J R In fact, Solà-Morales argues that there are three types of spaces: public, private, and collective. The latter is one that the private sector cedes to the public sector, but keeps private. P R When you walk around Berlin, you can see that large blocks are beginning to incorporate different passageways and programs inside, with a very large public dimension. In Tokyo, you also find this type of operation. In Montevideo, there were famous galleries in the center, but they were covered, commercial galleries. So, this was like a pretext for emptiness; to introduce a very temperate scale, but to introduce the public and propose to give the interior sections of the blocks other pos- sibilities, other relationships. For me, it is very important to reclaim the street as a space for the collective, for social exchange, for encounters. Y R You handle the relationship between the new and the old in the city very well. However, you have stated that the city's facades are a mask. What do you mean by that? P R There is a project that involved transforming an industrial warehouse into workspaces. The warehouse was, in a way, poorly located on Isla de Flores Street, a very residential street. We transformed it into offices, but maintained the industrial character of the triple-height interior spaces. In contrast, a very residential street runs outside. As a mediating element, the facade acts like a mask; four windows engage with the residential character of the neighborhood on the exterior, while on the interior they safeguard the industrial character of an ineffable space that was very important for us to preserve. Often, the design of the facade carries a great responsibility because it negotiates the private, interior, domestic world with the public world. In this specific case, we understand that the facade functions as a mask that negotiates an urban, domestic condition with the condition of another, non-domestic, industrial program. J R Now, tell us about the relationship you have between certain artistic pieces and their relationship with architecture. P R I studied at a highly professional faculty, which produced excellent designers in terms of efficiency. At the same time, I studied visual arts, first in children's free expression workshops and later in artists' workshops, so I combined my architectural training with the field of visual arts. I realized that artists face a challenge we don't: they have to impose their own work program on themselves (for us, it's usually something imposed from the outside). But, at the same time, they have greater freedom and capacity to develop form and construct arguments. I believe that the field of visual arts, film often, certain images, provide arguments that allow us to define very precisely, but in an abstract way, what we want to do. By shifting certain mechanisms, which we find quite free in the field of visual arts, we can transpose rules that articulate the project and allow it to be evaluated not only on the basis of its efficiency, rigor, or organiza- tion. We try to construct another dimension, much more affective; if we look, for example, at the pillar of "La Linda," we see that it has two legs instead of one, resulting in a gesture that incorporates the useless. For us, this uselessness, which has a material dimension and is also beau- tiful, attempts to generate an affective relationship in the space, in the object, in what it constructs through the relationships it establishes with what already exists. When architecture transcends its mere evaluation in performative terms and constructs other dimensions more related in affective terms, it matters a great deal to me. The field of visual arts, film culture, and other unexpected things function as Trojan horses that help us make this shift that constructs meaning. What is important for us is the meaning of what we are trying to do. !
develop their own languages as conceptual architects. These projects led the former to think of his buildings as “urban artifacts” (Amsterdam, 1967) and the latter as “megastructures” (Evry, 1970), which would lead them down different paths and, after a few years, to continue alone on various housing projects. The proverbial French rationality is echoed in Huidobro's projects, the result of his association with architect and academic Paul Chemetov beginning in 1979, particularly in the competitions won for the French Embassy in New Delhi (1980-1986) and the French Ministry of Economy and Finance (1982-1989), the latter was one of the major projects pro- moted by President Mitterrand. This desire to organize the work with a regulatory module and the environment through related elements reappears later in Chilean projects, such as the building designed based on the square root of two in Santiago, and also in a more abstract form in the sum of corporate towers in El Golf with A4. In the early 1970s, Piano and Rogers built the Georges Pompidou Center in the heart of Paris as a result of the competition to renovate the Les Halles neighborhood. This project had a major impact on French architecture in terms of the extreme expression of technology at a his- toric moment, a “machine” that reconstituted the urban fabric around it without regard for history or pre-existing layouts. Brutalism and the expression of prefabricated concrete were left behind to make way for an architecture of steel, aluminum, glass, and post-oil crisis energy control. This would become a major theme in Borja Huidobro's architecture, as can be seen in the design of his own office in Square Massena in Paris (1986), which he brought to Chile for the Shell corporate headquarters competition (1985) and then to the Consorcio building in collaboration with Enrique Browne (1990-1993), which became a landmark in Santiago. The nautical inspiration present in several of his creations, such as the competition for the National Congress in Valparaíso in association with Jorge Figueroa (1989), the “ship” residential buildings in El Golf (1994-1996), the Müller house in Zapallar, and particularly the Banmédica building (1989) with its wind-filled sail—these with A4—have powerful symbolic content and are resolved with different technologies, achieving unique aesthetic effects in the city. The transparent, accessible, and empathetic proposal for the city of Valparaíso, contained in the preliminary design for the port city's congress and its contemporary representation of power, cannot be overlooked. Some of these buildings are surrounded by water at street level, like the moat of a castle or a Mughal fort in India—the inspiration for the French Embassy— but this water is refreshing and its waterfalls help to control the temperature, just like the fountains in Italian cities, part of an urban experience that in Santiago we only had in parks and squares, before some of them were taken over by the perverse Metro stations that leave them dry: Plaza Egaña and Plaza de Puente Alto, among others. Likewise, structural expression, another deeply rooted theme in French tradition, has created delicate examples in Chile, such as the beautiful roof of the Quinta Vergara amphitheater in Viña del Mar and the challenging solution of suspending the office floors of the BCI Alcántara building with A4. Other elements, such as curtain walls, constitute a structural challenge in predominantly seismic regions such as ours. Attention to detail is another characteristic of this tireless designer, who expresses himself through the power of his conceptual sketches rather than complex academic discourse or memorable phrases. Beauty speaks for itself. An example of this intense work is his renovation of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (1989-1994) with Paul Chemetov and Roberto Benavente, in which, through a very subtle in- tervention of the contemporary in relation to the heritage, he reveals a whole experience in the Gallery of Evolution without imposing himself on Jules André's iron building (1889). We began with the struggle for architecture, discussion, persuasion, and creative complementarity that, over so many years, have made Borja Huidobro's work possible. A battle that, together with his partners and his enlightened clients from distant latitudes, has been well worth fighting for!
