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How can architecture move beyond iconic buildings to create holistic, culturally-informed solutions that transform landscapes and everyday experiences?

Image courtesy of interviewee. November 7, 2024

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This video discusses the architectural landscape in Spain, highlighting its historical and cultural context. It notes that after the Civil War, Spain focused on modernizing architecture instead of adopting postmodern trends. Spain boasts a high number of licensed architects and a competitive education system for architecture, leading to a significant architectural output.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of public commissions and blind peer review competitions in developing culturally significant architecture, noting the precarious nature of architectural business in Spain. The impact of the 2008 economic crisis on the architectural field and the ongoing recovery process is acknowledged.

Spain has also been a pioneer in ecological thinking within architecture, being among the first to integrate ecological and systems thinking into design. The discussion extends to the importance of understanding the context and history of a location while designing, advocating for a holistic view of architecture that encompasses environmental, social, and historical aspects.

Furthermore, the speaker critiques the traditional view of architecture as a mere expression of individual artistry, asserting instead that architects should focus on solving problems pertinent to societal needs, such as climate change and social inequality. The importance of architecture as a service to citizens, rather than a manifestation of personal expression, is emphasized throughout.

Overall, the speaker posits that architecture should facilitate human experience and adapt to evolving societal contexts while maintaining a commitment to sustainability and cultural significance.

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Here are five key points from the video about architecture in Spain and the broader convideo of architectural practice:

1. **Post-Civil War Architectural Evolution**: After the Spanish Civil War and during Franco’s regime, there was a strong pursuit for modern architecture in Spain. This was a reflection of Spain's desire to modernize and catch up with contemporary architectural movements, as opposed to embracing postmodern trends seen elsewhere.

2. **High Architectural Education and Competition**: Spain has a notably high number of licensed architects and architecture students per capita, making it a highly competitive field. The public commissioning process in Spain emphasizes excellence through blind peer-review competitions, reinforcing the importance of quality in architectural practice.

3. **Ecological and Historical Convideo in Design**: Spanish architects have been pioneers in integrating ecological thinking into architectural practices. They emphasize the relationship between built environments, ecological systems, and historical convideos when designing spaces, thereby fostering a dialogue with the landscape and its history.

4. **Architecture as a Continuous Process**: Good architecture is seen as a continuous engagement with users and the environment rather than just a finished object. This approach allows for adaptability in how spaces are used over time, emphasizing the importance of user engagement and local convideo in shaping architecture.

5. **Architectural Responsibility to Society**: The architect's role is framed as one of service, where the focus is on addressing societal challenges like climate change and social inequality. Architects should prioritize the needs of society as a whole, ensuring that projects have long-term benefits for the community rather than just satisfying the immediate desires of clients.

These points highlight a philosophy of architecture rooted in social responsibility, ecological awareness, and a deep regard for the historical and cultural convideo in design.

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Here are some key quotes extracted from the video that capture its main ideas and themes:

1. **Architectural Convideo and Modernity:**
- "Spain after the Civil War was an outer key... we fought hard to become modern again."
- "Spain did not pass the postmodern infection in the late sixties. We were trying to be modern."

2. **Architectural Landscape in Spain:**
- "Spain has a lot of architects... about eight times more licensed architects and eight times more students per capita than the US."
- "It's a very competitive... but also very precarious as a business."

3. **Ecological Thinking in Architecture:**
- "We were a pioneer in... ecological thinking... designed the first Florida world public space in the nineties."
- "Our inhabitation of the planet is part of ecological flows, and they come back to us."

4. **Understanding Architecture:**
- "Architecture is very much linked to the built environment, how we design our environment."
- "As humans, we do two or three things... architects construct a shelter and design a horizontal plane."

5. **Engagement with Space and History:**
- "We go to the site, we touch the site... we design geographically, thinking that we are part of a geography."
- "Understanding layers of history made us think completely differently about the scale of the project."

