“Under the Sky” by ARQUITECTURA-G (2nd Part)

CONVERSATION BETWEEN TATIANA BILBAO, EKHI LOPETEGI AND ARQUITECTURA-G ABOUT THE “CASA OBSERVATORIO PARA GABRIEL OROZCO“, BUILT BY TATIANA BILBAO.

(See part 1)

Published at Apartamento Magazine #4

http://www.apartamentomagazine.com/

Translation:
Débora Antscherl and Miriam Gerace

Photography: Iwan Baan

TATIANA BILBAO:

Working through this project as an aesthetic decision led me to imagine the path to its ultimate execution. The decision to “reproduce” a space designed to be an observatory, to de-contextualize it and “use” it with a completely different function in my mind could only be feasible if it was an aesthetic decision to begin with. As this was in fact true and, as he was quick to point out, considering that we felt like we were personally taking on part of Gabriel’s work, it was difficult to question from a perspective of architecture, of the resulting space. Without a doubt, reproduction, de-contextualization and change of function remained our core goals and through them the space would eventually take up an identity of its own. In terms of authenticity, since Gabriel’s practice mostly deals with the use of objects, elements, spaces and sensation- inducing scenarios, the extreme detachment of his work from today’s I.T. era where everything has a “logical reason” of being is also obvious as such. The fact that it is the reproduction of something ceases to be our problem as its “aura” now resides elsewhere. The same thing happens exactly when we go see a movie featuring a reproduced landscape, as we do not expect to see or capture the “aura” generated by the original landscape as experienced live, but rather one based on filmic reproduction, storyline, camera perspective and character direction. Herein resides the “aura” of this house. As much as the actual use of these objects, elements and moments is the validating point in Gabriel’s practice, the established sensations associated to an object, in this case, are the artist’s primary concern. I could have never fathomed the result because through the process for me space had been just that, an aesthetic decision as part of an artistic practice based on the creation of sensations rooted on the everyday, reproduction and the use of something that already exists. Only once the piece stood executed and able to lapse into its everyday did it as an object become an inhabitable space, and only then was I able to understand it as an architectural piece. The transformation in perception took place when it was understood that the space perfectly responded to the family habits and purposes. As soon as I saw the “object” as used and inhabited, the “symbolic” space quickly became the everyday space the family was accustomed to reside. The house that seems to expel its inhabitants from its center manages to produce a familiar experience for every one of its inhabitants. For example, this family is used to going camping together through the different beaches of the Mexican Republic, mostly up and down this particular extension of the Pacific coast. Suddenly, here they have a place where they can emulate their past experience, only in a much more sedentary way. In a campsite, private space becomes remarkably reduced and “expels” you from its interior as it encourages any activity outside of itself. The strictly intimate activities are relegated to this space, but everything else is experienced in reference to its context, the sky, the horizon. In a campsite, the “residents” relate directly with their environment; the social dynamic becomes increasingly collective as many of the activities are shared, both the intimate and more socially interpersonal events. The cohabitation space integrates to the site, something we see in the house. The intimate activities, the bedrooms, are what the tent is to the campsite, articulated by an observation and recreational unit conveying coherence and meaning to both space and activity and therefore defining the everyday. In terms of its function, the house incorporates the iconic facet of architecture, defined as such because it responds to a function.

ARQUITECTURA-G:

As we discuss Gabriel Orozco’s relationship to authorship, we remember that the authorship of the house belongs to no one. Although the artist includes the house in his practice, there is no question of there being an original construction, Orozco’s decision to reproduce it and Tatiana’s task of adapting it and building it. Therefore, the final result would not have been possible had it not been for its three “parents”. The relationships in Orozco’s work are established by the choice of an element, an a priori, that is then transformed and presented as something removed from its original condition, retaining its chosen recognizable element and thus producing a particular sensation for the spectator. We do not believe this to lead us to the destruction of the aura that Benjamin speaks of, but to a “superimposition of auras”. When a non-serial piece is reproduced, whatever its condition, and the resulting copy is an element so similar to the original it could potentially replace it, we then convene that the result is an insubstantial object. Now, in this house the purpose is not to create an identical copy, as the new house will have its own “here and now” purpose to it. However, as the result is so geometrically similar to the original, one resists losing the sensations provoked by the same. This culminates in a superimposed aura cohabitation that clearly contributes an added value to the residence. In terms of the permanence of the aura, instead alluding to cinematography as Tatiana did we could allude to contemporary music, mostly electronic: musicians use samples and become part of a song so they can de-contextualize it and construct around it a new theme where we can identify what has been sampled as cohabitating with the artist’s superimposed creation. However, we also want to delve into the symbolic connotations of the house. As compared to the displacement operating in some postmodern pieces mentioned by Ekhi -where an object with a clearly denotative meaning was taken from the collective unconscious and transposed onto a building- this house goes further than that whether or not it intended to do so. The building is based on an original construction devoted to the observation of the sky, the investigation of the unknown in a necessarily nocturnal setting, and was (still is) a machine designed to bring us closer to the stars and the intangible. In this sense, its line of environmental interaction is essentially vertical. On the other hand, its Greek cross floor plan connotes horizontality and an earth-oriented aperture. In any case, it is not a symbol of a religious event but of a search of what transcends us. And speaking of the cruciform floor plan, we would like to ask Tatiana to discuss another element of great symbolism: its orientation, whether it responds to the original, to the place where the house can be found. We have also observed with interest the centrifugal nature of the residence, as it provides for an absence of interior diagonal views that enables an atypical aesthetic experience but mostly because the very residence is forced out to the perimeters. Notwithstanding the upper levels, that is, on the ground floor, a clear hierarchy is established: 1. An unattainable center, 2. The bedrooms, 3. The exterior spaces in between the bedrooms and 4. The region of uncertainty immediately adjacent to the house. One could argue that such a clear hierarchy between the sections is something less befitting of contemporary architecture, but we would not hesitate to qualify the residence as such. I would like to hear your opinions about this.