Jean Nouvel on design & architecture

Just found this while browsing through a recently acquired (like, this evening!) collection of old AXIS magazines, dating back to 1992, from a neighbor moving out and getting rid of stuff. AXIS is a fabulous Japanese magazine of design, art, architecture, featuring heavy paper stock and gorgeous photography, as well as deep interviews. Below are some quotes from an interview with Jean Nouvel, the French architect/urban planner:

Design is a question of essence; and at the same time it is also a question of exigency.

Architecture too is one of those cultural witnesses that give expression to the structures of feeling of its time. But in the case of architecture, there is a certain eternal quality of buildings as such. It is not possible to erect meaningless things. There is nothing wrong with objects created for a particular place, for someone’s collection. However, architecture must be equipped with ‘qualities’.

When I design architecture, I imagine where people will go once they have entered the building and what their pathways through the building will be like. The continuity of scenes that people pass through in a building is like the sequence of scenes in a movie, and that’s how I think about architecture. It’s all like framing in the movies.

Good inspiration for designing digital interactions!

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