| PAUL
MIKULA Transcript
of an open interview with Professor Peter Rich
(Wits) at the Johannesburg Architecture Centre
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PAUL MIKULA - JAC INTERVIEW & EXHIBITION
27 October 2004
Peter Rich: Paul has directly or indirectly housed more than 28,000 people in Kwazulu-Natal. He has provided a service to people disadvantaged under apartheid, and has benefited so many people and colleagues, for whom BDG was seminal to their education. He believes in a collaborative for the good over and above the individual. His drawings are a personal, tactile way of dealing with architecture.
Paul: I fell in love with the freedom of this country, this Africa - with the donkeys, horses, space and life around me. It became a magical place for me.
Why architecture?
I got a bad Matric so I wasn't accepted at Onderstepoort. And there was no money in art and music. I tried to run away from architecture for the first two years until I worked for Hans Hallen. Then I learnt about the craft of architecture, putting buildings together. From then on I enjoyed architecture and it has been a passion with me to this day.
First house?
Our first house was built with the insurance we got from our flat burning down. Both Maggie and I were into nature - we had a love for everything organic, for making things. Our dream house was just going to grow out of the ground. The house became an arrangement of cells around a garden, with little bits of weaving and craft throughout. A sense of place is so important - site, city, province - that is still what I do today.
Starting out?
We took on projects nobody else wanted, and built up a wonderful group of Indian clients. We built up our confidence by churning out spec houses. The tragedy of architecture is that we overwork everything, we pour angst into everything we do. There is no need to have angst. Just do something simple, honest and nice. That is the joy of spec houses. I became an architect through the production of buildings.
I always considered myself an architectural cripple, and I collected other cripples so that we could lean on each other (laughs). You need others to bounce ideas and problems off, partners with different functions. It's wonderful to be in a family like that, with people who love each other and are good at what they do. Being in a group gives me confidence to push the boundaries a little.
BDG was a heroic period of your collaboration.
At the end of my university career I teamed up with a group of guys on a competition for housing (Bryan Lee, John Edgar and Bryan Kearney). We worked beautifully together; we were four guys who wanted to change the world. BDG felt like a family held together by a love of architecture and build up of skills. We really did some wonderful buildings. We were opening whole new worlds. Some of our best work in those days was modest work - making of space, making of place.
Then we were bought out by a large engineering firm. We learnt a hell of a lot. Even today when I go back some of those buildings have an incredible quality.
It was a strange period in South Africa. We were doing houses for a black advocate and Indian clients - and we got more and more involved in this desperately ill society of ours. For example, Peter Malefane (fellow architectural student) used to live with me. I had to write letters saying that he was my gardener so that he could stay out late.
I got involved with the Urban Foundation, an NGO trying to create a black middle class, to initiate change. Everybody deserves the services of an architect. We carry magic things within us that we must go out and distribute. In fact, the poorer people are, the more they need us. The Urban Foundation was very rewarding. We fought for people's rights. Architecture is about places of belonging. You become incredibly humble, you look at the special bits of life.
Maggie died after a long illness. It must have been very difficult to recover from that period of sacrifice.
Maggie was the first potter in South Africa to really understand indigenous pottery. She taught me that the important thing is what you do with your life, how you live it. There is beauty in life, there is beauty in death. When you become more spiritual, it makes architecture easier. You don't take it all so seriously. You make it wonderful where you can, and put something back where you can.
I love to celebrate people. In South Africa people have incredible skill and history about themselves to be celebrated. We want people to value themselves.
The BAT Centre is a place of inspiration where artists learn from each other and find a market for their work. These are the projects I love - to build people and to build the spaces around them. My son and daughter are artists. The creative spirit in all of us is the most fantastic thing.
I'm the world's greatest pessimist. I always expect the worst, so there's always something that surprises me. It's always never as bad as I thought it would be.
Where to now?
To Mauritius, to do a home for my nephew.
I am despondent. We had great dreams for this South Africa of ours. The "ama-pondoks" we are building now are much worse than twenty-five years ago. Liberation has brought very little freedom to the community out there. Very little has been achieved or offered to the poor people. All that we've had is rampant capitalism that has only, for most people, made things worse. I think we've lost our way. I'm hoping that the next ten to fifteen years go very quickly so that we can have a revolution and do it all properly next time.
Architecture is too special to make money. So we bought old buildings, fixed them up and flogged them. Now I am busy on an eighteen storey building where each floor is its own site. The building will be an organic thing growing up into the sky.
Would you repeat the journey?
Ja, I love it.
There's a lot of arrogance that has crept into architecture now. Groups are important because you have to answer for your decisions. It results in a much more humane architecture.
The architect's biggest job is to look after the environment. You can't have the arrogance of just slapping up anything. Where have our concerns gone? You don't tear down every tree and destroy every bit of habitat.
Architects have become again elitist animals. Architects are not respected anymore. I came from a period where clients thought I knew something they didn't. Now we're called service providers! There's something wrong. We must get out there and get the public to trust us again, so that we can be professionals again. There is something very special in us that the public needs.
Lone Poulsen: Paul is ruthlessly honest. What he gave to his students and colleagues at BDG was quite extraordinary. He taught that it's more about the spaces you make than what buildings look like on plan. He was generous in terms of his time. Students felt they belonged. BDG taught the moral territory of architecture, that everything has value. I believe that Paul's pessimism is how he holds back his passion.
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