"how essential it is to give today's architecture to the city is the sense of belonging, citizenship would say in the classic Castilian."
published in El Pais, October 12, 2008. Marilin
Thanks!
Architect and father of the open sea Barcelona, \u200b\u200bManuel de Solà-Morales, the largest English urbanism theoretical questions the architecture of the big stars but commitment to the disorder of the new cities.
is the grandson, son and brother of architects, a saga in which the surname De Solà-Morales has appeared closely linked to the Barcelona architecture of the last century. His maternal grandfather was a famous Catalan modernist architect, Gaudí's right arm. His father, dean of the college of architects, and invited the likes of Alvar Aalto. His brother, Ignacio, rebuilt the Lyceum Theatre after the fire. And he opened Barcelona to the sea with the famous Moll of the whip.
Manuel de Solà-Morales, Jaime I of Urban Award 2008, is one of the most authoritative voices of English urbanism, to the extent that some of his colleagues consider him English developer the best of the past 40 years. There are projects endorsed by half of Europe: Oporto, Berlin, Rotterdam, Nantes, Antwerp and The Hague. It is a rare bird who still speak of ethics, and admits that the media success of the architecture of the big stars has become a "disease."
Worship and reputed delicious, De Solà-Morales has, at 69 years, the casual look that characterizes many intellectuals from Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwith a touch sloppy in dress design. Talking refined education rested and not hide a bully and tenacious character. Not for nothing has a reputation as a tough opponent. Their study, a three-story former factory, is broad and sober materials. Quality and elegance seems to seal the house. On the top floor, a corner with books and paintings, has become the resting place of the architect, who was a disciple of Josep Lluis Sert at Harvard and Quaroni in Rome.
just spent two events in which architecture has had much to do, the Venice Biennale and the Expo in Zaragoza. In Venice, the dilemma has arisen: buildings or architecture. Its director, Bestky says that "buildings are the tombs of architecture, and architecture that seeks to build solutions" is false and is dead. " Is it an entertainment for architects or responds to something more serious? This position of the Venice Biennale o de su director, me parece un poco anticuada porque responde a esa idea de que la arquitectura puede reducirse a conceptos y, por tanto, su interés intelectual puede agotarla por entero, reducirse a ser inmaterial. Yo creo que la fuerza de la materia es muy importante en todo; una arquitectura sin corporeidad no es que no pueda existir, existe en los dibujos, en los papeles, en las ideas, en las teorías, pero porque hace referencia a una experiencia. Y es muy escasa la experiencia sin arquitectura construida, sin obra física. No digo que no sea posible, lo es para algunas personas que se dedican a la especulación intelectual; pero la arquitectura socialmente significativa, que es la que nos interesa, que sirva a la gran mayoría de las people can not be done alone or defend ideas. 30 years ago, another wave of this type and was saying the same thing in different words. It is true that architecture today is it extremely difficult to be against their own success. The successful marketing of the most famous architecture is an enemy. I do not know if it is a grave, but it certainly is a disease.
With regard to the Expo Zaragoza, do they have these great wastes architectural sense, many unique buildings post difficult content? The basic question of the Expo is your site because it is a great action on the ground and represents a major city event, and is serious wrong in this, is the danger. I think it was wrong Sevilla and Zaragoza is wrong because it has placed a gap between what the central city, the right of the Ebro, and some neighborhoods that are already very crowded on the other side. And instead of this massive city and make both sides of the river, as in all the cities that actually use the river-good case of London, Paris, Rome or Budapest, have introduced the idea of \u200b\u200bemptiness, very green, with some buildings. I think he missed an evolution of the city that would be very interesting.
