archi_torture me!

Crisis                                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                                   "elemental" Alejandro Aravena

We live in a mediatic world that harass us with eye catching images of what is appealing. We are driven to compulsive consumerism that feeds the production system, but triggers a process of trivialization of the reality.

Furthermore, society's frenetic pace and job insecurity, produce decontextualised people who end up being less critical with their enviroment, which is conceived as a shopping mall or a playground, presetting how to make use of it and restricting individuals behaviors.

The established idea is that architects might respond to a situation, but this is not desirable. Architects must  launch and open new possibilities. But architects, as a group, have lost the ability to lead and to get the society interested on what they can do, to become a exchange good. Nowadays architecture is a commodity. The works that we see published on the magazines on vogue have been designed to impress, to comunicate,to show of, but not to live.

When one read what was published 30 years ago, one see that architects social commitment was evident. But social compromise doesn't provide the success granted by those who have the power. Architecture has a moral dimension that affects the work. Political decisions are taken not only in parliament, making architecture is also a political gesture, as much as vote.

Let's see if the neediness whip up the talent! The society expects architects to enrich their cultural heritage and improve their way of living with our interventions and creative abilities.

Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?   Richard Hamilton                                                         

When talking with my friends that are not architects i usually get this question: "if you know that people find appealing the old part of the cities, why don't you build like that nowadays in stead of doing cold concrete boxes?". I think that the reason why old town districts are pleasant is not the architectonic style and brindle decoration, but the human scale (they are not planned for the car) and the location (they are oftenly the city centre, close to all equipments). In the other hand, they have a lack of green spaces as they have grown within walls and increased their density during centuries.

A good balance betwen those facts was reached in Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm. The last spot that became empty in the city after moving away harbour factories bringing the posibility to develop a new neighborhood.  Beyond real estate speculation, the administration imposed tight restrictions and requirements on the global project.

Apart from the enviromental goals that were achieved, there's plenty of architectonic values that makes this district a model  of city planning that other cities should take as an example.

So when i go there with any of my non architects friends they don't ask as usuall: "ok, who have designed this house and what makes it so special?" They just walk close to the water among the buildings and think that living there would be delightful.

The value of dreams                                                                                                                     

Boullée, Ledoux, Tony Garnier,russian Constructivists, italian Futurists, Le Corbusier, Archigram, MattaClark,... all visionarys a step ahead of their time, also some of the more influent figures in architectural history, even though most of their work had never left the paper. Thinking beyond laws and structural limits, their proposals inspired next generations and made the technics evolve.

But nowadays architects don't have to dream. One can create a organic shaped building with Rhino and win a competition, without even need to understand how it works. When technical possibilities allow us to built whatever as far as a millionaire wants to support the idea for satisfying his ego, the only possible result is that Dubai's principle will colonize the world.

In these days of computers and renderings more than ever we must claim for reflexion and theory to mantain the quality in our profession.

Slussen                                                                                                                                                                            

Built in the mid-1930s, Slussen is a weaving of a mind-numbing range of transportation systems into a single integrated network. Its concrete entry ramps curl around a cylindrical office building before stretching over an underground bus terminal and the massive locks that regulate boat traffic between Lake Malaren and the Baltic Sea.

A revised version of  Norman Foster´s and Berg Arkitektkontor's proposal was anounced april 17th as the winner of the competition for refurbishing this "node". Jean Nouvel, BIG, Gert Wingårdh and Nyréns arkitektkontor had also been invited to present their ideas for the area. This close a story that began 2004 with another competition that Nyréns arkitektkontor together with Tyréns Stockholm and ELU Konsult had won. But their project was strongly contested.

The final proposal can hardly be called spectacular, more likely seems that the authors have been forced to take a step down in order to soften it, maybe looking for achieve the agreement of Stockholm's population. We´ll see the results in a couple of years and hopefully the ugliest spot of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe will at least be "lagom".

The design proccess (or spacetime relativity)                                                                                                                        

I had the oportunity of hearing Alvaro Siza explaining his projects in several occasions. The last time was at 2007 in "Encontros" an international architectural meeting organized by the School of Architecture of A Coruña. Under the slogan "search and research" 15 architects were invited to explain their work, withing them: Carme Pinós, Shigeru Ban, Rafael Iglesia, Alejandro Aravena, Anne Lacaton, Eduardo Arroyo, Jonathan Sergison or Zaha Hadid.

Siza spoke about his project for the Fundação Iberê Camargo in Porto Alegre, Brazil. His speach was a lesson about the mental proccess of creation. He explained the thoughts behind the early sketches and the long way to translate them in architecture.

Time slows down when starting a project. One can spend hours walking through the site trying to find a clue, and see the piece of paper still inmaculate over the desk is like a punishment. But everything changes when you get an idea, then days are shorter and you work as hell under the pressure of a deadline and wonder what have you been doing the weeks before.

For me this is an "archi-torture", but still, i can´t enjoy live without having a project.