Luisa Rodríguez
Behind Architecture
Essays on architecture along with current debate topics in magazines and spreads discuss topics on the often uncanny, experimentational, and not easily perceived aspects related to the field.
'The Architectural Uncanny' by Anthony Vidler reviews and compares architectural products from the such of the Victpr Hugos' haunted house in Guernsey to Bernard Tshumi's case vides and Rem Khoolass' project for the Paris Library. From romantic to modern examples, the uncanniness within architecture is discussed in the form of walls without windows, pararchitecture, half constructed constructions, and translucency. Ultimately, the uncanny is often revealed as an anxiety produced by a latent truth that was not desired to be discovered. Mentions of the inside-outside, the hovels of the natives, and layers of dust are all relevant in reexamining architectural products.
Collage City, a critique on modern architecture, centered on the first half of the 20th century is still valid today. It is a recognition of the need to find reconciling urban forms, from the scientific and human, to prosperous and non prosperous; of giving way to the artist-architect as bricoleur and a scientist.
However on the experimental side, there are forms which are architectural but not necessarily functional, structures which are pleasing and inviting yet not permanently sheltering. A recent article by Aaron Betsky on the afterlife of pavillions following Coachella is an invitation to reflect on the temporariness and the cost of these test which ultimately result in waste.
'Building Stories' was an exhibition in Lisbon by architects De Vylder Vinck Taillieu, Maio and Ricardo Bak Gordon. It is centred around the idea of what cannot be easily perceived at first glance in the built environment.
The action of turning walls inside-out to show what they are made off, often poorer materials i aesthetics as much as in value, shows the honest and humble side of building. I found it is an invitation to think about the hands that make it and labor.
In the same way, the photographic series by Fernando Alda's entitled 'The Aesthetic of Vanishing' not only shows the specific moment of architecture under construction but it also draws attention to the practical solutions in the process of building. These are moments that are not meant to be beautiful or pleasing to the eye, but strictly functional, yet the way they are portrayed in the work elevates it to new perceptions.