A conversation with Wolfram Putz from Graft

Architectural firms with polarising views? In Germany that’s certainly Graft of Berlin. The projects they have executed around the world and their expressive approach to design have not only brought them notoriety amongst architectural professionals, but have also impressed laypersons. Now they’ve designed a door handle collection for FSB. FSB spoke with Wolfram Putz, one of the three founding partners of Graft, about the debate currently dominating Berlin’s architectural scene, collaboration with Jan Kleihues and Mona Lisa’s smile.

You started your career with lots of projects in the USA – but your focus seems to have shifted more towards Germany since then. Is that a fair observation? And if so, why?

You’re right, but the focus is already starting to shift again. Of course, with three offices we are able to follow market developments relatively well. In America the entire construction industry suffered greatly as a result of the financial crisis in 2009.

We had to shrink our operations in Los Angeles in a very natural way and focused our resources more on Germany, where the residential construction market continues to grow. All in all it was a very organic process. But like other architectural firms, we are currently pushing our acquisition engine in America, because construction has picked up again there as the economy has recovered.

Has the perception of your architecture changed in this country in recent years?

We have more restrictions in Germany than in the rest of the world. Here we still have to face oversight from city building commissions, which make decisions on design. And the debate in the architectural scene here is a little more conservative overall.

But because we want to keep building our designs and don’t think much of life as unknown poets, we are forced to make all sorts of compromises, especially in Berlin. Naturally this sometimes brings moments of frustration – in a city that is currently reconstructing its palace.

How do you see the architectural debate in Berlin, then?
It’s rather closed – and it only works like that in Germany! The string of arguments used in the Baukollegium here would get you laughed off the stage in Los Angeles.

Speaking of debate on the Berlin architectural scene: how is your collaboration with Jan Kleihues going in the Eckwerk project on the banks of the Spree?

It’s an arranged marriage that has grown to be a love match. Neither party wanted to work together in the beginning, everyone was against it and tried to get the other party kicked off the project.

But an external power – the client – forced us to work it out with each other. And after several months of cooperation a symbiosis formed. We are learning through a real project how to overcome the limitations of mindset and thought processes. It feels good! Luckily, we also found that both sides not only have a curiosity in them, but also a good sense of humour, and everyone had an interest in the other. Sure, there are still moments where both parties shake their heads at the other’s motivations. But mostly we just smile at each other and enjoy the shared adventure that destiny brought us.

Has changing your geographic focus influenced your architecture?

That would be nice, but I don’t think so. We’re on planes much too often anyway, travelling around the world. And our staff are much too heterogeneous: of the 100 employees working in Berlin, maybe 15 have been here for a long time; the rest came to the city mostly for the fun things to do during their free time. (Putz laughs.)

In your view, what role does good architecture play in society?

A high-quality, aesthetic experience plays an important role in our coordinate system – and is part of a debate about sustainability. That’s why we are so active in poorer countries, because we find quality to be important especially in those places. We believe that good architecture – in terms of solving problems – is hard to define. To us, good architecture means a lively, pluralistic debate through construction, not just speech, within a city. A city can accommodate lots of attitudes and perspectives and reflect them amongst each other, significantly more than what the debate in Berlin in recent years would suggest. We would really love, as an older, more established firm, to see younger architects and their works in the city.

What feeling does your architecture aim to give its users?

We don't have a creed, really, but we are interested in dynamic and expressive architecture. It aligns more with the perceptions and perspectives of the younger generation. We are also big fans of the term ‘ambivalence’: we are really interested in complex, contradictory, not wholly perfect states. What Michelangelo described as ‘non-finito’. What makes Mona Lisa’s smile so infinitely interesting? It’s the unexplainable!

How did you come to work with FSB?

We had been really active in residential construction for several years, and somehow the idea came up to continue the storytelling thread around the identity of an apartment, so that it didn’t just end at the facade and floor plan, but went on through the fixtures and fittings as well. We hired a couple of product designers and created quite a few designs: sinks, taps, light switches and even door handles. In the beginning we still thought we could have the products manufactured ourselves – but that was a typical Graft idea, wanting to reinvent the wheel. So we took our designs to the market leaders: FSB. FSB values architect authorship, so we knew that we were at the right place.

They looked at everything, incorporated their experience and everything that followed was very simple. Thanks to our projects we also had plenty of volume that we were able to promise. That made things a bit easier. (Putz laughs.)

How makes your FSB 1246 door handle different from other handles?

We didn’t want to make a Graft handle that ultimately no one wanted because it wasn’t functional. We were driven by Bauhaus thinking to make something contemporary that could be a classic without clashing with other design approaches.

In addition to ergonomic considerations, we took the methodical steps we use when designing buildings and transferred them to the door handle. You look at the handle and you can see that it comes from geometrical ergonomics: the handle forms edges on the curve and ridges on the surfaces.

What type of building is the door handle suitable for?

That was the difficult thing: reducing the handle design so that as many people as possible would like it and it would work not just in a Graft building, but also in a building by Jan Kleihues. We wanted to design a product that was democratic through and through!