What's happening with the current planning? Not long ago, you said that there is little and hidden. Where is he hiding? Ha ha! I do not see much difference between the present and the past, what happens is that the past is good, and the other, and we remember. Now I do not know whether this crisis will change the rhythms-the number of city being built is huge, and if not, look at the territory it has occupied Madrid. It has become one of the great cities of the world, and that goes beyond any political capacity to imagine how to intervene, and say not regular, which is a nasty word and perhaps unnecessary. Good planning is a matter of wanting it, almost, in some way, to desire, and now there, but it lacks the imagination of the future, there is no such will. And will there is no desire, no desire and no quality. There are architects
who say that urbanization has gone, everything is left to the market ... I hate being so negative. What interests us is getting better, take the positive elements and be able to process them, because if not, we are committed to the cynical position of "everything is a mess, but I give me those houses, that will." That is the position of many renowned architects who say "this city is impossible, I make my object and it is." As the city is no longer something that can be defined very precisely, by the many changes through which it passes, it seems that you can not want more than defend against it, traffic, pollution, congestion ... And yet, I think there are many more likely to make good city now than there were 50 or 100 years ago. There is one fact: a city is not built in five years, and we can not judge the results the same as judging a building, a novel or an opera. The most important thing for me is to understand, develop and modernize especially the culture of the city, we are able to understand on what is of interest. Maybe the cities today are not very pretty, but are much more interesting than they were historic cities.
In what sense are more interesting? Are more complex in their operation, have more variety of items, people are more capable. Each person, family, housing, office, airport, station or beach can hold a lot of life and different life. The city is a machine increasingly rich and diverse. Maybe even the aesthetics of a certain disorder, it begins to be interested. We changed the traditional aesthetic diversity of life, and that is very important, because the great strength of the city is still attracting people, and how much more the better. And its true inner beauty, wealth, life, are also its conflict because the conflict is part of the image of a much more modern. In the historical city seemed to be no conflicts, everything so neat, so green rides ... This energy, in which not everything is delicious but it is true, I think it's a beauty that have acquired or acquire our cities, as interesting as the formal order.
But citizens have less and less voice in those cities. The mayors do and, above all, undo, what they want. One hundred years ago had zero opinion, another thing is that now there are opinions and not heard, but at least there are opinions and is important. It is very easy to say that the fault is in charge, and it sure is true, but there really big and complicated faults.
architects also have them right? And both, and both! It is very easy to talk to the mayor or the speculator, but where are the ideas, where the proposals? Can not be simple, because skate ...
Brick Is the crisis is going to count for something? Let us hope so, because if it will not serve either for this ...
hard you defend a concept in the city, the "material civility." What is the etiquette? There are configurations of matter, a corner, a garage ramp, the margin of a way ..., elements of the city, which are its material. A new district, a polygon is a substance, a component of the city, but may be smaller items, a walk, phone booths, how a building meets a gap ... Remedying this good or bad is a matter of the city are things that have good manners, sense of city, if resolved in a way that improvement. It is true that the city is the streets, but much more. For example, a glass building located in a particular place can be a beautiful object but totally anti-urban, and anti-urban in its material, it is automatically understood as others, aggressive. For example, a major traffic junction: what is the difference between congestion and animation? We say this is a very lively, and it's nice, but when we say, is very congested, it is bad. And that lies in the material, the accumulation of things overabundant. I'm not saying that the city is only matter, but it is very important. The work of the architect, urban planner or engineer is to realize that urban condition, and it is important to think and succeed in this. We must demand quality issues, not just great concept.
Your projects are great works, as whip Moll of Barcelona or other major European ports. How do you approach this civility? As a starting point, one must understand the character has to have a place, and that is closely linked to their subject, if I hurry, to your skin. I say that I am interested in the skin of the cities, and this may seem frivolous. Of course, an architect who only looks at the outward appearance! But the city has its laws, and end, or beginning, as in humans, these laws have to do with the skin, which is a structure itself. The skin of the city, which is what we see, what we play, walk or move and through which we understand the rest, and not vice versa, is essential. When I approach a project, think: how will walk this site, how it will play, 'cause the feel is very important in the city, our first item of touch are the feet walking. And that sense of how to make contact is what leads me to give much importance to the matter. And not only in the case of stone, concrete or glass, the materiality is whether it is cost or flat, open or closed, stairs or ramp, far or near.
