An Interview with Clive Wilkinson

This year has been one of recognition and honors bestowed upon Clive Wilkinson, founder of Clive Wilkinson architects (CWa). In January Mr. Wilkinson was dubbed a Legend by Contract Magazine, and in June he was inducted into the IIDA College of Fellows.

As for the firm, being ranked #49 on the Interior Design Top 100 Rising Giants list implies that 2019 has also been a banner year for CWa in terms of billings. And having won or been honored or shortlisted for no fewer than twelve design awards this year makes a clear statement on the quality of work the firm is producing.

The award-winning year for CWa was capped-off last week by being selected as the winner of Interior Design magazine’s Best of the Year Award in the “City House” category for Mr. Wilkinson’s own home in West Hollywood.

Last Monday I showed up for an interview right on time, which is saying a lot given the traffic in L.A. I found the office delightfully situated atop a great-smelling not-Starbucks coffee shop. The building was self-designed and built by the firm. So, to a fan, it was not disappointing to find some trade-mark CWa architectural gestures.

While 2019 has arguably been a banner year for CWa, the innovation and creativity that characterizes its work is not new. So, I was happy to have an opportunity to discuss that history with Mr. Wilkinson himself and relay it to our loyal subscribers.

Bob Beck (BB): Tell us about your background and how it informs your design and approach today.

Clive Wilkinson (CW): “I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa in a highly charged political environment, and that did affect my way of looking at the world quite a lot. It made me very aware of the inequities in the world, and that sort of consciousness makes you grow up quite fast. I left South Africa at the age of 22 after three years of architectural school.

“I went to London to finish my studies at the Architectural Association, and I was lucky enough to be there at an amazing time. First, I had two Archigram visionaries as teachers, Sir Peter Cook and Ron Herron, and then I had many other outstanding teachers including the OMA team of Rem Koolhaas, Elia Zenghelis and Zaha Hadid.

“It was a great privilege to study there at that time. Not only was it a gifted faculty, but I had some great people in my class. Ron Arad and David Chipperfield are two who immediately come to mind, but there were many more who have gone on to do well. When you’ve that much talent all around you, you can’t help some of it rubbing off on you.

“I then spent eight years in London working for Terry Farrell, who had been part of Farrell & Grimshaw, which was quite an avant-garde, hi-tech firm in London in the 70s. It went very postmodern while I was there, some of which was a lot of fun and some of which became very tiresome. It ranged from mildly silly neo-classicism to extremely frivolous styling.

“But the amazing thing about that time in the 80s was that everything you drew got built. The firm was seven people when I arrived,

and it was 150 when I left. It was just a phenomenally prolific period in London at the time, a boom that has never happened again.

“In 1989, I went around the world for a year, really trying to find out where I wanted to spend the rest of my life. After poking around all over the place, I found Los Angeles and got a job with Frank Gehry, which was amazing, and stayed here. I started there in 1990 and a year later, in 1991, I got fired from Frank’s because I wasn’t a good employee. (He chuckles) I didn’t take instructions terribly well. So I started my own firm.

“For about five years the practice was a disaster because it was so hard to get any work. But then I was lucky enough to win the big TBWA\Chiat\Day job in 1996. In 1993 they had come to me to do the top floor of Frank Gehry’s “Binocular Building” as a workplace interior, and Chiat/Day loved that floor – loved it more than the Gehry part, so that was the entrée to doing the big warehouse job in ‘96. When I was invited to make a proposal, I had no employees. I hired a guy to go to the interview with me so it would look like I was more than one guy. But even with the success for the Chiat/Day project, I kept almost going out of business!”

BB: Can you describe what’s unique about your design approach?

CW: “I can’t speak to how unique it is, because it’s just the way we work. We spend a lot of time trying to learn or figure out our client’s story. People want to know a company’s story – it’s mission, what it stands for. We try to understand these businesses as highly evolved, integrated organisms and to search for new ways of organizing their physical workplace to make them a balanced and ecologically refined business entity.

“Technology has made where we work a matter of choice. Since information has become independent of time or place, the traditional office has in many ways lost its reason for being. The result has been a massive reappraisal of the role of the workplace. What is emerging is an acceptance of exciting, new communal work environments. We focus on the driving entrepreneurial force of today’s knowledge-based organization; on giving them the necessary tools and the habitation structures that support and stimulate their creativity. We try to make sure we give them a workplace that reflects their story and culture.”

BB: What is the most interesting cultural shift you see right now?

CW: “More than at any time in the past, employees are driving the important features of the workplace. The high-tech and creative companies we design for are so concerned with retaining and attracting great employees, that it has become an important function of management to understand and deliver the kinds of workplaces their employees can relate to and want to come to work in. We see it in the kinds of workspaces and amenities required and the variety of spaces needed to support different activity types.”

Clive Wilkinson and Clive Wilkinson architects have been leaders in the rapid transformation of the office from its rigid hierarchical past to the flexible and ever-changing – change embracing communal workplaces of the 21st century.

Frame Publishers have recently released Mr. Wilkinson’s first book, The Theatre of Work. The book gives the reader an in-depth view of the philosophical and theoretical basis of the firm’s work, illuminated by many wonderful illustrations of some of its most groundbreaking projects. It strikes me as a “must have,” and a great addition to any collection of architectural monographs. Check it out and order it here. It will look good under the Christmas tree and then later it will look great on the coffee table.