Breakfast with architect Umberto Riva

Despite his protestations, he is extremely cultured, I loved listening to the flow of his words. He didn’t show up for our first date, allowing my expectations to grow into something tangible. He was right not to do so, mind you, I wasn’t ready. But I still wasn’t ready when our conversation really did take place. We met in his studio, overflowing with magazines, drawings and memorabilia, for a breakfast of tea and his favourite biscuits, along with Emilio Scarano, a Milanese architect with whom Riva has shared projects and a studio for 10 years. Umberto Riva is a kind architect, despite the reticence of his introverted character. I found that his silences were merely restful pauses before he spoke again. He smiles often. I don’t call him Maestro. He is, of course, but I fear he would reject the title. What we do know for sure is that his work has never had the security of affinity with any particular style or trend. That is what brought me here and this is my breakfast with Riva.
UR

It completely slipped my mind last time and you were ingenuous enough not to call me.
CT

We didn’t want to disturb you.
UR

I suffocate myself. Little mishaps befall me and it all makes me a touch insufferable. I am 90 years old after all. I’m not a young man anymore. So, I say to myself: it’s worked out again. When was I most scared? When I was young.
CT

What did you think about when you were at university?
UR

It was a huge relief when I graduated because I was a terrible student. I’ve always struggled to learn, I’ve got an awful memory and that penalises me. But the pleasure of working, drawing and my craft made the struggle worth it. I never managed to form a group – I still don’t. I know very few architects. You should know that my background is actually in accounting – to show you how I immediately stumbled off course – but family issues influenced my choice. I specialised in arts subjects after that though.
CT

So, you did rebel.
UR

Even when I was studying accounting, I used to have lessons with a painter on certain afternoons and he would say “The boy is not a painter. He must be an architect.” Architecture was the last thing on my mind. I completed my diploma, I was almost 30 by the time I graduated – and I must thank my wife for that, without her I fear I’d still be there.
Laughter
UR

We’re just a bunch of old people now. We’ve always kept well, but some of us are having to come to terms with the past now.
CT

What about your own professional history?
UR

I like architecture as a profession. It is a very approximative way of enjoying the pleasure of doing. I’m not a scholar. It is perseverance in the face of potential error. Nonetheless, I cannot entirely justify these years. At one point, people started to recognise what I was doing despite there being five young architects in the studio. People close to me have been in my studio, have worked with me. The atmosphere was very…
CT

Family-like?
UR

Yes, family-like in a way, very friendly in another. Now I am lucky enough to have Emilio (*Scarano), who is very shrewd and only comes four afternoons a week.
ES

You should say every afternoon but one.
UR

And what are four afternoons a week? Monday, Tuesday, not on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Four afternoons.
Laughter
UR

But now he bears the burdens of the organization, which has never been my strong point.
CT

But didn’t running a studio, which you didn’t think prudent, help in your work? Leaving aside money, success and visibility which I don’t believe are of interest to you.
UR

Absolutely not. What stimulates me is doing, I was much more interested in a craft. I’ve never really overseen big construction sites, only a few times. It came down to interiors, a smaller commitment yet greater exchange.
CT

This was closer to your vision.
UR

I never gave up on my inclination for painting and consequently I have always tried to place limits. I almost never have proper collaborators, or designers. It’s very rare.
Laughter
UR

Emilio is an exception. In fact, he only comes four afternoons. Four!
ES

It’s not easy to collaborate, is it? It’s not easy.
UR

With me? You’re right, it’s not easy.
CT

Why isn’t it easy to work with you?
UR

Because I am difficult. For me, it’s not an a priori process, it is a process of doing. So, it is based extensively on the drawing but the drawing isn’t a priori either, it emerges through a series of approximations, some diagrams, in which the form is born from a series of suggestions.

[Working] For me, it’s not an a priori process, it is a process of doing. So, it is based extensively on the drawing but the drawing isn’t a priori either, it emerges through a series of approximations, some diagrams, in which the form is born from a series of suggestions.

CT

So it’s not a facet of your character, but rather your precise attitude to your work.
UR

That’s an excellent way of putting it!
Laughter
CT

I say this without necessarily wanting to pin down an image of your work. I imagine that these steps, which perhaps follow on from each other during the process, are hard to explain in any language other than drawing itself.
UR

There are different attitudes. For example, if I were made to write, nothing would come out. Because that’s not my attitude. Drawing has always saved me.
CT

Without being too specific, are there architects that have influenced you in some way? Franco Albini comes to mind.
UR

Franco Albini… I was very shy and Albini had a very strict and severe approach to design. I was examined by Giuseppe Samonà, Franco Albini and Carlo Scarpa for my graduation.
CT

Scarpa must have been an examiner to remember.
UR

Scarpa also had an artistic component, which was the only thing that helped me get into architecture. But I will say that Scarpa wanted to fail me.
Laughter
UR

Albini saved me somehow and I got a mark of 75. Not only that, my wife, who had a high average, had been kind enough to wait for me because… There are things that I cannot justify. I was never any good at exams. I could never grasp the situation. So, when I finally graduated, everything felt very possible.
CT

Why the conflict with Scarpa?
UR

We designed a social housing project. At the time, I was very interested in the work of Gino Valle, who was very good, so we used the “theme” of modularity.
Emilio brings us some tea.
UR

