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Of Museums and Cemeteries

Slowly but surely, David Chipperfield has come to be seen as one of the world's most important architects. Born in London, where he is still based, Mr. Chipperfield, now 55 years, remains true to the language of classical architecture. This has set him apart from the wave of so-called "starchitects," like Zaha Hadid and Daniel Libeskind, who have tried to establish a completely new aesthetic. In being able to adapt a traditional language to a contemporary setting, Mr. Chipperfield has developed an increasingly refined ability to handle the most diverse array of projects, from the Anchorage Museum in Alaska's largest city, which opened this year, to the extension of Venice's island cemetery, San Michele, an ambitious decades-long project featuring the construction of an artificial island.

David Chipperfield at the newly-renovated Neues Museum. ENLARGE
David Chipperfield at the newly-renovated Neues Museum. Getty Images

Earlier this month, Mr. Chipperfield's renovation of Berlin's Neues Museum, left in ruins for decades after World War II, opened to great acclaim. Mr. Chipperfield decided to restore the 1850s building, designed by German architect Friedrich August Stüler and home to Prussia's noted Egyptian collections, by building around the remnants. Visitors can now see traces of the original building alongside evidence of war damage and post-war neglect. In addition to the Neues Museum, which Mr. Chipperfield began working on in the mid-1990s during an initial competition phase, the architect is also designing the master plan for Berlin's entire Museum Island, a Unesco World Heritage site, made up of five museums, including the Neues Museum. A new entrance building, which will act as an addition to the complex, has also been designed by Mr. Chipperfield and is expected to be completed in 2013.

Mr. Chipperfield is also a noted industrial designer. Other activities of his studio—which has offices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai—include the design of retail interiors, like those of Italian fashion designers, Dolce & Gabbana. "Form Matters," an exhibition looking back over the whole of Mr. Chipperfield's career, is currently on view at London's Design Museum. J. S. Marcus met Mr. Chipperfield at his Berlin office.

Q: You have been thinking about the Neues Museum in some way or other for a good portion of your professional life. How do you feel now that the museum is about to open?

Similar to a child leaving home—you put a lot into it, but it's got to have its own life.

Q: Your version reflects every stage of the building's existence, including its status as a post-war ruin. How did you decide what to keep and what to replace?

We preserved everything: that was the rule. The ruin survived 60 years, and it took on a particular quality—it's not Pompeii, but it had this physicality. It would have been very easy to restore the building to what it was, [but] that route would have involved destroying the real surfaces and replacing them with things very close to the original. [I felt] that was a boundary that we shouldn't step over. You wouldn't step over it in painting. You don't restore "The Last Supper" by filling in the missing bits—you preserve. You accept the material that has somehow survived.

Isola di San Michele in Venice ENLARGE
Isola di San Michele in Venice 2008 Getty Images

Q: The building has a strong redemptive effect on many visitors. Did you expect that response?

We were told the people of Berlin would not accept it—[that] it was somehow monumentalizing damage, monumentalizing the war. We didn't know we were going to be supported by normal people until after the [completed] building opened in March [2009]. It was extraordinary to see people queue for hours in the rain, or go on the floor and touch things. There did seem to be some sort of cathartic reaction that's beyond architecture—touching some response, not just admiration.

Q: You are sometimes described as a neoclassicist. Does that description sound accurate to you?

No, I don't think our work is neoclassical. [But] I do enjoy order. I think that architecture should be ordered—that [it] has to be readable.

Q: Order is a term we associate with Karl Friedrich Schinkel and August Stüler, the original architect of the Neues Museum, but also with Albert Speer and the Italian architects who flourished under Fascism. That association has proven prohibitive for many contemporary architects and architectural critics, but not for you. Why?

It's unfortunate that a certain type of stripped-down classicism became the in-house architectural language for 20th-century fascism. Can an architectural language recover from such an association? Yes, I think it can, because in the end what you're talking about is a column and beam. That's something that classical architecture played with, and that's our source. It's certainly been an advantage being an Englishman doing that in Germany. The [columned] literature museum in Marbach was very well received, but probably couldn't have been done at that time by a German architect.

Q: Your new show at London's Design Museum emphasizes your architecture rather than your industrial design. Does that reflect how you work? Or do the two share an equal place in your practice.

I do very little industrial design. I'm asked a lot, but I certainly don't see myself as an industrial designer. The thing is, I'm not like Jasper Morrison, [one of] these really serious people who have contributed a lot to design—I'm a dilettante. If I decide to design some bowls, and I can get Alessi to produce them, then I'll do it. It's nice of way of designing, [and] I have done three or four things that I'm perfectly happy to say are legitimate.

Q: One of your most compelling projects is your own vacation house on Spain's Galician coast. Did you conceive of it as a laboratory for design ideas or as a refuge?

It's a refuge, pure and simple. It's [also] a laboratory in the sense that it's pared down our living to its essentials. I am very happy in that house, because there is nothing superfluous. Even my cds are absolutely pared down—the drawer is only that big, and so if I get another one, something has to go. Everything in the house has been thought about. It's very relaxed, but it's considered.

Q: A few years ago, you helped to redesign the Dolce & Gabbana brand. What's it like to work with fashion designers?

I have always worked a bit with fashion people. I worked with Issey Miyake for a while, then Dolce & Gabbana; now we're working with Valentino. It's fine. The fashion world is a fairly weird world, but there are good people in it. It's weird because their timetables are unbearable. The show has to open by [a certain date], and they change their minds a lot.

Q: What is your favorite new building in Berlin?

From the outside, I would say Frank Gehry's DZ Bank building. I'm not so fascinated by the interior, but I think the façade is fantastic.

Q: What were the special challenges of your San Michele project?

We had to do an environmental impact study—one of the first ever done in Italy. The part of the island we're building now is made out of material that's been dredged out of the canals, [which] is highly toxic. And you can imagine the issues of burying bodies in an island. I don't want to get too technical, but there are fluids involved, and those fluids should never, ever seep into the lagoon. All these different issues are completely intertwined with the environmental issues of Venice—how the tide moves, how the currents work.

Q: Visitors often have a strong response to San Michele. What were your impressions the first time you visited?

From afar, it's a very romantic place. You can see walls that were built in the Napoleonic era, and over the walls you can see wonderful cypress trees. I felt that it was this very romantic island of death, [but] when I actually first went there, I saw there is a huge part, especially the more recent part, which is quite mechanical. There are these burial walls—lots and lots of parallel walls [built], I would have to say, in a nearly industrial manner. I was slightly shocked by that.

Q: Your style of architecture seems to rely on both classicism and modernism, which don't have a very conspicuous place in Venice. How does your approach fit into that larger context?

The purpose [of the project] is the organization of burial walls, and I turn that into a sort of spatial experience [by] making courtyards. When you walk into these courtyards, you find secret and secluded places. The outside of these volumes form small alleys—like in Venice. When we opened the first courtyard, a lot of people from Venice came. The overriding reaction was very positive; everyone commented [that] it seemed very familiar. There was anxiety at one point that this would be "modern" architecture, [but] because it has cloisters, courtyards, and alleys, it's a repertoire of Venice. Everyone wants to talk about architectural style, [but] I don't think the fundamental experience of Venice is only based on architectural style. It's also atmosphere.

Q: What about the pleasures? Has it been fun working in Venice?

Working in Italy is wonderful and terrible. It's a wonderful culture to work in, [but] the public system is terrible. So it's a nightmare and it's a dream.

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