R A F T

What is difficult for me is that sometimes I feel alone. It’s hard, you know, because I don’t see a lot of people around me – I'm not saying there aren’t people – around me, among friends, colleagues. I’m somehow, maybe, marginal. But that's OK… There are a lot of people like that, but I’m not surrounded by them. But especially the young generation, when we talk about these things in general, not specifically in our work, in general about architecture, they are very open to this and very receptive. Much more than the older generation. Because they live the problem that the previous generation created. So even the religious differences, the new generation is fed up with these divisions. They don’t want to hear about it anymore, Christians, Muslims, Jews. But the previous generation fought for it, one fought as a Christian, the other one as a Muslim… But the new generation is more open. The minds of the others are blocked. The same goes for these issues. They very easily accept it and then work around it. Yeah, but you have to do it in a… I don’t like to nag, that is dangerous, if I keep nagging “this is bad, this is bad…” No, this is what we have, and we have to change it. You change by being self-critical, seeing what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and trying to change that. It’s as simple as that. And believe that you can change. Which I do, definitely. So that’s the key, I guess. Not to nag, not to be destructive. Not to just complain without being constructive. Try to give solutions. And one of my solutions was to take a new look at the architectures of today in terms of legislation. Which means a new way of thinking, a new way of approaching.

My wish is to “not leave a trace”… There is an Armenian poet who has a phrase I like a lot: “Like a flower I take out of the earth, I smiled at life, I walked away and left”. This is what I mean by “not leaving a trace”. Now, smiling at life is the trace, the kind of trace I want to be, yes, only that kind. Just smiling at life and then walking away and leaving. And I read that on one of my birthdays, quite by coincidence 🙂 There is a joke about coincidence: two philosophers are discussing (this is also in Armenia) whether there is chance in life or there isn’t. So the guy that believes there is chance is says to the other, “Let’s say you’re walking on the street and the flower pot falls on you from the balcony. What do you call that?” The other one says, “This is an accident." He’s avoiding the word "chance". The first on says, “OK, the next day you’re walking down that same street and then from that same balcony another flower pot falls on you. What would this be?” The other one says, "This is coincidence...” 🙂 The first one says: “Ok, suppose the third day you’re walking again and then the flower…” And the second one says, “This has become a habit." 🙂 They (the Armenians) have very funny jokes, especially in the Soviet times when you couldn’t say much and everything was hidden.

The bigger the problems, the closer the solutions. Everything we are doing beyond our needs is a poison. - R A F I