A Conversation with Marina Tabassum
David Chipperfield
Text published in El Croquis 222 David Chipperfield 2015 2023
David Chipperfield: Marina, your work has left a lasting impression on me since I first became familiar with it through the Aga Khan Award for Architecture and, more recently, in November 2022, through your acceptance speech for the Soane Medal: you charmed everyone with your autobiographical story and the quality of your work. It also reinforced my belief that the reason why you and your work have increasing resonance &mdashbeyond your immediate context in Bangladesh&mdash is that Western architectural practice is starting to feel uncomfortable in the position it has slowly assumed over the last 30 to 40 years. The awareness that we have contributed in a very negative way to environmental degradation and social inequality is waking us up from our slumber. We may deny this on an individual level, but we can't maintain that profile any longer. We may claim to be restricted or helpless within the current scope of the profession – but we have carved out a role for ourselves so far down the food chain, a role that is disconnected from the critical decisions and policy that shape our environments. We must find the courage to take back some more of this responsibility.
Marina, you grew up with a sense of the social injustice around you and an understanding of your privilege. In part, that awareness was instilled in you through witnessing your father's work serving the community as a medical doctor, and it still seems to be at the root of your architectural practice and discourse.
Marina Tabassum: Thank you, David. The role I assumed didn't happen in a day. While I was educated in Bangladesh, I am the product of a Western education and a Western curriculum, and my way of practice was modeled by a Western way of thinking. But from the beginning it just didn't seem right, especially when many of the people I work with here in Bangladesh to create buildings do not understand drawings and would require dictating what to do. These conditions made it very apparent that the knowledge of craftsmen, artisans, masons is too often ignored if they are just used as tools rather than bringing them into the conversation. So, I felt that the top-down approach is not right for Bangladesh, and we needed to reinvent our practice. There are so many people here with so much knowledge based on different skills and by engaging these people in the full conversation and working closely with them at a local level, rather than going to a contractor, you can also generate an economy around a project. And from this you are also getting a new way of practise. So that's what we've always been trying to focus on.
There are two very interesting parts to this story that can have a profound impact on the profession. One is theoretical, and it deals with the influence of curriculum and training for architects. Clearly, in the past, this was predominantly Western-focused, but the rise of architects practicing in non-Western contexts will question the relevance of this approach and hopefully have an impact on contemporary architecture training, especially within your own region&mdash but I would argue that this should be the case internationally too. The other part of the story is practical, and it considers the influence of being closely connected to what happens on the ground, which is becoming increasingly important in global practice. Whereas before we were product-focused &mdashit didn't matter how we got the end result as long as it made the cover of a magazine&mdash now we are much more interested in process, with respect to the substance and the supply chain (in economic and ethical terms) and regarding the social impact on the people involved in the making and occupation of buildings. As an architect, I understand your concerns about reinventing practice, not only as a matter of logistics but as part of a wider aspiration to work on a site where the making and conceiving of something is more dynamic. Western practice, with is legalities and contractual systems, tends to keep the various players separate, and that is a loss for everyone.
How do you see the evolution of that participation going forward, as you move into a bigger scale. Is it a scalable process?
I think it is possible to expand this approach, but you need to have planning. But going back to education: when I was training to be an architect, we never built a wall with our own hands, so we didn't understand the effort involved in transforming a line we draw on a plan into a wall. How is it done? What mortar is used? There are so many things that those on site can contribute to the outcome. In the studio we do the research, design, conceptualisation, master planning for a project; but when it goes on site the design is not intended to be a comprehensive set of orders. Instead, we leave some space for dialogue with the construction and the construction process. This gives people the sense of their contribution to the process, it gives them a certain authority and influence, and it recognises their knowledge and experience as a value. I encourage my architects to be on site, so they gain a better understanding of the construction process and skills, and so they become more conversant with those working on site.
In conventional practice, this is the opposite of what happens. Leaving space in a contractual project, particularly in a more commercial environment, would not always lead to positive results &mdashthe contractor would exploit that space, so it is a less benign experience. Architects struggle to be allowed on site, lest they should interfere with the process and impact the time and cost of a project. However, our experience working on historic buildings, such as the Neues Museum and Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin or the Procuratie Vecchie in Venice, has given us an opportunity to enjoy that more dynamic process you mention. In restoration, you can't predefine everything and it is openly accepted that restoration requires space, so there is always a dialogue on site and that's why I enjoy it so much &mdashin good projects, where that's set up properly, you are also engaging the intelligence of those who are working on site. There is an atmosphere of trust and a sense of common ground around a mission for a historic building, whereas a commercial environment is much more confrontational, and there is often a lack of trust and collaboration &mdashand it takes hard work to overcome that.
That needs to change! How do we expect anything to change if it remains solely driven by profit and lawsuits? Nowadays you hear about 3D printing buildings; but implementing that new technique risks making so many skilled workers redundant. So, where do we draw the line? We need to confront the issue of profits and purpose.