…La cuarta chimenea del Titanic
Sobre el sueño (o la pesadilla) de la tecnología como garante de formas inevitables. [Jaume Prat] En 1923, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret y Amédée Ozenfant, bajo el seudónimo conjunto Le Corbusier-Saugnier, editan una recopilación de artículos sobre arquitectura aparecidos en la revista L’Esprit Noveau, titulada Vers Une Architecture. La tercera sección del libro se titulará genéricamente ojos que no ven, y contendrá tres capítulos en los que se analizan los transatlánticos, los aviones y los automóviles como artefactos dotados de la belleza de lo inevitable: sus formas son producto de la solución al problema que plantea una función que no deja margen al diseñador para cualquier actuación que no sea necesaria. Según los autores, no hay contingencias, ni retórica, ni adorno posible en estos diseños, y como tal se venden. Con fotos, ya en su momento, retocadas por los autores para reforzar dicha tesis. Once años antes, en su viaje inaugural, el transatlántico de la clase Olympic RMS Titanic, el mayor barco de pasajeros del mundo, naufraga en aguas del Atlántico Norte. El Titanic es un transatlántico que podría aparecer perfectamente en el capítulo correspondiente de Vers Une Architecture como ejemplo paradigmático de diseño inevitable. Un análisis más atento del barco, sin embargo, nos hace cuestionar estos postulados. El barco se diseña, como es propio en su época, en función de una jerarquía vertical que prima el confort de los pasajeros de primera clase, sus clientes principales. Las cubiertas, camarotes y dependencias de primera clase aparecerán todas ellas profusamente ornamentadas, paneladas en madera, escondiendo o maquillando sistemáticamente la estructura que conforma los espacios. Le Corbusier y su socio escogerán, de hecho, los...
Carlos Ferrater por sí mismo, extracto 04/07 del pliego scalae: a professional structure | una estructura profesional…
(sobre el equipo) >>> [ver +]4th extract | cuarto extracto [English]I’ve always been testing things, each project’s been a new experience, an attempt not to reformulate what I already knew, handling the contradiction the architect experiences between a one-off building and an ongoing process. Architecture is a collective undertaking. The architect must be the lynchpin in this process. His role can be very variable. I’ve always wondered how much there is of Libera, the architect, and how much of Malaparte, the poet client, in the house on Capri. In our studio we work in a close-knit way, there’s no hierarchy, a cross-fertilization between people occurs. And not only is there the work of architecture, there’s the learning process of the people who exist together, and my own learning process. All this means the work is complex and at the same time rich, close-knit and democratic. There are some thirty of us and we have a very flexible professional structure based on collaborations in which specialists make an appearance during different phases of the project. I like working this way; there’s no preconceived or predetermined organization because each project calls for a special sort of treatment. It’s an exercise in tactics rather than strategy. We might use a nautical simile here: the character most like an architect is the tactician in regatta sailing. On a boat the tactician is one more member of the crew, he’s the one who has to predict the conditions, chart the changes of course, guess what the competitors are going to do, know about the race course and its climatology, analyze the technological data provided...
Carlos Ferrater por sí mismo, extracto 03/07 del pliego scalae: projects on a small scale | proyectos en pequeña escala…
(a propósito de) Archigram >>> [ver +]3rd extract | tercer extracto [English]During this time I had a small studio in a car repair shop. We were designing things in the lubrication pit; there were two of us and we spent time working on things to do with ephemeral architecture. I put together a poster I’ve still got on which I collated the proposals which at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 70s predicted what architecture would be like in the year 2000: Soleri’s integral theater, Jungman’s pneumatic cells, Piranesian architecture, Buckminster Fuller’s climatic domes, Cousteau’s cities in the sea, and the schemes of Peter Cook and Archigram. Thirty years later, those avant-garde statements have become watered down and are forgotten or greeted with a smile. For me, years of silence followed, with projects on a small scale. I became familiar with different skills and materials, and the same year I finished the course I entered as an assistant lecturer on Roberto Terradas’s final project design course and ever since then the School and my professional work have been inseparable and complementary. --Traducción al inglés: Paul Hammond-- [Español]En aquella época tenía un pequeño estudio en un taller mecánico. Dibujábamos en el foso de engrase, éramos dos personas, y trabajamos algún tiempo en temas de arquitectura efímera. Construí un póster que aún conservo en el que reuní las propuestas que a finales de los 60 y principios de los 70 predecían lo que sería la arquitectura del año 2000: el teatro integral de Soleri, las células neumáticas de Jungman, la arquitectura piranesiana, las cúpulas climáticas de Buckmister Fuller,...
Carlos Ferrater por sí mismo, extracto 02/07 del pliego scalae: one teacher I didn’t have | un profesor que no he tenido…
(a propósito de) Coderch >>> [ver +]2nd extract | segundo extracto [English]I’d like to talk about one teacher I didn’t have: J.A. Coderch de Sentmenat. He gave classes in project design for a few months at the start of the “new plan.” I was doing the “old plan” and wasn’t entitled to go to his classes. Nobody asked me if I’d enrolled on his course, and I attended his workshop. We were meant to design a single-family house in the Maresme, where he was designing someone’s home. The first day I had correction I excitedly, and somewhat vainly, showed him some drawings in plan with a few turns; Coderch said to me, “No! It’s awful.” What must I do? And he went on, “Look, what you must do is…” and I ended designing a Coderchian bungalow. Coderch was at the School for a very short time. A rejection of sorts and the bad behavior of a few students, along with his weariness at the lack of interest of the projects he was being offered, led to his departure. Then I was lucky to be given the Senillosa House in Cadaqués. I discovered what a house meant, what a space for an occupant was, what a building that was well positioned in urban space was, what an architecture was in which the role of the architect was almost that of a medium, in which the materials were simple, fulfilling all the requisites of a marvelous holiday home. A tiny house with an incredible section. At the School we were designing in plan alone, and in this house the design...
