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David Chipperfield

Founder and Principal, David Chipperfield Architects

Search every verified David Chipperfield interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. David Chipperfield, founder and principal of David Chipperfield Architects, discussed architecture’s current and future challenges in a recent episode of the Design Emergency podcast, released on October 14, 2026. In conversation with cofounder Alice Rawsthorn, he addressed the need for the profession to respond to environmental and societal priorities and to secure public and political support for that process. Chipperfield argued that the erosion of planning and long-term thinking, driven by short-termism and ideologies that depowered public institutions, is a profound societal problem viewed through an architectural lens. He also stated that a clear rule for the field is to reuse buildings whenever possible, rather than demolishing them, though he noted this approach conflicts with the financial culture of development in cities like London and New York. Chipperfield, who worked for Richard Rogers and Norman Foster before opening his own practice in 1985, leads a firm with offices in Berlin, London, Milan, Santiago de Compostela, and Shanghai. His recent remarks also touched on architecture’s relationship with power, describing the profession as having become “powerless” in general terms, while gaining influence primarily through the monetization of land and building value. He emphasized that decisions about what to build, where, and when are not solved by technical advances but require political, social, and cultural resolutions.

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Notable quotes

“We know first there's only one clear rule. Reuse buildings, you know, whenever possible, don't knock a building down, just reuse it, repurpose. That in itself is a really difficult discussion to have. I mean, in cities like London or New York, you're flying totally against the grain. You're playing totally against the ecosystem and the financial culture that has developed over the last 30 or 40 years, which is develo”

“The profound problem of our society looking at through the lens of architecture I would say has been the erosion of planning and long-term thinking. Everything has conspired towards short-termism. Planning got a sort of bad name for itself through the generation we referred to of the 60s and 70s. They were visionary in many ways, but some of those visions were not robust enough and there was a sort of hangover from t”

“The average spend for a school chair in the UK is £11, which is about 14, I think, 15 maybe. And obviously a lot of the chairs are not fit for purpose, uncomfortable.”

“The world probably has enough sofas, you know the world probably has enough armchairs now. Do we need designers to make anymore?”

“The scale of it is to do with its potential to earn money for a group of people. And secondly, the scale of it requires energy consumption, which is disproportionate to everything else. So, you fiddle around with this. If you're, for instance, using AI to do it, the energy probably that is being expounded on the AI machinery is destroying the planet the same time as we're trying to save it.”

“We have to believe against belief that it is possible to encourage new systems of planning governance that take on the responsibility of guiding private investment and innovation, not solely for those who profit, but for the common good.”

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