Matteo Thun and Korbinian Kohler have known and appreciated each other for quite some time. Matteo Thun was commissioned, among other things, to architecturally redesign Wildbad Kreuth, Korbinian Kohler’s most recent project. On a summer’s day in June, they meet at the Glyptothek in Munich and reflect on philosophy, the difference between art, design and architecture – and the role Matteo Thun’s wife plays in his creative work.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
When we began working together on Wildbad Kreuth, you once suggested holding a meeting at the Glyptothek rather than in a conference room. Why? What was the thought behind it?

MATTEO THUN:
That was your thought – it came from you and your studies in philosophy. I believe the Glyptothek is a place of self-discovery. And I think that being close to Socrates, Plato and your Aristotle takes one further.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Yes, that’s true; actually, the connecting link between the two of us is Plato. You are a Socratic, and I am an Aristotelian – and Plato is, so to speak, in the middle, and that connects us. Quite right.

MATTEO THUN:
At some point, I would like to get so far that you become a Platonist.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Yes, perhaps. Perhaps that is the end of the story – that we both become Platonists.

MATTEO THUN:
That could be.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
But when you say: go back to your roots, to your origin. I have asked myself: does one also have to be skilled in craftsmanship as an architect?

MATTEO THUN:
I cannot say whether I am gifted. But my parents never gave me toys. Against that background, as a small child I made turtles out of clay. Turtles in the open hand are quite simply a circular thing to which you attach five extremities. And those were my turtles. I played with these turtles between the ages of three and six. At seven, I began making a little horse. Little horses are very difficult, because a horse stands on four legs, and shaping four legs from clay is difficult. It was all made of ceramic. My parents had a ceramics business, and I could more or less get clay for free and built my toys from it.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Did your parents’ business, this ceramics business, inspire you to become a designer and architect?

MATTEO THUN:
Probably, yes. I believe more than ever in the quality of craftsmanship. And I believe a good architect must know the different materials, must know what can be done with clay, what can be created with stone, with wood, with loam. Knowledge of materials is the basis of our profession.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
But through what they did with ceramics, did your parents in a sense place a design value in your cradle? Or would you say no, that was not my style at all – quite the opposite, I wanted to distance myself from it?

MATTEO THUN:
They gave me space for creation and the opportunity to study with Kokoschka. And the ceramics business gave my parents the opportunity to earn money.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
And your parents? Your origins? They were probably formative. But you also distanced yourself a little, for example because you gave back your title of nobility, because I believe you even found it somehow uncomfortable.

MATTEO THUN:
I still find it uncomfortable to speak about a title one inherits. One should be able to speak about the things one does over the course of one’s life, not about things one is given at birth.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
So it was not an act of distancing yourself from your parents, but rather a general understanding of life.

MATTEO THUN:
An understanding of life, and not least also the modesty of my parents, which I would also like to pass on to my children.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
When did you actually realise that you wanted to become an architect?

MATTEO THUN:
I wanted to become a pilot, not an architect. But my mother recommended that I study architecture for one year. I then started as a civil engineer and became an architect.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Why didn’t you then study aerospace engineering in order to become a pilot?

MATTEO THUN:
Good question. Perhaps I would not be sitting here today speaking with you if I had really become a pilot.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Because you would now be sitting in a cockpit, or because you would no longer be here at all?

MATTEO THUN:
Either I would no longer be here, which was in fact Ettore Sottsass’s hypothesis. He said: I will not accept a partnership with someone who dies, or could die, at the weekend. Decide. Do you want to fly, or do you want to become an architect?

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Can you tell us more about this partnership? It was, I believe, your first professional home, so to speak.

MATTEO THUN:
My first professional home was Emilio Vedova. I had experienced a fiasco with Oskar Kokoschka, then left Kokoschka and, in protest, went to Vedova, who at the time had a reputation as a Maoist, but at the same time was certainly the most exciting artist in Italy. I had tried my hand at art, realised that art was not my field, and then, by chance, met Ettore Sottsass in Los Angeles. He offered me the chance to visit him in Milan. Naturally, I seized the opportunity immediately, and after more than 40 years I am still in Milan.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
So Sottsass shaped you and accompanied you for a long time in your life.

MATTEO THUN:
He still accompanies me, because I also move from the small scale to the large scale and see no difference whether I am designing a chair or a house.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
Is that precisely where, I wonder, the connection between art, design and architecture lies? Or where is the connection? Are they connected at all? How important is art as an influencing factor on architecture or design, or the other way round?

MATTEO THUN:
You have anticipated it: art is a strong influencing factor, but it has nothing to do with our profession. I am a service provider, on both a small and a large scale. I refuse to be a designer and strictly reject the word design. Design is a fiction; it emerged with the first Industrial Revolution. And with the digital revolution, it has also been laid to rest again.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
And do you see that as negative?

MATTEO THUN:
I do not want to speak about design, because I have no idea what it is.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
And yet you are probably one of the most important designers at least in Italy, if not in Europe.

MATTEO THUN:
I am not a designer. I am an architect who also tries to solve things on a small scale.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
That is actually very interesting, because in Germany an architect simply does architecture, usually even only building construction. If an architect also engages an interior designer, that is already quite something. But you do architecture, interior design, product creation, graphic design. How is it that you work so differently from what we know in Germany?

MATTEO THUN:
That is the Milan school. It goes back to Ettore Sottsass, who throughout his life made no distinction as to whether he was a photographer, writer, architect or creator on a small scale.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
So it is always about creation and the development of ideas?

MATTEO THUN:
It is always about defending maximum simplicity and making something as simple as possible. If, for example, the lighting in a hotel is not right, then I am to blame and not the lighting designer. If I sit uncomfortably in a chair, then I am to blame and not the chair. That is what I say. In Germany, the system is simply different. An architect deals with building construction, an interior architect deals with the interior. A lighting designer with the light. And a landscape architect only does gardens and landscapes.

KORBINIAN KOHLER:
You are a great fan of SANAA.

MATTEO THUN:
SANAA. They are my great role model. SANAA is a studio run by a woman and a man. The woman sets the tone and creates sensationally good architecture because she begins from zero every time. And that is also our theory. You as an entrepreneur are unique, and your location is unique. And if I cannot respond to that, to your uniqueness, then I am not doing a good job. With Tadao Ando, who belongs to a different generation, it is quite different. He works a lot with concrete.