oris
Vodeći ste glas u podučavanju i pisanju o arhitekturi i njezinoj povijesti. Kakvog je utjecaja prijašnje iskustvo arhitekta imalo na vaš rad? Bio sam u osobnom dodiru s vašom arhitekturom jer sam noćio u zgradi koju ste projektirali.

frampton
Moja arhitektonska izobrazba se jasno očituje u mom pisanju. Podjednako sam mnogo i crtao i pisao pa je možda to imalo utjecaja na moj životni put. Prvi sam esej objavio 1957. godine u britanskom časopisu Art News, a govorio je o djelu arhitekta i slikara Marcela Janka. On je u to vrijeme živio u Izraelu, baš kao i ja, jer sam radio u uredu Karmi, Melzer, Karmi u Tel Avivu. Theo Crosby, koji je bio tehnički urednik britanskog časopisa Architectural Design, predložio me 1962. godine za svog nasljednika. Posljedica toga bila je da sam postao desna ruka urednice Monice Pidgeon. Nakon toga sam morao podijeliti radno vrijeme: ujutro bih radio za tvrtku Douglas, Stephen and Partners na zgradi u kojoj ste vi noćili, a poslijepodne bih radio u Architectural Designu kao tehnički urednik. Časopis je radilo svega četvero ljudi. Uredništvo, odnosno Monica i ja, radilo je samo pola dana. Osim nas, bili su tu i tajnica i pomoćnik urednika, no oni su radili puno radno vrijeme. Pothvat tih razmjera bio je moguć zato što su urednici posjedovali tiskaru, tako da nije bilo problema koji su mogli nastati da je tiskara bila u tuđem vlasništvu, primjerice troškova zbog izmjene teksta u zadnji tren. Pisao sam i uređivao članke za AD, budući da sam već bio veoma zainteresiran za teorijske, povijesne rasprave. U Londonu je u to vrijeme trajala rasprava o modernističkom pokretu i o njegovoj preobrazbi u godinama nakon Drugoga svjetskog rata, kao i o trenutnom stanju modernističkog pokreta u Engleskoj u odnosu na proizvodnju u Europi. Sve su te rasprave imale snažan utjecaj na mene. Odlučujući čimbenik koji je definitivno promijenio moj smjer bio je poziv Petera Eisenmana da dođem predavati na Princeton. Petera sam upoznao u Londonu dok je predavao na Cambridgeu. Pozvao me na Princeton gdje sam proveo godinu dana predavajući i istražujući. Nakon toga sam se vratio u London te sam, prije nego što mi je ponuđeno stalno mjesto na Princetonu, neprestano putovao između Londona i Princetona. Tada sam odlučio u potpunosti se posvetiti predavanju i pisanju.

oris
U jednom razgovoru za časopis October naveli ste da vas je ispolitizirala činjenica da ste došli u SAD, posebice susret s rastom potrošačkog društva i drugih društvenih fenomena. To je imalo značajnog utjecaja na vaše političko gledište, kao i na vaše promišljanje arhitekture.

frampton
Mislim da sam u razgovoru za October spomenuo utjecaj koji je sirova gospodarska snaga SAD-a imala na mene u smislu prvog izravnog susreta s takvom masivnom potrošnjom energije, struje i benzina. On se može sažeti mojim iskustvom prvog pogleda na naplatne kućice na autocesti kod New Jerseyja (New Jersey Turnpike, op. prev.).
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oris
You’re a leading voice in architectural writing, history and teaching. We’d like to know how your previous experience of being an architect influenced your work. I have had a personal encounter with your architecture because I’ve slept in a building you designed.

frampton
My formation as an architect is surely evident in my writing. I wrote as much as I drew which may have had something to do with this destiny of mine. The first essay I ever had published was in the British magazine Art News in 1957 and featured the work of the architect-painter Marcel Janko who was then living in Israel, where I also happened to be working in the Tel Aviv office of Karmi, Melzer, Karmi. In 1962 Theo Crosby, who had been technical editor of the British magazine Architectural Design recommended me as his successor, with the result that I became the right hand, as it were, of the editor Monica Pidgeon. Thereafter I divided my time between working in the mornings for the firm of Douglas Stephen and Partners on the building that you spent a night in, and for Architectural Design in the afternoons as technical editor. We produced that magazine with no more than four people. Two of the editorial staff, Monica and myself, worked only half a day each. In addition there was a secretary who worked full time and a full-time editorial assistant. An operation on this scale was possible because the publishers also owned the printing press, so that certain problems that would have arisen if the printing press had been owned by somebody else, such as the cost of altering the text at the last minute, were avoided. I wrote and edited articles for AD given that I was already very interested in theoretical, historical arguments. In London at that time, there was a constant discussion about the modern movement and about its transformation in the years after the Second World War, along with the current state of the modern movement in England versus the production in Europe, etc. All these discussions had a big influence on me. The decisive factor which changed my trajectory definitively was being invited to teach at Princeton by Peter Eisenman who I would meet in London while he was teaching at Cambridge. He invited me to Princeton and I stayed there for a year, partly teaching and partly doing research. Afterwards I went back to London, and soon I was traveling between London and Princeton before being offered a full-time position at Princeton. This was when I began to devote my life exclusively to teaching and writing.

oris
In an interview in October magazine you stated that you’ve been politicized by the fact that you came to the US, namely by having experience of the growth of the consumer society and other societal phenomena. This had a significant influence on your political position which also had impact on your thinking about architecture.

frampton
I believe that during the October interview I mentioned the impact that the sheer economic force of the United States had on me in terms of directly experiencing for the first time such a massive consumption of power, electrical energy and gasoline, to be summed up for me by my experience of seeing the New Jersey Turn pike from the air.
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