You mentioned the corners. He says he is very interested as a crossroads of architecture, public uses, cultures ... Is there a new concept in modern cities corner? The corner that interests us today is probably just a metaphor for the classic corner. The corner is an intersection in the narrower sense. For example, today a gas station in the output of a town where people will buy when they close the shops, youths gather, sell books, it is a corner which is in a place of intersection. The corner building as an architectural example of an uncomfortable situation, which was built there, is another matter. But it has finished drawing a virtue of necessity. Maybe the underground stations, the famous exchangers are our current corner. And if we converted into a public space worthy, draft a corner and would be very interesting, and recognizable to people as a central point of the city. In Buenos Aires, the gas stations in the city are fantastic at night, are like nightclubs.
What do you think of the iconic buildings that now make the biggest stars of architecture? Fantastic, spectacular, sweeping architecture. I think that is devastating especially to the media. And some architects that may attract this type of activity or focus of their profession, but many others do not. It is a difficulty, because the architecture has become a thing capable of being advertised, contain a message of prestige, novelty or surprise, which nullifies the work quite good architects, they sometimes make great architecture, but sometimes they do not understand what they have done. Tell me now is to build a city in Mongolia which is ordered to 60 architects from around the world each building seems absurd. And that, unfortunately, is happening.
architects have always been great, but never seemed to many divas like now ... I think it's a problem of distribution of information, because what counts is a certain public image for the developer or politician who commissioned it, which is achieved through striking an object, and that's a disgrace to the architecture. In that sense it is to build the coffin, says Betsky. But it remains to be seen at the end of all this, the impact it will have. Before it was only big cities have acted well, but now are also the medium and small, everyone wants a landmark building, and any sense of civility disappears.
What is essential is to give today's architecture to the city? The sense of belonging, citizenship would say in the classic Castilian. When you go to a good walk or park in Madrid or another city, in part, the feeling you; understand that many people have done and what forms part of that city. The change from the subjective to the collective, that is what makes the city, which is the opposite of the field. In the city we live with the full sense that we share, and that in good architecture is essential. At the end there is no distance between urban planning and architecture, who seek the same.
said not long ago in the journal 'Architecture', that cities such as Vitoria and Logroño seem very good, very well resolved, but not excited at all. Why? Excited because I have poor growth, urban architecture are dull cities. There is a question of passion, desire, that everything human is very important, and if that does not spread ... It is good to go by car the houses there, but to create excitement with the city is more than that. And the excitement of diversity is what more we can give our society today, rather than order. Nor stand more than three days in St. Petersburg, because I've already seen. But you go to Manhattan and not get tired, energy, change ... diversity is highly organized.
Does good urban design has to convey emotion above all else? I think you can, and indeed it does.
cities
What excites you, apart from Cadiz, the city he likes best in the world? Cadiz is very exceptional for its size, the balance that is in the midst of a certain disorder strength, for that outrageously beautiful location between the open sea and the port, light ... I do not know, Cadiz is a silver cup, but is much more. And I really like, but do not want to sound snobbish, Sidney, a totally modern city, made in the twentieth century, which operates very well their relationship with the bay, with water, but has placed a lot of contemporary architecture inteligenci and Chicago, and Rotterdam, and Ferrara ...
are all water-related cities or the sea, very present in their work. That relationship does it have to do with their tastes or a professional typecasting from Moll de la Fusta? I guess both. I like ports, I think they are especially urban places. On the one hand, is a very strong construction, much of engineering, subject to laws operating efficiency and very demanding, and that as at the port of Rotterdam than in Bermeo, but at the same time have that sense that citizen there we will stop all contact and the sea. But in the end what I find most important ports, apart from seeing the sea, ships and the bustle, is that since they understand the city, but do not look, and it gives a great interest. I think the ports are very nice.
How was it for Barcelona, \u200b\u200bBarcelona opening experience at sea? It was a very intense experience, a whole challenge. At first it was the feeling of fighting for an impossible ideal, had to knock down sheds, railway tracks, assuming powers of the port authority and defer to the City, modify the traffic from an architectural idea, and was the first time that this did. All this cost, but in doing so, the difficulty was the enjoyment. And what followed the opening of the beaches, is the best thing has been done as a change in Barcelona.
