oris
Ste vodilni glas na področju poučevanja in pisanja o arhitekturi in njeni zgodovini. Kako na vaše delo vpliva vaša prejšnja izkušnja arhitekta? Bil sem v osebnem stiku z vašo arhitekturo, prenočil sem namreč v stavbi, ki ste jo projektirali.

frampton
Moja arhitekturna izobrazba je iz mojega pisanja jasno razvidna. Ker sem v enaki meri risal kot pisal, je to morda vplivalo na mojo življenjsko pot. Prvi esej sem objavil leta 1957 v britanski reviji Art News, in sicer o delu arhitekta in slikarja Marcela Janka. Janko je v tistem času živel v Izraelu kot jaz, delal sem namreč v pisarni Karmi, Melzer, Karmi v Tel Avivu. Theo Crosby, ki je bil tehnični urednik britanske revije Architectural Design, me je leta 1962 predlagal za svojega naslednika, posledica tega pa je bila, da sem postal desna roka urednice Monice Pidgeon. Po tem sem si moral razdeliti delovni čas: zjutraj sem delal v podjetju Douglas, Stephen and Partners za stavbo, v kateri ste prenočili, popoldne pa sem delal v Architectural Designu kot tehnični urednik. Revijo smo ustvarjali samo štirje ljudje. Uredništvo oziroma midva z Monico sva bila zaposlena le za polovični delovni čas. Poleg naju sta bila tukaj tudi tajnica in pomočnik urednika, ki sta delala polni delovni čas. Podvig teh razsežnosti je bil mogoč samo zato, ker je imela založba v lasti tiskarno, tako da ni bilo določenih problemov, ki bi lahko nastali, če bi bila tiskarna v tujih rokah, na primer dodatnih stroškov zaradi spreminjanja besedil v zadnjem hipu. Za AD sem pisal in urejal članke, ker so me že tedaj zelo zanimale teorijske, zgodovinske razprave. V Londonu je v tistem času potekala ne le razprava o modernističnem gibanju in o njegovi preobrazbi v letih po drugi svetovni vojni, temveč tudi o trenutnem položaju modernističnega gibanja v Angliji glede na produkcijo v Evropi itn. Vse te razprave so močno vplivale name. Odločujoč dejavnik, ki je dokončno spremenil mojo smer, pa je bilo vabilo Petra Eisenmana, naj pridem predavat na Princeton. Petra sem spoznal v Londonu, ko je predaval na Cambridgeu. Povabil me je na Princeton, kjer sem ostal leto dni, predaval in raziskoval. Potem sem se vrnil v London in kmalu nenehno potoval med Londonom in Princetonom, preden so mi ponudili stalno mesto na Princetonu. Takrat sem se odločil, da se bom v celoti posvetil predavateljskemu delu in pisanju.

oris
V pogovoru za revijo October ste navedli, da vas je politično usmeril vaš prihod v ZDA, še posebej soočenje z rastjo potrošniške družbe in drugimi družbenimi fenomeni. To je pomembno vplivalo na vaše politično stališče, kar pa je spet vplivalo na vaše razmišljanje o arhitekturi.

frampton
Mislim, da sem v pogovoru za October omenil vpliv, ki ga je surova gospodarska moč ZDA imela name v smislu prvega neposrednega soočenja s tako množično porabo energije, elektrike in bencina, ki jo je mogoče povzeti z mojo izkušnjo pogleda na terminal cestninske postaje na avtocesti pri New Jerseyju (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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