[MUSIC] Eva Jiricna is a London-based architect. She was born in the Czech Republic and moved to London shortly after completing her architecture studies. In the 1980s, she founded her own office, Eva Jiricna Architects. The thing that impresses me about Eva Jiricna is that she's able to work on all scales. She's known for her capacity to build great staircases, her understanding of structures. But she also undertakes very small scale interior architecture, exhibitions, shop fittings. And she's also worked on a grand scale of the city infrastructure and even a port. Eva Jiricna understands that architecture is a broad field. It's never boring because there's always something new to learn and always a new challenge facing architects. >> It's very difficult to say what the future will involve, but I have to say I wanted to study chemistry, and then I changed my mind and I decided to go for architecture. And I've never been sorry for having taken that decision because architecture is so varied. It gives you the limit between which you can oscillate, which are so wide that everybody can find its own way to get through. Architecture is difficult but it's also extremely involving. It means meeting people and responding to different questions everyday. It moves with time. It depends on technology. It depends on society. It depends on so many other issues. Maybe I could quote my old professor who was, when I objected, that a door is not architecture. And he asked me, what kind of door and door handle I was going to design for my building? He said to me, for our next session you will come up with three subjects which don't actually concern architecture. And I keep saying, I'm still looking, because absolutely everything which concern your life which is somehow reflected back in what architect has to know, has to do, and people he has to meet. So the architecture of that is the world around us and everybody can find its own niche. And so whoever decides to go that way, I just will keep my fingers crossed and I would wish them good luck because I've never been bored in my life. I had so many people who came through our office because our office, let's see, it was open in 1984. So, it means it is 32 years of running the office and how many people came through, how many students. I have worked with how many students have worked in our office. And it is always a surprise to me, how you saying that you have to have talent, you have to draw, you have to do whatever you are asked to when you pass the entry exam. But people come from so many different environments, so many different countries, so many different cultural backgrounds. And if they want to, I've seen it now with the computers, I think that architecture is open up to anybody. I think with anybody, it is a question if you really want, you can do it. And it used to be much more limited because architects had to draw, architects had to have some ability to express themselves. I still draw and I still appreciate people who come to the office and they can hold a pencil and draw. It is getting increasingly difficult to make young generation draw, but it doesn't make them less good architects or less capable of studying architecture. I think it's a question of having the eyes open and loving what you are doing. And if you love what you are doing and if you are willing to learn, I think architecture is open to anybody. You have to be able to see, because architecture is a visual profession in the first place. And people judge architecture by looking at the result of what you design. And the first thing is, that they have good visual perception of the work. Then they can turn it into an intellectual or philosophical level. But the first communication is through your eyes. So, any architect still has to be able to see in proportion, connections. Has to understand what he's doing. How the objects are going to be made. Who is going to make it. How it connects. How his work connects with those who come after because architect sits at the computer, or me, at the table with a sketchbook. And we all design but then, it's taken over by all other professions and then, eventually it goes into production and eventually somebody has to build it. And this is why I find architecture so amazingly interesting. Because you go from process from the very beginning and at the end of it, through your abilities to understand, through abilities to be able to learn, to be able to say sorry. To say, will you show me? I need to collaborate with people through the ability of being able to lead the team. And through the ability of having a humble recognition of the mistakes which you might make. You can actually achieve a result at the end of it. And now I think that learning is something which never stops. At my age I can still learn, and I'm still learning. And I'm so happy that I'm still learning because that is the process which keeps you young. [LAUGH] Talking about my wrinkles but it is an amazing profession when you are opening up a new door every day and every minute. And when you are meeting new people and you see the world around you changing and you have to go with all those changes. And any student of architecture has got so many options and so many possibilities to look into a future and to formulate a future according to what they are capable of doing. It also means an ability to assess what you can do. To put yourself on a scale of this enormous architecture, and say, well, can I do what he has done or she has done? Where do I fit and what am I good at? And, that is, actually in that self-assessment is also very, very important. But in my case [LAUGH] instead of chemistry I took A levels in physics and it closed the door to chemistry which I actually really, really wanted to study. So, I was born in Czech Republic, or Czechoslovakia at the time under Communist regime, you didn't have two choices. So either I could continue with the university or I would have had to stop and go to the factory or to get involved in the production, do something else. We work with architects like lots of professional people, engineers of any kind, clients, art historians, specialists. And now, I think that all these professions are much more limited than architecture because I see it if you are structure engineer you have got much less options. You haven't got as many options as architect had to choose which way you want to go. So, of course, if you are good at whichever profession, you go deeper and deeper, and the same applies to architecture. But, architecture gives you so much more to explore and so much more to learn. You meet so many more people in architecture, being an architect, you work with a massive amount of other professions. I think that if you are an engineer, or a surgeon, or what else, what else can I think of? A philosopher is saying that your work is much more limited. And so, I say that if you really want to to explore the world and its complexity, I think architecture gives you that chance. I think that the world is getting more and more complicated. And so our technology is widening and giving us more options than we've ever dreamt of. And the society changes, and the world is now just of one big country. We haven't got borders. It is more complicated. And day-by-day, you just find out that what you learned yesterday is not good enough for tomorrow or even for today. So, Woody Allen says, that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans for the future. That is definitely true. But, I've seen that as far as I can see it from the children who go to the first form in the school. So, up to being an architect with 50 years practice you still have to learn and you still have got more and more options which you have to master. And you have got more and more tasks, which come every day, and they are new every day. And they will be many more tomorrow because now we fly to Venus, we fly to Jupiter. And in architecture, it all reflects in the complexity of the profession. Because the technology reflects back to what architects can do. The universe, as we explore it, has got a feedback for an architect, for interiors you can do what you do in terms of saving the planet. What you do in view of wonder what it might be when the next generation grows up, and the generation after and after. I studied between 1956 and 1962. How much things changed between then and now? It was so simple because even architects could actually calculate more or less a basic building. Can one do it now? No. So you just have to learn to work with other people, to be able to understand what other professions are doing. So the complexity is more and more complicated. But the children are trained for it from a very early age. I couldn't probably pass a second [LAUGH] test if I went back. And so I think that that is moving. And that it will be more complicated, but I think the future architects will be able to take it on. [MUSIC]
