I spent more than ten years working on the Neues Museum. It was a wonderful experience, an example of real collaboration between architects, conservationists, curators, client, politicians, the media, and the public. Discussions, even when difficult, were always about ideas. Ideas matter to Germans. They're a reflective people. That's attractive.

David Chipperfield

Categorized in : Museums Real Media

The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it.

David Chipperfield

good-and-bad architecture differences

There is a danger when every building has to look spectacular; to look like it is changing the world. I don't care how a building looks if it means something, not to architects, but to the people who use it.

David Chipperfield

bad-ass badass mean

I think that the point of being an architect is to help raise the experience of everyday living, even a little. Putting a window where people would really like one. Making sure a shaving mirror in a hotel bathroom is at the right angle. Making bureaucratic buildings that are somehow cheerful.

David Chipperfield

mirrors people thinking

A building is no good if someone's got to explain to you why it's good. You can't say you don't know enough about architecture - that's ridiculous. It's got to work on many levels.

David Chipperfield

ridiculous architecture levels

We see buildings in Britain mostly as freestanding objects. They are not meant to have a dialogue with anything around them, or with history, or with ideas of any kind beyond the self-referential. What we call 'regeneration' is largely an excuse for building for maximum profit with a bit of sculptural design thrown in to catch the eye of the media.

David Chipperfield

media eye self

I suppose I'm trying to build an architecture that's as timeless as possible, although we're all creatures of our age.

David Chipperfield

architecture age trying

I may not be the most interesting architect, but I'm still out there and have maintained some position of integrity.

David Chipperfield

may integrity interesting

Often architects work too hard trying to make their buildings look different. It’s like we’re actors let loose on a stage, all speaking our parts at the same time in our own private languages without an audience.

David Chipperfield

different trying looks

Seeing architecture differently from the way you see the rest of life is a bit weird. I believe one should be consistent in all that one does, from the books you read to the way you bring up your children. Everything you do is connected.

David Chipperfield

believe book children

I don't think architecture is radical. How can something that takes years and costs millions be radical?

David Chipperfield

cost years thinking

You don't restore 'The Last Supper' by filling in the missing bits - you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived.

David Chipperfield

filling-in lasts missing

Most architects work in studios largely divorced from academia, as if ideas, criticism and historical research were irrelevant.

David Chipperfield

historical criticism ideas

Britain gets the architecture it deserves. We don’t value architecture, we don’t take it seriously, we don’t want to pay for it and the architect isn’t trusted.

David Chipperfield

architecture want pay

It is difficult to separate oneself from one's design moralities.

David Chipperfield

difficult morality design

It used to be presumed that if you weren't at your desk working, you weren't working. But we said, why can't we make a workplace where casual meetings are as important as working at your desk? Sometimes that's where your better creative work happens.

David Chipperfield

workplace important creative

Architecture has curled up in a ball and it's about itself. It has found itself either as a freakshow, where you're not sure if it's good or bad but at least it's interesting, or at the behest of forces of commerce.

David Chipperfield

balls architecture interesting

Britain loves a bargain, but you don't get good, lasting architecture on the cheap.

David Chipperfield

britain lasting architecture

I do very little industrial design. I'm asked a lot, but I certainly don't see myself as an industrial designer.

David Chipperfield

designer design littles

In Britain, we've tended to replace the kind of architectural culture valued in much of Europe with an in-flight magazine lifestyle - all branding, marketing and 'accessibility', a word that usually means dumbing-down.

David Chipperfield

marketing europe mean

I'm suspicious of the idea of architects acting like business executives, brand managers, or purveyors of luxury goods.

David Chipperfield

luxury acting ideas