A Straight Line – No Thanks!

When architectural firms look back on their own work in the guise of thick books all too often the result is no more than a piece of well-produced promotion. Everything is too smooth by far, colorless, and typically the studio seems to have followed a completely straight career track from the very outset. Only the best aspects of the selected projects are shown and usually a renowned critic also pens a good-humored assessment of the office’s importance for contemporary architecture. The book "Caruso St John: Collected Works Volume 1, 1990-2005" takes a different approach. Right at the very start it becomes clear that the two Brits revel in breaking with all the stylistic devices applied in a conventional office monograph. Admittedly, this book is also remarkably thick: You really can’t say that with its 424 pages it’s short, especially as the book “only” deals with the first 15 years in the life of an architectural practice that is meanwhile considered to be one of Britain’s most important. That said, Caruso and St John make no attempt to retrospectively impose any kind of logical progression. And so on the very first page of their pleasantly short and unusually precise preface they write that this book is “only one of many different versions” of how their own story could be related. They have no desire to "gloss over the uncertainty and ambiguity that underlies every architectural practice" and would therefore prefer to resist the temptation to present the material in too orderly a fashion.

The book does not therefore begin with a polished essay but with the transcript of a lecture that Caruso and St John gave in 1998 at the Architectural Association in London – including the subsequent questions from the audience. In reviewing their work in the body of the text the architects opt to juxtapose better-known projects to lesser-known designs, express uncertainty and voice doubts about which references and thoughts had informed their designs and stress the great extent to which they concerned themselves with theoretical writings such as Robert Venturi’s “Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture”. The pleasant conversational tone, light in style and peppered with dry humor runs like a red thread through the entire book. Almost always the concise project texts include the story of how the commissions were obtained, and how the wishes and demands of the respective client helped shape them.

It chimes with this personal and open tone that the authors chose not to have new texts written for the book but rather to collect the texts which were written at the particular time about the practice and its work. As early as 1995, for example, the wonderful author (critic and architect) Irénée Scalbert attempted in his brilliant piece “On the Edge of Ordinary” to place the practice’s early works into some kind of context within the British architecture scene. With their small, modest works at an early date they positioned themselves between the two prevailing poles at that time, and thus could not be assigned to either the high-tech architecture typical of Richard Rogers or Norman Foster or the wild Deconstructionists around Zaha Hadid und Will Alsop. Caruso and St John were interested in the existing, the rough and unfinished, sought their inspiration equally in simple barns and frequently-converted town houses. These topics are illustrated with particular authenticity in some of the early works, in the construction of a surgery and home for a doctor in the countryside near Hersham say, in the conversion of a barn into a house for a young couple, or the realization of Peter St John’s own house, which he developed from a simple old warehouse in North London. He built most of it himself with the help of friends and relatives, during what was then an economic recession in England. These are pragmatic buildings that rely on inexpensive and robust materials to create flexible spaces which often feature oversized windows and consequently produce a surprisingly generous feel. These spaces manage quite wonderfully with imperfections, contradictions and complexities.

Working with what already exists is a key theme in all of the projects by Caruso St John. As such, it is only surprising at first sight that the book also includes an extensive conversation between Hans Kollhoff and Wim Wenders. In the talk that speeds over 15 whole pages, the architect and filmmaker discuss their view of cities in general and West-Berlin in particular, talk about how they deal with the hard edges and fissures in an urban landscape which has been repeatedly rebuilt and intensively used. When you begin reading you can’t help wondering what any of has to do with the work of Caruso St John – especially since the conversation took place in 1988, in other words, two years before the office was established. However, it becomes increasingly clear as you continue reading how strongly this topic permeates the basic attitudes of the practice and all its designs – given that the both the conversions but also the new buildings always give the impression of something that has grown over a long period of time. And indeed, elsewhere in the book Peter St John says: “No matter how unpromising a situation there is no such thing as an uninteresting site: You just add. I always find it difficult to justify demolition." This comment demonstrates how much ahead of its time the office was with regard to topics that have only now entered the mainstream of the architectural debate.

Another example of how fundamental topics of the designs are addressed in this book is the fact that an entire chapter is devoted to the highly-revered Swedish architect Sigurd Lewerentz. In this chapter, Claes Caldenby tells us in a wonderful and likewise extensive essay about “the lonely northerner” and his highly individual, excellently crafted and spatially poetic architecture. It is only after this that Adam Caruso relates how in the office of Florian Beigel he came across the works of Lewerentz in an issue of Catalan architecture journal “Quaderns” and how much he was influenced by the incredibly rich details of these buildings. We can also read how this preoccupation led to trips to Sweden during which contacts there were gradually established, something that eventually resulted in their winning a competition to design a large public square in Stortorget, Sweden. Caruso St John describe in brief, succinct terms how the design of this square is connected with Lewerentz – and then swiftly move on to one of their own best-known works: The brilliant deformed "Brick House" in London made of concrete and bricks whose mortar joints (as we now know from the book) are very reminiscent of Lewerentz – whereby one could also highlight a strong connection to Peter und Alison Smithson. That said, the story could also be told in a completely different way.

And so in a relaxed conversational tone this book effortlessly spans an enormous network of connections that develop like threads between projects, themes, texts, and thoughts. There is not one common thread but many which evolve into a complex spider’s web that you can watch as it expands. Ultimately, the architects have achieved the masterpiece of developing a book which works exactly like the architecture of Caruso St John: As a multi-layered fabric which forms something from old and new components that is greater than its parts – and is still capable of not taking the whole thing too seriously. And you immediately wish that there could be many more such architectural practices that choose to meander rather than follow straight lines.