Francisco González-Pulido – JAHN – Chicago, USA
Estadio Diablos, Veer Towers, Leatop Plaza, Shanghai International Financial Center, Japan Post, Qiantan 14, Naicm, Greenhouse…
1 – Who is Francisco Gonzalez-Pulido?
I am an idealist, a realist, and passionate for music and surrealism.
2 – When did you discover that you wanted to be an architect?
I was 17, it was a very pragmatic decision based on my interest for science and art.
3 – A reference in architecture…
The National Musuem of history of Bulgaria in Sofia, it is a tough communist building in which I married my wife Gergana.
4 – If you had not been architect, you would have been…
Film director or conductor.
5 – One defect and one virtue.
Defect: Impatience.
Virtue: Determination.
6 – What is your house like?
Naked but eclectic, full of daylight, in the good months is like a summer house. My wife wisely prevents me from turning it into my absolute fantasy which would be white and black walls, full of taxidermy, furniture with wheels (no exceptions) and electric guitars and amplifiers everywhere.
7 – Sunday is a day for…
Running with my wife, play cars and drums with my son, play guitar, and late at night recluse in solitude and think about what is ahead of me.
8 – A place to look for inspiration.
Running through the industrial neighborhoods of Chicago.
9 – What is the last book that you have read?
The biography of David Bowie.
10 – 15 Years from now…
I want to have built a museum for musical instruments to house my own collection.
11 – When you think of architecture you think of…
A cinematic experience.
12 – Pencil or computer?
Both.
13 – How would you describe your work?
Rational, technological yet experiential and expressive.
14 – One project you would like to do.
An oil platform in the middle of the ocean.
15 – Your opinion of Spanish architecture.
Great architecture in almost every important period in its history. Yet I’m particularly interested in the direction of young spanish architects in this present day.
16 – How do you keep your own style while meeting your clients’ needs?
I don’t believe in styles, I like to think that every client deserves something special, the best of me; I enjoy the process as much as the final result.
17 – In architecture, what are you better at and what do you have more trouble with?
I am better in concepts, and have trouble accepting a lost design argument or any arguments at all.
18 – Your recipe for success.
Embrace every step of the process, achieving whats in my head and finding purpose in every battle to obtain that goal.
19 – What is the role of natural products in your projects?
They play a very important role. Ever since I was a student, I hated decoration; I always believed that the essential materials of construction should also become the finishes. In nature things are what they are and that is why they are beautiful.
20 – Your flagship L’Antic Colonial product is…
Your processes to alter the properties of materials to improve their performance, to me L’Antic Colonial is a high tech factory of natural things.
