Interviews
Published in DASH #07 - The Eco House
Price: € 19,50
Buy now!

Luxury Architecture: Simplicity and Wealth

Interview with Jean-Philippe Vassal, partner Lacaton & Vassal

It’s fair to say the architecture of the French architect duo Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal is striking. Striking not because it relies on grand gestures, but in fact striking in its simplicity. Their approach to form and material is equally remarkable. In the work of Lacaton & Vassal, form and material are not allusions to deeper meanings, but the result of a clear balancing of cost against performance. A superficial interpretation would be that the architecture of Lacaton & Vassal is cheap architecture. In reality the architects are after the opposite. They argue their goal is an architecture with extra possibilities for use – extra potential, as they phrase it. But what constitutes this ‘extra’ in this seemingly so simple architecture…?