In this interview, Charles Holland discussed FAT’s embrace of postmodernism when it was still unfashionable. He recalled his 1995 diploma work with Jonathan Hill at the Bartlett, where he explored iconography, narrative, and meaningful elements in deliberate contrast to the digital, blob-like forms then promoted by Peter Cook. Hill’s studio later became known for its narrative focus, anticipating an early “post-digital” moment in architecture.
Holland also described FAT’s early work in a top-floor room at Golden Lane, where the studio had to create its own audience. Friendly competition among the partners encouraged conceptually clear, socially pointed, and deliberately provocative projects that challenged the architectural establishment. He emphasized the importance of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown to FAT’s postmodernism, which combined cultural relativism with a conceptual-art approach influenced by the Young British Artists. In contrast to the symbolic or universalist postmodernism associated with Michael Graves or Charles Jencks, FAT pursued a critical, iconoclastic, and socially engaged practice, understood through Frank Kermode’s concept of “neo” modernism.