ROBIN MONOTTI ARCHITECTS: THE FIVE SENSES ALIGNED
Designing for the Bella Figura
Clean lines and fantasy beach house palettes populate the promotional imagery which goes
with Robin Monotti Architects’ emotional branding. It is the stuff of dreams –infinite vistas,
the echo of sea upon shingle, the contrast of nature and form. Born in Rome and taking
from the eternal city an eye for the bella figura, founder Robin Monotti combines the
practice ofarchitecture with a role in its development –lecturing and examining on the
subject at universities across Europe. Tellingly, a formative architectural experience in
Monotti’s past involved the transition in temperatures between an Alpine valley and a
church located therein. That observation that architecture is a matter of all the senses,
not merely the visual, projects through his designs, as well as through his musings on
the architect’s craft.
Describe architecturally the sort of building you grew up in.
I grew up in a 1970s residential block raised on concrete columns, overlooking a nature
reserve on the edges of Rome, a very Corbusian project: concrete pilotis, nature, and
cars hidden in car parks underground. The block, however, was faced in terracotta tiles,
giving it a more Roman feel. The architect and developer lived on the top penthouse flat
and we lived a few floors down from that. We would be invited upstairs for special events,
in that way the situation is reminiscent of the hierarchy described to its extreme version
in JG Ballard’s High Rise.
Considering famous buildings, how do buildings become iconic, or even take on
importance, and is that status separate from architecture?
A building becomes iconic if its formal characteristics are easily recognisable to the people
observing it, and if it reminds them of something else. Analogy has an important role to
play in making a building achieve the iconic status. Of course, we have to remember that
icons were representations of saints. Icons in architecture tend to refer beyond themselves
as buildings to something else that is easily understood by the public.
Is there such a thing as an ideal commission?
There are ideal clients, intelligent and educated people who want to partner with the
architect in building something that embodies shared values, clients who want to build
something either ordinary or extraordinary, and are clear which one of the two they
want. Then for an architect most commissions can be seen as ideal. It is really about
the client, but also about the site, the potential it embodies even before there is a
project there.
Is there a particular design process that you use?
I start by visiting the site, getting to know it, draw it, model it, and then start trying
different options on it. To decide what to try first, I look at precedents of projects
that have fulfilled similar requirements, to similar building types to the one I have
been asked to deliver, and try to learn from them too.
Does the architect’s role end with the design?
It usually ends with the handover of the building to the client. It is very difficult
to have any control after that, so it is best to relinquish control once the building
has been handed over. The architect can still learn from the building after that, though.
How do clients react to the notion that once functional and behavioural needs
have been satisfied, only then can architecture begin?
I think it’s the other way round, architecture is what allows a wide variety of behaviours to
take place, it does not define them but allows them. Progressive architecture is the one
that does not set obstacles to the way it can be used. The important initial decisions are
usually to do with defining what is public and what is private space, but after that the
architecture should mainly respond to the site rather than to a predefined brief that may
change during the building’s lifetime.
Is the quest for ever-smarter high-tech materials a smokescreen for a lack of
genuine innovation?
I don’t think so. We’ve been making architecture for thousands of years and the innovation
has always been related to innovation in materials. Think of the pozzolana cement used in
the construction of the Pantheon. It was a Roman innovation, hence the Pantheon could be
built. Or think about glass and steel, they led to the building of skyscrapers. It’s in
materials that the real innovation lies.
Can we ever reconcile our need for building shelters with our emotional
requirement for green spaces?
I would like to build a building in an urban centre entirely covered in plants.
You could then use terraces and roof terraces as outdoor green spaces.
Is architecture a form of expression or an aesthetic reaction to human
needs and limitations?
Architecture is a ritual of seeking the appropriate answer to a question that is being
asked by the place that it is meant to occupy.
When did architecture first capture your imagination? Was it a grand
skyscraper, chapel or something more humble?
A small church in the Alps in Italy, the transition between the temperature of inside
and outside, the definition of an internal space and how it contrasted with the
envelope of a valley surrounded by mountains. A different scale of enclosure than
the one offered by nature.
Trebuchet Magazine, Issue 2, Structure and Architecture, 2017