Star architect Jürgen Mayer H. is best known for his Metropol
Parasol, a futuristic canopy that transformed Seville, Spain, putting
the city squarely on the contemporary architecture map. But regenerating
one town through a “statement” project was just a warm up. Mayer has
since played a key role in a national architectural revolution.
Championed by the former President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, his
quirky designs for a border checkpoint, airport, train station, highway
rest stops and much more have changed the face of this country. Mayer’s
newest project (the world’s tallest sculpture, no less) has just been
completed in Lazika on the Black Sea coast. High time, then, to sit down
with the German architect to discuss his Georgian portfolio.
How many projects have you completed in Georgia and how many did you prepare?
I think we made about thirty to forty designs, for all kinds of
projects; public, private, infrastructural, cultural, landscape and
urban planning schemes. I think we have twelve that are built now or
under construction.
Does this figure include your highway rest stops?
No. There are supposed to be twenty rest stops. We are now finishing the
third and hopefully the rest will be built within the next five years.
Why so much Georgia?
The initial project came through the government, who saw our project in
Seville – the Metropol Parasol – and thought it would be a good
reference for a new public space for social and cultural transformation
in Tbilisi. We made a couple of schemes but in the end our designs
weren’t realized. There were too many different interest groups
involved. But it was a starting point for a great exchange and
collaboration that properly began with our new border station at Sarpi
on the Black Sea coast. The government is quite visionary in the way it
sees architecture happening in infrastructures that are not usually
conceived as cultural projects – like a border checkpoint, a rest stop
or a small airport, for instance.
A lot of your buildings are for border zones or places of
transition; outward facing locations – railways, highways, airports etc.
How did you think about this function and approach related social
issues through your designs?
Agriculture is a big part of the Georgian economy and in the future
there will be strong development in the tourism sector – along the Black
Sea coast and in the mountain villages for skiing, hiking and so on.
Transit is also a very important business; from Azerbaijan to Turkey and
the Black Sea, and to Europe. So a new train station, a border
checkpoint or rest stops are likely to be the only architectures that
one encounters while passing through. These are the places were one has a
chance to get in touch with localities.
What’s interesting is that the government really saw these projects as
places to meet, as places to introduce local culture to people in
transit, and provide a social place for the community. In terms of the
latter, the rest stops have markets and even arts and craft rooms. At
Gori, for example, some couples have already asked to hold their wedding
festivities in the rest stop buildings. Some of them have been built in
areas where there is no highway yet – these kind of buildings are
bringing social infrastructure to parts of the country that can profit
from a new dynamic. In terms of the former, the Sarpi checkpoint is
unique because it has conference rooms and terraces overlooking the sea
and countryside. Turkish and Georgian people only need to bring their ID
cards to enter it and do business with one another. So it functions as a
meeting place instead of a site of separation between two nations.
These kind of initiatives communicate a new understanding of
neighbourhoods and adjacencies.
You’re talking about functionality. What about style? These are
places where one encounters a manifestation of what Georgia intends to
be, or what it is in this very contemporary moment. But whatever their
differences, the buildings obviously display your aesthetic signature.
Is there a single stylistic principle involved beyond Jürgen Mayer? In
what way do such projects address local conditions?
There is of course a very sculptural aspect in our work, and an idea
about the future – maybe a lost future that is recaptured or re-enacted
somehow. There are also metaphorical or programmatic ideas that trigger
aesthetic approaches. For example, the rest stops have a basis in the
idea of driftwood along the highway, and the border station near the sea
is composed of two waves – a line that becomes oscillated to create
spaces and pockets between overlaps. However, there is not only one
reading or idea in each project. Designing is a messy process. There are
a couple of associative and programmatic ideas behind such buildings
but, to a certain extent, how one composes something for a specific
location is an intuitive process.
The associations that you mention are natural features such as
wood and water. Perhaps mountains have inspired some of your other
buildings. But did you ever taken into account the built environment
and, more generally, Georgia’s historical architecture?
There’s actually nothing built around the rest stops and very little
historic architecture around the border station – just some houses in
the hills. So a new identity arrives with these constructions. Of
course there might be some metaphorical references but they’re also
anchored in the development of our work for the last fifteen years.
Sometimes we do want the context to be echoed. When we worked in Mestia –
in a very old village context – we looked into the characteristic
pitched roofs of the area and the historic stone towers. This research
informed the finished structure. At other times we really want to be
contra – pushing a certain estrangement factor that forces the viewer to
look again at what we’ve made and appropriate it for themselves. And
let’s not forget references to Georgia’s bold sculptural architecture of
the Soviet period in recent history.
In terms of the idiosyncratic inspirations for these buildings
and the ongoing interests that you have – what would you say your unique
concerns as an architect are?