buildings, totals 50,000 square meters and 17 stories high, with a com- plex functional program ranging from public spaces, classrooms, halls, sports facilities, and an underground heated swimming pool beneath a building that floats above it. In 2016, the Chilean Chamber of Construction building designed by Borja Huidobro + A4 / Sebastián Di Girólamo, Cristián Valdivieso, and Germán Zegers, located at the intersection of Apoquindo and Las Condes avenues, would mark another urban milestone thanks to its location and its structural design, which features a tuned mass damper consisting of a 150-ton steel sphere suspended from the 22nd floor that functions as a giant pendulum to stabilize the structure during an earthquake. These are some of the many projects that demonstrate the architecture and constant innovation in language, program, spatiality, sustainability, and calculation that make Borja Huidobro's work in his first and second stages worthy of our National Award and the recognition of our peers across the board.
GUEST ARCHITECT
Conductive Wires By: Mariano Valdés, architect
From the classic archetypes, the man who plays and enjoys leisure in the broadest cultural sense has lost out in Borja Huidobro's long life to the busy man, Homo Faber, who is naturally making, crafting with his hands, and tirelessly refining his creations: the one who unstoppably embodies his adult years, although a kind of balance is restored in his twilight years with the enjoyment of solitude and contemplation, giving way to an incipient Homo Ludens. This struggle has been a way of life since his childhood years on the family farm, his Jesuit education, and his formative years at the Naval Academy. It will be a common thread in the face of ever-greater chal- lenges when he embraces architecture as his passion and raison d'être for his creativity, followed later by his immersion in French culture. Many challenges came like waves crashing on the beach where they embarked on their adventure with Michele, leaving Chile behind without knowing it, forever. Life and maturity enabled them to overcome these challenges with courage and determination, first to survive without help or support in 1960s Paris, and then to establish themselves in an environment as open to the world as it was harsh and competitive. He is not a lone navigator; he encounters young people with similar ideals and a similar rebellious attitude towards life. Association, discussion, and persuasion are in his nature, as are sharing common paths and creativity as the fruit of this joint effort, without imposing a stamp of personal ownership on the concepts contributed, characteristics that remain valid to this day. After being involved in major projects under the auspices of the Gomis office, he joined the AUA (Atelier d'Urbanisme et d'Architecture), initially as an urban landscape architect. This now legendary association of young architects, urban planners, decorators, engineers, sociologists, economists, and other professionals set the course for the French avant-garde for 25 years until it closed its doors in 1986. Its approach was to tackle social housing and its facilities with a strong urban and multidisciplinary foundation, where learning took place through doing. It also presented itself as an alternative to the large architectural firms of the establishment with names worthy of the “Prix de Rome,” true machines of mass production of postwar housing. The quality of the design, which was directed and individualized for each complex, with the contribution of a new social approach, constituted a complete opposite to the real estate business as the purpose of the architect's work. The final recipients were the residents of the traditional communities of the French left. In the words of architect Pascale Blin, editor of Techniques et Architecture, the AUA was a school for that diversity of specialists and an unparalleled opportunity to work together on the same project. Despite the ups and downs of this diverse partnership, Huidobro and Ciriani, his Peruvian counterpart and friend, continued to compete and
In this edition of AOA magazine, we present a comprehensive overview of the life and work of this distinguished architect. With contributions from his former collaborators Mariano Valdés and Sebastián Di Girolamo—and an introduction by Pablo Altikes—we reconstruct key moments in his career and highlight some of his most important projects. Borja Huidobro
Borja Huidobro + A4 arquitectos By: Pablo Altikes Pinilla
Borja Huidobro made his debut on the national and international scene in 1982 when he won the competition for the French Ministry of Economy, Finance, and Budget, alongside Paul Chemetov. It was a 225,000-square-meter megaproject and the first building to touch the Seine River, with its two supporting pillars. Without a doubt, it heralded a new era in which Chilean architects would begin to make their mark on the global stage. In 1988, the military dictatorship held a national competition to design the new National Congress building in the city of Valparaíso, sending a message of decentralization to the country. Thirty-eight teams partici- pated, with the team led by Borja Huidobro, Paul Chemetov, and Jorge Figueroa winning second place. When democracy came to our country in 1990, along with the desire of national and international businesspeople to invest in Chile again, it opened the door to the most amazing social, cultural, and economic growth in our history. The 1990s would see our architects begin to win awards in international competitions, and their projects would start to be recognized around the world. One of these milestones would be the Consorcio building, designed by the team of Borja Huidobro, Enrique Browne, Paul Chemetov, and Ricardo Hudson, and built between 1990 and 1994. It laid the foundation for a vision of urban development to- gether with the imprint of bioclimatic architecture, with the design of the green facade by architect Juan Grimm, which became an urban and social landmark in our capital. With the project for the Beauchef Campus and Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics at Universidad de Chile, Borja Huidobro + A4 / Sebastián Di Girólamo, Cristián Valdivieso, Germán Zegers, and associate architect Fernando Neumann developed an unprecedented building for this institution, the first since Juan Martínez Gutiérrez developed the faculties of Law and Medicine. This 2013 complex, consisting of several
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