The Broad in Los Angeles. The Shed in New York. The Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. Architect Elizabeth Diller (Lodz, Poland, aged 69) with her partners Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin has built some of the most unique museums of this century. It has also created the new face of New York, which wants to push the limits with experimentation. She grew up in the Bronx and came to the United States by boat as a child. He attended Fira de Barcelona to speak about Smart Cities at Smart City Expo. He’s having breakfast in a five-star hotel, pinching a roll and using a teaspoon to scoop out a soft-boiled egg.
She couldn’t make it to New York today like she could when she was a kid.
No. In 1959 it was possible to start a new life in the Bronx. Who could pay the rent today? Most artists are gone.
What do cities lose when they lose artists?
Someone who tells you the truth. When we made The Shed with The Rockwell Group, we wanted to revive the idea of New York as a center of cultural production, not as a place where time has stood still.
Did you take unnecessary risks at The Shed? Why build a mobile building?
A theater is constantly changing. Why not move a little more? The conversion from an exhibition hall to an auditorium had to be something simple and electric. To save money, they did it manually, and today the result is clumsy.
Do you associate risk with intellectual growth?
Challenges strengthen me. Comfort makes me sleepy. I don’t understand the risk for the risk, but I understand the reward after a risk. It is a source of energy, life and change. I often knew that if I took risks I would lose competitions, but I didn’t know how to do anything else, I couldn’t.
She is a professor at Princeton. Does it teach risk?
I teach the students. I free them from what they have learned so they can think. prejudices stop thinking. I asked them how to deal with the obsolescence and speed of the world in something as slow as architecture. If they had something half-finished, I would change the assignment and ask them to adapt it. The exercise destabilized them, they had to rethink everything. they hated me but they learned a lot.
The Architect on the High Line, a project by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf. Vincent Tullo
She is the architect of 21st century New York. And he came to this city when he was five years old.
My parents had to say goodbye to their lives. It was traumatic. They left their past in Poland. Also her consolation: They had money. But they came to what was considered the land of opportunity. Traumatized by the Holocaust, they wanted to flee as far as possible so that their children could have a life.
did they have it
Well… they were always scared, but I studied whatever I wanted.
Did you have a religious childhood?
In my house, religion was a cultural issue, not a spiritual one. My father was Czech and my mother Polish. He managed textile factories in Lodz. Although neither he nor my mother had studied. He was an enterprising man. He spoke languages. Shortly after arriving in New York, he learned English. He was a survivor. My mother, on the other hand, never adjusted. He spoke to me in Polish and thanks to that I speak it. Sometimes I think it was my fault that he didn’t learn English from talking to me.
Did you flee from National Socialism in 1959?
After the war there was a lot of anti-Semitism. Even though my father wasn’t religious, he was Jewish. My father’s nine brothers and my grandparents perished in concentration camps. As a child, I fled this pain in New York. Today I regret not having asked more. But in my house, everyone wanted to forget and start over.
His brother was 13 years old.
I wanted to forget. In Lodz he was bullied as a Jew. Here he was able to study engineering. Today he no longer identifies with being a Jew.
And you?
It depends who is asking.
A flexible identity?
The survivors. I feel European. But not particularly Polish. And at the same time, I’m a real New Yorker. I believe that my ethics and sensitivity to what is different comes from my parents. I’ve never felt quite American, whatever that might be. I’m used to change. I’m interested in fixing things. I don’t know how this conflicts with my parents’ decision to run away from the problem. But I am like that. I never felt the loss of someone I didn’t know. In my work and in my life I confront things and try to change them. Children run away in pain. But then you realize how much guilt you end up bearing.
What does that mean?
My parents were overprotective. I think the loss scared them. The damage you take increases over your lifetime.
What did your parents do when they arrived?
Starting from scratch in the Bronx. My father carried sacks full of fruit. My mother cleaned offices. At the end of his life, my father fulfilled the American dream of seeing his children go to college. And he came to run a hotel. We never feel poverty.
It was within this framework that he decided to become an artist.
What worried my mother was that she was not financially dependent on men. I was obsessed.
And you go and fall in love with your teacher.
That also happened. But my mother always supported me. He asked me why I hadn’t studied architecture. When I said no he insisted I become a dentist! He wanted me to have a job. I studied fine arts and after two years of sculpture I switched to architecture. That’s where I met Rick. And if. It was a swarm.
I was 23 and he was 42.
It’s all the more shocking that we’re still together. We have dedicated our lives to architecture.
It seems to be the strongest in the relationship.
Because I talk a lot. I could never have done what I did without him. He’s a great teacher and people love him.
Elizabeth Diller.Vincent Tullo
Does he have children?
Ric had a marriage and we didn’t. Sometimes I think about it. I’ve spent my life putting it off until next year, and in the end, that year isn’t here yet. I’m happy with the life I have. How to know what would have been better? you have children
Two.
Stop working?
No. I think I would have gone insane.
Rick was four. If he had asked for it, he would have agreed to another, but he didn’t want to force it. The only one who pressured me was my mother and… I didn’t listen to her.
Her mother urged her to live her own life and also have children.
For her it was not a contradiction. He wanted me to learn English and spoke to me in Polish! That’s why I sank when he died.
It was difficult for him to create an imperishable work. As if he had to prepare himself.
Building was not our passion. Ric was tired of architecture. And I was pretty rebellious. I didn’t like authority. I think he liked that. As a child she had been naughty. Maybe because of my parents’ overzealousness.
Wasn’t she a good student?
