Architecture can improve people’s lives | Gëzim Paçarizi | TEDxTirana

Gëzim strongly believes that Architecture should improve peoples lives.
A city should be a good place to live. A School should inspire learning. A House should be a place inspiring happiness.

Paçarizi is a Swiss-Kosovar architect, partner of PHARC architects in Geneva, Switzerland and Politbyro studio in Prishtina, Kosovo. He represented Kosovo in Venice Biennale in 2014. His buildings in Kosovo are all made of local materials with local labour. They don’t try to copy traditional building gs through formal elements but by responding to the local conditions and the way of life. They are both traditional and modern at the same time. His architecture is based on human experience and well being through simplicity and order. Paçarizi believes architecture should make people's lives better and improve human condition

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

After the war,
there was a foreigner in Prishtina,

and he lost the way to his hotel

he was in the main suite.

He asked somebody, he said:

"Please, can you tell me,
where is the Grand Hotel?"

The boy said:
"Do you see the end of the street?"

The building there?
He said: Yes, I see it!

That's not the Grand Hotel,
it's the one on the right.

(Laughs)

So, my way of being an architect

was also very irregular and round.

I studied architecture in two universities

for almost ten years and when I finished

I was really not so sure about what to do

and where to begin, so I thought

I will take more time.

And started to travel and I said,

if i didn't understand architecture in school

maybe I should go myself and see,

and actually, what i discovered was that,

when you are in the building,
when you're visiting the building,

you spend time.

You go there, sometimes in some places

you spend a week there or three days

and you arrive there
you want to spend some more time.

So what do you do?
You look. You look, and after a while

you try to see

because you can't see in the very beginning.

Actually is very important to see.

If you draw and I used to draw a lot,

it takes time. People tell

You have a very good hand,

Actually, it's not the hand who's drawing.

It's the head, it's the eyes, it's the look.

You can not draw if you can not look.

So you have to learn to look.

If you see, then you can learn to draw.

It's very easy,
you don't have to think.

(Applause)

If you would ask me to say only one place,

this is TED, we have to do it shortly,

only one place where which I would choose
between all I have seen

there is a city in India, Ahmedabad,

which has four buildings of le Corbusier

and one building of Louis Kahn,

a school actually, a university.

These two architects are the ones which

are the modern architects

which have influenced ...

everything I have done

By their way of building

also by the way of thinking

and particularly
one of these four buildings

of le Corbusier, this one

is exactly in this building that I

had a feeling that I had something
in my hand.

A moment when you think

like you holding something?

I wouldn't call it a truth

but something really very strong.

And I said: "Well, OK,
now I want to become an architect."

and the next thing to do

i said, I want to go home.

And I went to Prizren first.

This is 1913.

Prizren was born out of two very simple rules.

One, is the rule of "no harm"

You don't do to your neigbors what

you wouldn't like them to do to you.

the second is "beauty without arrogance".

(Applause)

These two principles
could make a city like this.

it's very simple.

So what I found was this

and this to me was ugliness with arrogance.

(Applause)

I have something worse than this!

(Laughs)

There is no limit in bad things
also in good ones.

In the very begining in Kosovo I realize

that I wanted to change things

I came there to change things.

But you cannot change the otherss

you can change only yourself.

and i didn't want to change myself

in a way of becoming like the others

I wanted to stay with my beliefs

but I wanted to change other things

and i had to find a way

so I could speak to the people

to my people.

So they would understand what I mean

and I was sure they will understand.

So I tried to find a language

a common language

that could speak to them

and could be what I think

So I concentrated on one thing

that the architecture
should improve people lives

If you ask me

What is a good architecture?

There is one thing that
all good architecture should have

Architecture should improve your life

should be something
that makes your living better

Cities could be a better place to live

(Applause)

A school should be a place

where you can get inspired to learn

a house should be a place

where you have a well being

A room should be a place

which inspires happiness

This is my daughter in the top of my house

I don't have to tell you

that she's happy there.

One of the basic things

in my work was that I was

always limited financially.

All my clients had very little means

so I had to find a way

to make things with very little

and making things with very little,

it's learning the simplicity.

One of the elements that you'll see

my buildings is concrete.

And many people ask me,

Why do you make concrete buildings?

We didn't have a choice, actually,

concrete is the only material

we could afford.

We couldn't afford stone

We couldn't afford marble

but concrete, yes.

You could do good things with concrete

if you respect it

and if you find a way

to make it real,

to make it only once,

You don't put a second layer

if you don't have to.

Buqalla Pools & Hotel,

was my biggest commission

and it took me five years

to build everything.

It was my biggest project,

but actually it's the one which

I had trouble to explain.

