In the Proust’s short questionnaire style, AA questions architects about their profession, their projects, their vision of the future. Today, we meet the italian office Labics, created in 2002 by Maria Claudia Clemente and Francesco Isidori. Based in Rome, the architects try to combine the theoretical approach with applied research.

Being an architect means…

Maria Claudia Clemente: Being an architect means working to make people’s lives better, because the environment we live in influences the quality of life, at all scales

Francesco Isidori: To try to build a better context (a better world) for a better life

What are, according to you, the new challenges of the profession ?

MC: The new challenges are the public spaces: their role and shape as spaces of integration

FI:  Simplicity, essentiality and order

My perfect order would be…

MC: I don’t have an ideal order, as any order can be ideal

FI: A public building (a museum, a theatre, etc..) in a beautiful city

My job in 20 years

MC: Architecture is alway been the same since centuries, so in 20 years it will still be unchanged

FI: I hope to spend more time on the things that I love to do (designing buildings), and less on the other things that the profession requires

The advice I’d give to a young architect

MC: Study, go around the world, visit as many architectures as possible, be curious

FI: The architecture, the good one, always derives from re-writing the existing buildings. To become good architects the advice is: to study, to study, to study

What I want to transmit to my co-workers

MC: Rigour, passion, commitment

FI: The same passion, the same rigour that I try to apply to my work

The emerging architect we should follow

MC: Labics.

FI: José María Sánchez García.

The project I would have loved signing

MC: The Pantheon

FI: The Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin

The other job I would have practiced

MC: The photoreporter from the front and, in general, from areas of crisis

FI: Film director

An inspiring place

MC: Every beautiful place

FI: Antelope canyon, Arizona

A book, an object, a piece of art I particularly love

MC: Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal, a small miniature bought in Isfahan, the work of Rachel Whiteread

FI: The Metamorphosis by Kafka, the old cameras, The flagellation of Christ by Piero della Francesca

Visit the office’s website to see all the projects!