Interview with Tony Fretton

It is also interesting that both buildings are located in rather peripheral areas. The Lisson Gallery stands on Bell Street, just off Edgware Road — an unusually long and heavily trafficked thoroughfare — while the Camden Arts Centre is situated on Arkwright Road, off Finchley Road, part of the A41. Although neither site would ordinarily be considered a natural place for public gathering, the Camden Arts Centre has proved to be a remarkably successful building.

That success of the Camden Arts Centre is partly because the surrounding area lacked certain amenities. There was no park, no bookshop, and very few good restaurants, and the Camden Arts Centre began to provide what was missing. We created a garden at the back, which has since become a place where people come simply to relax. The Camden Arts Centre understood that part of its mission was to create a space where people could sit, write, or read. Very early on, they recognised that an art centre need not be concerned solely with art — it could also be about pleasure. All of the art centres we designed incorporated that principle. They brought a certain refinement, on several levels, to their respective localities.

For example, we designed one on the Isle of Wight — the Quay Arts Centre — which transformed its area. The restaurant there was partially subsidised, so it was not subject to the same commercial pressures; it did not have to cater to an unsophisticated local market and could therefore take risks. The directors of those institutions were remarkable individuals. In fact, all of my best clients have been women. Jenny Lomax, a formidable figure, served as Director of the Camden Arts Centre for thirty years. She was exceptionally generous and mentored a generation of young curators. On the Isle of Wight, the Quay Arts Centre was realised through the efforts of Anne Toms, a local painter who was instrumental in bringing it into being. In Denmark, at the Fuglsang Art Museum, it was Anne Høyer Petersen who played that role.

These were people whose ambitions were not personal but social. For such clients, one is willing to do anything — they did not make unreasonable demands, but they accepted and understood what we were trying to achieve. They were, without question, our greatest clients, and the projects we created for them have endured.

That said, even the Camden Arts Centre is now under pressure. We recently redesigned the shop to make it more commercial — it is now, essentially, a gift shop. It has had to become so, given the economic pressures placed on institutions today, even on those as prominent as the Tate.

You have often mentioned James Gowan as one of the teachers you most appreciated during your time at the AA. In your own teaching, do you feel there is an influence from Gowan’s methodology?

I believe there is. James Gowan, with James Stirling, had a remarkable early career. Together they designed the Leicester Engineering Building, after which they parted ways. Stirling went on to achieve considerable fame, while Gowan remained less well known, yet he was an exceptionally strong thinker.

Gowan’s approach to teaching was profoundly positive. I wrote the introduction to a book on him, which I titled Magnetic Fishing, and in it I explained that Gowan would accept virtually anything a student brought as a project proposal and demonstrate how it could become architecture. He could do this because he possessed a strong appreciation for chance, in much the same way as Marcel Duchamp, whose work he knew. His thinking extended far beyond conventional construction logic. He was deeply interested in how creative minds operate — in how mistakes can be revealing and productive. He focused on the individuality of each student’s work; even if a project was incoherent, he could discern its potential meaning. His great skill lay in fostering a student’s confidence and pleasure in making architecture. I did not know any other teacher quite like him. Other tutors were also good, of course, but they tended to teach what they already knew; they taught architecture in their own style.

In my own teaching, I try to remove stylistic direction as much as possible, which is more difficult than one might think. I focus on teaching the craft of design — on showing students that almost anything they draw can be developed into viable architecture. Schools of architecture often make students anxious about the perceived quality of their work. If something does not look right from the outset, they feel they have failed. I try to demonstrate what their schemes might become; as a result, they often change and evolve.

I believe that one must both educate and guide. At times, one even has to design parts of the project for them — which, in truth, students appreciate. When I began teaching at London Metropolitan University, I refused to direct students in that way. Several years later, they complained, saying, “You should have shown us how to do things.” And they were absolutely right. Students want to learn craft — they want to see design in action. So, I might say, “If you want my view, you could do it this way — but it’s your project.”

Teaching, for me, is therefore a kind of patchwork: respecting a student’s initial ideas and helping them develop those ideas quietly, without becoming the author of their work. One must steer the conversation in a certain direction, showing them relevant work by great architects that may resonate with what they are attempting, so that they can envision an end product embodying the potential you see in their scheme.