CREATE !
E dua r d o A r royo
Summary
P reface
P rologue 1
C reation 2—11
M emory 12—22
P recision 23—32
C hance 33—41
E mpathy 42—52
E vents 53—63
P roperties 64—73
Hybridization 74—83
P rocedures 84—92
C loning 93—101
I nvisible
order
102—110
C omplexity 111—120
Gr avity 121—128
Mutability 129—137
M attergy 138—147
E pilogue 148—151
Finally, a mixture of precision allied with life 82 : 10 A madeu Santacana An ocean of possibilities Speak your own language! In the beginning there was nothing... or was there? Decision is a part of precision Don’t make too many plans! Chance only has one Look me in the eyes! Our passions are the measure of time Be careful what you choose! The future is a multiple of three An egg is full of procedures Presence marks the difference Entropy is an intuition The essential is invisible to the eye Getting to the ground is not a priority Does a mirage exist? Mattergy eliminates prejudices Enthusiasm ahead of risk
Summary
P rologue
An ocean of possibilities
“Nothing looks so like innocence as an indiscretion� osc ar wilde
At some point in our physiological lives, something inside 1 each of us gets lost and our minds fill up with doubt. Any effort to return to the road we left behind us entails an acceleration that can lead to our own destruction. 2 Despite the inertia of the road we’ve travelled, stopping to look back with a sense of exploration can save something of our existence, carrying us courageously into unknown days. 3 Abandoning what we once were is understood as a betrayal by some and as weakness by others, but intimately it implies letting complex dreams evolve in the search for the essence that created them. 4 This collection of texts and images lays out a thick web of atmospheres that condition the creative paths that I’ve walked, run and tripped along over the last twenty-five years. 5 They bring together origin and memory, soul and precision, chance and instability, the empathy of moments, the obligation to choose, hybridization and fuzzy systems, cloning and invisible order, complexity or the combination of matter and energy. This kind of kaleidoscopic perspective, though it may be driven by an indomitable excitement, has never been exempt from risk. 6 This journey demonstrates a critical view of the world and the voluntary obligation to attempt its transformation through creative independence, determination and bravery, which is this book’s transparent message. 7 And, if the reader cherishes any doubt about these intentions, let’s make it clear before we begin: I definitively confirm that I belong to that minority of people who swim in a vast sea of naivety. And, that diving freely in the crystal clear ocean of possibilities, which borders on the territories of tribal obedience, I can finally fearlessly accept my total 1
P rologue — 1 : 7
C reation — 11 : 13
C reation — 11 : 13
M emory — 15 : 7
Suddenly, I can make out a magnificent silhouette in the distance, getting bigger by the moment. My stride lengthens and, without knowing why, I’m running. It grows bigger and bigger, clearer. 8 The air is still and smells don’t exist anymore. I don’t need my senses, because I’m already here. Finally it’s before me, the Tree of Life... 9 At the same time, without knowing it, somewhere nearby under the faint blue light a sensitive Viking is carving the runes of the pantheon of Norse Mythology into a stone: 7
Yggdrasil Ymir Thor Freyr Njord Loki Fimbulvetr
The tree of life in the virgin territory The creation of nascent power The protective thunderbolt Cultural prosperity The sea that inspires movement The enigma of uncertainty The end of the world restored
And, with its exorcism, it conjures the process of the regeneration of the universe: Discovery, Creation, Protection, Culture, Movement, Uncertainty, Destruction and a new beginning. 10
16
Operatinging in places where memory and the legacy of bygone eras carry a lot of weight should not imply blind obedience to preexisting conditions. Preserving memory does not limit each period’s right to transform the world on the basis of its own beliefs and its own languages for creative expression. 2 An attempt at camouflage or invisibility with respect to the world that has already been built 1
implies the prevalence of what has been handed down over the present, which halts the flow of evolution. That kind of attitude only detracts from the importance of what is to come by assuming that what has been accepted historically is always original. 3 By no means can the creator believe that this kind of action implies moving closer to the origin. From this point of view, when we act within the heavy baggage of inherited architecture, we can introduce living elements that are coherent with the present, which add new urban properties to what is functionally obsolete.