6. **Learning from Traditional Practices:**
- "Sometimes the practices... how farmers deal with floods... want to filter the solids that happen in the flood."
- "Many of our work is going back to methods and pre-industrial practices."

7. **The Evolution of Spaces:**
- "The best moment of a building is when it's finished... the occupation of the space and the transformation of the space."
- "The ultimate test of quality of architecture goes beyond the beautiful photograph."

8. **Role of Architecture in Society:**
- "I care about what is the real problem, not what you want to do... What needs to be done to solve... climate change and social inequality."
- "My client is the citizens of the city... not for what you want."

These quotes reflect the themes of modernity, ecological awareness, the role of architecture in society, the importance of history and convideo, and the necessity of collaboration and service in architectural practice.

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The architectural context in Spain is a,

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is a very interesting and very intense,

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and it has been for, for many years, architect, Spain

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after the, the Civil War was, was an outer key.

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Uh, with Franco, we, we, we fought hard

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to become modern again.

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So, in a way, Spain did not pass the,

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the postmodern infection in the late sixties.

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We were, we were trying to be modern.

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Uh, so, Spain has a lot of architects, has a,

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has a high production, a long history of architecture.

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And to give you a context,

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it's about eight times more arc licensed architects

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and eight times more students per capita than the us.

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Uh, it means it's a very competitive,

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and in Europe, in the European Union regulations, the,

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the system for public commissions,

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which are the most important, in terms

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of culturally meaningful architecture is, is,

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through blind, peer review competitions.

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Therefore, the, the, the scenario is extremely competitive,

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really trying to get excellence,

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and it's also very precarious as business, of course, with

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that competitive names and, and, and,

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and it had a boom when, when,

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when Spain recovered economically

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after the, the eighties in the, during the nineties

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and the two thousands, of course, we had a, a, a terrible,

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post, 2008 crisis in all Europe,

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and especially in the South and Spain.

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And now we are in the process of recovering back again with,

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with a lot of architects all over the world from Spain.

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Uh, very, very well trained.

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We were a pioneer in, in some issues,

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especially in the ecological thinking, in Spain

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and I, I would argue that in, in, in the world,

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we designed the first Florida world public space and,

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and architecture, in the, in the nineties.

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Uh, so we, we really introduced the ecological thinking

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and the systems thinking in architecture in a very

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competitive, very highly high level of design of,

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of perfect architecture and perfect public spaces.

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The introduction of these, understanding of processes,

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of understanding, of ecology, but also social processes and,

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and the layers of time in the places.

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Um, during, David k,

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and American Architectural Critic, says that

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during the years of the Icon Builders,

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the cultural dimension

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of architecture was in chiefly a se

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of individual creative expression of personal politics

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or sensibility,

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which was invested in the build object of it.

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Were a work of art.

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Uh, our role at Light's role in contrast is comparable in

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certain aspects to those contemporary artists who seek

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to disengage the creative process from its focus on the

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object of art

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and seek in its place to engage more directly

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with the vital substance of life and experience.

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Uh, in from, he explains that,

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that the cultural dimension is a question

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that arises from the problem itself, and the,

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and the solution is founded as well.

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We have discovered that there's no backyard in the world,

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Google Earth has, has been helpful.

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We see everything and we see that we, we were used

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to throw things in the, in, in the backyard and,

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and hoping that it will disappear,

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that they will disappear, pollution, trash,

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our leftovers, nature in the, in the romantic approach

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to nature was this infinite, imposing,

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scary nature there.

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No, remember the, the Caspar Friedrich, painting

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that that's not the case anymore.

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Uh, everything we throw to the backyard,

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it comes back to us again.

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So the, the way of, of understanding that the, the,

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our inhabitation of the planet is part of ecological flows,

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and they come back to us.

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There are architects as be trivial,

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define architecture, be trivial.

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Yeah. He, he did a 10 books.

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One of them was defining styles.

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Uh, before Vivia, there were many styles.

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After Vivia, there were three styles, okay?

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Uh, but that was only one book.

