In Conversation With Alejandro Aravena

The 2016 Pritzker Prize winner, 2018 RIBA Charles Jencks Award laureate and India Design ID 2019 speaker imparts his inimitable wisdom.

- Aman Mehta

“I was 17 at the time, and I have absolutely no idea why I started studying Architecture. But once I was enrolled in university, I understood that there was a whole body of knowledge that had to be swallowed and that deserved rigorous dedication. And I mean the buildings themselves. I felt like I was already late, so I started drawing and measuring the structures to try to learn from the infinite chain of decisions that a design is.” Alejandro Aravena’s initiation to the field that he is now revered in was not as straightforward as most would assume. After graduating from Universidad Católica de Chile in 1992, with a revitalised passion for his chosen province, he set up his own practice, Alejandro Aravena Architects in 1994.

When asked about his sources of inspiration, the maverick’s response is a typically unique one. “We don’t like the word inspiration. We spend time at the beginning designing the question. There is nothing worse than answering the wrong question well. So we work very hard, and carefully at the same time, to identify the forces at play for a given project. Economics, social issues, political goals, the time frame, budget, the environment — these are measurable aspects. But there are also variables that interest us — the expectations, fears, desires, or even anger that different stakeholders may have for the project. We ‘inform the form’ of a building. Only then do we jump into the design. And for that we use a very powerful tool which is intuition, not inspiration.”