Rafael Viñoly has designed everything from iconic residential skyscrapers, like Manhattan’s 432 Park Avenue, cultural institutions like New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, and 20 Fenchurch Street, the "Walkie Talkie" building in London—a commercial skyscraper with the city’s highest public garden.
Most recently, in New York, his 55-story 277 Fifth Avenue and 88-story 125 Greenwich have risen from the ground and into the clouds.
Mr. Viñoly, 74, was trained as a classical pianist in his native Uruguay. Today, he divides his time between New York; London; the Hamptons, on Long Island, N.Y.; and Punta Del Este, Uruguay. His firm, Rafael Viñoly Architects, has offices in New York; Palo Alto, Calif.; London; Manchester, England; Abu Dhabi; and Buenos Aires.
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Mansion Global: You are trained as a classical pianist. Are there parallels between creating music and designing buildings?
Rafael Viñoly: Honestly, I don’t believe in any of those ideas that architecture is frozen music. The two couldn’t be more different.
With architecture, you’re always dealing with someone else’s needs and someone else’s money. That’s completely different than when you’re working in music.
Architecture is not simply about the art of drawing; it’s about construction. You’re taking someone else’s problem and you’re solving it.
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What makes a building an architectural success?
The best architecture redefines how things are going to be, rather than repeating what has been accepted, or what is already part of the norm.
And you can create amazing objects, but if they’re not functional, they don’t work. A building also has to be strong financially and attractive enough to people to actually use.
Where do you find creative inspiration?
Architecture is not simply an exercise in inspiration; there is an intuitive dimension to it.
What happens through the years is that you learn. You learn through building, verifying, and testing what could and could not be done, and should or should not be done. The cycle from beginning to finished product takes a long time, though, so it can take a long time to verify your ideas. You have to tap into your own experience. If you’re attentive and relatively humble, you’re capable of recognizing whether you’re on the right track.
And like any other practice, it requires a lot of self-criticism.
Architecture is not just an exercise in dreaming. You can’t do it without a lot of people next to you.
How global are architectural tastes? One of the interesting things about this discipline is that it’s always local. You learn from looking at international projects and from doing them yourself, but each setting comes with different conditions and technologies in place.
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How would you describe your style? Has it changed?
I don’t have a recognizable style, per se, because I don’t think one should impose his style. Some people have done exactly that, but there are so many factors that go into how a building is designed—local issues, issues of technology, and cost.
In retrospect, after so many years, the most important thing is whether the solution to the problem was intelligent."
What does luxury mean to you?
There has been an evolution of the idea of luxury, which is a term misused all the time. It’s not just about glitzy materials; it’s about dimensions and proportions and services. At the end of the day, it’s about whether the building gives the public, or the user, an asset for the life that they live—particularly in residential buildings, but in commercial spaces, too.
Space is at a premium, so if developers give less space, they can increase their likelihood of getting a better return. So, to me, true luxury is closely connected to dimensions, proportions. It’s more about how intelligent the building is than about its finishes.
Back 15 or 20 years ago, if you wanted to make a building appear "luxury," you put some urns out front and made it look like it was built in the 18th century—neoclassical design was popular. I don’t think this is or was necessary, and I think most people feel that way, too, now. It’s a lot more important to have high ceilings than a golden-plated faucet.
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You design all different types of buildings. Do you have a favorite type?
Every building, regardless of its size, is a magical opportunity.
When they are truly great, it’s not because you, the architect, had a good moment, but because the client is intelligent. There’s nothing better than working with people who are prepared to learn.
Architecture is more of an exercise in translation than authorship.
It’s like a writer and an editor—you write a piece with the help of someone who understands the medium you’re operating in.
Are there parts of the world where you've never worked, where you'd like to?
For years, I tried to do some work in China, which is very active and difficult. It’s always interesting to test ideas and to see how you can contribute in a way that others cannot or haven’t been able to. But, of course, that’s a very, very old culture, and if anything, they can teach us more than we can teach them. I would like to do work in Africa, which is a place where the restrictions and the demands of the climate are extreme.
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What's an architect's responsibility to the community in which he's designing a structure?
When architecture is bad, people have to suffer with it forever, practically—about 70 years or so.
I strongly believe in the idea that public space should be incorporated in buildings of a certain magnitude, and buildings should make a contribution to the city. An architect needs to think about environmental impact, too—something that mitigates the impact of the building.
The responsibility also lies in the fact that this is the only so-called media you can’t turn off—not like music or television. That is frightening.
It’s serious stuff. In ancient Persia, if you were a bad architect, they could kill you.
This interview was edited and condensed.This story first appeared in Mansion Global magazine, published on November 19th, 2018.