Luisa Rodríguez

Moore - Valle

MDF, plaster board, acrylic, steel
55 x 45 x 2 cm

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The piece began as a two sided object, mainly to portray contrasting finished surfaces in architecture: refined and unrefined. This went along previous ideas of unseen architecture, material manipulation, and elements of urban exploration.

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One side of the object is white, like a plastered finished wall. The other side with predominant greens, holds the true state of the found drywall from a dismantled building, often reused for spontaneous housing solutions.

 

Thinking about different cities and how approaches in architecture might differ,  I decided to test how far I could take the complexity of the object into adding recent studies of mapping, specifically the Relaciones Geográficas maps made during the time of Spanish colonies. After a careful study, I identified key elements such as highlighting the most important buildings-at the time it would have been churches-by drawing these in perspective views and the rest in flat representations as seen from the street. Also, the incorporation of indigenous symbols to describe geographic conditions such as hills and plains, and the use of footprints were spaces are meant for walking.

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​I was interested and researched two buildings which suggest the interchange of architectural and decorative styles between two territories. Thus one is taken from London and  the other from Honduras' capital Tegucigalpa.

 

​White Side: A map of Mayfair in central London with the Time and Life building. Henry Moore was commissioned to make the screen for the façade of the building for which he designed four sculptural massive figures. It is known that Moore took from pre-Columbian figures for a period but the element on the far right shows the clearest example of that influence where a face can directly be compared to those in Mayan works of sculpture.

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Green Side: A map of  Barrio Moncada in Downtown Tegucigalpa with Tiburcio Carias Andino’s House. Carias, a former President, had his house built by an Ingeniero Valle. No records were found of this other than word-of-mouth investigations. Being a rare example of architecture within the area and the city in general, the suggested theory is that the former president and consultants were inspired by the some 1930’s designs in England, evidenced by the curving walls, the round window, and the unusual front fence all which can be related to similar examples of public buildings or housing developments.

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Current details and materials in design were an important influence like the delicate lettering in the newly refurbished St Augustine's Church.