Torres Petronas, Kuala Lumpur,1997.
Carlos Alberto Urzua: Your career is very significant to Latin American architects. How was it, for an Argentine, to build this office with important works in all parts of the world? - I left for the United States on a scholarship and kept on staying. I was sure I would never have my own studio; I didn’t have what was necessary to put it together, no funds, no family, no contacts, I didn’t know anyone with money who could support me. I took over the deanship at Yale University while working in Los Angeles, as a partner of Gruen Associates. I left the West Coast for the East Coast. But at the same time I had been interviewed to assess the expansion project of the Museum of Modern Art, and about two months before the deanship began I got that job. I had nothing, not even a drawing board, so I had to quickly put together a study for that and other assignments that started to come. I was just saved by luck, by chance, without any previous intention on my part to set up my own studio. CAU: Particularly in a time when there was no globalization or the design methods of today, which makes internationalization easier. - Globalization is more recent. Work in foreign countries began a little over 20 years ago. But I opened my studio when I was 50 years old, no longer young. I say I was lucky because I opened the studio in 1977, with a very strong recession for architects and many offices had closed, but a very long period of economic growth had just started in the United States. The 80s were very favorable.
Enrique Browne: In your work with high-rise buildings we can identify two lines. The one present in the Petronas Towers, which blends technology and local cultural tradition. But there is another one that is closer to prototyping, such as the International Finance Center in Hong Kong (2003), which relates to the Costanera Center (2013) and other earlier works. These have been perfected and successively refined... - I try not to have predefined forms. I always want to be free to respond in the best way possible to each circumstance, place, client, users, to the culture of the place, and if I start to see things that are similar I worry. It is a mistake to try to impose an aesthetic preference or type in any city; I have to ask the city and its inhabitants to tell me what is missing. My architecture conforms to this. I basically see it as a social service. Many are shocked when I say this, but this is the way I see it. In the 35 years of his studio, many great works have risen in major cities around the world, ranging from large skyscrapers to homes, schools, museums, cultural centers, hotels, stadiums and the development of master plans. Today Pelli Clarke Pelli has two locations in the United States (New Haven and New York) and two overseas offices (Shanghai and Abu Dhabi). think, design and build his works; his stance towards sustainability and materials; his vision of the city. These and other topics were discussed with the Editorial Committee of AOA Magazine in a warm, simple and especially lively meeting during his visit to Chile to see the nearly completed Costanera Center tower, conducted in partnership with the ABWB office.
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