Interview #4: “No software will make better architects”

Ferenc Matyas, Managing Director at Graphisoft Italia

Graphisoft is the Hungarian company that created Archicad, a Building Information Modeling software used all over the world by Architects. Ferenc Matyas is currently Managing Director at Graphisoft Italia, he is a sales person with more than 10 years of experience in the hardware and software selling solutions. From January 2015 he came to Italy to manage the new branch in Venice. We discussed with him his point of view on BIM and his relationship with Architects.

Lucia Rampanti: How did you end up in Graphisoft?

Ferenc Matyas: Unfortunately I am not an architect , I come from an hardware distribution company where I’ve worked for 15 years. I joined Graphisoft 4 years ago because they were looking for a profile like mine but also because it was one of the first startup company in the Socialist era. Graphisoft is 30 years old in the BIM market that’s why we know what we are doing, we build a software for architects created by architects.

LR: How big is Graphisoft and why did you open a new branch in Italy?

FM: Graphisoft has been founded in Hungary, but now the company is a member of Nemetschek Group which is a German group. We have offices in 14 countries and our solutions are sold in 118 countries in 27 languages — including Italian — worldwide (more info here). We opened the Italian branch in January 2015 because Italy is an important market for us. Italy is the cradle of architecture, a fantastic place, where there are great building, where you can find many different architectural styles and building functionalities. Furthermore in Italy there is the highest concentration of architects, 1 architect each 400 inhabitants. I’m here to link the mother company and the branch in Italy.

LR: Which is your relationship with Architecture?

FM: I love architecture very much and I really enjoy working with creative people, I’ve always been attracted by art in general. I was singing in a course, telling poems.. basically I have the artistic vena and this is what I found always in architects. They are engineers on one hand but also personally creative on the other one. I don’t like standardization, architecture it’s full of life.

LR: How do Architects react to Archicad?

FM: It was shocking for me discovering that architects normally complain about softwares they use but this doesn’t happen for Archicad. As a sales person, I don’t sell a product but I sell my enthusiasm for that product. I love to see the satisfaction from my clients in using Archicad. Thanks to this job I am definitely more open to architectural stuff. Now I’m looking to architecture in a different way.

LR: What was the strangest thing an architect asked you about Archicad?

FM: We monitor how our users use the software, we ask them which features they would love to. There are no stupid requests. When I was a kid there were pencil and paper, then CAD came, and now we have BIM and reference model based workflow. I wouldn’t dare to judge if the request is a stupid one because it will probably define the future of Architecture software. Actually Graphisoft has developed its BIMcloud solution because of the demand coming from our large Japanese “zenecon” clients. (In Japan “zenecon” is a term that refers to the largest players in the construction industry). We also added the import functionality from Rhino to Archicad. This technology has been developed as part of an ongoing collaboration between Graphisof and Nikken Sekkei that aims to develop future technologies for architectural design.

LR: Have you found any differences between architects from different countries?

FM: I had the chance to meet architects from Africa, India, Italy. The world of architects is globalised and connected, what it’s totally unknown in a country could be clear in another one but thanks to connections everything could be shared. Internet and software solutions let people work on the same project from different contexts. The spirit of architects is always looking for innovation, and this is what I really like in architects. They are always ready to learn something new from another culture, and make it part of their own path.

LR: Why young architects should use BIM softwares?

FM: We are very proud of Archicad because it’s a easy to learn an to use software, that increases productivity. Studios often need labour force to start working immediately. Thanks to myarchicad.com we are really connected to several young architects and able to propose them a lot of resources and advantages. We feel there is a lack of BIM experts for implementation, that’s why we are interested in spreading our software among young professionals. But in general I would say that our users understand that no software will make better architects, they do not want the softwares to solve all they problems. It’s not AI, the human factory is always important.

LR: What do you think about spoon.CITY?

FM: I really love your idea, it’s brilliant, in a market where we can see a lot of talented people, on a market where there are a lot of studios with the intention to be better than others, we need to work with excellences. It’s a great idea to connect those two sides. This is great because you are specified, and you know what are you talking about, it’s more than head hunting, it’s a taylor-made hiring solutions. You can eliminate the risk of finding the wrong person because for each request, you find one right candidate. This is how your knowledge and network make you different. Last but not least we are a proud client of spoon.CITY since we just hired our new Sales Manager in Milano recommended by you.