since my studies at delft university my work proceeded along the same path of curiosity. i have been deverloping ideas starting with a little tab;le and now working a.o. on a proposal for a table and 4 chairs, 70 meters high, meant for berlin.
is it art, is it design, is it architecture? does it matter? is not it a matter of what kind of frame of reference you choose, of what you want to see and hear and think instead looking open minded at my work?
some time ago i was able to meet robert irwin in san diego. it took some time to get in touch with him and find him. i enjoyed his work, read his book and about his work. i hadr heard about him in milan the year before, spending some time with carla verri, at that moment working with studio marconi.
i enjoyed his approach and realised that allthough his work was differtent from mine, there were lots of similarities as well. some years earlier i had met toyo ito and discussed with him his work and the few houses i had done at the moment. i did my best to leave everything out of the design that was not necessary for the total spatial composition. i guess that toyo ito did the same with his early works / houses. being as curious as i am, i could not continue to work the way i did, doing my best to design and built nice apartments for clients.
i learnt from robert irwin to reconsider what i was doing and change some of the conditions of what i did. i learnt that he started swith painting, then cocnetrated on the painting and the ligth that was necessary to see the paintin g, then the space in which the painting and the light stood and so on.
in a s similar way i decided to chance my starting points, from designing for clients, i designed for myself; in stead of designing alone, i started working with a group, instead of working on competition scale modesl, we worked on full scale models, in stead of wqorking inside, we started working outside, instead of small projects we started doing large projects, etc. i am still worknig in this way, still changing some issues and in that sense creating similar but at the same time completely different projects.
i know i do not fit in any kind of system and i do my utmost best to keep it that way. continously i am challenging today' s art and architecture. in my work i react on what i see and hear. it is a matter of thinking, feeling and wondering. it is challenging. it keeps my mind very busy and in that sense is a ncie medicin to keep my brains active. to do so i continously need input from others: magazines, pictures, music, food, conversations, books a.o.
i do not know what will happen tomorrow, what i will hear or see or feel. but i do know that i react to what happens around me. more or less i am in a continuous dialogue with the world around me, i am ineracting, i am reacting and that keep me alive. continuously my ideas are changing reacting to the world around me. i like it that way. it keeps me alive.