The importance of dialogue; Meinhard von Gerkan discusses his architectural philosophy with Xu Xiaofei of Tsinghua University, Beijing

Architectural Review, The, July, 2008

Q: What were your first steps as an architect like? How did you initially come into contact with architecture?

A: In 1965, the first year of our practice, during which we hardly made any money, we won 10 first prizes, some of them in international competitions. The largest of these was Berlin-Tegel Airport, and shortly after winning, we were given the contract to realise the building, although at that point we had not even built a single garage. Within a few years our practice had grown to more than 100 employees. We opened a branch office for the Berlin Airport and achieved continued success in the intellectual competition process with our colleagues in Germany, Europe and the big, wide world.

Q. Is there a personal style, a personal 'label' in your designs? For instance, do you favour a single material over others?

A. If style is understood as purely formal, aesthetic etiquette, as the permanent reuse of identical formal elements, and a label is regarded as the publicity value of a recurring symbol, then we don't have any style or label. But we have a definite architectural position, which could be referred to as architectural philosophy. Let me describe it for you.

Simplicity

Our aim is to design things as simply as possible, so that they have content and durability. Formal modesty and material unity is based on this assumption, because we believe that obviousness is a categorical imperative. We wish to design a building simply, naturally and logically, to create space and enclosure for the variety of human existence as permanently as possible, with low maintenance. By questioning our own work and adopting a critical distance to topical architectural phenomena, we try to avoid consciously over-expressive forms, which tend to be derived from artistic whimsy, without a considered relationship to nature, construction and the process of aging.

Unity and variety

Successful urban design requires a carefully calculated unity of the whole and a balanced variety of individual elements. An excess of unity results in uniformity or boring monotony. An excess of variety tends towards chaos. The fine tuning between variety and unity, from which most European cities such as Barcelona, Turin, Lyons and also metropolitan Paris, London and Madrid are still derived, requires agreement and restraint from the architect. Every building, even if it is the size of a congress centre, railway station or large office complex, remains an individual piece in the overall composition of an urban unit. If our cities are not to be degraded into a primitive battlefield, ruled by the blare of commercial interests or individual egos, a certain level of unity and rigour is required to control building form, height and use of materials. A prescribed degree of unity is always preferable to the credo of an uninhibited despotic individuality. The renunsiation of architectural fireworks is all too easily defamed as an incapability or a willingness for easy adaptability, because the press always has to announce something new. However, to us, architecture remains an art of social application, serving the environment of mankind, rather than being a hunting ground for press and photographers. This traditionalism is not a question of style, but a question of the analogy between the meaning of our environment and its design. Thus the well-designed ordinary is always preferable to the averagely-designed exception.

Continuity

In an age in which not just the press, but also juries are hungry for sensation, the unfashionable notion of continuity is not exactly a strategy for success. Much more than other arts, which enjoy more creative freedom because they are not burdened with social obligations, architecture (which is subject to oa whole host of obligations) always has to show that it has a relationship to purpose. As long and as far as the design of building -s the main task of the architect - follows this elementary rule, innovation is the scientific or artistic input which we architects owe to society. The extremely short life of ever newer developments and architectural fashions is be justified by a heuristic (rule-of-thumb) analysis, or if they turn out to be different just for the sake of it. We try not be irritated by the apparitions of the Zeligeist, tempting though some side steps might appear to be. The continuity of our own basic position is founded on the conviction, that, in case of doubt, the simplest solution is always the best solution. This is why we try to reduce every design task down to a few basics.

Innovation and change

The most fascinating aspect of design is discovery. This involves the production of specific answers to specific problems and the development of concepts which satisfy criteria of use, site conditions, conditions of material and structure and, not least, durabili. The challenge is to blend these components into a built agglomerate. The respect for the whole and the context is always very important. For us, the kind of innovation which wants to change architecture only from an aesthetic, sculptural or surface viewpoint, is not a part of our philosophy. For us, in the search for the new, a sense of purpose is essential. To quote my partner Volkwin Marg: 'If innovation has as its aim a wheel for a wagon or a sail for a ship, then it possesses a true justification. Innovation just for the sake of sensation leads to an inventor's exhibitionism, instrumentalising the sensational lust of self-display.'