Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An architect who won the Stirling Prize, known for designing department stores, mosques, and contemporary additions to Lord's Cricket Ground and the V&A Museum.
On the island
Eight records
Tous les garçons et les filles
My first disc really takes me back to my adolescence. I was a very heady, romantic adolescent, and I wanted to be French. I smoked Displeus [Gitanes], I listened to French music, and I read a lot of French literature.
Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 (Aria)
So this is a piece of music that takes me back to my childhood growing up in Richmond, a fairly bohemian existence, a little bit chaotic at times. And this is a piece of music that my mother used to play a lot. Hauntingly beautiful, and it made me feel very grown up listening to it.
Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine
This piece of music is all about liberation, exuberance and independence. I used to listen to this in my room. I would dance in front of a mirror. I would dance at it at parties. I still dance to it at parties. It's a wonderful, wonderful piece.
This track is for my former husband, Jan. Jan's best friend from Prague trained as an architect and became a rather famous pop star in Czechoslovakia, as it was then. And this is a piece of music that we would listen to. It's a cover version of Bruce Springsteen sung by Jan's best friend. It's called My Hometown, Mojerudni Doom. But despite Jan having lived in London for 40 years, his real home was Prague.
Oh, my next piece is really about fun. I chose this for Josef, who is my son with Jan. And we used to dance to it after breakfast and before school. I think he would have been aged five. And I think, you know, when you work very hard and you're not always there at school gates, you have to seize your moments.
This is a piece that reminds me of being in the office working late and it also reminds me of how supportive my office were then and how they continue to be. I've always been terrified of flying. I've turned down work in the past because it involved too much travelling. And I was asked to do a project in Venice and it was something I really wanted to do. And my office bought me a Walkman and thought that it would help me to listen to my favourite piece of music at the time. And this was the piece of music that we would listen to in the office when we were working on a competition.
This piece of music is really about when I met Ben, the first night that I stayed over. I slept in untypically late. I was in an unfamiliar house and I went down the stairs and I heard this piece of music playing and I smelt breakfast being cooked and I thought… And I thought, I think I've finally met the person who will look after me.
Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, BWV 1007: I. PréludeFavourite
My final piece is a piece of music that my mother bought for me shortly after Josef was born, and it's just a piece of music that I find so complex and hauntingly beautiful.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:38How do you think [the V&A project] has enriched and changed you this time?
Well, this has probably been one of the most exhilarating projects I've ever worked on. To work with an institution like the VNA, where you are working with curators and keepers who know more about their subject than anyone else in the world, is an extraordinary privilege. And there is a slow pace to the museum that I initially felt very frustrated by, but I grew to love and to savour it because for every move you make, there was forensic questioning as to whether this was the right thing to do. And it's challenging and it forces you to state the case in a much clearer and more argued way.
Presenter asks
3:46I've read that everyone who comes to your architectural practice is encouraged to take their shoes off. I'm wondering where you stand on the practicality of spaces.
Well, I I don't wear shoes at home. It makes for a more informal atmosphere. It's a great leveller. It strips away a layer. And you know, when you come into our office and there's this big messy pile of shoes, it it speaks of the individuals in the office, but it also speaks of a sense of common endeavour and collaboration. And that goes to the very heart of the way that we work.
Presenter asks
5:35The keepsakes
The book
André Malraux
I'm going to take Andre Mulro's Museum Without Walls. It kind of anticipated this digital age that we live in without borders. And I kind of want to plot my next move while I'm on the desert island.
The luxury
a lifetime supply of freshly laundered linen napkins
I'd like a lifetime supply of freshly laundered linen napkins. At every meal I use napkins and it will help me feel composed. I will catch my fish, I will make a fire, I'll barbecue the fish, and I'll lay it out nicely with the napkin and look out towards the sea.
What role do you think civic spaces have in culture right now?
I think there has never been a more important time to create outdoor public spaces, probably more important than buildings, because it's those spaces where relationships are formed, where ideas are exchanged, and that leads to progress. So whenever we are designing a building, when we're given a brief, we will try and take it beyond the confines of the building, creating spaces that belong to the public. So with the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology in Lisbon, which opened in October of last year. Extraordinary sight on the waterfront facing south. Absolutely wonderful. The roof is a destination in Lisbon. It is a place that people have assignations. It's a place that joggers run over and under. The success, I think, of the Museum in Lisbon for me will be measured as much by the way in which people appropriate the spaces, outdoor spaces that we have created.
Presenter asks
13:39The day that you stripped off and lay down to sunbathe on the roof of the Science Block – well, tell me a bit about that. I mean, what actually happened?
You know, I was I was a bit of a rebel. It was a very academic school, and I didn't want to go to Oxford and Cambridge. And I think quite early on, the teachers probably gave up on me, and maybe I gave up on them. And I, you know, did what I wanted to do. And it was a beautiful sunny day, and it was before we knew that sun was bad for you, and I wanted a suntan all over without marks. And I didn't like biology lessons, so I thought I'd stay on the sands block roof. And the chances of being caught were pretty high. And I was just asked, What do you think you're doing?
Presenter asks
18:11What were your initial impressions of [Jan Kaplický] when you met him?
Jan was a an immensely tall, very handsome man who had a a cult following as an architect. He'd built very little, an extraordinary talent. He became a great friend, but I thought, you know, th this is somebody extraordinary. I I always found people who have left their country particularly interesting because it takes such courage, it takes such commitment to do that. Then we went to Prague. He was going to Prague and I thought I'd always wanted to go there. And at that time that there was a freeson, there was something happening. And then when we arrived in Prague, he took us to the house that he had been born in and that he'd lived in until he was thirty when he left in'sixty eight. And he stood by a tree that had been planted on the day that he was born, a very beautiful weeping Japanese maple. And that was the moment I fell in love with him.
Presenter asks
29:00You have said in the past that after setting up your own practice you experienced a fair degree of misogyny. What form did it take?
What I expected after Jan's death was that the the press would be very antagonistic towards me. You know Jan was such a revered and loved figure and and I wasn't in that way. But it is the only time that I have felt that. So I felt a great need to prove myself and to prove that I wouldn't fail.
“It is an extraordinary sensation. Having designed a building, having developed the drawings… Sometimes I am experiencing the building through the lens of the visual, but I think what you can never get from a drawing is that feeling of being uplifted, of being exhilarated, that feeling of light and volume that changes your mood, that lifts you.”
“I think there has never been a more important time to create outdoor public spaces, probably more important than buildings, because it's those spaces where relationships are formed, where ideas are exchanged, and that leads to progress.”
“He stood by a tree that had been planted on the day that he was born, a very beautiful weeping Japanese maple. And that was the moment I fell in love with him.”
“And that is a regret that I will have for the rest of my life.”
“And I thought, I think I've finally met the person who will look after me.”