An interview with Albert Frey page 3

V5:  I do not think they would let you build with this much glass today.

AF:  Yes. Today they may not let me do it, but it does work out very well.

V5:  It is a very livable house. So maybe what we are saying is that the rules are wrong, not the buildings.

AF:  Well, you can see that the officials can only base things on the past and an architect has an imagination and he thinks ahead. He figures things out by studying the conditions.

V5:  So, when you found the site, how did you proceed?

AF:  I had a very careful survey made showing the contours and all the rock. Then I put up some strings to see how the design would work out. We then established the levels and then I had to fit the glass to the rock. The best way was to put up a ?" aluminum channel straight and clear of the rock, and then fill in the spaces with rock and color mortar. Now you can hardly see the mortar.

V5:  You use color mortar and blocks throughout your projects.

AF:  Yes, the color concrete for the slab and mortar. It blends in much better than the gray cement.

V5:  As we were driving up, I noticed how well the house blends into the site. I have lived in this area for a long time and never noticed it from below.

AF:  The slope of the roof follows the slope of the terrain. The contrast between the natural rock and the high tech materials is rather exciting, I think. Rather than imitate it, you know, the contrast is more interesting.

V5:  Do you swim every day?

AF:  Yes, almost.

V5:  It is very nice how the light hits the water and is activated as it reflects into the house. I know that Neutra often used very shallow ponds, thin layers of water, at all levels of his buildings, all for the reflections and the way the light was animated by the water. You are doing that here.

AF:  Yes. We did something like that at Smoketree Ranch, where a client could be sitting in the shallow pool to stay cool in the shade. It was very shallow and she could just stay cool.

V5:  In the rain, like we just had, (first day of rain in 240 days, and it poured) do you get a lot of water coming off the mountain?

AF:  Not this time, but when we get 6 inches of rain in an hour, there are cascades of water all over. It is very beautiful. I have hiked all through these mountains and I have seen waves of water in big storms in the downtown (area of Palm Springs).
And the rain brings out the flowers, this yellow in the drapes matches the encelia when it blooms. That is the yellow of the blossom you see.

V5:  Which of your designs would you recommend students of architecture to study? Do you have a favorite?

AF:  Well, the City Hall (Palm Springs) is one of them. And the Loewy House, of course. There are quite a number of projects.

V5:  What inspired you to offset the block on the City Hall Building in Palm Springs?

AF:  I had just returned from a trip around the world when we got that job and I was very inspired by what I had seen. You can see that when you use block like that, you can get a much better proportion to the walls. The corners lap like a log cabin's corner. I tried to use the materials the way they should be used naturally. Of course I used a lot of metal. I feel why lift concrete overhead? Use lighter materials and it is better for earthquakes as well.

V5:  Well that is what you have done in this house, kept the mass to the ground with a light frame above.

AF:  Yes, it makes sense. In the City Hall Counsel Chamber, you notice the walls are splayed, that was acoustically determined. I worked on schemes for Le Corbusier where he had a consultant for acoustical engineering. The League of Nations Building's shape was based on acoustics. There was not electrical amplification at that time and you had to be heard. The ceiling way was baffled as well in the same way. So it was a very inspiring way of designing.

V5:  What is your design process like?

AF:  Well, of course, it starts in the head, then I make sketches, from there I quite often make a model in order to explain it to the client. For instance, the gas station up there (at the west entry of Palm Springs, near the Tramway), it was very difficult for the City to visualize it from a drawing. So I make a little model to show them that all the beams are straight. Which is an interesting principle, yet it makes a curved roof.

V5:  How did that project begin?

AF:  At that time the City, actually it was Frank Bogart, who was the major at the time, said because this is the entry to the town, it should be something spectacular, not a Spanish Colonial building that they want to do now. The present owner of the property wants to tear it down, but I do not think it will happen.

V5:  I saw it when I drove into Palm Springs this morning. You do not need signage to know where you are.

AF:  Yes, exactly. They should make it a visitor center now.

V5:  My art professor grew up in Palm Springs and she wanted me to tell you how much she loves that building. She knew she was home when she saw it.

AF:  Well, thank you, thank you very much.

V5:  What advice would you give a student just starting to study architecture? How would you counsel them?

