I've always been interested in the idea of the artificial landscape. Reforming the landscape. Architecture being a method of reforming the earth's surface.
Lebbeus WoodsIf there's going to be another movement, another direction in architecture, it has to engage people differently. Other than saying, here, look at this, isn't this amazing? It has to interactively involve them other than as spectators ... it has to engage them as creators.
Lebbeus WoodsArchitects are today routinely indoctrinated against the dumb box. Even advertising urges us to "think outside the box." Why? Because it is thought we all hate the box for being too dumb, too boring, and we want to escape it. If we do escape, by buying the advertised product, we usually find ourselves inside another dumb box populated by boring people just like us. It is clearly possible to live an extraordinary life inside a dumb box. Question: is it possible to lead an extraordinary life in anything other than a dumb box?
Lebbeus WoodsI'm not interested in living in a fantasy world ... All my work is still meant to evoke real architectural spaces. But what interests me is what the world would be like if we were free of conventional limits. Maybe I can show what could happen if we lived by a different set of rules.
Lebbeus WoodsA lot of my work is about questioning the stability and permanence of architecture, and, in turn, the stability of society.
Lebbeus WoodsI've always been interested, - if you look back at my work from the beginning, really - I've always been interested in the idea of the artificial landscape. Reforming the landscape. Architecture being a method of reforming the earth's surface. We reshape the earth's surface, from architecture to paving streets, to parking lots and buildings that are really reforming the surface of the earth. Reforming nature, taking over what we find. And we're mushing it around and remaking a new earth - or, what we used to call Terra Nova.
Lebbeus Woods