Frank Stella

Photo by Steven Sloman, New York © 2007

Frank Stella, "Gate House (model)" (1994)

Photo by Anna Marie Kellen, courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Frank Stella, "Chinese Pavilion (in progress)" (2007)

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Skipping ahead a decade or so, what were some of the strongest factors that led you to push your work into three dimensions during the 1970s?

The “Polish Villages” [the first wall reliefs] were the turning points, but it was implied in the irregular polygon [canvases] like Sunapee II (1966). I took that one a long way, and I really liked it, but it didn’t quite go anywhere.

But then I bounced back to it a few years later, and it came out with a whole new geometry. My paintings at the time started to be about organizing the space. I basically built a painting and then painted on it. That was essentially true from early on, when I was making the shape paintings, but it didn’t really sink in that much.   

From there, how did you go from constructing the space of a painting or wall relief to planning buildings and architecture?

Well, if you look at the maquettes of the “Polish Village” works, if you lay them flat on the tabletop, I think they could pass for architectural models—maybe [Daniel] Libeskinds or something like that. I always knew that they were spatial. I built up the surface, but I knew underneath there was volume, and it was just a question of dealing with the volume within the construction.

Since I essentially built paintings and then painted them, I didn’t have to approach the work in a different way in order to think more architecturally than, say, sculpturally or pictorially. Almost any painted relief could be translated into a building.

But how do you move from there to designing architectural structures?  

That’s the easy part. You just enlarge it!

You make it big enough that people can live in it.

So when you set out to work on an architectural project, do you think about how people will use it?

No. I really believe that form can dictate function.

If people are desperate enough, they’ll figure it out. If they can physically manage it—if it’s bigger than a jail cell—they’ll adapt to it.

Several models and sculptures based on your Chinese Pavilion design appear in the Met exhibition, including the large work on the roof. Did you have a sense of how it would frame the skyline when you decided to install it there?

To tell you the truth, I never thought about it. We organized it from the floor plan; we thought that two sculptures would take up one space, and Chinese Pavilion would take up the other space. I was completely surprised by the photographer’s take on the work against the skyline. I guess, like a lot of artists, I’m totally self-involved. I was worried about the work—working on it, getting it up, and everything else involved—not the skyline. The whole idea was to carry the progression of sculpture and architecture downstairs up into the new work on the roof.

How do you respond to critics, who have said that your architectural work lacks the strength of your paintings and wall reliefs?

I haven't heard that from any architectural critics, and I haven't heard it from any architects either.

How do architects respond to your architectural projects?

Politely. And some even encouragingly, but by and large I think most architects—you know, most artists—are more worried about themselves. They’re relatively indifferent to what other people are doing.

Who are some contemporary architects that you admire?

Well, I love Richard. I like Frank Gehry, and I think Santiago Calatrava is a transcendent genius. There is hardly anything good out there that I don’t like, and a lot of things that aren’t great, I like too.