize freedom as well as
function — leaving spaces undefined, which allows the tenants to be inventive.
Their projects not only prove less expensive and more
environmentally sustainable, but they also avoid displacing the residents
during construction. In 2017, the architects — with Druot and Christophe Hutin
— were able to transform and expand 530 apartments in the Grand Parc
neighborhood of Bordeaux without requiring residents to leave their homes.
In their public commissions, Lacaton and Vassal also
deliberately leave spaces unstructured, so that the inhabitants can determine
the uses themselves. To a massive six-story cultural center for a regional collection
of art, FRAC Dunkerque (2013), the architects attached a second hall that
mirrored the original, allowing it to be used either as an extension of the
existing building or as a separate independent environment.
“It’s a place where the most interesting exhibitions finally
happened,” Lacaton said of the addition, “where the visitors are more relaxed
and have a different relationship with the artwork.”
Designing affordable housing has always been paramount, the
architects said, because quality is often sacrificed and the results are
substandard. Through the use of simple designs and basic materials, they have
challenged the notion that generous space and limited funds are incompatible.
This is not about value engineering — reducing certain elements
to bring down the cost of the whole — the architects said. Instead, it is about
what Lacaton described as “an attitude of careful observation”: investigating a
site before rushing to put your mark on it, exploring what might be working
before focusing on what should be fixed.
A house may look “ugly or boring” to some, Vassal explained. But
look inside and you may find “a lady who offers you cake and coffee. Behind
these rooms there is life.”
The importance these architects have put on housing was borne
out by the pandemic, they said. With people forced to spend most of their time
at home, “we see how important it is to think of the conditions of everyday
life,” Lacaton said.
In some instances, their imprint involves very little
intervention. For Léon Aucoc Plaza in 1996, the jury citation said, “their
approach was simply to undertake the minimal work of replacing the gravel,
treating the lime trees, and slightly modifying the traffic, all to grant
renewed potential to what already existed.”
They two met in Bordeaux at the School of Architecture during
the late 1970s, after which they spent five years working in Niger, in the
south of the Sahara.
“The desert for us was really like a second school,” Vassal
said.
It was there where they learned what he called a “poetic
approach” — how, with elementary materials like wood and fabric, you can create
shade.
“It was a really important experience,” he said, “and we still
have it in mind.”
Their practice is small — about 10 people including the two of
them. Yet it has completed more than 30 projects throughout Europe and West
Africa, including 53 low-rise apartment units in Saint-Nazaire, France, and a
residential and office building in Geneva.
Some architects have a clear signature — you can often recognize
a building designed by other Pritzker laureates. But Vassal and Lacaton said
they do not initially concern themselves with how a project is ultimately going
to look. Instead, they said, they design from the inside out, focusing on the
purpose or use of a space; confident that the process will yield a materially
satisfying result.
“We don’t search for an aesthetic,” Vassal said. “This idea that
aesthetics are the result of the process of creation is not something that we
have to think at the beginning. We think that beauty always happens at the end.”
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