4 The Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (1997), with its historicist style, is shaped like an L along one edge of a park. It has a bold extension built in the sixties, also in an L-shape, raised on pillars that leave the ground level free. We inserted a new L-shape into this complex situation, vertically this time between the existing buildings, adding the possibility of looking out over the park and the city from a privileged height. 5 Like a mythical graft from the Tree of Life, it serves as a symbol of the vital and economic regeneration of a city in decline. The base and the trunk of this intrusive tree transport the flow of visitors and their feelings that increase in intensity as they climb. It houses all of the public services, freeing up the other buildings for use as exhibition space.
M emory — 16 : 5
M emory — 22 : 9
M emory — 22 : 9
P recision — 27 : 9
P recision — 27 : 9
P recision — 32 : 3
formal prejudices that are always associated with a strictly functionalist outlook. 3 From this point of view, in the interest of the correct operation of the university campus that includes the WU Executive Academy in Vienna (2008–2013), the educational uses are condensed by grouping them according to specialties. 4 These autonomous, generic vertical structures distribute the accesses and visitor services on the ground floors, the faculty departments on the intermediate floors and the
P recision — 32 : 4
P recision — 32 : 4
P recision — 32 : 4
P recision — 32 : 5
classrooms on the upper floors. In this way, the students can benefit from the surrounding landscape on the higher levels, with views over the Prater and the historic city. 5 Uncovering the spatial qualities of the general arrangement of the campus provides a geometric relationship between the different buildings; the compact structures are then synchronized on top of it. 6 Once they are situated, each bland volume is subjected to different adaptations of its shape as the position of its internal program comes into contact with the immediate surroundings and the distant landscape. These deformations generate new spaces to house the public entryways, the interdepartmental lounges and the mixed educational areas, each of which is provided with optimum views toward the exterior. 7 The need for connection between the different departments leads to the appearance of common areas be-
tween the generic volumes, defining an exciting secondary adaptation with a marked connection with the landscape and an exogenous nature. 8 The choice of how theses spaces relate to the exterior, free from visual obstacles, creates a vertical imbalance between the deformations corresponding to each floor. 9Â This non-coinciding geometry generates the final volume, coordinated by a structural envelope that transfers the load. 10 Â The compact structure of the perimeter also acts as a control system for temperature and light, allowing for the existence of large panoramic windows on the spaces that emerge during the adaptation process.
P recision — 32 : 10
P recision — 32 : 10
P recision — 32 : 10
C hance — 36 : 3
C hance — 36 : 3
C hance — 36 : 4
mentary way, creating a variety of arrangements for spectators. 4 In the case of the Zaragoza Stadium (2002), the layouts respond to controlling the dynamic forces of each specific flow of arrivals from the city: pedestrians, buses and other vehicle traffic. 5 The number of people who engage in a specific behavior in terms of movement are grouped together into entrances, parking areas and control stations, which are made independent through their spatial organization. 6 This serves as a catalyst for a reaction in which different morphological, non-coinciding arrangements appear. The virtual playing field is created from the apparently hap-
hazard accumulation of these organizations. 7 It is represented by a geometry that is revealed as each major group is adapted independently around the playing field.
The location and slope of each group of bleachers is characterized by optimum visibility depending on the distance and elevation above the stadium floor. This implies that the overall shape appears a posteriori, with the compilation of the different crowd-selection rings that have been defined using geometries belonging to a single family. 9 The stadium becomes an element that is permeable along its entire perimeter, allowing for the city’s residents to make use of the large-scale covered passageways on non-game days. The building is transformed into a large, vertical urban park 8
C hance — 36 : 9
C hance — 39 : 4
be organized as possible absorbents of nature in a more fragmented state. 4 In the creation of the new City Hall in Bolzano (1999), a landscape is generated from internal functions that include the presence of green space for public use, among others. 5 As opposed to using a horizontal distribution logic for the working areas, the organization is vertical, compact and self-sufficient for each specific administrative area. This creates a functional public-private gradient beginning at the entryway and continuing as we ascend, until we reach the observation decks on the roof.