These towers were strictly based around certain modules with one minor inconvenience: one open side. This enraged Scarpa. “How can you have a tower with one open side and no cover?” I tried to justify this modularity and fabrication in any way I could. Albini was very generous and said, “I once designed some social housing that was closed leaving only a crack open.” Albini. I always come back to Albini. Especially his early work. He made some marvellous things. His furniture is surprising. He is a great architect. In fact, I consider him one of the great Italian architects. He’ll have to remain halfway up the ranking though, because there is no shortage of great architects.
CT

Despite being enrolled in Milan, you actually graduated in Venice.
UR

I studied in Milan initially, then I called it off in my third year. I didn’t go to university for five years, then I went to Venice.
CT

Which was the right choice, at that time.
UR

It was the right choice and I was surprised by the wealth of formal and material resources that Scarpa offered – I remember, in fact, the entrance to the Gallerie dell’Accademia with a beautiful design. And, deep down, it was easier to understand him. They say that I am a disciple of Scarpa, I have an excellent personal relationship with his son Tobia. Tobia is generous and excellent. While Albini intimidated me.
CT

He was more Ambrosian.
UR

Yes, but of the Milanese lot, Ignazio Gardella, Vico Magistretti, BBPR and Luigi Caccia Dominioni, who were all aristocratic middle class, he was the most... free, in terms of his duty.
CT

Were these same “worlds” reflected in architecture magazines, similarly to what is happening now?
UR

Yes, and now a whole series of independent magazines are springing up.
CT

I think there is renewed commitment from this generation and more desire to design and write well so there is more energy.
UR

That’s true.
CT

Even coming to terms with the contradictions that we all have to face within our “savoir faire” – to borrow your turn of phrase.
UR

I remember struggling to work out, when I had to make a small plan, the problem of thickness, whether it was in metal, marble or wood. I couldn’t fathom how difficult it was to depict a design. Now there are means available, which, in my opinion, are actually penalising because they prevent the conscious experience of using the materials. Something that we experience every day, depending on how we can use certain materials over others. Are you not hungry? I’m a bit greedy.

I always come back to Albini. Especially his early work. He made some marvellous things. His furniture is surprising. He is a great architect. In fact, I consider him one of the great Italian architects. He’ll have to remain halfway up the ranking though, because there is no shortage of great architects.

CT

I often wonder why your name features as a reference among architects, yet you were never part of the community that unites them, whether in your social life or in discussions. Your nature kept you away from the crowds.
UR

That comes down to my shyness. I always felt very uncomfortable, inadequate. I can’t write, I struggle to learn… I design with my hands, memory, suggestions…
CT

By impulse.
UR

Yes. It’s a whole series of approximations and memories, until I find a logical link that justifies everything. And it’s beautiful.
CT

You find order within this impulse. It starts, naturally, with an abstract thought, unbound by logic, in a way. For example, when designing an interior and an octagonal plan might respect all the constraints…
UR

You know what it is? I leave nothing unturned. I struggle to express myself with right angles… Signs of affirmation are always approximations. They are tangents and vectors that are gradually completed. This is visible in my plans and my paintings too, when I painted.
CT

Nevertheless, it looks like an extremely complex geometry.
UR

I am always on the verge of changing my ming. There is no certainty. That is an existential choice. I don’t think that plans and sections exist a priori but are formal inventions. The plan is figuratively effective which if it were no longer eloquent, or the sections…
CT

You work mostly with plans.
UR

Yes, and I draw a lot. I didn’t even make models in the beginning – now everybody uses them – so it was an exercise of visualising while doing.
CT

What inspires you when you talk to clients?
UR

I’ve never had that many clients and my clients choose me. We’ve always had very friendly relationships, I have been very lucky in that sense. I’ve never had anything to do with public bodies, apart from a few cases…
CT

Installations.
UR

Every job is a great adventure.

I design with my hands, memory, suggestions. It’s a whole series of approximations and memories, until I find a logical link that justifies everything. And it’s beautiful.

CT

And when your architectural work is transformed into design, the literature of your work?
UR

I’ve never considered myself a designer.
CT

But it is a role that is being attributed to you nowadays, isn’t it?
UR

I am planning a small exhibition. They asked me what to call it and I replied “Forms”. To arrive at the definition of form is to seek help from all sides, but not to reduce it purely to function.
CT

Our trade hides the meanings and signifiers of our life, if we want it to. I refer to your gentle and solitary attitude, while in your drawings I see an impatient search for stillness.
UR

I’ve never been able to clearly separate my work from my emotional life. There has always been great confusion. Then you get to this age and everything comes back together to be rediscovered. And that’s very positive.
CT

Rediscovered in terms of your work?
UR

No, from an emotional point of view, which, for me, is the key. In the 1980s, Pierluigi Nicolin invited me to a conference of architecture, but I was the only non-professor, I was naive.
CT

The fact that you didn’t have any links with education when you started out, implies, at least to me, that your thought was striking in any case. Independently from stances not taken or words unsaid.
UR

Or perhaps you don’t understand. My cultural starting point was almost zero, I didn’t have a very rich intellectual attitude.
CT

But I get the impression that you have extensive emotional intelligence.
UR

That made up for it.
Umberto and Sean talk about where to take some portraits. Emilio and I leave the room.
UR

Does she keep a diary?
SB

The young woman? I think so.
UR

A diary is important. I would like to go back because I can’t remember what happened when I was 49 for example. You place different emphasis on how you are, how you used to be…
Emilio and I come back.
CT

Architect, can I come and visit you again?
UR

Whenever you like! I will tell you of my wonders.