SUMMARY

In this interview Charles Holland provided insight into FAT’s embrace of postmodernism at a time when it was unfashionable. He recalled his diploma work at the Bartlett in 1995 with Jonathan Hill, where he explored iconography, narrative, and meaningful elements, deliberately departing from the digital, blob-like forms promoted by Peter Cook at the time. Hill’s studio later became known for its focus on narrative, a shift that can be seen as an early “post-digital” moment in architecture.

Holland described FAT’s early work in a top-floor room at Golden Lane, emphasizing how the studio had to create its own audience. The partners pushed each other to develop projects that were conceptually clear, socially pointed, and deliberately provocative, knowing their work would challenge the architectural establishment. The creative drive emerged from friendly competition within the studio as much as from any external reception.

He also highlighted the significance of Venturi and Scott Brown for FAT, noting that the studio’s postmodernism combined cultural relativism with a conceptual art approach inspired by the Young British Artists. Unlike symbolic or universalist postmodernisms, such as those associated with Graves or Jencks, FAT’s work was critical, iconoclastic, and socially engaged, a form of “neo” modernism in the sense described by Frank Kermode.