Bjarke Ingels, the architect who designs “for despots” and is behind the controversial Albanian National Theatre project has ‘stepped back’ as the chief architect for shared office space giant WeWork.
The Danish architect has recently come under significant fire for meeting with the far-right, populist Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and for the Democratic Party in Albania requesting he be investigated for corruption, illegal construction and unlawful influence of public officials. While the prosecutor closed the investigation with no charges filed, mounting criticism against him has seen his name grace The Guardian as recently as this week.
His project with Bolsonaro- a homophobe, misogynist, and a climate denier- was not well received, nor were his justifications for choosing to work with such a controversial character.
“Creating a list of countries or companies that BIG should shy away from working with seems to be an oversimplification of a complex world,” he said in a statement.
Ingels added; “We can’t expect every public instance to be aligned with all aspects of our thinking, but we can make sure that we bring the change we want to see in the world, through the work that we do.”
It is unclear how his design work would “change” Bolsonaro’s views which include him rather having a dead son than a gay one, and thinking that women are weaker and do not deserve to be paid equally to men.
Ingels took the position with WeWork in May 2018 but due to “questionable management tactics” at the hands of CEO Adam Neumann, the value of the company plummeted. They managed to escape bankruptcy through a significant bailout of $9.5 billion from a Japanese conglomerate in October 2019. Then in November, some 2400 employees found themselves laid off.
When asked for comment regarding his departure, WeWork told Architectural Record that it was due to company restructuring.
“Following the company reorganisation and new leadership at the end of last year, Bjarke Ingels stepped back into a consulting role on key projects.”
Ingels did not reply to questions sent by the portal.
Ingels claimed to have “won” the tender to design the new Albanian National Theatre through a “public competition”, yet no evidence of any competition taking place has been found and Ingels refused to provide any.
The National Theatre project has been mired in controversy from the beginning as it would involve selling off public land, demolishing one of Tirana’s oldest remaining cultural sites, and erecting private towers containing commercial and luxury residential units in its place.
Because selling land to a private company is illegal, the Socialist Party government passed a ‘Special Law’ in the Socialist majority parliament to allow it. This law violates the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Commission and is deemed to be unconstitutional.
The PD claim that by accepting to work on the National Theatre project without having been subject to a procurement agreement of contract with the Albanian government, Ingels accepted an “irregular offer”.
