Antonio Citterio and Patricia Viel on Their New Documentary The Importance of Being an Architect

The film is one chapter in a wider story, as Viel says: “On the occasion of [our 20th anniversary], we are publishing a book—or rather two, one about design and one about architecture. Reflecting on these publications led us to start thinking about telling the story of our work not only through images, but through a story that would bring out the relevance of our working method,” she says. 

“It seemed useful and important for us to leave the language of architecture, and enter into another one—that of cinema, which speaks of chorality,” Viel continues. “Cinema tells you about an object, but within a sort of tableau vivant that is not just an architectural photograph with straightened parallaxes, a total desert, a blue sky, no one moving. Cinema is inside reality, it is a passage towards a way of communicating that matches the one of smartphones, of social networks, of urgency, which has nothing to do with the detached nature of representation that architecture too often has.”

“Not only that: They are images that go inside, through which you can perceive space and understand it,” Citterio says. “I believe that in the near future, architecture will have to be communicated in a different way. We felt the need to start doing that. From there we began to build a script that revises our architecture, in a path marked by a sort of red thread. And then there’s an extraordinary element in the soundtrack music that was composed for this film.”

A phrase coined by the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe comes to mind: “Architecture is music in space, a sort of frozen music.” Viel takes the floor again: “Giorgio Ferrero—who directed the film with Federico Biasini—is also a composer. So he has a kinesthetic relationship with spaces. You could see that when he interviewed us, or when we talked about the projects he was going to shoot, he already had a narrative in his head. I find that to be an extraordinary ability. That’s what cinema has: If the director knows how to do his job, he can transfer an incalculable amount of information in an hour.”

Conceived as a virtual dialogue and musical journey in four acts, the film focuses its first act on the relationship between architecture and nature. During this first part, personalities such as Anna Zegna, Massimo De Carlo, Francesco Bonami, and Rolf Fehlbaum try to define the concept of architecture, and the social responsibility the discipline embodies in the contemporary world. 

In the second act, Deyan Sudjic—former director of the Design Museum in London—recounts Citterio’s journey as a designer and architect, beginning with the Milanese creative boom of the 1980s. The film then swings open the doors of the ACPV studio, offering a glimpse of the complex inner workings of the multidisciplinary firm. The documentary closes with a reminder that although Citterio and Viel have been on the professional journey of a lifetime, the field of architecture has changed, as practitioners are called upon to respond to the changes in society and the challenges of globalization.

“One of the themes we deal with, which is very important in our work, is the relationship with the client,” Citterio says. “It’s something we believe in. This comes from my work in design, where the client is the counterpart of the project, it’s 50/50. It’s someone who believes in what he’s doing. He’s thinking about a new product, and pouring all his creativity into it, which is not always the case in the real estate world. You have to be lucky. We are fortunate because we have had clients in the field of architecture that have asked us to design buildings that had to be a sort of representation of the company itself. Extraordinary companies and people, from Esprit to others. When I met Doug Tompkins, its [Esprit’s] founder, one of the first things he said to me was, ‘Go to Osaka and meet this architect,’ and he sent me to Tadao Ando. But I could also quote the letter that Rolf Fehlbaum of Vitra had written to introduce me to Ray Eames. Lucky encounters, which when you’re young you think are normal things, but then you realize in time how exceptional they are.”

The production of the film was complex, with shooting in Milan and L’Aquila in Italy; Hamburg, Germany; Taichung, Taiwan; and Miami. What were the most difficult moments? For Citterio it was “being interviewed while driving. We were in the snow, I had to watch the car, drive, talk. It was hard to concentrate, to have a thought. But it was also fun.” For Patricia Viel, too, the most challenging moments are linked to the interviews: “I’m used to doing them, but having the camera in front of me is different. We didn’t have a script, but there was a framework of concepts that had to be followed. And when they film you, you have the impression that the quality of the finished product is entirely in your hands.”

The end result is a vision of architecture (and of years of work) that breaks the mold and manages to be very intense. “At one point in the film we are in Hamburg, on the top floor of the Edel Music headquarters, a project of ours from 2002,” Viel says. “The client there forewent building an entire floor to safeguard the elegance of the project so that the top could be set back and transparent, as if it were a modern villa in an international style, resting on a building on the river. So, to hear him talk about how we managed to interpret the urban plan, to see how he holds this building, as if it were a son, how he cares for it and is proud of it, was a really valuable moment.”

Citterio continues, “There is a sequence that I particularly liked. We’re at Technogym, it’s evening, and a musician starts playing. It’s the first instrument you encounter in the film, a double bass, and up until that moment there is no music. Then a duet with a trumpet starts. That sound was an emotion. Not a dramatic sound, but not muted either—you can feel the pathos. I hope, all together, that it will make a film that is less boring than the average film about architecture,” he says and smiles. Architecture, space, music. Goethe was right.

The Importance of Being an Architect

Production MyBossWas, directed by Giorgio Ferrero and Federico Biasin, 60 minutes, Italy.
Watch the trailer here.

The film will be shown during the Milano Design Film Festival (October 20–24, 2021) at Teatro Parenti and on the website milanodesignfilmfestival.com.