Miguel Lawner, testigo de aquella época, señala: “Esta generación está marcada por el alto contenido social de su ejercicio profesional. Predominaban quienes éramos políticamente gente de izquierda, pero también había quienes eran independientes y en algunos casos de derecha. La reforma nos marcó en muchos sentidos. En primer lugar, por la amistad y fraternidad, que se mantuvo casi sin excepciones a lo largo de los años, incluso no siendo afectada por el exilio que muchos debimos padecer”. Another eyewitness of the time, Miguel Lawner, says: “This generation is marked by the high social content of their professional careers. Those of us who were politically from the left dominated the scene, but there were also people who were independent and sometimes from the right. The reform marked us in many ways. First of all, with friendship and a sense of brotherhood that persisted almost without exception over the years, even unaffected by the exile that many of us would endure”.
were not in agreement with this approach, which they believed would affect the quality of teaching. Backed by their prestige and number (70, according to Abraham Schapira) they presented their joint resignation to rector Eugenio González as a form of pressure to withdraw the proposal. To everyone’s surprise, the rector accepted their resignations generating a tremendous commotion at the faculty. Overnight the main school of architecture is lacking 70 teachers! After recovering from the shock, the group, which included the members of the TAU Group, decided to reinvent itself by creating AUCA magazine (Architecture + Urbanism + Construction + Art). 5 This is how the publication - that will become a national and international reference as a record of cultural reflection and professional action – is born. The TAU Group is involved in this new adventure from the beginning. Starting with the third issue, the office, together with Ignacio Mardones, leads of the REP section (rationalization of professional practice) systematizing the technical specifications of the works of architecture, building bridges between the world of architecture and the world of engineering and construction. Osvaldo Cáceres sums up the work of TAU: “their buildings are of high aesthetic and constructive quality presented with a very clear urban sense, aimed at solving the housing problems by creating housing complexes with real communities within the city” . 6 Another eyewitness of the time, Miguel Lawner, says: “This generation is marked by the high social content of their professional careers. Those of us who were politically from the left dominated the scene, but there were also people who were independent and sometimes from the right. The reform marked us in many ways. First of all, with friendship and a sense of brotherhood that persisted almost without exception over the years, even unaffected by the exile that many of us would endure” . 7 At the end of the 1960s the members of TAU, which was endlessly winning contests and building works all over Chile, take different directions. In 1970 Pedro Iribarne was appointed CEO of the CORVI. The following year, after President Allende summoned Sergio González to collaborate in the project for the UNCTAD III Conference building, he begins his departure from the group. The Mardones brothers alongside their young nephews Carlos and Gonzalo began to work together. At the time of the military coup in 1973 the TAU Office had already ceased to exist as such. Héctor Valdés, President of the Association of Architects, remembers them as “a professional team with an outstanding career, which planned and executed works of great relevance, many of which were obtained in fair competition through public tenders. These works, as well as the ones they made later as individuals, expressed their concern to surpass the usual levels of professional work and their permanent and rigorous search for more efficient and streamlined urban, architectural and technical solutions, in line with the reality of our situation” . 8 Of the five members of the group Julio Mardones is the only one alive, currently retired from professional and academic activities. But the works of the team survive as incorruptible witnesses of a golden decade of Chilean architecture, and true reflections of a country very different from the present one, a country where architecture, more than a profession, was a calling, and the architect’s trade, a social commitment.
between Valparaíso and Viña del Mar (their rallying cry was a counter-project called Avenida del Mar); the construction of the Villa La Reina residential community, built by the dwellers - in a system of self-construction - who were on the verge of being expelled from the commune and were supported by the young mayor Fernando Castillo Velasco and a group of teachers and students from the school of architecture of the Catholic University in Santiago. Housing design and construction, private single family as well as collective, achieves great development and is part of the everyday issues of architecture. The former with the impulse given by the DFL2 3 , and the latter with the architecture competitions promoted by the CORVI (Housing Corporation). Competitions, supported by the state and managed by the Association of Architects to produce architecture of social and public interest, enabled the emergence of important architectural studios from the University of Chile and the Catholic University. These studios will produce models of collective housing of a creativity and variety unseen in Chile neither before nor after. The state sets the guidelines that define the type, location, and recipient of the housing of all socio-economic levels. It is the driver of development and of the economy of the country, followed by the private sector, and not vice versa, as it will be after the economic and political reforms of 1973. In this fertile ground of the early sixties the more mature works of TAU were born. These works will be the best products of the committed and passionate work of a group of idealistic youths, all of them graduates of the University of Chile, who combined the will to create architecture and the desire to transform society. The TAU Office: passion and commitment The “generation of the 50’s”, as it is called by Osvaldo Cáceres 4 , stands out as the first class that graduated with the new study program born from the 1946 reform at the University of Chile. This reform successfully changed the curriculum into one more relevant to the reality of the country and current times. It was led by students Hernán Behm, Gastón Etcheverry and Abraham Schapira. Other members of that generation are Miguel Lawner, Ana María Barrenechea, Carlos Martner, Ricardo Tapia, Yolanda Schwartz, Ricardo and William Tapia. Several of them stand out since their time as students. The catalogue from the 1946 Architecture Student Council publishes the works of Carlos Martner and Miguel Lawner (1st year), Sergio González, Julio Mardones, Osvaldo Cáceres (2nd year), Jorge Poblete (3rd year), Raquel Ezkenazi (4th year). The group graduated around the year 1950 and began their careers, some as public servants and others venturing independently, surviving from small commissions and participation in public tenders. At the same time, several of them began teaching at the school that had formed them. Under the deanship of Juan Martínez, a group of charismatic teachers who combine a calling for teaching with a particular professional profile was formed. Between 1950 and 1963 the members of TAU, BEL and Schapira+Eskenazi increase their professional prestige through competitions and begin their academic life as faculty teacher assistants at their alma mater. However in 1963 an unexpected event had an extraordinary impact at the School of Architecture of the University of Chile. A group of teachers opposed a system of intermediate degrees the University authorities were promoting. They
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