Translator: Ilze Garda Reviewer: Ellen Maloney
I have an architecture studio in Riga,
and, perhaps, my childhood experiences influenced my choice of profession.
Both my parents are artists,
and I saw strange things around me in my childhood,
like, I saw how they wrapped themselves into yarn
and how they built houses out of glass,
or even locked themselves in birdcages
I was fascinated that there are ideas behind those things,
and how those ideas are connected to real things.
This is my backyard.
It looked like a construction site for most of the time.
I remember myself thinking, I could become an artist,
or maybe a filmmaker, or maybe a musician,
and I'm still interested in those things,
but I chose to study architecture because it has materiality
and, behind the materiality, there is an idea, an emotion.
And I think it's very important for people who use the space, the architecture.
Since then, I've had a chance to work on interesting projects.
Those projects represented state, nation, and culture,
and, to make culturally and emotionally charged space,
I looked into nature.
This is, by the way, a concept scale model
for the Soviet pavilion in Seville Expo, by my father,
and the black spot is my childhood dog.
But 20 years later,
I had a phone call, it was late autumn of 2009.
A friend called me, and he asked my opinion
on who are the most progressive Latvian architects.
I was joking and I said.
"You made the right call, I'm listening very carefully."
But he told he is speaking seriously because he was working
on Latvia's participation in the next expo in Shanghai.
He wanted to invite architects to discuss ideas
how the Latvian pavilion should look like.
Actually, there was an interesting idea.
Latvia wanted to show flying people,
performances with flying people,
and it's possible with the help of a vertical wind tunnel.
That's a machine where, with the help of very strong wind,
people can really fly.
So, there was a content, but the content needed an architecture.
Shanghai expo was the biggest exposition in history.
There were 240 pavilions and up to one million visitors every day.
But Latvia's budget was tiny
because of the financial crisis at that time.
In comparison, it was ten times smaller than the budget of Finland's pavilion,
so there was a big question
how to stand out between all those countries.
There was a wind tunnel which represented advances in technology,
but we also needed to show Latvia
as a flexible and creative country.
So, I decided to make the pavilion as a light and kinetic object,
and the key, I thought, was the wind.
We actually designed this small plastic piece,
and I imagined
that the pavilion would consist of 100,000 of those leaves,
and they will sway in the wind.
The pavilion actually -
This simple idea will make the picture of the Latvian nature,
and we got the commision.
Actually, it was a bit crazy, it was insane,
because the government asked us if it's still possible to do it
because only six months were left until the opening,
and usually states are doing this for two years.
I said, "Yes, it's absolutely possible. We can do it, no problem."
But actually, I had a huge responsibility on me,
and I remember I was 25 years old at the time,
and, in order to get this work done, I thought I needed to say I was older,
and then I said I was 27.
(Laughter)
I went for the first time to China,
and this was the first thing I saw there in the morning when I opened my eyes,
and I understood,
"OK, I'm not in Riga anymore, and it's totally different."
And it was.
We did the pavilion, we made it.
It looked like this.
(Video starts)
The wind made the architecture.
It was changing all the time.
Sometimes it looked like a sea.
Sometimes it looked like a lake in the evening.
When the wind was more powerful, sometimes it even became transparent.
It cast shadows, and there was this sound.
The sound from the leaves.
(Chinese voice-over on loudspeaker)
So, with the budget ten times smaller than average,
Latvia became one of the Top 10 countries in Shanghai expo,
and the pavilion gained huge attention.
One of the visitors invited me to create my next project.
I called it Shaolin Flying Monks Temple.
The location for the project, Songshan mountain,
actually a very beautiful, amazingly beautiful place in Middle China,
is home to Shaolin Monastery.
This is the place.
It turned out that it's not only a very beautiful place,
but it's also a cradle of the Chinese civilization.
The first Chinese capital was there in ancient times,
and the ancient Chinese called this place "the center of heaven and earth,"
so it's somewhere in between.
There is a huge cultural background to this place,
but there is a problem because China has big plans for urbanization.
They plan to move 300 million people from the countryside to cities
in 25 years.
Imagine, 300 million is the population of the United States,
so, it will make radical changes in China's landscape.
It also happens here.
Then I had a feeling that we need to somehow protect this place,
I need to emphasize
the beauty of the nature and the culture of this place.
The Songshan landscape
has its own patterns, and textures, and mood.
In order to emphasize this, I only need to continue this feeling.
So, I decided to make a building as a continuation of the mountain,
so that people can climb up to the top of it.
The shape of the building
was inspired by the silhouette of the Songshan mountain.
Above that mountain, the monk will fly.
So, the main event here is flying.
There is an old myth in China about Shaolin monks that fly,
which comes from the old times,
and we want to show this myth in a new light
by making flying performances,
We are negotiating with Shaolin monks, and I hope it will happen soon.
I would like to show a small video (Video starts)
from the film that we are making about this project.
(Music)
This building is quite complicated.
The organic shape of it,
all the details of the building are very different,
and the inner constructions are cut with lasers in modern factories.
We will make a stone surface on it, like steps where people can climb.
We will make them of local stone,
and we've found a very special stone
in the local quarries, in the same mountain,
so there is a connection with this place,
and the local craftmen will make these steps.
The construction is moving very slowly,
but I hope it'll be finished this summer, and I hope that Shaolin monks will fly.
But the ideas that this project contains
hopefully will start a new life in a new project
which is very close and important for me as a Latvian.
It's an open-air stage
for the Latvian Song and Dance Festivals,
which is a very important ritual for Latvians,
it's actually a manifestation of the Latvian culture.
It started 150 years ago,
and now it happens every five years.
It gathers around 100,000 visitors
from all over Latvia and the world.
Sometimes, it's even compared to a religion,
so I think that the place where this event happens
is a sacred place for Latvians.
Initially, a new wooden structure was built every five years.
This is one of those.
In the Soviet times, in 1950s, a permanent structure was built in Riga.
However, there were some elements of the Soviet propaganda.
After several reconstructions,
the venue still hosts the event, but it needs radical changes.
We need more seats for visitors, we need more seats for choir people,
and we need to improve acoustics.
But I think the most important thing is to make a new image
that would serve the Latvian values and ideas
for, let's say, the next 100 years.
The question is how to make a sacred place for Latvians?
What should it look like?
In the Latvian folklore,
the world around us is explained through nature.
Latvians observe nature and lived by its principles,
so I think nature is a sacred place for Latvians,
and the Latvian temple is nature.
That's why I propose to make
the national open-air stage as a Latvian landscape.
The tribune would be like a hill to climb,
and climbing, I feel, is like a pilgrimage,
like rising above the daily life.
Then, there is a roof on the top of the hill,
and the roof is like a forest, it protects people from rain and wind.
And there is a silver grove in the Latvian mythology
that symbolizes the highest values; purity and honesty.
Then there are elements that change, like scenography or acoustic elements,
and we make them like a leafage of the forest
that changes according to seasons.
We make this project using similarities with nature.
Now this project is on paper.
There is a very small chance that it will be made until 2018
when it's the 100th anniversary of Latvia.
It needs a political agreement between the municipality and the state.
I hope that sooner or later it will be built,
but I think that we need a discussion
about the ideas, values, and vision
that would be like a Latvian vision for the next 100 years.
And we need it now because it's our future.
In the end, to put simply, I would like to say
that nature inspires me and it's powerful.
Thank you.
(Applause)