Video Interview with Elizabeth Diller
"We were always critiquing; we were always throwing grenades at things."
Interview between Vladimir Belogolovsky and Elizabeth Diller about
Diller Scofidio + Renfro's new monograph, "Architecture, Not Architecture."
February 14, 2025
Content:
00:00 Highlight clips
01:55 Saying hello
02:10 Congrats on completing "Architecture, Not Architecture"
03:00 The book reconsiders the limits of architecture.
03:10 On the book's structure
03:23 "For so many years, we've decided not to do a monograph."
03:36 We do individual book projects - on the High Line, Lincoln Center, the Blur, etc.
04:25 There was a pragmatic reason to bring together some of the studio's work.
04:55 How could we make our book, unlike other conventional monographs?
05:20 We said, "If we are going to do it, we will do it on our terms."
05:25 We turned our book into a project itself.
06:15 On mockups for the book's ideas and how to shape it.
06:40 We don't make any distinctions between architecture and not architecture.
07:45 "It doesn't mean it's not architecture, really. It's all architecture."
08:15 The two volumes should not be two separate volumes. They should be conjoint.
08:28 You can open two books at the same time.
10:10 How other famous two architects organized their monographs.
10:40 How do you put together a body of work so the reader can digest it?
11:50 On selecting projects in the book
12:24 It was hard to resist the temptation to make the book a thousand pages.
13:20 On the book's design
13:30 Persistent refusal to play by the rules.
14:07 We said to Phaidon, "Not a normal monograph. We cannot do that."
14:20 Mentions and shows an earlier book, "The Look."
15:28 On collaborating with designers 2x4
15:40 On modeling the initial book on Yello Pages
16:29 "We want to oversee every detail."
17:03 "We decided no one would write on our work to validate it."
17:25 On inserting old and new dialogues
18:20 The book took two years to complete.
18:50 On the book's dialogue with the studio's work
19:25 "There is a kind of binary play in all of our work. Some of it is a false binary."
20:10 "Some of our projects are in conversations with themselves."
20:58 Listing some of the previous quotes and parts of quotes
22:05 On the audience and engaging with it
23:15 "We were interested in evolving into a new kind of practice."
23:28 "We were interested in rethinking conventions."
24:55 "We made a definitive decision not to be paper architects."
25:15 "We were interested in disturbing people and changing their behavior."
25:29 "The project that changed everything was the Blur Building."
26:36 "We didn't realize we were making a spectacle."
29:32 "Our work changed scale."
30:43 On the challenges of making the Blur Building
33:30 On consulting Fujiko Nakaya (Osaka EXPO, 1970)
38:11 "The water had to go through serious filtration."
40:40 On the book's multiple tables of content
41:05 Listing some of the obsessions
43:37 "Honestly, I didn't know we had an obsession with water."
44:17 "We think of making architecture with very little."
45:00 On pH Project in 2008 and Canal Cafe in 2025, both in Venice.
47:50 Will you sell espresso in Venice?
50:15 On the High Line, the city's conscience.
56:05 "You see something that's boring and banal but in very fresh ways."
57:07 On the Slow House
57:40 On paving and planting of the High Line
58:03 "There were weeds there. It was weeds that turned us on."
58:30 On sketching and sketch models
1:01:11 "There is a lot of interesting thinking in the sketching."
1:01:19 On the Shed, Cedric Price, Fun Palace, and his Hudson Yards project.
1:04:19 On winning MacArthur "Genius" Grants
1:07:24 "I was the only one who chose Cedric Price."
1:08:00 On Related building the platform over the Hudson Yards
1:08:35 On extending the Shed to the east and west, tripling its footprint.
1:11:00 On designing 15 Hudson Yards, "a good neighbor to the Shed."
1:15:08 On buildings in New York going into each other's spaces
1:15:35 On MoMA expansion into Jean Nouvel's tower 53 West 53rd St.
1:17:52 On working in cities and standing up to complex forces
1:18:30 Designing Lincoln Center
1:21:53 "We were always critiquing. We were always throwing grenades at things."
1:22:14 "Critical process could also be generative and produce new solutions."
1:22:54 Anything you learned from the process of making this book?
1:23:24 "It was therapeutic! It was eye-opening to go to the very beginning, 1981."
1:23:47 On Traffic on Columbus Circle
1:24:00 "There is no project in this book that I feel embarrassed about."
1:24:50 "We believe in everything we did before and it represents us today."
1:25:07 End
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