Diana Agrest response on the University of Buenos Aires

1-Did you attend the University during a time where its architecture program was thriving? What did the University have to offer at the time that other universities did not? In what way did the University impact your architectural theories most significantly?

2--Through my research I have found an overlap between the time you were receiving your education from the University of Buenos Aires, and when Rafael Vinoly was receiving his, and when Alberto Prebisch was the Dean.

3-I am wondering if this overlap is correct. Did you know either of these two architects during school?

Did they have an influence on your architectural theories?

If you could answer any of these questions or inform me of anything else you believe I should know, I would be grateful. I look forward to hearing from you!

I will start by changing the order of your questions following the numbering that I have assigned to each above.

1-I attended the School of Architecture at the UBA in what turned out to be its best period, just chance.

I was there between 1961 and 1967 since I started when I was 16. There were no other schools where one would go. The curriculum was quite strong and being a school attended by an enormous amount of students there were many courses and vertical studios to choose from. The orientation was mostly divided between the more progressive studios and the very conservative ones, both architecturally and politically, being a country where politics was part of everything.

I had some excellent teachers, both in Design studio and in a course that was called Vision. There were four years and it was something like a Bauhaus course with classes and excercises on form, color, texture, etc. I can say that there was one professor that taught precisely this course and whose classes I took for two years whose name was Gaston Breyer. He gave classes on phenomenology and gestalt theory and basically gave a more theoretical understanding of what we were doing. If that had a direct influence on me or if I did like it because the ineterst was already in me I can't say. I also always chose really good design studios based on the teachers and their approach. An important one was the last studio year which I chose because it was focused on Urbanism and the projects there were of a scale and subject that interested me. The head of this studio was a woman, Odilia Suarez, who was also the head of City Planning of the City of Buenos Aires.

2- Prebisch was not the dean when I was in school, he had been the dean 9n 1955 for about 1 year and became dean after in 1968 for two years. I can't remember who was the dean during my time but will find out and let you know if you are interested.

Rafael Vinoly and I knew each other way before architecture as we played music together.

We never took the same courses so that even if our time overlapped our paths never crossed in school. He certainly has never influenced me, rather the other way around.

When I graduated from the FAU I went to Paris with a scholarship from the French Government knowing what I wanted to pursue. I went to a place that does not exist any more called Centre de Recherche d'Urbanisme where I did a Thesis on the street as communication and signification. I also attended the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes VI section and took among other classes Roland Barthe's seminar that became his famous book S/Z. Between Paris and NY I spent a short time in Buenos Aires and created in the school of architecture UBA, together with Mario Gandelsonas, a theoretical course called Semiology of Architecture. Vinoly always followed what we were doing.

I guess I have answered 2 and 3 together