Obrist Exhibit in Lina Bo Bardi's Glass House

Uncredited photo from openhouse blog

Just for the record, ending June 2nd is Hans Ullrich Obrist's art installation in Lina Bo Bardi's Glass House in São Paulo (1951), with works by 36 artists. He has mounted similar exhibitions in the houses of Nietzsche, John Soane, Federico García Lorca and Luis Barragán.

On the idea of the exhibition, Ángela Molina writes in El País (May 3, 2013):

"If museums are the great condenses of art, the houses where poets, architects and thinkers lived appear today as a refuge or idyllic escapade in their own right, spaces that allow a first-hand vision of the interpersonal transactions between the curator and the artist....  At a time when most museums look at art through the rose-tinted glasses of the market, in houses with a distinguished pedigree one can better understand creation as pure energy based on sensation, a sign of the centrality of architecture in cultural discourse."

Activity Notes

Temenos
The Madrid architecture students of the Temenos Association have published their interview with me on their web page, which can be visited here (in Spanish) Their ringleader is Daniel Dávila, whose brilliant and perplexing activities I have been following for about a year now, and their pursuit is of the TGA, or General Theory of Architecture. (Temenos is the Greek word for a sacred precinct.)

Technology and Design for Everyone
I'll be participating in a congress on domotics and accessibility on Monday, May 27th at the School of Telecommunications of Madrid's Polytechnic University. The event is organized as part of their Masters Program in Domotics and the Digital Home. Iciar de las Casas and I will present an architectural perspective on accessibility as a foil to all the geeky techno stuff others are covering. More information can be found here.

Reprieve for Maspalomas

© Lluis Casals

The Cabildo, the island government of Gran Canaria, has suspended the demolition permit for José Antonio Corrales and Ramón Vázquez Molezún's historic Maspalomas Oasis Hotel (see blog entry of Jan. 12, 2013).

The hotel closed its doors on April 31 in preparation for the demolition, and the owners planned an inversion of 46 million euros.

The move opens the door to a possible process of negotiation between local authorities and the owners that could lead to the restoration of the hotel, according to local architect and historian José Antonio Sosa, with whom I spoke in a telephone interview.

The Cabildo did not extend historic protection to the hotel building, but rather to the entire area around it, encompassing various other buildings and landscape features such as the virgin grove of palms and lush gardens that give the hotel its name. The Cabildo justified its decision citing the historic value of the site, which was where Christopher Columbus anchored in 1502 to gather provisions on his fourth voyage to the Americas.

The move automatically suspends the existing demolition permit and requires the hotel owners to submit any plans for the building to the Cabildo for approval. For its part, the Cabildo will develop a special master plan for the area, a spokesman told the press (El Diario Montanés, April 30, 2013).

Sosa explains that a decision protecting the building itself would have legally hampered the owners in any effort to update facilities such as kitchens and services during a restoration. Preservation legislation here is designed for protecting traditional historic monuments such as cathedrals and palaces, he says. He explains the protection of the landscape encompassing the hotel as a maneuver to accommodate the negotiation process.

Directing protection to the landscape revindicates Corrales and Molezún's original intentions, as their design breaks the building into a series of linked pavilions that are integrated with their unique surroundings.

Update 01.18.17

The Supreme Court of the Canary Islands  upholds decision protecting Maspalomas against appeals by local town council and hotel owners against lower court decision: 

El TSJC ratifica la sentencia que impide a RIU demoler elhotel Oasis y construir uno nuevo 

Canarias Ahora

12.15.2016

Adam's House in Paradise Revisited

My introduction to the latest issue of Arquitectura Viva focuses on the theme of "Local Material".

From the text:
"The works shown here share a certain degree of primitivism, although covering a wide range of expression. Whether in clay, wood or modern plastics and glass, they bring to mind in different ways the primitive huts of ancient civilizations, or forest Edens, or the simple pleasures of rural life, or the self-aware neo-primitivisms of contemporary art in its different manifestations." 

These are the 8 projects featured:

Li Xiaodong, Village library near Beijing

TYIN Teknestue, Cassia Co-Training Center, Sumatra

Boonserm Premthada, Kantana Film Institute, Thailand

Kengo Kuma, Market + Hotel, Yusuhara, Japan

• 

  Robbrecht en Daem with Marie-José Van Hee, Market Hall, Ghent, Belgium

• 

  Peter Zunthor, Steilneset Memorial, Vardø Island, Norway

• 

  RCR, Banquet Pavilion, Les Cols Restaurant, Olot, Spain

• 

  Solano Benítez, Teletón Rehab Center, Asunción, Paraguay

De vuelta a la casa de Adán
Adam's House in Paradise Revisited
Introduction to issue "Local Material" 
Arquitectura Viva 151, April 2013, pages 7 - 13, cover

Editorial consultant: Iciar de las Casas
 

Moneo and the Limits of Contextualism

All photos © Duccio Malagamba

 Rafael Moneo's controversial Congress Center in Toledo is the subject of my article in the May issue of Architectural Record (available in full here).  The project has found few supporters in the Spanish architectural community, as it manages neither to blend in with its historic surroundings nor to successfully stand out.

Built on-and-off for over 12 years due to budget problems, it was quietly opened last December under the management of a private company, and is struggling to find business; the region is one of the hardest hit by the current economic crisis in Spain.

From the article:

"To what degree does Toledo's memorable cityscape depend on the quality of each of its individual buildings? Zeroing in with a critical eye on any one of the anonymous structures that make up most of the urban fabric, you may find it lacking in one way or another—a dubious modernization, a drab exterior finish. Likewise, the crude workmanship, jarring color, and busy entry structure of Moneo's design may strike a discordant note at first sight. But take a step back, and everything blends into a harmonious whole. Given time and familiarity, Moneo's convention center will certainly join in Toledo's forgiving accumulation of historical periods. As the architect explains, 'The building is there, but it is inconspicuous. It contributes to the life of the city, but it doesn't declare its presence' But had he chosen to make it more decidedly of its own period, perhaps its contribution to Toledo's image would have been more positive—one of dialogue and encounter."

Climbing the Wall
El Greco Congress Center, Toledo Spain by Rafael Moneo
Architectural Record, May 2013

The restaurant terrace, where the building meets Toledo's old rubble walls