A project like this, change the habits and life of a city, I guess that is the dream of any developer. And how! But they are projects of many people, and if no such complicity, does not work. When there is a broad feeling from the mayor is useless because no mayor, no town planning, to public opinion, and some professional consensus, things work out. That was possible in the eighties and certainly not repeatable. Good planning can not be done every year. A city project or a large chunk of the city, can only be done from time to time, fortunately, otherwise we would always be upside down ... It is very important to note that quality urban design, which makes things a certain importance and contains ideas, desires, emotions, is not for every day.
already would have liked his uncle, Nicolas Rubio i Tudurí, for the Republic to make his dream project de Iberia, una capital federal tipo Brasilia. Sí, sí, algo hay de esto... Y no está mal que sean así las cosas. Vivimos de proyectos que de vez en cuando realizamos y otros no. Yo he trabajado durante años en el puerto de Trieste, y las condiciones eran estupendas... Pues no ha salido. No había la energía o el consenso suficiente para cambiar las cosas.
¿Qué piensa de las numerosas críticas que se hacen ahora a Barcelona? El escritor Vila-Matas decía hace poco que la ciudad se ha convertido en un parque temático para el turismo, llena de porquería y orines; que se ha destrozado su tejido urbano. Creo que estamos en una fase más pasiva, y efectivamente la invasión turística, que continues to be also a consequence of those first performances, is changing a lot of atmosphere and ambience of much of the city, not just the old and historic. Tourism is a very alienating, and their presence modifies the transport, trade, entertainment, and people sometimes feel like outcasts. I think Barcelona is ten years looking for a new way to modernize not just arrived, but is not making more of the same, because these were things that were very clear and were undertaken with enthusiasm and conviction so strong that it was a guarantee of success. Now there are surely those goals.
You have converted submarine base German Saint Nazaire (France), trailing a terrible historical memory, a major cultural and civic center. "It was worth it back? I think it is worth it. The castles also recovered, and what was an element of domination over the population becomes and is absorbed as a collective recovery. The first thing I proposed on this enormous mass of the submarine base was drilled to a sense of constraint could be traversed through it visually and see the harbor, water, and set up a large ramp that people can step on, you feel who's boss : people going up there. There is something impressive there, those massive walls of concrete, these roof beams filled a very large architectural expression ... And what we needed was reappropriated and he lost that gloomy and negative side, he became just the opposite. And people are very happy, though at first it was not, because that huge submarine base cost the town of Saint Nazaire (Nantes) to be bombed and razed by the Allies in World War II. So there were people who wanted to demolish it, but it was so expensive that you could not think about it. Now is a great place where people come through the port, has cinemas, a hypermarket, a small museum of history of navigation, and it really has become a living room which is part of city life without trivializing the memory. On the contrary. I believe that respect for the past is re-appropriated, not be denied.
Sometime said that the current architecture will be very little ... Yes, but what remains of the Rome of the Caesars?, As a monument, and it's great because if not, why beat up! I do not see that it is a drama. This is not to say there are not many things are not right and we should be interested in them out better match. My experience is that when you input a city, you see a number of eyesores, disaster, sites that have been loaded, but the third time and do not see it and you start dwelling on other things, and understand people live there and I want because there are many readings.
That means the greatest aberrations of just taking a time when we live with them ... Male, aberrations!, But we should not take the ugly things, on the contrary. I think we must act, and instead of giving awards for architecture, would have to tear them down, it would be to spoof, and each year the worst building in Madrid or Barcelona, \u200b\u200bto the ground, just one, and not worth much money. I think we must be ruthless with ugly, so wrong, so evil.
is a professor at universities such as Harvard, Cambridge and Paris. The interests of the students are the same as in Spain? I think they are different than negative. The interest of the overall architecture is not what most motivates, is the line of personal development, and is different in each case, each school has its tics. Students see professional models of the stars and wonder: if I'm not going to be one of them, why study? Not a good time, and it is worrying, but why people considering a career? You
, three generations of architects, it was clear ... I knew that with that comment I got into a scrub!
What keeps asking you to architecture? More of the same intellectual and practical challenge, because projects I do are usually large and harder to fight. Last long, and is an endurance race, a fight on points, never win by KO ... Enthusiasm and energy also ask because it's a hard job.
says there are few existing buildings that will excite. Tell me one. The new Copenhagen metro.
published in El Pais, October 12, 2008. Marilin
Thanks!
