Back in May, Hawthorne met with Jacques Herzog at the opening of the Venice Biennale to discuss the upcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London as well as several prevailing industry trends that have impacted his firm’s size and projects in the United States and abroad. He says that, among other project types, “neglected” hospital design offers architects the most potential. The 73-year-old Herzog then offers some insights into the firm’s reluctance to work in Russia after last year, the limits of adaptive reuse, curation, and the perception of his counterpart's role as a firm leader vis-à-vis his own.

“Pierre has always organized the business, going back to when we were starting out. But it’s not fair to say that Pierre is the business guy and I’m the artist,” he tells the former LA Times critic. “Ideally, we look into projects together and we discuss things with the partners. We’ve reached a size which is good, because it also gives us some freedom, strangely enough. It’s not true that when you have a small office you have more freedom.”

‘Herzog & de Meuron’ opens this Friday, July 14th, at the Academy’s Gabrielle Jungels-Winkler Galleries in Burlington Gardens.