INHABITING THE ISSUES
rights of others, where one is open to the comments of others. So while the building we did in SPBR is different, it respects the scale of the environment and considered the neighbors. It is what we should learn and start doing in our systems. - What you say is related to public space and its use, and how architects have a responsibility to provide quality public spaces to compensate, for example, for bad architecture or small sized housing. However we not seem to engage with the political management of cities. How do you see this? All those living in a city must share political responsibility. Public space should be the product of the level of agreement of the people: it is a place where we commune, we feel safe, we use. The maximum degradation for a public space is to consider that in principle it belongs to everyone but in reality to no one. And I often feel and see this, not only in my country. Spaces are mistreated, filled with trash, abandoned. Or are places where entry is segregated by prejudice that others will degrade it. These are very contradictory issues that transcend the field of architecture. In a country where we have had a figure such as Burle Marx to design landscapes, I don’t think we are missing good landscape architects. What is needed is to agree on projects such as the Museum of Sculptures, by Mendes Da Rocha: we all feel it as an open square, but someone puts a fence and closes it all even when these changes are not designed by Mendes Da Rocha ... It's an annoying level of social prejudice. We talk about the city and class struggle; these are unavoidable issues. Everyone should be equal regarding architecture, their needs do not depend on their economic power, but on the size of their family and that should be considered by architecture. If we talk about the level of democracy, there are places where you go out on the street and you feel safe all the time, while in others you feel threatened. It is true that as an architect you can convert and give new meaning to an abandoned space, you can provide quality, you can make it attractive. Surely that is the work of architects, but there is a much more relevant issue of management.
- You often refer to what you define as the 'infrastructure of imagination', which refers to the fact that architects should not take anything as defined but always rethink, abandon the paradigms and whatever is taken for granted. From the imagination, how do you tackle the projects, how do you approach architecture when you receive a commission? It’s not that I have an insight for each project, it's a daily thing, and it’s internalized in the way we work. It’s impossible for an architect to know everything, but you need to be alert. With Google it’s easy to realize that you know many things but you know nothing. It's quite different to talk about Victor Hugo than to read Les Misérables 15 times. With so much that is known I think it’s best to “dwell” in different topics so they acquire a meaning. An architect must take care of himself, in the sense that if you go watch a movie you choose a good title, if you read a book or listen to music choose a repertoire that has meaning. I hate to say there’s better or worse repertoires, because many times a simple thing can have an important meaning; what matters is the end result, allow yourself emotion, comprehend what seems ugly or wrong to you and not just the beautiful, open up, understand. For an architect it is important to have a psychoanalytic sense, to be a sound and healthy person, because what you put into action to conceive a project can be beauty, but can also be traumas, fears, grudges and so many things that come into the process of the imagination. I like the word imagination because it puts images in motion. But what are these images is a very interesting topic. Human knowledge is divided into two fields. The first is the human sciences, literature, poetry, aesthetics, philosophy; it is especially in this field where we imagine. The other is the field of natural sciences, including science, technology, and engineering. If an architect is only in the human sciences, he knows what and why but doesn't know how. If you dwell in technology you know how but not why or what for. Today we live the hegemony of the technical and scientific, which entails the risk that you can build what you want without knowing why.
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