Architecture usually comes with a positive idea about the future,
because you only invest if you expect to produce a positive change. In
Georgia and Seville there was the idea of a different dynamic, a
different meta-story that we wanted to tell. In Seville the new
structure was supposed to completely elevate the city. The project
became part of a contest with other Spanish and global metropolises to
attract tourism and stimulate the economy – demonstrating how they can
reinvent ideas about history and the future simultaneously. Georgia was
similar – we tried to use architecture as a catalyst to bring people
into public space, to celebrate it as a communal experience. This agenda
was complemented by our concern for pushing the limits of architecture
as a discipline – using virtual space and looking at new ways of
construction. The kind of forms that we developed required new
construction techniques, new details and new materials. We brought in
specialist engineers and companies who were also willing to become part
of this adventure of architecture, pushing the limits of what we know
how to do.
Apart from the professionals, these building are completely new
to the general public. Perhaps even shocking. How do you temper the
alien factor? Or is it important that your buildings are alien?
If you can successfully explain what the references are when you design
something then people are capable of understanding and, more often than
not, willing to learn and getting excited about the New. They can
embrace eye-opening moments about how a found condition can be
transformed into a state of the art contemporary interpretation. In
Seville, for example, there were huge trees in the neighbouring plazas
whose forms became references for our Metropol Parasol. The undulating
stone roof of the nearby cathedral was also a touchstone. But I do like
the idea of alienation, because it really throws one back into the
context in which familiar things become reassessed. You start with
something very precious but which also needs to be updated, and then you
begin a dialogue about now and then. This is something we can achieve
with our architecture. I don’t see our work as solutions to a site, our
buildings function more as questions – and if they open up dialogues
then I think we’re successful.
I’d like to tie that into something President Saakashvili has
said, quoting Winston Churchill – “We shape our buildings and thereafter
they shape us”. At least in terms of quantity, he has been your most
significant patron to date. Did you deal directly with him? How did your
relationship develop?
I saw him on most of my trips, even if it was only for a short talk. He
was the initiator of an extreme and fascinating change in the country –
one that has perhaps slowed down a bit now. We are one of the few
studios who have been part of this transformation and it was exciting to
see how public institutions can discover what the socio-cultural
potentials of architecture are. All these ideas about where architecture
can happen – infrastructure projects, commissions for cafes and
pavilions, projects facilitating the enjoyment of outdoor space and the
public sphere: I think these were his initiatives.
Were you ever advising him on what should happen next? Some have
complained that although there are many new buildings going up in
Tbilisi the majority are run down. The question as to whether Georgia
actually needs new buildings or just better care for existing ones is
being asked. Did you ever discuss such questions with him?
How the country as a whole should develop architecturally was never a
topic. The overall master plan was not part of our discourse – we were
just one piece of a larger project. Our interaction was quite
acupunctural – the ideas for where innovation could happen came from the
client. But the government did, in fact, take care of heritage sites
that were forgotten during the Soviet period – restoring important
mountain villages with cloisters and fortresses. At the same time, there
was strong interest in contemporary architecture. It was actually a
really broad attempt to push the architectural landscape of all styles,
on all programmatic levels. The variety that the government was creating
was quite impressive and I am all for variety and multiplicity.
There has been a recent change of leadership. How has this
affected your ongoing projects there? – Specifically, there is the
Akhalkalaki railway station. Is this still going ahead and have any
others stalled?
At this point we have four projects under construction. One of them is
the international train station. This one is difficult because it is in a
really remote area on a mountain plateau that takes nine hours to reach
by car. We mostly communicate through photos and drawings with the
local architects from Tbilisi who also rarely go there. We’re more
involved with a private house in Tbilisi, and even more so with our new
pier sculpture in Lazika on the Black Sea coast. Each project is a
little different but most of the time there is a remote way of
communicating with the local responsible partners.
But have any state projects been cancelled since the leadership change?
Not any of our projects, but I know that the idea to build a new
metropolis in Lazika for 500,000 people was cancelled by the new Prime
Minister. All the other projects are ongoing – the train station needs
to be completed because it is part of the economic background of Georgia
and the houses are also going on. I don’t know about the rest stops but
I think the highway project is also another important one that will
make the country a working organism. The ones that are under
construction are ongoing but I’m not expecting anything else to come.
Why is that?
A new government needs time to find out where a country is going to go.
And yet it’s reported that the new Prime Minister wants to build
a Guggenheim, which would suggest that a commitment to statement
architecture.
That’s news to me. Well, his house was built by Shin Takamatsu so he
does like contemporary architecture. This was perhaps the first
contemporary architecture piece in the country for a long time. But have
I also heard that a lot of the architecture projects of the last few
years are not so welcomed. I read that he is even talking about
destroying some of the newly built projects.
Rewinding to Lazika. I read that the city was supposed to be for
1.5 million but Georgia’s population is not growing. The sculpture has
just been completed – Does it matter to you personally if it crowns
Georgia’s newest city or if it just stands there on its own?
