Interpreting Architecture: A Presentation and Roundtable Discussion By Six Prominent Architects

As people filed into the First Floor Annex of the Sackler Building last Friday, many attendees ended up sitting cross-legged on the floor alongside the already-filled rows of seats. The crowds were there to hear six famous architects — Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of Office MOS, Kersten Geers of Office KGDVS, Éric Lapierre from ÉLEX, and Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of Johnston Marklee — and a discussion on the works that influenced their lives. Throughout the conversation, the architects touched on topics ranging from European modernity, to the concept of form, to generational divides among architects.

The conversation took place as the fifth installment of Five on Five, a lunch talk series presenting architects of contrasting backgrounds and experiences to speak on projects that have been relevant to their career.

“I’ve been to previous ones [lectures], and they’ve all been really interesting discussions," Paul Wood, a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, said. “Particularly this one, there were some pretty famous architects that we hear talked about a lot. We cite their projects and stuff, so it's exciting to be at a table with all of them thinking together.”

Against a backdrop of buildings and blueprints projected onto a screen behind them, the table of six engaged in a back-and-forth mixed with commentary on architectural projects, both personal and not.

Early on, Lapierre spoke on the Eames House, a monument of mid-20th century modern architecture, designed, built, and inhabited by Charles and Ray Eames. Lapierre contrasted this work with traditionally modernist European works, highlighting its lightness and unimposing nature.

“It shows the ways in which architecture, which used to be so heavy, turned cool,” Lapierre said.

Johnston and Marklee then provided their commentary on the Radio Television Suisse (RTS) by Office KGDVS, a project of which Geers is a founder. Johnston said the RTS media complex is unique in its spatial invention — the ability for the complex to have diverse spaces for a variety of functions.

“In a way, it kind of approximates a kind of big city within the footprint of one building,” Johnston said.

Geers agreed that such elements of separation and sectioning were drivers for Office KGDVS’s particular design, expressing interest in their connection.

“There’s this moment where structure and space and exterior and interior and the box and the negotiation of the box, so how the box fits on the side and how it doesn’t fit on the side, meet — all these themes somehow come together,” Geers said.

The panelists also discussed the varied meanings of form. Geers conceptualizes form through box-like structures in his RTS. To Geers, the box is a marker of a object-territory dichotomy, which serves to enhance the meaning of the box-like form through reference to what it is not.

Johnston commented on the appeal of a kind of form signified by the very lack of form.

“There’s a way of making form without being formalist,” she said.

Meredith said he appreciated this distinction between form and formalism, as many of Office MOS’s works center around a lack of imposing form and openness.

“It’s like cool form, as opposed to hot form. You’re not trying to resolve it all into a synthetic whole, but you’re kind of just allowing all the piece to express itself as a collection of parts — not as a gesture but as an assemblage,” he said.

The event took on a host of issues within the field of architecture and GSD students Proey Liao and Adrien Wong said they felt it was engaging.

“Seeing the professors and of backgrounds that meet here and talk about architecture in an informal way is pretty interesting,” Wong said.

Liao highlighted the exciting chaos of the discussion. “What most resonated with me was the terminology — the way words are thrown around, reinterpreted, misinterpreted, discussed,” Liao said.