Architect and father of the open sea Barcelona, \u200b\u200bManuel de Solà-Morales, the largest English urbanism theoretical questions the architecture of the big stars but commitment to the disorder of the new cities.
is the grandson, son and brother of architects, a saga in which the surname De Solà-Morales has appeared closely linked to the Barcelona architecture of the last century. His maternal grandfather was a famous Catalan modernist architect, Gaudí's right arm. His father, dean of the college of architects, and invited the likes of Alvar Aalto. His brother, Ignacio, rebuilt the Lyceum Theatre after the fire. And he opened Barcelona to the sea with the famous Moll of the whip.
Manuel de Solà-Morales, Jaime I of Urban Award 2008, is one of the most authoritative voices of English urbanism, to the extent that some of his colleagues consider him English developer the best of the past 40 years. There are projects endorsed by half of Europe: Oporto, Berlin, Rotterdam, Nantes, Antwerp and The Hague. It is a rare bird who still speak of ethics, and admits that the media success of the architecture of the big stars has become a "disease."
Worship and reputed delicious, De Solà-Morales has, at 69 years, the casual look that characterizes many intellectuals from Barcelona, \u200b\u200bwith a touch sloppy in dress design. Talking refined education rested and not hide a bully and tenacious character. Not for nothing has a reputation as a tough opponent. Their study, a three-story former factory, is broad and sober materials. Quality and elegance seems to seal the house. On the top floor, a corner with books and paintings, has become the resting place of the architect, who was a disciple of Josep Lluis Sert at Harvard and Quaroni in Rome.
just spent two events in which architecture has had much to do, the Venice Biennale and the Expo in Zaragoza. In Venice, the dilemma has arisen: buildings or architecture. Its director, Bestky says that "buildings are the tombs of architecture, and architecture that seeks to build solutions" is false and is dead. " Is it an entertainment for architects or responds to something more serious? This position of the Venice Biennale o de su director, me parece un poco anticuada porque responde a esa idea de que la arquitectura puede reducirse a conceptos y, por tanto, su interés intelectual puede agotarla por entero, reducirse a ser inmaterial. Yo creo que la fuerza de la materia es muy importante en todo; una arquitectura sin corporeidad no es que no pueda existir, existe en los dibujos, en los papeles, en las ideas, en las teorías, pero porque hace referencia a una experiencia. Y es muy escasa la experiencia sin arquitectura construida, sin obra física. No digo que no sea posible, lo es para algunas personas que se dedican a la especulación intelectual; pero la arquitectura socialmente significativa, que es la que nos interesa, que sirva a la gran mayoría de las people can not be done alone or defend ideas. 30 years ago, another wave of this type and was saying the same thing in different words. It is true that architecture today is it extremely difficult to be against their own success. The successful marketing of the most famous architecture is an enemy. I do not know if it is a grave, but it certainly is a disease.
With regard to the Expo Zaragoza, do they have these great wastes architectural sense, many unique buildings post difficult content? The basic question of the Expo is your site because it is a great action on the ground and represents a major city event, and is serious wrong in this, is the danger. I think it was wrong Sevilla and Zaragoza is wrong because it has placed a gap between what the central city, the right of the Ebro, and some neighborhoods that are already very crowded on the other side. And instead of this massive city and make both sides of the river, as in all the cities that actually use the river-good case of London, Paris, Rome or Budapest, have introduced the idea of \u200b\u200bemptiness, very green, with some buildings. I think he missed an evolution of the city that would be very interesting.
