Chapter 1 of 16
Farshid Moussavi & Alejandro Zaera-Polo
FM: Well I'm Farshid.
AZ-P: And I am Alejandro.
FM: Well we met at Harvard, being students, but our collaboration started when we were working at OMA in Rotterdam, and on the side we were beginning to work on competitions etc. together. Eventually decided that, in order to produce any work with enough focus, we had to actually leave the office; that we couldn't run the intensity that working at OMA needed and working on our own projects together. So we left OMA, applied to teach at the AA also, because to run an office with no projects was obviously not feasible; so teaching meant starting to do research obviously having a minimum, and it was really minimum, financial setup to be independent of an architectural office. Brought us to London, we started teaching at the AA. It was a great time at the AA, because there were a number of individuals there that somehow supported us and excited us if you like and...