Mit dem Arti­kel heute wird die Reihe „11 Fra­gen an…” erwei­tert. Ich habe die Chance genutzt und einige Inter­views mit Archi­tek­ten außer­halb des deutsch­spra­chi­gen Raums geführt. Diese Inter­views beinhal­ten die glei­chen Fra­gen, wer­den aber auf Eng­lisch abge­druckt. Zusätz­lich zu den 11 Fra­gen wer­den immer noch ein paar Zusatz­fra­gen beant­wor­tet. Ich glaube es ist sehr inter­es­sant Details über den Beruf des Archi­tek­ten in ande­ren Län­dern zu erfah­ren. Ich bin auf Feed­back sehr gespannt.

B.Arch MNAL Jim Dodson

Mr. Dod­son, before we begin with the inter­view, please intro­duce your­self in 3 – 4 sen­ten­ces briefly.
_Jim Dod­son [jd]: My name is Jim Dod­son, part­ner and co-founder of Various Archi­tects AS. After 12 years at Snøhetta I star­ted Varoius Archi­tects with my col­lea­gue and fri­end Ibra­him ElHayawan.

Ques­tion 1: What was your first job after gra­dua­ting?
_jd: After gra­dua­ting from the Uni­ver­sity of Texas, Aus­tin in ’95 I went more or less strai­ght back to Snøhetta (www.snohetta.com) where I had been a stu­dent intern for 6 months in ’94. It was a dream job, and well worth it.

Ques­tion 2: Why should cli­ents in any case work toge­ther with an archi­tect?
_jd: Archi­tects are pro­blem sol­vers. It’s our job to under­stand a client’s pro­blems and come up with a crea­tive solu­tion. Com­ing up with an unex­pec­ted solu­tion that exceeds the client’s hopes should always be our goal.

Ques­tion 3: How would you describe your archi­tec­tu­ral style?
_jd: I don’t like to work with the con­cept of ‚style’. Each buil­ding is a solu­tion to a com­plex set of varia­bles and con­texts — I think it’s dif­fi­cult to impose a style on some­thing that is so rela­ted to the indi­vi­dual pro­blems it should solve. We do work that is for­ward thin­king, con­tem­porary, and rela­ted to it’s con­text. I never know what a pro­ject will look like until it’s finished.

Ques­tion 4: Which book or film has impres­sed you in the last time?
_jd: Neal Ste­phen­sen remains one of my favo­rite aut­hors these days. He crea­tes ama­zing worlds that seem fami­liar, but always suprise me. The Baro­que Cycle was an ama­zing his­to­ri­cal fic­tion trilogy.

Ques­tion 5: Who are your role models and why?
_jd: Role models always change over time. When I was in school in the 90’s Zaha Hadid and Rem Kool­haas were role models for ever­yone. I still respect their work, but things change over time. Having com­pe­ted against (and bea­ten) both in com­pe­ti­ti­ons at Snøhetta, you start to regard them as people, not heroes. We recently col­la­bo­ra­ted with Dil­ler Sof­idio + Ren­fro on the com­pe­ti­tion for a new Munch + Sten­er­sen Museum in Oslo, and that was a real treat. I have always fol­lo­wed their work with much admi­ra­tion, so get­ting the chance to col­la­bo­rate was great.
These days I sup­pose my role models con­sist more of my con­tem­pora­ries — ‚young’ archi­tects star­ting their own firms and making it hap­pen. BIG, JDS, SeArch are all great exam­ples of young firms that are making things hap­pen. I find them all very inspiring.

Ques­tion 6: Is the cli­ent king or should he be gui­ded to his luck by an archi­tect?
_jd: The cli­ent is king in that they pay the bills around here, but even kings need gui­dance to pro­tect them from them­sel­ves. I think the best archi­tec­ture hap­pens when you have a great cli­ent who allows it to hap­pen. There are ple­nty of exam­ples of hor­ri­ble archi­tec­ture that is the pro­duct of a bad architect/client relationship.

Ques­tion 7: Which sub­ject in course of stu­dies best pre­pa­red you for your pro­fes­sion?
_jd: I don’t think there is any one ans­wer to that one. I found the School of Archi­tec­ture at UT Aus­tin to be a great place to me. It did a good job of pre­pa­ring us pro­fes­sio­nally as archi­tects, wit­hout for­cing too much of a „school phi­lo­so­phy” on us. The best stu­dents there at the time were all doing their own thing — and most of them have gone on to do good work as professionals.

Ques­tion 8: From Paul Valéry comes the term „archi­tec­ture is music made in stone.” What refe­rees to the ques­tion, what music you’re cur­rently happy to hear?
_jd: Music is really import­ant to me when I am working. Head­pho­nes are essen­tial to con­cen­tra­tion when working in an open office environ­ment, so what you are lis­ten­ing to beco­mes an import­ant part of the pro­duct. Cur­rent top list by Play Count in iTu­nes: Blonde Redhead, Mor­cheeba, The Last Shadow Pup­pets, Black Fran­cis, M83, Jack Johnson…

Ques­tion 9: Which buil­ding would you like to design and why?
_jd: My back­ground from Snøhetta is mainly cul­tu­ral buil­dings, and I still have a pre­fe­rence for these kinds of pro­jects. Cul­tu­ral buil­dings and public buil­dings are struc­tures which have the pos­si­bi­lity to stron­gly influ­ence the city and people around them. I’d like to think that they are buil­dings which matter.

Ques­tion 10: Archi­tec­ture is … ?
_jd: good question!

And finally, ques­tion 11: What ques­tion would you like to ask and whom?
_jd: Ques­tion: Can we design a new natio­nal museum for you? To whom: Anyone who can make it so. :)

I am glad to have you as an non-german speaking archi­tect on my maga­zine. So I take the oppor­tu­nity to ask you a few more ques­ti­ons inte­res­ting for me and others. How to become an archi­tect in your coun­try?
_jd: I was edu­ca­ted in USA, but am prac­ticing in Nor­way. My 5 year pro­fes­sio­nal degree (B.Arch) is reco­gnized here as equi­va­lent to a Nor­we­gian archi­tec­ture edu­ca­tion. There are no lisen­cing tests in nor­way, but to build more com­pli­ca­ted struc­tures you have to have a cer­tain amount of docu­men­ted prac­tical experience.

In ger­many you have to be a mem­ber of the archi­tec­tu­ral cham­ber to call your­self an archi­tect. Is there any com­pa­ra­ble in your coun­try?
_jd: The rules have recently chan­ged in nor­way. The title „sivilar­ki­tekt” has pre­viously been pro­tec­ted, but they are doing away with it. I could apply to use the title, but don’t see any point in it. I am a mem­ber of the archi­tec­tu­ral asso­cia­tion which counts as accredi­ta­tion here as well.

What about the cur­rent mar­ket situa­tion in your place?
_jd: The mar­ket in nor­way is scary at the moment. There is very little activity in anything other than the public sector.

Are there any spe­cial archi­tec­tual con­di­ti­ons in Nor­way?
_jd: …

Thank you Mr Dodson.

B.Arch MNAL Jim Dod­son
Nor­way
http://www.variousarchitects.no

das inter­es­siert Dich auch:

Mag. Arch. Tho­mas Herzig