Beatriz Villanueva and Francisco Javier Casas Cobo from Brijuni write an opinion article about the Mirador del Palmeral from STAR. The article called Del icono al objeto encontrado (From the Icon to the Ready-made) has been published in the newspaper La Verdad and in the blog La Ciudad Viva from Spain.
For English see below.
Beatriz Villanueva Cajide y Francisco Javier Casas Cobo are the directors of Brijuni Arquitectos. They studied at the ETSA in Madrid and they write for the following magazines: Diseño Interior, Arquitectos, Diseñart, Popguide and Future arquitecturas.
Read full article (Spanish) in La Verdad.
Read full article (Spanish) in La Ciudad Viva.
English:
From the Icon to the Ready-made: the serene strategy of the palms.
As we enter the second decade of the century, it seems reasonable to take a look back and perhaps state that architecture is no longer “the correct and magnificent play of masses brought together in light” of which Le Corbusier spoke. Having taken on rationalist lessons and incorporated functionalist impositions, without which any building would fail in the current context, the architecture as spectacle from the end of the last century had its day in the Middle East and generally in countries with booming economies and social rights yet to be acquired. In more developed societies however, such as ours, architects, at least those with more responsibility than ego, have finally taken on board that responding to public necessity does not always coincide with their private obsessions.
Architecture deals with other matters such as the one in which a Ferris wheel, with images in the competition panels that were shamelessly recovered from the London Eye, has recently won an international competition that featured invited stars [sic] and a reputable international judging panel.
Against the decision of the panel, some misinformed – albeit not malicious - dissenting voices could be heard, but they belonged to those who can only recognise a circus object that escapes from personal Vanity Fairs.
On the contrary, we find that the interest aroused by this project, which has transcended local discussion and has been debated at international architecture forums, unfortunately escapes the superficial knowledge of the public, which, by sheltering behind the proverbial “there’s no accounting for taste”, often demonstrate the inability to see beyond the mere object and its recognisable geometry.
It is necessary to understand, not only the existing physical context -to which the project responds reliably with appropriateness in terms of its situation (closing an old visual axis that remained incomplete), programme and budget - but also the social context. Society has embarked on a capitalism of fiction where immediate pleasure has been taken over by the private domain, which smothers the collective and eliminates the little sense for community.
In the book “Quédense dentro y cierren las ventanas. La sociedad de consumo y el apocalipsis zombi” (Stay inside. Close windows and doors. The consumer society and the zombie apocalypse), the philosopher Jaime Cuenca Amigo argues that “consumer society can be justified by the promise of satisfying human desires, but it can only be maintained if such desires are never fully satisfied”.
Rem Koolhaas, perhaps the most influential architect of our time, and in whose office in Rotterdam Beatriz Ramo was trained, states that “shopping is perhaps the only remaining form of public activity”. It is not a trivial question but possibly the greatest challenge in architecture in these times of uncertainty and fear is that of finding intermediate spaces, restoring community activity and achieving greater cohesion in society. For this reason, STAR’s proposal is, having overcome the outdated debate about the Icon, a step forward in many ways.
On the one hand, it warns of the need to forget about another old debate - that of form and function- to focus on one single objective: to highlight the patchwork of agricultural plots, observed from height, from an almost vertical view, and not horizontally.
On the other hand, the innocence of the object itself suggests a deep contempt for the assertiveness of a singular or personal architecture that completely trusts in the simplicity and ingenuity of the Ferris wheel and its ability to solve the problem.
Occasionally, architecture is not the result of inspiration and genius but finds its greatest discoveries in the reuse of previously used types and patterns. More than just an icon, the Ferris wheel could well be considered a ready-made Duchampism insofar as it frees itself from the leisure dimension to provide a new version of itself: observing the city and the palm grove and recognising them as in a street map, from closed capsules that rotate very slowly and where the childlike emotion of the air and empty space disappear and give way to another that is more subtle; that of contemplating the patchwork of agricultural plots and its relationship with the city while sharing space and a quiet time with other people enjoying the slight variations of position and height that the Ferris wheel offers.
A large dose of humility and modesty is required nowadays to suggest a well-known and also controversial feature, in response to a competition of ideas, such as that of the Mirador del Palmeral in Elche. Any criticism of the shape of this strategic and playful objet trouvé appears to be childish and unimportant, although acceptable as we are in a democracy.
On the contrary, we want the people of Elche to soon enjoy a spectacular ride, possibly with champagne and strawberries as in London, over the recovered city skyline, over the Santa Maria Basilica and the Altamira Palace.The strategy of the palms has become the wheel, and not the thing. And very welcome this architecture of ideas and not vanities would be!