Michael Holt is the editor of Architectural Review Asia Pacific and a studio co-ordinator at the University of Technology, Sydney.

He was previously a project architect at Robert A.M. Stern Architects, New York.

Architecture & Design spoke to him about his involvement in a play staged as part of the Sydney Architecture Festival, designing for theatre and why he’d like to be a pencil.

Can you tell A&D about Absolutely Relative?

Absolutely Relative was the first theatrical performance to be included as part of the Sydney Architecture Festival and was staged in November of this year. 

The setting in Paddington Reservoir Gardens was paramount to the play's script and dialogue. The Gardens won the National Award for Heritage at the AIA 2010 National Architecture Awards and the fact that the ‘inhabited ruins’ played host to a theatrical performance was nothing short of amazing.

The performance is based on the idea of flux – a return to the past in its metaphorical 1972 context – and a subsequent nod towards contemporary practice in the lead female character’s (Irene Carmichael, played by Sophie Fairweather) role.

The play posits that architectural discourse may have endured its own ruinous period where Modern (Lewis Syzmanowski, played by Rowan Freeman) or Postmodern (Frankie Caruso, played by Jarrod Crellin) generations had strong ideological positions and statements based on manifestoes. The contemporary profession relies solely on a brief that is responsive to externally imposed regulatory measures, as opposed to informed critical comment on typologies or aesthetics. It is this overbearing and external presence that informs the characterisation for the central character, Herb Hausmann, played by Panda Likoudis.

How did you become involved with architecture and theatre?

I was out drinking in a Russian vodka bar called Pravda in New York's SoHo district with Eva Franch i Gilbaert (Storefront for Art and Architecture director) and we got talking about the representation of architectural criticism in the contemporary – as you do when you're copious amounts of vodka deep!

I suggested that architecture, or more specifically Storefront, should return to a 1990s method of critique in the form of theatre. Keller Easterling made a name for herself as a playwright of repute and Oren Safdie, the son of Moshe Safdie, continues this tradition today in some respects. I thought it could be a novel way of subliminally talking about architecture without addressing the subject directly.

I'd read a lot of David Mamot, Tom Stoppard and kitchen sink theatre when I lived in the UK so I suggested this form of attack was best. It kind of just went on from there as Eva asked me to write a script especially for Storefront. But I moved to Sydney a couple of months later and brought the play with me. I adapted the dialogue and some of the direction to be site specific. I owe a debt of gratitude to our director, Danielle Maas, who made the play what it was with some amazing uses of the Gardens site and context.

What is your approach to designing for theatre compared to designing for actual buildings?

The set was designed by myself and Marissa Looby – our practice is called Architects Untitled. Our focus is to localise discussions on singular element and to break architecture down to its core components in order to reevaluate design strategies and aesthetics. So in that respect we wanted to visualise a plan without the need for a building at all, or any furniture. The 'idea' of the set is there, but the building is not – a polemic stance on what architecture represents to many today.

The fact the play is situated around the destruction of the Pruitt Igoe building in St Louis Missouri is testament to this concept. The building, in many regards, was the beginning and end of modernism/postmodernism, depending on which side of the fence you sit. We hold a firm belief that the building is essential and that the role of the architect is in jeopardy at the moment, so to flag it up that the architect and their work is not theirs should instigate debate. 

We believe that the singular component, or element, can be a design driver. Whether that is a window, a ceiling plane or, in this case, the two-dimensional notional plan, a building can be formed solely from its dependence on a singular element. So in many respects, the way in which we design should not change in a theatre set such as this or in its built equivalent. 

What do you think the current architectural discourse in Australia is?

There's incredible work being produced throughout the Asia Pacific region, and Australia certainly plays its part. As editor of Architectural Review Asia Pacific, I am fortunate enough to get the chance to publish great works and visit many of Australia's finest projects from some phenomenal designers.

Unfortunately, though, we as a profession do not engage enough in the discursive aspects. I don't think Australia is unique in this respect. I think it's a disciplinary issue that stretches across the globe. We need to be more overtly critical, not in the negative sense, but in the real sense of the term – to review a project or an idea from a balanced position with integrity.

Are you happy with this discourse?

I often look at the Japanese for methods of how they solve architectonic problems, but also theoretical issues. I recently wrote an article in AR132 –Residential about the link between Kiyonori Kikutake and Le Corbusier. What I draw on was a chronological and ideological link between what Le Corbusier was devising in early CIAM and what manifested as Metabolism in Japan.

Kenzo Tange was the first non-European to present at CIAM at the very point when CIAM's elders – Gropius, Sert and Le Corbusier – were being ousted by Team X and Jaap Bakema. Tange believed CIAM held great positions through socially constructed modernism and through the ability to change and morph effectively, thought such ideas could flourish in Japan. It gave rise to Metabolism and the whole genealogy of Tange to Sakakura to Kikutake to Ito to Sejima to Fujimoto to Ishigami was born. The genealogy was only possible given its insistence upon a continuing dialogue – a manifesto. I think it is incredibly important for architecture to engage in discussion in order to extrapolate a single idea born in writing that can be manifest in design. 

If you weren't an architect, what would you be doing?

My niece once told me she dreamt that she was a pencil, so if I wasn't an architect I'd like to be a pencil.