"We have to grow up as an industry" says Reinier de Graaf

Reinier de Graaf wants architects to admit they have lost all credibility. But, the OMA partner tells Dezeen in this interview, his new book is not looking to pick a fight.

"Something is up with architecture, and it is not going away," De Graaf writes on the opening page of Architecture Against Architecture, published last week by Verso.

The book, whose subtitle declares itself "a manifesto", is De Graaf's attempt to confront the problems he sees as plaguing the profession.

"The worst possible reception would be indifference"

"This is emphatically a book I wrote for people to either really agree or really disagree with," he told Dezeen. "I think the worst possible reception of this book would be indifference."

It calls on readers to accept two premises: one, that architecture "has lost all credibility"; and two, that "it is high time that architects openly, in the face of the whole world, commit to a fresh start".

Across 14 chapters, De Graaf takes aim at everything from the dominance of famous, ageing individuals in architecture firms to the case for new buildings full stop.

"It's totally unradical, I'm sorry," he said. "But it might be a breath of fresh air."

Despite the punchiness of its opening, De Graaf insists he does not intend the book to provoke, but to start a conversation.

"I tend to speak my mind, pretty much in the hope that other people will start to speak their mind too," he said. "This is not a provocation, this is not a doctrine. I would say it's an invitation to candor."

"I'm not somebody that is necessarily out for a fight or a riot. I mean, I have, ultimately, a very, very consensual character; I'm Dutch."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given De Graaf's status as a partner in a prolific international architecture studio founded by a famous man now in his eighties, some of the early chatter around the book has accused its author of hypocrisy.

In one instance, a prominent architecture commentator took to social media to compare it to Jamie Oliver writing a critique of celebrity chefs.

But De Graaf, who says he anticipated such comments, is unbothered.

"I've worked more than 30 years as an architect, so you can safely assume that I have an incredibly thick skin," he said.

"As a non-chef, probably the only book I'd ever read about master chefs would be Jamie Oliver mounting a critique of celebrity chefs, precisely because the contradiction intrigues and precisely because I would trust him to know what he was talking about."

"This is an introspection," he continued. "It's a critical analysis of the present state. Of course, there is a critical analysis of OMA. Of course, that is a critical analysis, in part, of me."

"It is also written as a kind of contract for me, and maybe for the firm. But the book is about much more, I hope, than OMA."

At its core, Architecture Against Architecture is a call for the architecture profession to reframe its perception of itself as squarely a form of labour; De Graaf refers to the book as "a workers' manifesto".

"None of the suggestions is original, but the experiment was that if you name all the elephants in the room, might there be a chance that the elephants point in a specific direction?" he said.

"And then the idea came that the root cause of all of this denial in architecture is the refusal to recognise itself as work, as labour."

"We take ourselves a lot less serious than other firms"

Notably, chapter two calls for architecture to embrace unionisation – still a rarity in the profession, with Bernheimer Architecture in the US the only unionised firm.

But De Graaf says any suggestion he might set up a union at OMA is "ridiculous".

"An employer doesn't set up unions," he said. "An employer is, by definition, confronted with unions that are set up by the workers, who, on their own terms, formulate their demands, and then as an employer, you'll respond to that."

"Probably as an employee I might have been quite active in forming one, and as an employer I will be equally vocal in outlining the economic interests of the office and survival at large."

"When unions present themselves, I think you have to deal with it like an adult. You listen, you present your own arguments into a meaningful dialectic. As in any industry, you come to kind of reasonable terms."

By way of contrast, he is critical of the leadership's response to employees' (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts to unionise at Snøhetta's New York office and SHoP Architects, also in New York.

"What you cannot do, and that is what has happened in a number of places, I think, in New York and elsewhere, is say, 'Oh, but unions are not for architecture, you're not really a worker, you're a creative individual, unions are not for us, we're a happy, consensual family, we can solve this reasonably.'"

"I mean, that is the most patronising and feudal stance you could possibly take," he added.

"We have to stop using the fact that we are supposedly artists and that this is a vocation and blah, blah blah as an excuse not to simply confront the fact that we're an industry, and we have to grow up as an industry."

"The more you forgo the rights of your employees, the more also, as an employer, you're becoming involved in a race to the bottom where clients come to expect this. And it's a dead end, in my view."

Incidentally, De Graaf said he does not check his books with his six fellow OMA partners.

"I say what I think, you know, and I check the book with myself," he said. "I'm not an unknown quantity to my partners, and I'm quite convinced that there is very little I could do that would surprise them – and I'm also not out to surprise them."

"As a firm we take ourselves a hell of a lot less serious than other firms, so there are very open discussions, and I've never been afraid to speak my mind."

"There are no good and bad places"

Despite De Graaf's apologies for the manifesto's lack of radicalism, some elements of it might still prove controversial with readers.

In particular, the final chapter appears to offer a defence of working in Saudi Arabia – a major bone of contention for architecture, with many big-name studios including OMA engaged on the Neom giga-project despite criticisms from human-rights groups.

"[W]e as architects go where the work is and often that lands us well outside of our comfort zone," it reads.

"Saudi Arabia's radical transformation is an experiment, as is working there; both are conditioned and conditional – fun (and financially rewarding) while it lasts."

The argument in this chapter, De Graaf explains, is that it is not possible for architects in today's world to discern the relative morality of working for different clients.

"We tend to go back and forth and define our morality on who we will and will not work with, where we will and will not work, and I think that the world, the way it's developing, makes that impossible," he said.

"If we presumed a world where there were certain good countries and certain bad countries, that world is disappearing in front of our eyes," he added.

"When there are no good and bad places, when there is no real moral patrons, morality steps purely from what you do and how you do it."

In that vein, he argues that working with Mohammed Bin Salman, or Vladimir Putin, or Donald Trump is acceptable "if you set your own terms, if you are willing to bite the hand that feeds you".

"Our strength lies in a certain amount of solidarity that might allow us to dictate the terms that we can do good buildings for people, wherever we work, despite the quality of the leaders," he said.

"Working in Saudi Arabia – it depends what you do there, and I wouldn't say categorically embrace every project."

"Maybe assess the projects that come your way, rather than the origin per se. Look at what the chances are to do your work with a reasonable degree of pride and benevolence."

For OMA, he adds, this has "always been our intention", though he concedes "we have been doing it with very mixed degrees of success, clearly".

"It's always an educated guess, you know, and this guess might be proven right, and it might be proven wrong," he added. "Like any architect's oeuvre, our work is a mix of good and some less good."

"There's a lot of cackling in architecture"

At 61 years old, De Graaf does not have much time left to enact the principles of Architecture Against Architecture, which explicitly prescribes retirement at 67 – though he jokes that he might start lying about his age.

De Graaf reserves the right to change his mind about arguments made in the book at a later date – and even now, he is more bullish about some of the critiques mounted in the book than others.

For example, despite calling out the Pritzker Architecture Prize's role in perpetuating what he sees as an unhealthy obsession with individuals in chapter one, he said he would not judge a fellow architect for accepting the award.

"I hate patronising tendencies," he said. "I'm sure they'd be well capable of taking their own decision, and I would respect that decision one way or another."

The overall hope in writing the book, he claims, is to trigger a discussion across the architecture profession that leads to greater solidarity.

"I love architecture, and this book is primarily maybe an attempt also to save architecture from itself, or from its own silence," he said.

"There's a lot of cackling in architecture. At the same time, there is a deafening silence, in my view, on the issues that do matter, and on the state we're in."

Dezeen In Depth

If you enjoy reading Dezeen's interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.

The post "We have to grow up as an industry" says Reinier de Graaf appeared first on Dezeen.