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The rest of the books were about building the city,

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building switch, building roads, fortifications,

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providing drinking water, the health of the city.

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So, so that's how we understand architecture.

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Architecture very much linked to the built environment,

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how we design then our environment.

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Uh, as humans, we do two or three things.

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Uh, in, as, as instant we eat, we reproduce ourselves

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and we construct a shelter.

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We architects controls, construct a shelter

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and design a horizontal plane so we can stand.

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We are animals with two legs. We don't do well in steep.

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So the only horizontal thing that is in nature is water,

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and we don't do well in water as well.

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So, so that construction of, of the space of inhibition is

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what we understand as architecture and all that complexity.

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We work at all scales.

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We work from the scale of the human and, and,

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and we design furniture and public furniture.

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If you sit in the tower under the tower, AFL tower,

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you will sit in one of our benches that was designed for,

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for flooding in the, in the rivers.

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But, now it's used for, for, for the flood of tourists

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to, from that, to the visions to the territory and the city

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and, and big reform of the city

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because there's no discontinuity in escapes.

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And one of the problems

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of our cities has been this separation between, planning

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and zoning and a very abstract management of, of,

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of drawings about the city disconnected to the,

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to the human experience and to the spatial experience.

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So what we work is

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to really connect all these pieces constantly,

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and our methods of work are, are, are reflecting

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that every time we start a project, we, we, we start

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by several points of departure.

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One is to touch the ground,

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and sometimes when we talk about something that is flat,

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it's not flat, there are micro topographies

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that are fundamental or the quality of soil

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or how people are using the, the space already.

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We say that the landscape is not to be drawn.

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Again, people draw the landscape, and then we arrive

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and we reuse it.

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So we, we go to the site, we touch the site,

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we go to the opposite.

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We go to the satellite to understand what is the

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geographical, insertion of the place.

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We, we, we often talk about, we, we design geographically,

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we design thinking that we are part of a geography.

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We are part of rivers, valleys, mountains.

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And then we also do a lot of work in the history,

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in the history of the place, uncovering layers

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of history and understanding why we are, have arrived to

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where we are and what are the reasons that are behind and,

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and understanding, for instance, in, in the green diagonal

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of Barcelona that we were, the,

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the railroad infrastructure where we,

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where we are working is the line of division

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between the plateau and the delta,

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and that's where all the infrastructures from, the Romans,

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the medieval times, et cetera, were coming to the Barcelona.

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Understanding all this made us think completely different in

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the scale of the project

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and the infrastructural aspect

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of the public space that we were designing. So

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It informs your work,

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but does it also lead you to new discoveries?

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I think so. Um,

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and many of our work is going back,

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but not nostalgically, to pre-industrial,

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methods and pre-industrial practices.

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When we are talking about some of our parts that are dealing

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with water, it's, we are going back to history to say, okay,

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the way that we have been managing water,

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that we have been managing the territory.

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The way that we have been managing our relation

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to the river is, is the product of the last 50 years

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or a hundred years at most of heroic, human power,

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fueled by industrial revolution.

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But there were different ways to, to work.

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And then we learned from that.

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We learned from those, histories.

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Uh, sometimes the, the practices, sometimes even the, the,

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the, the, the current moles practices of how,

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farmers deal with floods, with, not with wall, but

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but with bushes, because they want to filter the solids

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that happens in that brings in the flood because the,

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but they want to relieve the water

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and the sediments come in.

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So there's a continuous process of learning from,

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from different moments in history.

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The best moment of a building is when it's finished,

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and now it has touched it.

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That's a kind of traditional, for us, that's not the, the,

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the best moment of the building

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or the on the space, the, the way that, that

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we leave things unfinished.

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We leave things that will be finished by the user,

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not just self construction,

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but, the occupation of the space

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and the transformation of the space sometimes and,

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and learning from, from, from architects that we admire.

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Sometimes we see architecture that is containers of objects,

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and that the space is more defined

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by the objects than by the architecture.

