Thinking up against the wall
conversation with John Pawson
by Federico Tranfa
Domus 901
March 2007
FT
Does Chatwin’s apartment still look the way you designed it? What is your memory of that time?
JP
No, it’s gone and in some ways it’s not such a bad thing, because I think the idea behind it is probably more interesting than the reality. The interesting thing was to have the relationship with Bruce. I was really lucky to meet people like Bruce, to have access to somebody who wrote beautifully. It was a great pleasure to read what he wrote. I found it interesting that it was much better to describe a piece of architecture and capture its atmosphere through words - if it were Bruce - rather than through photography. I was lucky that he wrote about what I did. He was a fantastic storyteller. And of course the line between fact and fiction disappeared. He exaggerated everything. But it didn’t really matter.
For the apartment, there was a huge contradiction. He was attracted to me because I liked a simple life, to have not many possessions and that’s what he said he wanted. He wanted to travel light. But of course in his apartment he had a lot of things.
Does Chatwin’s apartment still look the way you designed it? What is your memory of that time?
JP
No, it’s gone and in some ways it’s not such a bad thing, because I think the idea behind it is probably more interesting than the reality. The interesting thing was to have the relationship with Bruce. I was really lucky to meet people like Bruce, to have access to somebody who wrote beautifully. It was a great pleasure to read what he wrote. I found it interesting that it was much better to describe a piece of architecture and capture its atmosphere through words - if it were Bruce - rather than through photography. I was lucky that he wrote about what I did. He was a fantastic storyteller. And of course the line between fact and fiction disappeared. He exaggerated everything. But it didn’t really matter.
For the apartment, there was a huge contradiction. He was attracted to me because I liked a simple life, to have not many possessions and that’s what he said he wanted. He wanted to travel light. But of course in his apartment he had a lot of things.
FT
He made a list of the objects in one of his essays.
JP
I remember getting a letter from him from Jaipur, India. When it arrived I thought, “Oh my goodness, a handwritten letter from Bruce Chatwin!”. All it said was, “Can you change the tap in the kitchen, because it’s dripping.” In that way he was just like any client, really.
FT
In the essay A Place to Hang Your Hat he wrote that he was away travelling throughout the work on the apartment. When he got back, was he satisfied?
JP
He was happy with the apartment. You know, it was 45 square metres. I mean the reality is, he did it. It was done very inexpensively. I mean, of course, I laid it out, but I was just helping him achieve what he wanted.
FT
Do you see that project as part of your projects or just a sort of early training?
JP
I think it was a side project, it was something on the side. The relationship is more interesting to me than what I learned from doing that small project.
FT
How many projects of yours did he have the chance to see and visit before ’89? I’m asking because I remember the first book about you that I bought - the GG monograph, with an introduction written by Bruce Chatwin - and I heard it was written some time before the book was published.
JP
It was actually written in ’86, about an apartment I did for my girlfriend, Hester van Royen. He visited us there quite a lot. He would just drive up. He was living in Henley-on Thames in Oxfordshire, with his wife Elizabeth. They had a Swedish type of barn in the valley - very nice and not far from Heathrow. He would drive up to London and stop in with his wife for breakfast.
He was so good-looking, so charming and so interesting, and he would entertain us. He would come in, demand breakfast and just make himself at home. And then he would pull out his notebook and say, “I’m just going to read you the new chapter from Song Lines.” It was handwritten and he would read it. He was a performer.
FT
Did Chatwin influence you in some way?
JP
I think you learn from every client. I learnt a huge amount from Calvin Klein, for example. Bruce helped me and he would flatter me. He would say I had the ambition of Napoleon and the talent of … – I can’t actually remember whose talent I was supposed to have. Of course it wasn’t true, but you felt empowered, you felt good.
FT
When you first met him, was he already a well-known writer?
JP
At the time I didn’t realise quite how well-known he was.
FT
So you were not a Chatwin fan.
JP
No, not at all. I first met him because Hester knew him. They had stayed in the same hotel in Lucca. Somehow he just came round to her apartment - and I had just finished it, it was the first job I ever did. And I remember that he was tall and wearing a green velvet jacket and he was unusually good-looking. It was a bit of a shock, with his beautiful clothes as he walked around the room. He was obviously very surprised to find something like that in London. That was 1981.
FT
I believe your architecture needs great commitment, self-control, autonomy and, looking at magazines from the beginning of the ‘80s, I discovered that the architectural language of that time was miles away from what you were doing. How do you feel about the late success of this language?