What's happening with the current planning? Not long ago, you said that there is little and hidden. Where is he hiding? Ha ha! I do not see much difference between the present and the past, what happens is that the past is good, and the other, and we remember. Now I do not know whether this crisis will change the rhythms-the number of city being built is huge, and if not, look at the territory it has occupied Madrid. It has become one of the great cities of the world, and that goes beyond any political capacity to imagine how to intervene, and say not regular, which is a nasty word and perhaps unnecessary. Good planning is a matter of wanting it, almost, in some way, to desire, and now there, but it lacks the imagination of the future, there is no such will. And will there is no desire, no desire and no quality. There are architects
who say that urbanization has gone, everything is left to the market ... I hate being so negative. What interests us is getting better, take the positive elements and be able to process them, because if not, we are committed to the cynical position of "everything is a mess, but I give me those houses, that will." That is the position of many renowned architects who say "this city is impossible, I make my object and it is." As the city is no longer something that can be defined very precisely, by the many changes through which it passes, it seems that you can not want more than defend against it, traffic, pollution, congestion ... And yet, I think there are many more likely to make good city now than there were 50 or 100 years ago. There is one fact: a city is not built in five years, and we can not judge the results the same as judging a building, a novel or an opera. The most important thing for me is to understand, develop and modernize especially the culture of the city, we are able to understand on what is of interest. Maybe the cities today are not very pretty, but are much more interesting than they were historic cities.
In what sense are more interesting? Are more complex in their operation, have more variety of items, people are more capable. Each person, family, housing, office, airport, station or beach can hold a lot of life and different life. The city is a machine increasingly rich and diverse. Maybe even the aesthetics of a certain disorder, it begins to be interested. We changed the traditional aesthetic diversity of life, and that is very important, because the great strength of the city is still attracting people, and how much more the better. And its true inner beauty, wealth, life, are also its conflict because the conflict is part of the image of a much more modern. In the historical city seemed to be no conflicts, everything so neat, so green rides ... This energy, in which not everything is delicious but it is true, I think it's a beauty that have acquired or acquire our cities, as interesting as the formal order.
But citizens have less and less voice in those cities. The mayors do and, above all, undo, what they want. One hundred years ago had zero opinion, another thing is that now there are opinions and not heard, but at least there are opinions and is important. It is very easy to say that the fault is in charge, and it sure is true, but there really big and complicated faults.
architects also have them right? And both, and both! It is very easy to talk to the mayor or the speculator, but where are the ideas, where the proposals? Can not be simple, because skate ...
Brick Is the crisis is going to count for something? Let us hope so, because if it will not serve either for this ...
hard you defend a concept in the city, the "material civility." What is the etiquette? There are configurations of matter, a corner, a garage ramp, the margin of a way ..., elements of the city, which are its material. A new district, a polygon is a substance, a component of the city, but may be smaller items, a walk, phone booths, how a building meets a gap ... Remedying this good or bad is a matter of the city are things that have good manners, sense of city, if resolved in a way that improvement. It is true that the city is the streets, but much more. For example, a glass building located in a particular place can be a beautiful object but totally anti-urban, and anti-urban in its material, it is automatically understood as others, aggressive. For example, a major traffic junction: what is the difference between congestion and animation? We say this is a very lively, and it's nice, but when we say, is very congested, it is bad. And that lies in the material, the accumulation of things overabundant. I'm not saying that the city is only matter, but it is very important. The work of the architect, urban planner or engineer is to realize that urban condition, and it is important to think and succeed in this. We must demand quality issues, not just great concept.
Your projects are great works, as whip Moll of Barcelona or other major European ports. How do you approach this civility? As a starting point, one must understand the character has to have a place, and that is closely linked to their subject, if I hurry, to your skin. I say that I am interested in the skin of the cities, and this may seem frivolous. Of course, an architect who only looks at the outward appearance! But the city has its laws, and end, or beginning, as in humans, these laws have to do with the skin, which is a structure itself. The skin of the city, which is what we see, what we play, walk or move and through which we understand the rest, and not vice versa, is essential. When I approach a project, think: how will walk this site, how it will play, 'cause the feel is very important in the city, our first item of touch are the feet walking. And that sense of how to make contact is what leads me to give much importance to the matter. And not only in the case of stone, concrete or glass, the materiality is whether it is cost or flat, open or closed, stairs or ramp, far or near.
