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still surprising. This concept is interesting
because it describes moments in time when
one becomes aware of necessities that were
hidden, and for which someone found an
answer of sorts.
EA: That’s the shock. The answer more
than the question. There are things that
have been coming into the architecture pic-
ture over the last ten years, having to do
with sustainability, the zero-carbon foot-
print… and none of them really has a shock-
ing answer. It’s like most of the solutions
are a way of simply concealing the problem
instead of solving it.
WM: I think you’re right, but in the
meantime, we shouldn’t ignore what’s hap-
pening, because that’s where the shocks
we’re talking about do appear. We see how
in Amsterdam it’s been possible to build
a 3D-printed steel bridge, and how this
same technique has evolved using concrete
instead. Now if only the new concrete could
be conglomerated or aggregated through
processes that are CO2-free and also re-
versible…
EA: And which we are able to pay for,
because the economic factor is always there.
WM: If that happens, it will certainly be
a shock… The good thing is that these kinds
of questions call for shocking architecture,
innovative architecture with the potential
to find answers.
EA: Answers don’t come so much from
images – so habitual nowadays – as from
solutions that can make us see that the real
problem is solved and we can proceed to the
next. I have the feeling that in architecture
we have created more problems than we are
able to solve, and we spend our time solv-
ing not only construction matters, but also
issues related to durability or economies of
means. And in the end, the work still ends
up on an Excel sheet.
WM: Yeah, although I believe there are
still opportunities to bring about shocks,
to create architecture of the kind that can
shock. There are two types of Excel sheets.
One is the kind that dominates your work;
everything that you do boils down to filling
up the sheet. The other kind has blanks,
open to conversation and negotiation.
Nowadays some investors prefer to work
with the second kind because here they are
familiar with the margins. But they want to
go a step further, to innovate and make an
impact, and that’s why they devote them-
selves to filling those empty boxes. And this
gives a certain flexibility or leeway.
EA: The empty box has to be filled in
with ideas that have the potential to give a
plus, or added value, to what is otherwise
simply banal and pragmatic.
WM: It’s not only banal, it’s a hypercom-
post. The first Excel sheet shows everything
that is already done. It’s closed. That’s
why we have to gamble on the blank boxes.
They’re what give architecture an authen-
ticity, where you can invent.
EA: Exactly. That’s what I meant. We
have to fill in the box not so much with
ideas as with inventions. However, it’s not
at all easy to find somebody to dialogue
with who is the guy that’s really in charge
of manipulating the tables, one with enough
“I believe there are
still opportunities to
create architecture of the
kind that can shock”
