“Under the Sky” by ARQUITECTURA-G (3rd Part)

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

(See part 1) (See part 2)

Published at Apartamento Magazine #4

http://www.apartamentomagazine.com/

Translation:
Débora Antscherl and Miriam Gerace

Photography: Iwan Baan

TATIANA BILBAO:

Although the house has a significant vertical line of interaction I would say that, as opposed to the observatory, it finds its essence interacting with context rather than sky. We oriented the cross by taking the axis of the house and re-placing it on the only two points that define the site: one lone palm tree on a parcel of land (as a curious anecdote, the day we finished our sketch we saw a maguey flower in full bloom and competing with the palm tree) and the centre point of a number of rocks on the more remote parts of the parcel by the sea.

I think that the entrenchment of the house to the site comes from the strategic strokes performed by its compositional elements. As Ekhi said, the house possesses a centrifugal force that expels itself to the outside, however sustaining an important attraction to the center. Because of the great force of the unattainable center, this house gets us closer to the earth than to the heavens. The fact that the bottom areas of the house are destined to be “inhabited” gets us to experience it much like we experience the earth, as it pulls us towards the center and the unknown it represents. This is what it is to be experienced, being marginally surrounded and admired from another place. I would not say that the house is less than residential; as I mentioned before the fact that it allows the family enjoy their routines confers it a residential disposition.

ARQUITECTURA-G:

Beyond its intrinsic symbolism, we totally agree and believe the house to be both suitable and enjoyable as a residence. We never doubted its functionality and architectonic potential. This is why we are attracted to the idea of retaking and bringing into crisis the concept of architecture as something singular and unique, because the house proves this fact as much as it does not. An architect colleague of ours owns a parcel of land in La Rioja, a prairie surrounded by trees and a continuous contour line. Just about every day, a number of people confess to him their desire to build an exact replica of Villa Savoye on his land. The conversation always starts on a light note and quickly turns into a jigsaw puzzle, as we never arrive to a convincing line of reasoning against the idea of building it. In fact, we believe it would be interesting. Le Corbusier himself imagined and sketched out a prairie brimming with Villa Savoyes. Such is our friend’s personal desire. He simply likes it, he cannot think of a better residence to build and he knows of no higher aesthetic experience than the one proposed by the Villa. Having processed this, suppose he has his exact replica built. What happens now when the Villa Savoye kitchen is deemed too far out into a marginal corner because it was meant for the help? What if he decides to change it and expose it to the patio? Surely just this would spoil the charm and the idea of living inside an exact replica 70 years and 1,000 km away from its original site. However, what if instead of changing the kitchen he decides to adapt more and more things to the point of re-interpreting it into something closer to Villa Dall’Alva…? At any rate, this can only happen in stand-alone houses that function as living machines and not at the Casa Ugalde by Coderch, as an example, as this would simply make no sense. An exact copy of Villa Savoye could indeed provide a pleasant life and a complete aesthetic experience, just like Mies Van der Rohe’s Barcelona pavilion does. However, what part of it would be considered architecture?

TATIANA BILBAO:

I think it’s a great idea. I also think that building a copy of Villa Savoye would be an incredible experiment. I sincerely believe that in the past 70 years life has changed almost as radically as I felt the passage of time at the Observatory in India when I was there. We are discussing the aura again, but I believe that here Walter Benjamin’s reference is particularly fitting. Will the uses and customs of the house perhaps change as things change through the centuries? I also consider the amount of architecture in something a subject worthy of discussion. As a matter of fact, one of the constants of my every day entails wondering how much architecture there is in what I do. Sometimes, case in point Casa Observatorio, we believe there is none and then suddenly one day everything about it becomes architecture to us. At this juncture we would need to start defining architecture, a scarcely productive turn for us to take at the moment. We might as well discuss Villa Malaparte, in Capri, which I start to use as an “original” object and end up replicating sensations and transporting them to the site. How much architecture would there be in this, I wonder?