There were two or three things which started,

One was that,
I wanted a place where the man

can meet the nature.

It sounds very theoretical

but imagine, you come to this place

to forget you everyday life,

your problems and you want to feel well.

So I wanted a place where you

could feel well.

Where you're not relaxed,

but just feel good.

Maybe get inspired to do things.

The second thing was, I wanted architeture

to be related to the nature.

If you imagine architecture here

and nature here and something in between.

This thing in between is a sort of

human landscape,

it's not the nature

and it's not the inside.

It's sort of between
nature and architecture.

So, these two elements

made this complex, this architecture.

(Applause)

I realize during this five years

that it was very difficult to practice

architecture in Kosovo

the way I was used to do it

in Switzerland.

I had to adapt.

One of the really basic things that happen

is that architecture I think in Albania

and Kosovo is the same.

We are in a process of changes.

Building is still like in maybe
200 years ago

where owners hires the builders,

to build their houses

and they don't need architects.

Sometimes they buy papers from architects

and they give it to the builders

but they cannot replace us.

So, I had only one choice

to do something well

that was to become a master builder

by myself.

(Applause)

These are the real builders,

the owner was not there.

So they were relaxing.

This is a very small house,

the very smallest I have done.

It's a family of four

and they didn't have a lot of money

So, they wanted a really little house

which fulfills all their needs.

I made a sort of strategic plan

how to do it.

I developed four points.

Which can be a sort of generic

to generate architecture
in this situation.

One of these was to make an efficient plan.

An efficient plan is like you plan

that the life in the house

should be really very well organized

and it works well

not one centimeter lost.

The second thing was, we wanted to use

local labor and materials.

People who built it,
they lived in the same place

and the materials were coming from near,

so they were cheaper.

We used the passive solar energy.

It costs nothing.

If you have a lot of windows in the south,

you have sun in winter,
and shade in summer

because the sun is high.

(Applause)

The fourth element was

to design and build everything.

We designed lights

we designed furniture,

we designed many many things

it was cheaper to design and build things

than buy ready made

which were ugly anyway.

Dida house was much bigger

maybe two three times bigger

but it didn't cost two three times more.

Dida house is a holiday house.

They don't live there all the time.

In Kosovo we have very extreme climate.

The winter is very cold.

The summer is very hot.

So traditionally, we have to houses,

those who can afford.

A winter house and a summer house.

So I thought, maybe I should do a house

which has these two

inside and outside.

Then I related the inside and outside

with continuous space

so you have a space which does not stop inside

it goes outside and comes inside

and than it goes up and it goes down

so everything is related to each other

and when you relate everything to each other

you gain a sort of harmony

when things are at their place.

When something happens
there is some poetry there as well.

(Applause)

The Mother Theresa museum is in Prizren

You know, Mother Theresa's parents
got married in a Catholic Church in Prizren

and they had a little plot in the front
and wanted to build a museum.

So, I imagined an old Prizren house,
with three floors,

and when you actually go inside

is one space.

I had this idea of making really a one space .

Is like a child dream that you can walk around up and down

because inside of the house is like someone has taken down all the floors

and emptied everything that is inside.

Turning it into an empty space.

Because, you know,
architecture is not the material

is the emptiness.

It is what actually is not there.

It's the nothing.

(Applause)

I was doing a theater competition once,

and I had a guy who was producing theatrical pieces help me

make a better competition.

We lost it!

However, I understood one thing.

The guy told me
"I do not need my theater to be beautiful"

"I needed to generate beauty"

"I want a theater which can help me
make beautiful pieces"

I do not care if the theater itself is beautiful or not"

So, I was thinking and I realized that

(Applause)

Architecture is not the beauty

it is rather the capacity
to generate beauty.

let me finish with a little story
from the Venice Biennale

where I represented Kosovo.

I did a tower with "shkami"
or stool in English

which is an old piece of Albanian furniture

meaning a stool and at the same time a rock.

So it shows that it is a very old thing

Probably people sat on the rock
while making the stool long time ago

So it relates strongly to our tradition

but not to one specific one,
but rather those of thousands of years.

So I chose this old traditional element

to make this modern instalation.

This because I wanted to show the relation
between tradition and modernity.

But something happened
that I did not expect.

I realized that if you would stand in the middle of it

and if you would speak

you would hear an echo coming from all sides.

And I watched the visitors who did it

and once they did it they would start to laugh.

It was so beautiful to hear your voice

as you do not listen to your self very often.

They were tired of seeing Biennale

and they would come back from the tower

with a smile.

Suddenly the tower was loosing all

its significance, all its wait

and symbolic

and became something which

could transmit instant happiness.

Thank You

(Applause)