Interviewed in London, November 16th 2007

ORIS: In your texts and in your interviews you often refer to architecture as an art. You also say that only one percent of architecture is done in this way. I appreciate and share your argument, but do you think that there is a risk of positioning yourself within a discourse that might be understood as elitist?

Caruso: I don’t think that it is in any way connected with elitism. To make architecture from an artistic basis doesn’t mean that one’s architecture communicates less or engages with fewer things. Living in London is very difficult because the market is so present here. But for me, the idea of practising on an artistic basis suggests a kind of ethical position for practice. One thing is, and this is not so much about an art practice as much as it is about being a professional, is that being an architect is not to function as a financial industry. There are so many practices now whose structure and whose motivation is about increasing their market share and their market penetration. They’re using the language of international commerce, and they’re doing that to make more money.