You mentioned the corners. He says he is very interested as a crossroads of architecture, public uses, cultures ... Is there a new concept in modern cities corner? The corner that interests us today is probably just a metaphor for the classic corner. The corner is an intersection in the narrower sense. For example, today a gas station in the output of a town where people will buy when they close the shops, youths gather, sell books, it is a corner which is in a place of intersection. The corner building as an architectural example of an uncomfortable situation, which was built there, is another matter. But it has finished drawing a virtue of necessity. Maybe the underground stations, the famous exchangers are our current corner. And if we converted into a public space worthy, draft a corner and would be very interesting, and recognizable to people as a central point of the city. In Buenos Aires, the gas stations in the city are fantastic at night, are like nightclubs.
What do you think of the iconic buildings that now make the biggest stars of architecture? Fantastic, spectacular, sweeping architecture. I think that is devastating especially to the media. And some architects that may attract this type of activity or focus of their profession, but many others do not. It is a difficulty, because the architecture has become a thing capable of being advertised, contain a message of prestige, novelty or surprise, which nullifies the work quite good architects, they sometimes make great architecture, but sometimes they do not understand what they have done. Tell me now is to build a city in Mongolia which is ordered to 60 architects from around the world each building seems absurd. And that, unfortunately, is happening.
architects have always been great, but never seemed to many divas like now ... I think it's a problem of distribution of information, because what counts is a certain public image for the developer or politician who commissioned it, which is achieved through striking an object, and that's a disgrace to the architecture. In that sense it is to build the coffin, says Betsky. But it remains to be seen at the end of all this, the impact it will have. Before it was only big cities have acted well, but now are also the medium and small, everyone wants a landmark building, and any sense of civility disappears.
What is essential is to give today's architecture to the city? The sense of belonging, citizenship would say in the classic Castilian. When you go to a good walk or park in Madrid or another city, in part, the feeling you; understand that many people have done and what forms part of that city. The change from the subjective to the collective, that is what makes the city, which is the opposite of the field. In the city we live with the full sense that we share, and that in good architecture is essential. At the end there is no distance between urban planning and architecture, who seek the same.
said not long ago in the journal 'Architecture', that cities such as Vitoria and Logroño seem very good, very well resolved, but not excited at all. Why? Excited because I have poor growth, urban architecture are dull cities. There is a question of passion, desire, that everything human is very important, and if that does not spread ... It is good to go by car the houses there, but to create excitement with the city is more than that. And the excitement of diversity is what more we can give our society today, rather than order. Nor stand more than three days in St. Petersburg, because I've already seen. But you go to Manhattan and not get tired, energy, change ... diversity is highly organized.
Does good urban design has to convey emotion above all else? I think you can, and indeed it does.
cities
What excites you, apart from Cadiz, the city he likes best in the world? Cadiz is very exceptional for its size, the balance that is in the midst of a certain disorder strength, for that outrageously beautiful location between the open sea and the port, light ... I do not know, Cadiz is a silver cup, but is much more. And I really like, but do not want to sound snobbish, Sidney, a totally modern city, made in the twentieth century, which operates very well their relationship with the bay, with water, but has placed a lot of contemporary architecture inteligenci and Chicago, and Rotterdam, and Ferrara ...
are all water-related cities or the sea, very present in their work. That relationship does it have to do with their tastes or a professional typecasting from Moll de la Fusta? I guess both. I like ports, I think they are especially urban places. On the one hand, is a very strong construction, much of engineering, subject to laws operating efficiency and very demanding, and that as at the port of Rotterdam than in Bermeo, but at the same time have that sense that citizen there we will stop all contact and the sea. But in the end what I find most important ports, apart from seeing the sea, ships and the bustle, is that since they understand the city, but do not look, and it gives a great interest. I think the ports are very nice.
How was it for Barcelona, \u200b\u200bBarcelona opening experience at sea? It was a very intense experience, a whole challenge. At first it was the feeling of fighting for an impossible ideal, had to knock down sheds, railway tracks, assuming powers of the port authority and defer to the City, modify the traffic from an architectural idea, and was the first time that this did. All this cost, but in doing so, the difficulty was the enjoyment. And what followed the opening of the beaches, is the best thing has been done as a change in Barcelona.
