好色先生TV

Andrew Derbyshire in his own words

On his childhood:

鈥淚 was born and bred in Chesterfield, in Derbyshire. It was a wonderful place to be because it was sandwiched between the Peaks and great houses like Chatsworth and the coal fields to the east, and the iron works. And so I was at a meeting point of the humanities and science, if you like, as a child. And it鈥檚 never occurred to me before but that may well be the source of this feeling I had 鈥� a very strong feeling that art and science had to combine.鈥�

On the profession:

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think architecture is a viable skill on its own. I never have.鈥�

鈥淎 lot of people, particularly overseas clients and multi-nationals, are looking for one man to talk to 鈥� one leader. It does not matter whether he is an architect, so long as he is a good leader. He needs the power to get the resources the client wants to see and he needs to command the respect of the team. When it works, it works really well, and we beat the lot.鈥�

鈥淲hat depresses me infinitely is that we seem to have moved hardly at all towards getting the design skills together, getting the professional institutes together, and getting the designers and constructors together. All this internecine struggle is very destructive. We ought to stop it.鈥�

鈥淭his business of turning architecture into theatrical design is very, very dangerous. They鈥檙e going to unemployable, poor things 鈥� except as set designers.  This isn鈥檛 architecture as I know it. Architecture is a synthesis between art and science if it鈥檚 anything 鈥� and if it isn鈥檛, it doesn鈥檛 exist.鈥�

On RMJM:

鈥淚 think people鈥�..are attracted to the idea of social architecture which emerges from the place鈥� and the people, the users and the particular characteristics of the design team. That produces a unique product for the location and that is why our buildings are all different.鈥�

鈥淚鈥檝e been lucky, I suppose, in working for clients who believed in collaboration.鈥�

鈥淚 have tried to make buildings easy to understand and comfortable, adding to their occupants鈥� welfare.鈥�

On RIBA:

鈥淥ne of the things I was hoping to do as president of the RIBA was to try and extend the membership of the institute to people who wanted to join an organisation devoted to building design. No single skill is going to do anything with the industry on its own. We have to do it collectively.鈥�

鈥淲e architects have got to reform our concept of professionalism. If we don鈥檛 make certain changes鈥� we shall progressively forfeit the limited powers which we鈥檙e allowed at present to help shape the physical environment鈥� I鈥檓 not saying architects are responsible for the mess we鈥檙e in, and even less that we have all the answers and only have to be asked to rescue the world. But I think we鈥檝e got to accept a large measure of responsibility for the environmental crisis, and I believe that, given the freedom to do it, we are uniquely equipped to a play a leading part in the solution.鈥�

- at the RIBA Conference 鈥楶reparing for the eighties鈥� 3 July 1969

On York University:

鈥淥ne of our proposals in the plan was that we should make it a memorable place. We didn鈥檛 dare to say it should be beautiful. That would be pretentious. But it should be memorable, and the memorability should relate to a confluence of landscape and buildings and I suppose the backs at Cambridge had been in my mind and certainly in Stirrat鈥檚 mind and a precursor. So that this relationship between landscape and buildings was absolutely fundamental to the development of the plan. Yes. And we were lucky in the fact that鈥� the site was in fact a bog. And the ground survey indicated that water levels were very high, even on the hill. And we knew that therefore that there would be an increased run-off due to more hard surfaces, roofs and so on. And that we had to cope with this run-off somehow or other. The traditional remedy is a balancing reservoir, which would be a concrete tank, and cheaper than a lake. We said to the university: we really think it would be essential for our purposes and the university wants to have a lake 鈥� can we have a bit more money? It鈥檚 not a lot. It鈥檒l be fairly cheap. And I remember somebody at the university UGC. Somebody in the architects saying, 鈥淎ll right. Essex have got their elevated deck. Someone else has got something 鈥� you can have your lake.鈥�

鈥淚f you ask anybody who was involved in the design and building of the first 10 years at York I guarantee they will tell you it was the happiest 10 years of their professional careers. They were certainly the happiest 10 years of mine. And it was down to Eric really. Down to his leadership that we enjoyed ourselves so much. It was great fun doing it. And we felt that we were doing something worthwhile; that was needed; that would be successful.鈥�

With thanks to Ben Derbyshire