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For instance, the, the famous house of, of Charles

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and Ray ins, that they design

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and build for themselves is a

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beautiful piece of architecture.

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But at some point, the architecture disappears

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and the space is defined by all the collections of objects.

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And you can say the same about Bertha, Bert Lukin,

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a British architect of the mid century, in which,

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in which the creation of a space was the creation

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of a support for the occupation.

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So that of occupation happens over time, and, and it changes

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and different people are going

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to use the space in different ways,

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and the ability of architecture to,

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to continue serving well, these different ways

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of living, these different ways of inhabitation.

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That's the ultimate test of quality of architecture

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that goes beyond the beautiful photograph,

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which sometimes is very sterile.

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Our architecture, photographs that we have been working

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with, they, they, they're happy to work

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with us, but not so much.

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They say, wow, it's really difficult to take pictures

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of, of your staff.

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And being at the school of architecture at Tulane, and,

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and professor, and my partner is as well, professor here,

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and, and with the boat architecture is

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because we think that next generations are,

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will be much better than, than us.

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Uh, a regeneration is much better, much more information,

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much more, many more skills.

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And so what what we try to to to

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shift is from the architecture as, as a personal

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expression, as an art.

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When we, when somebody says, you are an artist, it's like,

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no, I'm not an artist.

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I'm a very proud architect.

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Uh, and it's an art in itself, but, but it's not an artist.

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It's not my expression.

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I am a medium to deal with problems

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and to deal with problems that sometimes is not.

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The question of the, the direct question of the client,

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is you have to uncover what is behind,

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what are the real problems.

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So when we talk to our students, I say, don't talk

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to me about your project.

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Don't talk to me about your idea.

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Don't talk to me about your side.

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I don't care about your anything. I care.

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I care about the site. I care about the best idea.

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I care about what is the real problem,

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not what you wanna do.

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I don't care about what you wanna do.

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Tell me what needs to be done.

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So I think that's, that's the way that we try to,

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to approach architecture, what needs to be done

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and how architecture can be, really critical to,

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to solve or to be part of the solution of our main terrible,

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incredible problems of climate change and social inequality.

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We can, we can either accentuate that

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or we can really make, significant changes.

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And it's our responsibility.

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Sometimes we, we have had many situations in which I had

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a tough discussion with our client, with the mayor, yeah,

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you are my, you are the representation of the client,

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but my client is the citizens of the city.

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So I'm gonna work to the best solution

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for the citizens of the city.

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Not for what you want.

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I don't care actually what you want that much.

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I care what is gonna happen in 20 years from now.

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I literally, you have very long, very long, process

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of design, construction and then stays over time.

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We cannot afford to have, big mistakes

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that are solving the one person obsession,

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or even worse if it is the architects of session.

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So it's much more about service.

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This is a, this is a real service

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that has an enormous cultural meaning,

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because in the end, when people visit places, they go

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and visit architecture and visit cities.

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And that's what make, the best representation

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of the culture of a time.

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This is the architecture that stays over centuries.

Spain's Architectural Evolution: From Modernism to Crisis

00:00:00 - The architectural context in Spain is a, is a very interesting and very intense, and it has been for, for many years, architect, Spain after the, the Civil War was, was an outer key. with Franco, we, we, we fought hard to become modern again. So, in a way, Spain did not pass the, the postmodern infection in the late sixties. We were, we were trying to be modern. so, Spain has a lot of architects, has a,

00:00:36 - And to give you a context, it's about eight times more arc licensed architects and eight times more students per capita than the us. it means it's a very competitive, and in Europe, in the European Union regulations, the, the system for public commissions, which are the most important, in terms of culturally meaningful architecture is, is, through blind, peer review competitions.

00:01:09 - really trying to get excellence, and it's also very precarious as business, of course, with that competitive names and, and, and, and it had a boom when, when, when Spain recovered economically after the, the eighties in the, during the nineties and the two thousands, of course, we had a, a, a terrible, post, 2008 crisis in all Europe, and especially in the South and Spain.