A project like this, change the habits and life of a city, I guess that is the dream of any developer. And how! But they are projects of many people, and if no such complicity, does not work. When there is a broad feeling from the mayor is useless because no mayor, no town planning, to public opinion, and some professional consensus, things work out. That was possible in the eighties and certainly not repeatable. Good planning can not be done every year. A city project or a large chunk of the city, can only be done from time to time, fortunately, otherwise we would always be upside down ... It is very important to note that quality urban design, which makes things a certain importance and contains ideas, desires, emotions, is not for every day.
already would have liked his uncle, Nicolas Rubio i Tudurí, for the Republic to make his dream project de Iberia, una capital federal tipo Brasilia. Sí, sí, algo hay de esto... Y no está mal que sean así las cosas. Vivimos de proyectos que de vez en cuando realizamos y otros no. Yo he trabajado durante años en el puerto de Trieste, y las condiciones eran estupendas... Pues no ha salido. No había la energía o el consenso suficiente para cambiar las cosas.
¿Qué piensa de las numerosas críticas que se hacen ahora a Barcelona? El escritor Vila-Matas decía hace poco que la ciudad se ha convertido en un parque temático para el turismo, llena de porquería y orines; que se ha destrozado su tejido urbano. Creo que estamos en una fase más pasiva, y efectivamente la invasión turística, que continues to be also a consequence of those first performances, is changing a lot of atmosphere and ambience of much of the city, not just the old and historic. Tourism is a very alienating, and their presence modifies the transport, trade, entertainment, and people sometimes feel like outcasts. I think Barcelona is ten years looking for a new way to modernize not just arrived, but is not making more of the same, because these were things that were very clear and were undertaken with enthusiasm and conviction so strong that it was a guarantee of success. Now there are surely those goals.
You have converted submarine base German Saint Nazaire (France), trailing a terrible historical memory, a major cultural and civic center. "It was worth it back? I think it is worth it. The castles also recovered, and what was an element of domination over the population becomes and is absorbed as a collective recovery. The first thing I proposed on this enormous mass of the submarine base was drilled to a sense of constraint could be traversed through it visually and see the harbor, water, and set up a large ramp that people can step on, you feel who's boss : people going up there. There is something impressive there, those massive walls of concrete, these roof beams filled a very large architectural expression ... And what we needed was reappropriated and he lost that gloomy and negative side, he became just the opposite. And people are very happy, though at first it was not, because that huge submarine base cost the town of Saint Nazaire (Nantes) to be bombed and razed by the Allies in World War II. So there were people who wanted to demolish it, but it was so expensive that you could not think about it. Now is a great place where people come through the port, has cinemas, a hypermarket, a small museum of history of navigation, and it really has become a living room which is part of city life without trivializing the memory. On the contrary. I believe that respect for the past is re-appropriated, not be denied.
Sometime said that the current architecture will be very little ... Yes, but what remains of the Rome of the Caesars?, As a monument, and it's great because if not, why beat up! I do not see that it is a drama. This is not to say there are not many things are not right and we should be interested in them out better match. My experience is that when you input a city, you see a number of eyesores, disaster, sites that have been loaded, but the third time and do not see it and you start dwelling on other things, and understand people live there and I want because there are many readings.
That means the greatest aberrations of just taking a time when we live with them ... Male, aberrations!, But we should not take the ugly things, on the contrary. I think we must act, and instead of giving awards for architecture, would have to tear them down, it would be to spoof, and each year the worst building in Madrid or Barcelona, \u200b\u200bto the ground, just one, and not worth much money. I think we must be ruthless with ugly, so wrong, so evil.
is a professor at universities such as Harvard, Cambridge and Paris. The interests of the students are the same as in Spain? I think they are different than negative. The interest of the overall architecture is not what most motivates, is the line of personal development, and is different in each case, each school has its tics. Students see professional models of the stars and wonder: if I'm not going to be one of them, why study? Not a good time, and it is worrying, but why people considering a career? You
, three generations of architects, it was clear ... I knew that with that comment I got into a scrub!
What keeps asking you to architecture? More of the same intellectual and practical challenge, because projects I do are usually large and harder to fight. Last long, and is an endurance race, a fight on points, never win by KO ... Enthusiasm and energy also ask because it's a hard job.
says there are few existing buildings that will excite. Tell me one. The new Copenhagen metro.
0 comments:
Post a Comment