The different structures are organized into eighteen layered volumes which operate independently. Coupling them together horizontally generates a comb shape with a number of intermediate empty areas with different characteristics, in keeping with a familiar yet unpredictable geometry. 7 This hollowed-out compactness, based on internal relationships, leads to an independence from contextual conditions and rules out the possibility of a pre-established shape and order. 8 These emptied sections house the circu6
C hance — 39 : 8
C hance — 41 : 9
C hance — 41 : 9
E mpathy — 52 : 11
E mpathy — 52 : 11
E vents — 56 : 6
ting the emotional intensity of the space in question. The graphics do not include time directly in their expressions, much less the specificity of the spatial seduction. 6 These systems of representation can, however, be enriched by the incorporation of information that includes both the times of use for each program and the intensity produced by their contemplation. 7 Blending together these two series of functional and emotional data leads to a diagrammatic series that relates the initial space with each of the times described. This leads to a deformation of the traditional information
E vents — 56 : 7
E vents — 58 : 10
E vents — 58 : 10
E vents — 63 : 8
moments for contemplating the city. 8 The precise geometry is generated using visual parameters as a guide in order to control and direct the process of situating and formalizing the buildings. 9 Within this system, with its zero degree of initial order, the new structure is organized by controlling the relationship between directions, distances, angles of reflection and the duration of visibility for each far-off icon. 10 The resulting structure is organized in four dimensions, creating a landscape of moments with a hidden order that depends on the factor of time for its experience and comprehension. From
precise locations near each building we can enjoy the views that draw their themes down into the public space itself. 11 In this way, the more intimate areas will look toward Sacre Coeur and the training areas will have views of the Stade de France, and so on. From this point of view of temporal use, the Olympic housing will also have a mechanism so that inhabitants can choose from among different internal uses, tying into the same perceptual horizons and defining types of habitation: leisure, seclusion and productivity.
E vents — 63 : 11
E vents — 63 : 11
E vents — 63 : 11
Published by Actar Publishers 151 Grand ST, 5th Fl., New York, NY 10013, USA Author Eduardo Arroyo Editor Amadeu Santacana Graphic Design Tomoko Sakamoto & David Lorente, (www.spread.eu.com), with the collaboration of Claudia Parra Editorial Coordination Ricardo Devesa, Actar Publishers Digital Production Núria Sabán, Actar Publishers English Translation Angela Kay Bunning Collaborators David Rodríguez and Esteban De Backer, NO.MAD Printing and binding Grafos S.A., Barcelona All rights reserved © to the edition, Actar Publishers, 2014 © to the texts, Eduardo Arroyo, except the Preface: Amadeu Santacana © to the graphic documentation, NO.MAD © to the photographs, NO.MAD, except Roland Halbe, 27 : 9; 32 : 10 and ff.; 52 : 11 (b/w); 110 : 10 and ff. Miguel de Guzmán, 137 : 10 and ff. (b/w) Disclaimer: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Printed and bound in the European Union ISBN 978-1-940291-05-5 Available Spanish edition ¡Créate!, ISBN 978-1-940291-14-7 Distribution Actar D, Inc. 151 Grand ST, 5th Fl., New York, NY 10013, USA www.actar-d.com North America & Asia Innovative Logistics 575 Prospect Street Lakewood, NJ 08701, USA orders@actar-d.com Europe, Middle East & Japan Marston Book Services Ltd, 160 Milton Park, Abingdon OX14 4SD, UK trade.orders@marston.co.uk A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., USA.