32 : Intuition and Uncertainty in Architectural Design: A Conversation with Lene Tranberg

““Intuition is not out of the blue. I would say it is intelligence of experience.””

Today we speculate about life, the purposes of life and architectural thinking with Danish architect Lene Tranberg, founding partner of Lundgaard & Tranberg in Copenhagen, Denmark. Discussion topics include: Phenomenology, the body in space, intuition as embedded knowledge, transcendence, doubt, translation, and striving to understand the interwoven character of material and place.

Timestamp Outline

2:00 Started firm Lundgaard & Tranberg with Boje Lundgaard in 1983
3:50 Projects: Tietgen Dormitory, Copenhagen Business School, Royal Playhouse
7:40 Studio culture: “If you’re not envious about the others being good, and if you really respect each other, it’s quite easy.”
14:25 “Intuition is not out of the blue. I would say it is intelligence of experience.”
15:54 Freud’s office in London and totems as antennae
17:35 “One of my learnings being older, is you have to stumble, all the time, to be good...I never feel secure in things. I am always doubting...There are no exact things in the world.”
20:57 Uncertainty in the studio: “uncertainty is our power, our fire”
22:00 Enric Miralles and uncertainty and doubt in his work: tense and personal
23:28 The importance of ambiguity: you should always keep something back…“things should be open so it can be taken many ways”
24:38 Jorn Utzon’s Can Lis in Mallorca, Bagsvaerd Church, Taoism and the spiritual in the work
31:20 Sanskrit atman / Greek atmos and “to live is to breathe”
35:23 How does architecture operate in that search for being alive? “A feeling of transcending, a feeling of being here and somewhere else at the same time.”
37:30 Do you read Heidegger? Notion of the scratch in the world… the spirit.
38:24 Architecture is like being in the darkroom
40:50 The poetic, dwelling
43:38 “Gathering can really be provided through good architecture.”
46:14 Lene’s lecture, Space. Matter. Vibrations - interweaving a city
47:16 Curves as responding to energy and social-dynamic lines of force
50:47 Water embedded in city: Doge’s Palace; Scarpa
52:22 Tietgen dormitory like a pinecone, a grove of trees
55:10 Rivers, waters, flows, energies, migration and architecture for displaced peoples
57:20 Architecture as a gesture for everybody
59:21 Work in China