Reinier de Graaf on “the Creative Tension Between Thinking and Doing”

Reinier de Graaf is a partner at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and co-founder of the practice’s research arm, AMO. As an architect, an architectural and urban theorist, a writer and an educator, he regularly works well beyond a narrow definition of architectural practice. As evidenced most recently in his 2017 book Four Walls and a Roof: The complex nature of a simple profession, much of de Graaf’s writing is concerned with situating the architect and their work within a broader political and economic context.

Alex Brown interviewed de Graaf virtually, via a video call, in late February 2018. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Alex Brown: I want to start by asking you a little bit about a comment you made in a 2016 interview with Volume. You began the discussion by expressing some uncertainty over whether the work you do within AMO really qualifies as research. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about this distinction?

Reinier de Graaf: I hesitate to call what we do research because, with research, traditionally you investigate a phenomenon and this leads to a conclusion. In many ways, our activity