It was the time of the Vietnam War and he spent more time protesting than studying. I remember my youth as a perpetual protest: mobilizations, drugs…
drugs in school?
It was a different era, with its difficulties and its advantages. I spent a third of my time at the institute, another protesting, and the other at MoMA.
After a few decades he signed the expansion of this museum. Who took her the first time?
I went alone My parents liked nature and sports. And I was fascinated by the modern world. I wanted to be a sculptor.
How much freedom did you have in designing the MoMA extension?
I know the museum by heart. I knew his problems: he had no connection to the city, you had to walk half a kilometer before you could see art. It was an unnatural, artificial building that was constantly overcrowded.
Do cities thrive when rents are cheap?
The New York of my youth was like that. This gives you time to act, think and live. I spent the day on the street. That opened my mind a lot.
Why did you finally become an architect?
i wanted to learn From photography I went to cinema and from cinema to architecture. It seemed to me more capable of transformation and more capable of defending interdisciplinary ideas.
The interface between the disciplines defines his work.
In the world of art, proof and even doubt are allowed. Also intuition. In architecture, you spend the day explaining why you do things.
Did you feel the fear of the other professionally more than personally?
Fear is always harmful. And it always describes who is placating it more than who is receiving it. But we suffer. We were artists for architects and architects for artists. Our work was dissident: it didn’t fit. Being in no man’s land is a problem for getting scholarships or a job as a teacher. However, as a woman, I believe that living in New York has benefited me from what many have struggled before.
Did you want to blend in?
We don’t work according to formulas, we experiment, question, mix. We transgressed to push the boundaries of architecture. And the architectural community thought we were geeks.
One of his first works was a cloud. Can an experiment become a building?
I honestly think so. But these projects were temporary. Others are ephemeral without being designed to be ephemeral. Austerity measures are often an excuse to avoid experimentation.
Elizabeth Diller depicted in one of her most famous works, the High Line in New York. Vincent Tullo
Architecture is taught today as a hybrid discipline.
We have always defended the mix. We don’t know how to see it any other way.
John Hejduk, his teacher, believed that building corrupts architecture. Do you agree?
No. He believed it was a discipline, not a profession. Therefore, my training consisted in connecting architecture with art, literature and creativity…
Can you contribute to architecture without building?
Yes. Cities are attracted by enacting laws, issuing commissions, and giving opportunities to others. For me, every way to create space is to create architecture.
Do you feel the need to make groundbreaking proposals?
It’s not about surprising, it’s about exploring.
The High Line: Restoring miles of old track as an elevated park changed its life.
It is an architecture that starts with the outdated and protects nature. It has to do with our adaptability.
And listen to the neighbors.
I had never heard what people said before. As I got out of the academic vision to do it, my perspective changed. After the September 11 attacks, a wave of courtesy swept through New York. We felt part of the same city. We had to take care of them and ourselves. This part of Manhattan was an empty, hopeless place: a perfect place for improvement.
Are you in favor of citizens being asked what the city should look like?
Getting out of your own world is good, but it takes hours of meetings and listening. For me, the idea of turning urban waste into a living part of the city was intriguing. It went from the infrastructure to the ruins, from the ruins to the garden and from the garden to the promenade.
Is nature more powerful than culture?
It’s culture. It was less about building and more about working with nature. And with the neighbors. And it cost more to remove the tracks than to maintain them. They were already covered with vegetation. There were hardly any parks in this part of New York. The solution was to leave it almost as it was. And make it safer. It touched a nerve that needed to be touched.
That’s what artists do: they anticipate the future.
We are so tied to our screens that seeing what was happening on the street was considered a discovery.
What did you learn while building?
That there can be a lot of creativity in the effort. As Edison put it, “Genius is 1% illumination and 99% sweat.” This architecture is a team effort. And that an approval is more important than a line. The greatest difficulties in architecture are not of a technical nature, but arise from dealing with people.
It’s easier to get a building to move…
Like The Shed. Oh well. Let’s see, technical problems are fun and challenging. Explaining to people that what’s good for one neighbor is good for everyone is harder. And I like. It’s the story of my life: My friends are fleeing the fire and I’m running toward it.
The great challenges of current architecture are the slowness, the high building prices and the urgent needs of the world.”
Because?
Where others see failure, I see opportunity. I remember when we won the competition to expand Lincoln Center. Frank Gehry said, “Don’t touch it, these people are impossible.” And I thought: I’m going to prove him wrong. Of course we left a lot of energy. I have a conference to explain. I do it six different ways. They are all true: everyone is afraid of change.
You don’t seem to be.
Seems to be an opportunity for growth. I came to New York at the age of five!
Which of your projects reinvented New York?
The expansion of Lincoln Center. Philip Johnson’s original building was designed to be accessible by car. And not ours. This marks the development of the city.
What can the most intellectual architecture contribute to the world with little means?
It takes a lot of intelligence to deal with scarcity and chaos. The great architectural challenges lie there: between the slowness and the high construction costs and the urgent needs of the world.
Has immigration prepared you for austerity?
I don’t have a strict life. But I prefer one fabulous thing to a hundred good ones.
How does it relate to money?
I spend a lot But it doesn’t motivate me. I like the convenience and the fact that I don’t have to worry about the studio’s ability to pay. But I prefer freedom to money.
Are you a freelance architect?
A free man. I don’t have many things: no cars, no planes, no gold. My luxury is not doing commercial jobs, not having a list of good jobs and others that are worth the effort. To me that means being rich.
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