Tony Fretton

Hans Ibelings: For a long time you seemed to have been an architect's architect. I have the impressions that colleagues and critics appreciate your work very much, but there is not the same recognition among clients, especially in the UK.

Tony Fretton: That used to be so, but we have had much wider recognition now with the completion of projects like the British Embassy in Warsaw and the Fuglsang Museum in Denmark, which was in the final shortlist for the Stirling Prize this year.

Because our work began with buildings for the arts we were not natural choices for UK clients from other spheres. However since the economic downturn developers are beginning to recognize the value of design quality, contextuality and social relations – values that are natural in our in arts projects – for commercial projects. Clients like the construction management company that realized the British Embassy in Warsaw find that our practice provides more intelligence, cooperation and creativity than purely commercial practices, which are again qualities that we developed in designing buildings for the arts.

We have always had a wider audience beyond Britain, which is a pattern for all significant British architects such as Stirling, Foster, Rogers and Chipperfield. As a British architect you have to work outside your own country in order to reach the scale of audience and clientele that lets you fully develop an oeuvre.