Ecological Thinking and Architectural Innovation in Spain

00:01:37 - with a lot of architects all over the world from Spain. very, very well trained. We were a pioneer in, in some issues, especially in the ecological thinking, in Spain and I, I would argue that in, in, in the world, we designed the first Florida world public space and, and architecture, in the, in the nineties. so we, we really introduced the ecological thinking and the systems thinking in architecture in a very

00:02:10 - of perfect architecture and perfect public spaces. The introduction of these, understanding of processes, of understanding, of ecology, but also social processes and, and the layers of time in the places. during, David k, and American Architectural Critic, says that during the years of the Icon Builders, the cultural dimension of architecture was in chiefly a se

00:02:40 - or sensibility, which was invested in the build object of it. Were a work of art. our role at Light's role in contrast is comparable in certain aspects to those contemporary artists who seek to disengage the creative process from its focus on the object of art and seek in its place to engage more directly with the vital substance of life and experience. in from, he explains that,

Rethinking Architecture: Ecological Awareness and Urban Responsibility

00:03:08 - that arises from the problem itself, and the, and the solution is founded as well. We have discovered that there's no backyard in the world, Google Earth has, has been helpful. We see everything and we see that we, we were used to throw things in the, in, in the backyard and, and hoping that it will disappear, that they will disappear, pollution, trash, our leftovers, nature in the, in the romantic approach to nature was this infinite, imposing,

00:03:42 - No, remember the, the Caspar Friedrich, painting that that's not the case anymore. everything we throw to the backyard, it comes back to us again. So the, the way of, of understanding that the, the, our inhabitation of the planet is part of ecological flows, and they come back to us. There are architects as be trivial, define architecture, be trivial. Yeah. He, he did a 10 books.

00:04:14 - before Vivia, there were many styles. After Vivia, there were three styles, okay? but that was only one book. The rest of the books were about building the city, building switch, building roads, fortifications, providing drinking water, the health of the city. So, so that's how we understand architecture. Architecture very much linked to the built environment, how we design then our environment. as humans, we do two or three things. in, as, as instant we eat, we reproduce ourselves

Architecture as Human Adaptation: Designing for Our Environment

00:04:50 - We architects controls, construct a shelter and design a horizontal plane so we can stand. We are animals with two legs. We don't do well in steep. So the only horizontal thing that is in nature is water, and we don't do well in water as well. So, so that construction of, of the space of inhibition is what we understand as architecture and all that complexity. We work at all scales.

00:05:20 - and we design furniture and public furniture. If you sit in the tower under the tower, AFL tower, you will sit in one of our benches that was designed for, for flooding in the, in the rivers. But, now it's used for, for, for the flood of tourists to, from that, to the visions to the territory and the city and, and big reform of the city because there's no discontinuity in escapes. And one of the problems of our cities has been this separation between, planning

00:05:54 - of drawings about the city disconnected to the, to the human experience and to the spatial experience. So what we work is to really connect all these pieces constantly, and our methods of work are, are, are reflecting that every time we start a project, we, we, we start by several points of departure. One is to touch the ground, and sometimes when we talk about something that is flat, it's not flat, there are micro topographies

Designing Through Context: Geography and History in Architecture

00:06:25 - or how people are using the, the space already. We say that the landscape is not to be drawn. Again, people draw the landscape, and then we arrive and we reuse it. So we, we go to the site, we touch the site, we go to the opposite. We go to the satellite to understand what is the geographical, insertion of the place. We, we, we often talk about, we, we design geographically, we design thinking that we are part of a geography.