JP
I grew up in Halifax, Yorkshire, an industrial town in the north of England. Methodism and Non-Conformist Christians are quite strong in that area. So from my parents, from the architecture, from the treeless landscapes, I already had an instinctive desire to travel light, I mean metaphorically. So I already owned little in the way of clothes. I had very few things for school and in my room. And then I travelled. I ended up in Japan and became an English teacher at the university. I met Shiro Kuramata and I suddenly realized that he was doing exactly what I’d been thinking in my head, but didn’t have the ability to put down. I knew of the work of Mies van der Rohe, but that was from another period. Kuramata was somebody contemporary doing these things. When I came back from Japan, I sort of started to feel like this, it was a very strong thing inside me. There was nothing else like it around, but that didn’t bother me, I mean, I just did what I wanted to do and everybody thought I was mad. I went to an architecture school, the Architectural Association. I showed them what I did and they said “Mmm, there’s nothing here, it’s just a box, can you show us how you arrived at this box?” and I said, “Well, I don’t have the drawings.” But it didn’t bother me, because I wasn’t interested in what other people thought, I just wanted to pursue this particular thing of mine. Then Bruce saw it and he put me in contact with a long line of people. And everybody said, “You’re mad, you’re mad”. Then a journalist said, “What is this?” and somebody answered, “Well, it’s like minimalism.” And of course it’s a word that people love. And of course journalists hate it if it’s only one person because it’s not a movement, so they look around for anybody that they can call “minimal”. And then I started to see articles about anybody and anything that was white and simple. And I thought I was the only one - I mean, people say you’re mad, so there can only be one mad person.
FT
But before talking about minimalism it took some time, many years.
JP
Yes, of course, because the critics had to search for other architects and designers. Then suddenly there’s an article about minimalism, there’s a list and I’m not on the list! For me it changed with Calvin Klein. Kuramata started doing his things in the ‘60s. When I met him it was ’74, so I started to develop ideas without any plans in the ‘70s. In the ‘80s I met Bruce. In the ‘90s I met Calvin and the scale of work changed. In the ‘80s I had one assistant or two; in the late ‘80s I was in partnership with Claudio Silvestrin. In the ‘90s suddenly the scale changed. But at the time I didn’t think it was a good thing.
FT
Do you mean this growing?
JP
Well, the bigger the project, the more compromise and then, you know, the more money this involves. The only thing I really regret is that I just don’t have so much time to design.
FT
In recent years you have had the chance to design some residential buildings which in scale are bigger than a single house for a private owner. Did you feel limited by the fact that it was not possible to establish a direct relationship with the future inhabitant? Did this new condition influence the design?
JP
A little, but my approach is always to design something that I would be happy with. I mean, I want to feel as if it were my monastery, my cell, my shop, my apartment. So even if there’s no known inhabitant, I imagine the solution being for myself.
FT
Your attitude sometimes reminds me of Luis Barragán, especially because of the self-appointed role. He worked almost an entire life on his own house after declaring at the age of 42 that he would not have any clients but himself. Your houses have been published many times in detail. Is it right that there might be this connection between Barragán’s continuous research on the same subject and the house being your manifesto somehow, or favourite research field?
JP
Definitely. It is. It’s very difficult, because I am an obsessive person, that’s why I was so happy in Japan. They are naturally obsessive and in England obsession is considered a bad thing. I do become kind of ultra-focused if it’s my own, and it makes it a lot more difficult. You take more risks and use more time.
FT
You wrote that when you visited Barragán’s house in Mexico, you felt at home, you immediately felt comfortable. In the same essay you wrote that Chatwin was extremely disappointed by the same house, a place that he liked from pictures but in reality he discovered it was different. Do you think that this gap has to do with being or not being an architect?
JP
I was always curious because, when Bruce told me, I believed him. I thought “Well if Bruce thinks it’s disappointing, then I will.” And it must have to do with the fact that the work is very photogenic, but the reality isn’t. But even at the time I kind of wondered if it wasn’t some personal thing with Barragán. Maybe Barragán wasn’t impressed by Bruce or they were shy with each other.
FT
Because they met each other in Mexico?
JP
Yes. Perhaps there was some tension between them. I couldn’t understand Bruce’s opinion, because he obviously had a fantastic eye and really amazing taste and Barragán’s work is really beautiful in real life – everything just right and so wonderfully rich.