Jean-Christophe Quinton

Every architect develops a unique culture, the product of the tension between a general culture shared by all architects and a project culture specific to each.

The project culture’s most important effect is to liberate the architect from set expressions, from stereotypical and conventional thought, and thereby open the way for a personal approach to design. The project culture shapes this approach, provides a bulwark against preconceptions, against modish influences, and allows the architect to develop his or her conceptual independence and a personal set of tools.

In order to develop my approach, I had to distance myself from the preoccupations of rhetorical demonstration and move towards those of manifestation. In the moment of conception, I step back from the need to produce symbolic, political or social signs, the things that distance people from architecture. I prefer to focus on built signs, phenomena and the presence of things.