AF:  I would tell them to observe very carefully. To study how things come about and study nature.
See lots of architecture... get full of it, you might say. I wrote this book for that very purpose (he reaches back behind him and hands us a softbound book)

V5:  IN SEARCH OF A LIVING ARCHITECTURE? Is this still in print?

AF:  No, this was over fifty years ago. See I studied forms, industrial and natural and then I analyzed what the form meant.

(We open the book in the middle to images and text of the island of San Michelle. There were photos showing the island with and without the built structure. The text is about how the building completes a suggestion within the existing natural setting. I started thinking about what this would be like on CD-ROM with photo shop and Form Z, instead of the cut and paste graphics? And then he points)

See the crown of the building enhances the hill. You can see that is what architecture does. So the advice I gave was to study.

(Viewing the book, he points to a shape cocked up at an angle.)

See, if you want to startle someone, you set it at an angle. That is what Eisenman does. You set one façade at an angle to the other, it has all been done before.

V5:  Do you follow Frank Gehry and Peter Eisenman's work?

AF:  Yes, I do. I see it in the magazines I get and so on. Some of it is interesting and some just seems to be a surprise. I like to scrutinize it. I do not believe, however, in wasting money to do things just for looks if it does not have a purpose.

V5:  Have you seen Frank Gehry's Bilbao Project in Spain?

AF:  I have seen it in magazines.

V5:  What do you think?

AF:  Well, I don't know, I really don't know (laughs). Just those wavy walls and things?. It does not look too good to me.

V5:  Le Corbusier worked in complex shapes?

AF:  Yes, but I think he was much better at it. He had better purposes with it.

V5:  "better purposes" meaning?.

AF:  Function, you know, it is not only for looks. After all, the Traditional Style is mostly for looks too and I do not think that is the solution. I think you should get more results for the least amount of effort, like the principal of the egg. (laughs)

V5:  This house is that way. There is no plaster covering it up, not second skins.

AF:  Plaster is a terrible material, anyway. In a traditional house, with a wood frame, it always cracks and that makes for an unhappy client. Use metal on the outside. The corrugation is designed to stiffen it. It is a wonderful invention. That is were we learn from engineers. I don't think an architect designed corrugated metal.

V5:  Did you stay in contact with friends from Le Corbusier's studio?

AF:  I stayed in touch with Kunio Maekawa and when I was traveling, I met him in Tokyo. He showed me around Kyoto and other places.

V5:  Have you worked oversees?

AF:  The only thing I have done is a house for my sister in Zurich. I did not expand otherwise. See the thing is I like to supervise the work and when you are overseas, it becomes very involved. I did not want to become a big firm either, because I just could not keep in close touch.

V5:  R.M. Shindler was famous for supervising his projects very closely and making changes in the field.

AF:  Well, we made more complete drawings. (laughs). There were only changes when the owner asked for something different.

V5:  What did you father think about your designs? Did he ever see them?

AF:  He visited me here. This is a painting he did during his stay (a small oil painting set up along the bookcase is pointed to), but as I said, he would have been a traditionalist?(laughs) He gave me a book once on Swiss architecture and it was not very good?.

V5:  But was he supportive of your work?

AF:  Oh yes, very much so. He liked being here.

V5:  Did you know John Lautner?

AF:  Yes, I did. He came by when he designed a house for Elrod. He was very interesting, lots of imagination and very daring, I think.

V5:  What other architects influenced you?

AF:  Well, I should say that I was very inspired by Mies van der Rohe. By his Barcelona Pavilion, with the walls that goes out and makes spaces within the landscape.

 Mies van de Rohe and Corbusier and I think Neutra and Shindler both.

V5:  It must have been very exciting to see the new designs.

AF:  Yes, it was.

V5:  Did you see yourselves as a group at the time?

AF:  Yes, we would visit and write. There was Arts and Architecture, so they would publish the work. That was helpful. So we all knew what was going on.

V5:  Do you think the press covers or gives support to young firms now?

AF:  I think so. Well, then came this Post Modern Architecture, which I think is silly.

V5:  What did you think when that started to happen?

AF:  Well, many of them went into it and it was pretty silly? You pick some columns out of the past, without any reason, and the "De-Construction" period? We do not need that in California. (laughs) Architects want to attract attention to these ideas, to make something different, whether it makes sense or not.

If you study things carefully and do a good job, it has more permanent value, I think. There are certain principals that must apply.

V5: Thank you very much.

AF:  You are very welcome.

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