#362 - LYNDON NERI & ROSSANA HU, founding partners of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office
SUMMARY
This week Architects Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, founding partners of Neri&Hu Design and Research Office join David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design to discuss their upbringing; moving to the United States in their youth; meeting at Berkeley; studying and teaching Architecture; moving to China; starting their office together; running a multi-disciplinary office; their philosophy; and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT LYNDON & ROSSANA
Lyndon Neri co-founded Neri&Hu Design and Research Office with Rossana Hu in 2004, an interdisciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai, China. Through his practice, Neri has reinforced a core vision: to respond to a global worldview incorporating overlapping design disciplines for a critical paradigm in architecture, while believing strongly in research as a design tool, as each project bears its unique set of contextual issues.
Alongside his design practice, Neri has been deeply committed to architectural education and has lectured across the globe at various universities and professional forums. Having recently finished teaching as Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design following his last appointment in 2019, Neri will begin teaching as Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture in 2022 spring, where he received the distinguished Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor Chair in 2018. Neri is also Founding Partner of Design Republic in Shanghai since 2004, a design platform incorporating retail concepts, design and cultural exhibitions, and education. In 2015, he was appointed as the Creative Director of Stellar Works, and has been a board member of Roll & Hill LLC. in Brooklyn since 2010. Neri received his Master of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate School of Design and his Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley.
Alongside her design practice, Rossana Hu has been deeply committed to architectural education and has lectured across the globe in various universities and professional forums. Having recently finished teaching as Design Critic in Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design following her last appointment in 2019, Hu will begin teaching as Eero Saarinen Visiting Professor at Yale School of Architecture in 2022 spring, where she received the distinguished Norman R. Foster Visiting Professor Chair in 2018. Rossana was appointed as Chair of the Department of Architecture at Tongji University in 2021.
Hu is also Founding Partner of Design Republic in Shanghai since 2004, a design platform incorporating retail concept, design and cultural exhibitions, and education. In 2015, she were appointed as the Creative Director of Stellar Works, and has served on the International Advisory Board of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra since 2018.
Hu received her Master of Architecture and Urban Planning at Princeton University and her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley with a minor in music.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Rossana’s background.
(09:41) Lyndon’s background.
(15:42) Masters of Architecture.
(31:32) Involvement in education as practitioners.
“When you’re teaching in an educational setting, you have the privilege to isolate different parts of the discipline for the purpose of educating people. The reality of a real working life never really enters into the school setting in its full spectrum. But that's also the beauty of it for a practice and that's why I think it’s so important for architecture school to have practicing architects teaching.” (32:50)
(39:27) Running a multi-disciplinary office.
“If we have a project that we do architecture and interior, then we get the industrial design team in for the furniture aspect, then the discussion is really interesting because there are people from three different backgrounds talking about one design and you can see how each team support each other.” (42:32)
(43:53) Working for Michael Graves.
“Michael and I really bonded because he loved sports and I did, too. So I used the time at night to actually have reviews… We’d watch a baseball or basketball game and that's how I would get my work done by kind of showing him the work and talking to him about sports. So that was really great environment for me.” (46:14)
(48:57) Starting Neri&Hu.
(58:21) Working in Asia.
“Our first three projects, Water House, Split House, and the Design Republic flagship store, were really about old and new, about reusing, recycling, taking on old buildings, and taking a strong position with the government by saying it can work. We can take one old building and make it come alive again.” (01:00:05)
(01:04:17) Their design philosophy and partnership.
“It was also a culmination of that time and place where we are and how we handled that situation, where client wanted us to demolish an old building and we took a strong position to keep it, and that led to another project that allowed us to explore those issues. Oftentimes we are formed by the condition that we are formed by the condition that we are in and how we respond to it… But I think we're still developing, we're too young to understand our position.” (01:05:40)
(01:17:47) Favorite buildings.
