How did your souvenirs project start?

Souvenirs are usually designed anonymously. They are never even really discussed seriously as design objects. We wanted to do something that reflects on this interesting historical moment. So I thought, "Why don't we create souvenirs for the millennium?" Eventually the project came to relate more strongly to the end of the century. The fin de siecle has a connotation of summation; looking in retrospect at what has happened and speculating on the future. We are looking back at events of the last century and trying to memorialize them by making a more lasting object, not like mugs, T-shirts or baseball caps. "Keepsakes" is a good word which is not often used today, but I like that word because it evokes the "keeping" part.

There is a morbid dimension to this as well, yes?

We all know the American fascination with disaster, from the Titanic to every big plane crash. Our point was not to pass moral judgment or to say that this is sick or wrong, but rather to reflect on it from the point of view of design. To say that these kinds of issues--disaster, tragedy, death--are acceptable things to address in the design of objects. Almost every movie has some kind of a murder or disaster, whereas whenever you create a design object, it is supposed to be strictly positive. God forbid there is something disquieting happening in design!

These beautiful little sculptures also suggest a concern for their architectural legacy.

As an architect I am interested in the history of architecture and how it can be seen differently. "Buildings of Disaster" is a populist, more emotional history of architecture. These are the buildings which are well known world-wide not because of their architectural quality but because people connect to them emotionally and it becomes an architectural icon of a very different kind, separate from its architectural significance.

Would you say they have a style?

It is an interesting question, because I have been trying to design things without "style" for a long time. When this happened I said "Ah! there is definitely no style here--these are just buildings." But of course there is some style there even if it is the idea of generalization, of not getting into details. There is more of an emotional impact when there is a somewhat sculptural representation, when the proportions are somewhat generalized and even distorted. The distortion helps to express the drama. I made the decision not to get too archival, but rather operate with what has already been sifted through media representations in which the real essence of the building is already there.

Who is your audience, who buys them?

For some reason people in the movie industry are very interested in them and I think that's understandable because it's very much an extension of the media and they, of course, see that from a different side. One of the most unusual requests came from the wife of an FBI agent who actually arrested the Unabomber. He had just recently retired from the force. He was obviously a very good person to get this souvenir. But it seemed like we were always returning calls from wives of FBI agents. In general architects are the biggest fans of this project.

Have you encountered any controversy?

We anticipated more. We had an interesting experience when a student from Israel stood up after our lecture and said that in Israel it would be impossible to present something like this. After consideration I had to agree with him. Over there the climate about tragic events--explosions and terrorism--is so hot. This project is so far from aestheticized that it would simply not be understood. I think that is where this project gets its American-ness from. Here in America, disaster becomes so much a part of the popular culture through TV coverage and tabloids. Disaster and tragedy are already part of the popular culture so that this project actually comments on that reality--not just on the disaster itself, but on the response to the disaster.