Dominique Perrault: more than just an architect

Trains and wind rush to the suburbs from BNF (Bibliothèque François Mitterrand). Clouds glide across the semi-gloss semi-transparent facade of Hotel industriel Jean Berlier - an office prism by Dominique Perrault. Below it, railway tracks, radials, underpasses and overpasses, bridges and intersections.
Entrance A, seventh floor, elevator, cars, trains, boats cross beneath us… we watch the hustle and bustle around.

Born to be an architect?

Dominique Perrault sports black attire, a two-day salt-and-pepper beard. We sit in a spacious room illuminated by the afternoon sun. "I started from nothing and I was nowhere," he suddenly explains. "I never wanted to be an architect. Now perhaps even less than before. Architects with this ambition rarely become architects. But those who do not desire it become something much greater. I wanted to be an artist," he says. In his youth, painting was his great passion.
"Art that springs from gesture, furious art: rags of waxed canvases." With a hint of irony and regret, he mentions that his parents wanted him to learn a trade. "Architecture is a profession whose study is long, it's rough, it's difficult - it doesn’t allow me to follow my painting passion."

On the other hand

We talk, Paris below us and the continuous movement. Perrault explains what aller au-delà means – to cross to the other side, to find. "Today architecture is really structural, reduced. Architects look at architecture. That's not for me. I'm interested in the environment, creating a new conception of nature, landscape. Artificial nature, of course with trees – trees as creations. The idea of landscape as a building, where we create streets, buildings, gardens, mountains… where people live."
Is Paris like that? Perrault bites his tongue. "Paris is a city for tourists. It has long ceased to be the most significant city in the world. Today there are much more interesting cities like Grenoble, Lyon, Nantes, and Lille, because they are undergoing fundamental transformations and developments. The future of France lies here, not in Paris."

Creation is a lengthy process

"The hardest part is finding the idea. It may take thirty years from that moment, but once you have the concept, the rest is easy. From that moment, another idea comes, another and another." I jump in and ask what his first idea was. He responds: "What was it? I don’t know," he bursts out laughing.
"I don’t know where I started and where I’m heading" The Russians say: "Nothing is possible, everything is possible. For an architect, nothing is possible, but in architecture everything is possible."

What is a project to you? "A project is a conceptual process - a position that evolves, influences, changes, and adapts. That is unique and extraordinary to me. The course of this process is influenced by politicians, economists, functions, experiences, and aesthetic understandings."

Perrault's works can be found in the largest cities. The Velodrome and Pool in Berlin are, as he says, his manifesto. "These buildings will remain as part of our history, capable of producing another dimension and new stories."

BNF

Perrault has undoubtedly left his mark in Paris. In 1989 he began working on the project of Bibliothèque National de France (BNF).
"Mitterrand (the president of France in the eighties), chose Perrault for his vision. He saw the transformation of society through architecture - in its history, where public buildings are a reflection of society and its sophistication. Personally, I see architecture more as the creation of an environment," says Perrault.
The Pyramid at the Louvre, the arch at Défense, the opera building at Place Bastille are archetypes derived from basic geometric forms. "The national library is the opposite – it is an abstraction. The place functions as a conceptual space, where the library creates a new environment, a space, just as the pyramid at the Louvre refers to our history."

24 hours

D.P.'s workday begins at dawn and ends after dark, although work on projects realized around the world practically never stops. "Every moment, day and night, my projects see the light of day," he says. "Incredible, this is modern society!" Currently, he is working on projects such as the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the Mariinsky II opera stage in St. Petersburg, the Olympic tennis center in Madrid, a university in North Korea.
"I haven’t built a museum yet; I have always been second in competitions."

European architecture

"There is". He adds emphatically. "Every country in the process of its development strives to build European architecture, to offer people dreams." What is European architecture like? "Conformist, municipal, small, and cozy - like me!" He bursts out laughing.
Night falls on Paris and I leave the fascinating world of the hustle and bustle around, a world where Dominique Perrault creates his new territories.

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From the waters of the Danube rise a pair of towers…
Fresh prisms…

Hungry, they nibble at the floor area, nibble at the space…
revealing their pink allures...
They laugh at the sun from heights of 200 and 140 meters…
Here! There! And here!...

I created the concept in the office of D.P.A.

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Translation and additional information: Jan Goebel
Source: www.cafebabel.com - Giulio Zucchini, Mariona Vivar, www.perraultarchitecte.com

Dominique Perrault Architecture Meta-Buildings
Architekturzentrum Wien
The exhibition will last until October 23, 2006
www.azw.at