INTERVIEW WITH SIR DAVID CHIPPERFIELD: PORT magazine issue 24

In January 2019, I interviewed Sir David Chipperfield for PORT magazine issue no. 24 (published in April 2019) on about Berlin, Brexit and limits (and much else in between):

But he does concede that in 2019 there are some limits that cannot be ignored – not by architects or anyone else: “The issues that we’re going to have to deal with more and more, like climate change, mean that we are going to have to accept more regulation.” This attitude runs counter to the image-driven PR machine that drives high-level contemporary architecture and is ever hungry for the kinds of gravity-defying works that can be organised into listicles and awarded end of year rosettes. “Technically, we can do anything now; we can make a building stand upside down on its head – but why? The limits are now more intellectual than technical. A century ago, architecture was always trying to push the limits. Today we can go as tall as we want, as thin as we want, as glassy as we want. Now the question is why would you? Limit is not just about the fact that you can’t push further somewhere, it’s the idea that you’ve decided that you shouldn’t push somewhere,” he says, adding after a pause “I’m very suspicious of design for its own sake.”