00:06:56 - And then we also do a lot of work in the history, in the history of the place, uncovering layers of history and understanding why we are, have arrived to where we are and what are the reasons that are behind and, and understanding, for instance, in, in the green diagonal of Barcelona that we were, the, the railroad infrastructure where we, where we are working is the line of division between the plateau and the delta,

00:07:27 - the medieval times, et cetera, were coming to the Barcelona. Understanding all this made us think completely different in the scale of the project and the infrastructural aspect of the public space that we were designing. So It informs your work, but does it also lead you to new discoveries? I think so. and many of our work is going back,

Revisiting Historical Water Management Practices in Architecture

00:08:01 - methods and pre-industrial practices. When we are talking about some of our parts that are dealing with water, it's, we are going back to history to say, okay, the way that we have been managing water, that we have been managing the territory. The way that we have been managing our relation to the river is, is the product of the last 50 years or a hundred years at most of heroic, human power, fueled by industrial revolution.

00:08:31 - And then we learned from that. We learned from those, histories. sometimes the, the practices, sometimes even the, the, the, the, the current moles practices of how, farmers deal with floods, with, not with wall, but but with bushes, because they want to filter the solids that happens in that brings in the flood because the, but they want to relieve the water and the sediments come in. So there's a continuous process of learning from,

00:09:01 - The best moment of a building is when it's finished, and now it has touched it. That's a kind of traditional, for us, that's not the, the, the best moment of the building or the on the space, the, the way that, that we leave things unfinished. We leave things that will be finished by the user, not just self construction, but, the occupation of the space and the transformation of the space sometimes and,

Architecture: Beyond Objects to Inhabitation

00:09:36 - Sometimes we see architecture that is containers of objects, and that the space is more defined by the objects than by the architecture. For instance, the, the famous house of, of Charles and Ray ins, that they design and build for themselves is a beautiful piece of architecture. But at some point, the architecture disappears and the space is defined by all the collections of objects. And you can say the same about Bertha, Bert Lukin,

00:10:08 - in which the creation of a space was the creation of a support for the occupation. So that of occupation happens over time, and, and it changes and different people are going to use the space in different ways, and the ability of architecture to, to continue serving well, these different ways of living, these different ways of inhabitation. That's the ultimate test of quality of architecture that goes beyond the beautiful photograph,

00:10:38 - Our architecture, photographs that we have been working with, they, they, they're happy to work with us, but not so much. They say, wow, it's really difficult to take pictures of, of your staff. And being at the school of architecture at Tulane, and, and professor, and my partner is as well, professor here, and, and with the boat architecture is because we think that next generations are, will be much better than, than us. a regeneration is much better, much more information, much more, many more skills.

Architecture as Problem-Solving: A Shift from Personal Expression

00:11:12 - shift is from the architecture as, as a personal expression, as an art. When we, when somebody says, you are an artist, it's like, no, I'm not an artist. I'm a very proud architect. and it's an art in itself, but, but it's not an artist. It's not my expression. I am a medium to deal with problems and to deal with problems that sometimes is not. The question of the, the direct question of the client,

00:11:41 - what are the real problems. So when we talk to our students, I say, don't talk to me about your project. Don't talk to me about your idea. Don't talk to me about your side. I don't care about your anything. I care. I care about the site. I care about the best idea. I care about what is the real problem, not what you wanna do. I don't care about what you wanna do. Tell me what needs to be done. So I think that's, that's the way that we try to, to approach architecture, what needs to be done

00:12:13 - to solve or to be part of the solution of our main terrible, incredible problems of climate change and social inequality. We can, we can either accentuate that or we can really make, significant changes. And it's our responsibility. Sometimes we, we have had many situations in which I had a tough discussion with our client, with the mayor, yeah, you are my, you are the representation of the client, but my client is the citizens of the city.

Architecture as Service: Prioritizing Community and Cultural Legacy

00:12:42 - for the citizens of the city. Not for what you want. I don't care actually what you want that much. I care what is gonna happen in 20 years from now. I literally, you have very long, very long, process of design, construction and then stays over time. We cannot afford to have, big mistakes that are solving the one person obsession, or even worse if it is the architects of session. So it's much more about service.

00:13:25 - that has an enormous cultural meaning, because in the end, when people visit places, they go and visit architecture and visit cities. And that's what make, the best representation of the culture of a time. This is the architecture that stays over centuries.

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