In conversation with Roger Tyrrell

How did you become involved in architecture? 

My entry into architecture wasn’t via a traditional route. When I was about 14, I wasn’t behaving terribly well and kind of went off the rails. At 16 I started working in architects’ offices as, what was then called a technician, and studied on day release.

Eventually at 23, I went to university and did my seven years, before setting up my own practice in Devon where I operated for about 12 years. I was in contact with my old professor at at the University of Portsmouth and he invited me to do some teaching and a PhD. It seemed like a good next step at the time. The PhD never developed but the teaching exploded, and I’ve been at Portsmouth for about 24 years. 

My academic interests have developed from looking at ancient patterns of sustainable architecture, to wanting to understand what the essence of my discipline is, and that involves a lot of going back in time. For example, I became very interested in the ancient hill villages of the Atlas Mountains around Marrakech. The relationship between material, place, and process is so visceral when you go to these ancient settlements. Famously, Alvar Aalto visited the same villages and he said, “I didn’t go there to discover new things but to uncover what we’ve forgotten.” And that for me is powerful in many ways but, perhaps most importantly, it shows a genuine humility and a measured attitude towards progress. 

How did your book come about? 

I happened to be reviewing a book for Routledge at the time and they came back to me and asked if I had a book proposal of my own. I wrote the proposal, and it went out to review. Three reviewers were very positive, one thought it was the work of the devil. Routledge then commissioned me and thus began three years of writing. I’m not sure who said it, perhaps Hemmingway, “It is easy to write. Just sit in front of your typewriter and bleed.” 

How does philosophy inform your work? 

During this time, I was developing an interest in a branch of philosophy called phenomenology. There’s a superficial understanding of phenomenology in the world of architecture that has to do with sense and feeling. It is better described as an attempt to understand the nature of things and events, free from preconceptions. Martin Heidegger used the analogy of the jug. He asked, “What is the ‘jugness’ of the jug?” and concluded it wasn’t the lip, or the handle, or the base, but the void that it contained. That, for me, was a moment of enlightenment. Heidegger was looking beyond the things themselves to try to understand the essential qualities that the world has. When you apply that to creative processes like architecture, you’re seeking essences. What is the essence of ‘dwelling’? It could be characterised as prospect, shelter, retreat, reason. 

Could you elaborate more on the essence of dwelling? 

My nephew, Anthony, once asked me to help him build a den. He started with cushions arranged about him, but these collapsed, and his sisters tickled him. With Den 2.0 we used bath towels draped over furniture to give him shelter, above and to the sides; and retreat, a space behind that he could move into. He could see out, giving him prospect; and, once installed, he asked me to pretend to be a lion, giving him reason to be in his den. He knew what qualities were required instinctively as a kind of embodied wisdom. This brought me back to an early memory of my own, of being under my parents’ dining table. As soon as a child becomes able to move independently, they seek to define place. But they seek out a place that corresponds to their scale, and a table does this admirably. I think most of us can remember this sense of enclosure, of spatial definition, and an understanding of the world that relates to your scale. Being under the table is one of our first experiences of architecture. 

What have you got ‘in the pipeline’? 

I’m currently working on a project with Solus Creative Director, Sam Frith, that seeks to recreate this early experience of place. We’re hoping to scale up an Alvar Aalto table for the Solus Clerkenwell showroom. The plan is to host “Under the Table Talks”, a series of conversations about the essential notions that pertain to architecture and design with interesting practitioners. It promises to be enlightening and enjoyable.