Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/193668
London-based Farshid Moussavi recently made a splash with her design for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Cleveland, which opened a new facility this spring to rave reviews. Smart, sleek and understatedly cool, the angular, dark-glass-sheathed building is a bit like Moussavi herself: an academic heavyweight and follower of high fashion. She is a professor at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, her alma mater, and has taught at Columbia, Princeton, UCLA, London's Architectural Association School of Architecture and other top institutions. Moussavi, 48, started Farshid Moussavi Architecture in 2011. But her reputation goes back to her time as a partner at Foreign Office Architects, the London firm she co-founded with ex-husband Alejandro ZaeraPolo in 1993 after stints, working for Renzo Piano in Genoa and Rem Koolhaas' OMA in Rotterdam. At her new practice, Moussavi continues a research-heavy approach to design. "We have an in-house research arm, FunctionLab, whose efforts feeds into the design work, and vice versa," Moussavi explains. Her forthcoming book, "The Function of Style," along with her treatises "The Function of Ornament" and "The Function of Form," contribute to what Moussavi calls the "collective design knowledge" that suffuses her office. "The research doesn't aim to propose a universal design theory or a specific design methodology that everyone at FMA should follow. It's concerned with understanding and utilizing the relationship between architecture and culture, as it exists, rather than producing a new design manifesto," explains Moussavi. "We draw on precedents from other countries, architects and times, rather than try to develop a signature style or identity." Moussavi's firm is putting that collective design knowledge to the test in new projects in Europe: a striking glass apartment block next to the Grande Arche in La Défense and a department store, both in Paris; an office complex and retail project in central London; and a villa in Switzerland. The firm is also pursuing numerous design competitions, including one for the new International Olympic Committee's headquarters in Switzerland. Such a variety of contexts and commissions seem like perfect testing grounds for Moussavi's collaborative and inclusive design methods. As she says, "It's much more difficult today to define a single approach to architecture." farshidmoussavi.com 94 CULTURED PHOTO BY ANNEMARIEKE VAN DRIMMELEN (MOUSSAVI) Farshid MOUSSAVI