It has a special aura to it when you imagine that now it sits, lonely,
on the Black Sea coast – glowing at night. There is a kind of resort
town not far from it, just a couple of kilometers away. So it might be
part of the beach culture of that region. But imagine it sitting in
front of a big city like Barcelona in the middle of the Mediterranean
Sea... I would really like to sea it alive for the people.
What are you thoughts on “instant city” projects in general?
We don’t come from a culture where this is a big issue. We are coming
more from a context of modest growth, maybe managing a status quo and
sometimes even shrinking cities rather than overpopulation. The
challenge is really important, and it happens all over the world where
new homes have been initiated and promoted, and where big cities may
offer new chances to make your living. You can start building a lot of
innovative infrastructure when you start from scratch. For example,
driverless cars or a completely new electric power infrastructure. How
much that actually adds to an emotional anchoring of people to a site I
don’t know. It might take a couple of generations for it to happen. For
example, our very first project – the town hall in Ostfildern on a
former US military base outside of Stuttgart was a new anchor piece for a
new urban development of 30,000 people. The city knew that they needed
architecture to make it special, to make it worthwhile living there.
When you start from scratch you need to take care of that there is
something people can be proud of, something unique to the place. There
needs to be some special identification moments and I think our Lazika
pier was one of these first keystones to create a special place.
Looking at its design – there are striking similarities in its
feel to the Metropol Parasol. You mentioned that the parasol was
inspired by the nearby trees – so was there a unique formal rationale
behind producing that sculpture for the Lazika site?
When you have worked for a period of time you create a body of work, a
sort of creative primordial soup from which projects emerge. I wanted to
give Metropol Parasol a little offspring, so that it didn’t just stand
by itself – so it could become a kind of a set of projects. That’s why
this structure came about. We wanted to create a splash moment for
Lazika and it won’t be the last time that we use this grid-like
structure. This universal orthogonal grid is built inside an amorphous
invisible envelope and continues conceptually outside the materialized
form.
You were saying earlier that you were not the only foreign
architect to produce signature projects for Georgia. There are
Masimiliano Fuksas, Shin Takamatsu, UN Studio and others. I’d like to
quote something written by a critic: “there doesn’t seem to be a single
important building in Georgia designed by Georgians these days. On a
local scale the new buildings appear exotic, modern, parachuted, alien”.
Is this a problem?
I think it is a moment of transition. Part of what we are doing is
creating design concepts and then collaborating with local offices to
realize a contemporary architectural language, and to research how to
build it. It is part of a professional process – bringing different
expertise into the country, generating discourse. Before the recent
architecture boom in Georgia there wasn’t much interesting architecture
happening – now you have young offices cropping up. I think the
competition has forced them to wake up.
Did the briefs ever stipulate that you had to work with local offices?
You always need and want local collaborators. In our case the design
came from us and there was an ongoing exchange about how to make it
happen with the local partners.
In terms of the peculiarities of working within Georgia’s
contemporary situation – you must have to operate with a certain degree
of reactivity when dealing with what is thrown at you. But did you take
anything more fundamental away from your experiences?
It was a great testing ground. A lot of ideas that we couldn’t have
built in such a short period of time, or in general, were tested and we
could see what their potentials were. Some of the ideas we had for a
long time, and seeing them in real space was important. I’m not saying
it was building test models in one to one scale but it was a great way
of getting things done that will prepare us for many years to come. We
were lucky that it was made easy for us to participate in this
construction and remodeling of the country. It was a very special
situation and the complexities with how things were built were put aside
for the moment to make it happen in that very short period of time. It
was fantastic.
I read somewhere that you had to design the Mestia airport in a single night.
I was in Venice at the architecture biennale when I got the call to
design the airport. I think it was the 24th of August 2010. They said
they wanted a small airport designed by tomorrow. So we designed it the
next morning, it got approved the next day, delivered the construction
drawings in two weeks and it was built three months after that.
In the history of state commissioned airports that’s probably
the fastest ever. It must have been exhilarating to be involved in a
project like that. Is anything lost when working at this speed?
In Georgia there is still a lot of handmade work. When you do a curve
here in Germany the construction company says it costs such and such
more because of the curve. In Georgia nobody really cares how many
curves you have because they just have the manpower to do it, somehow,
and it’s part of the local construction business. I’m surprised how good
the quality of work was, even more so when you consider the time.
But what about the design process?
As I say, it doesn’t come from nothing. With us it comes from ten or
twelve years of design. So you have a certain body of work that you’re
already developing and it was just the right opportunity to make this
happen.
You spoke about your primordial soup of ideas. Now you have
realized so many ideas in Georgia, have any of your experiences there
fed into your European projects?
The experience of mobility and architecture with our rest stops in Gori
and Tbilisi, the border checkpoint in Sarpi and the airport in Mestia
gave us a great insight into issues that we were exploring with our Audi
Urban Future Award, and with the projects we are developing for
Autostadt in Wolfsburg which should open in May 2013.
Is there anything you’d like to say?
Go see the projects on site in Georgia – it’s a real treat.
