Prague International Architecture Week
Living with Architecture By Ramiro Villapadierna – Head of The Cervantes Institute Prague On the way from the mountains to the valley and from the fortress to the town, there’s over last centuries an ambition of diluting oneself and “becoming city”. This need of joining the hustle and bustle is not about to stop. On the contrary, city areas tend to become megalopolis. The era of big cities brought about a logical construction boom. This lifted up building activity to the category of a massive business, as well as raised architects to the level of stardom. Companies and cities wanted to add the name of a big architect to their trademark and presence. Opulency and political abuse was the consequent sin. But some want to see now a turning point. The problem with the First of all Classical Arts is that, although even Goya could do wrong with a painting, you can not stash a building or a bridge away. A construction is meant to be visible and last in front of the public eye for several generations. It changes a city landscape. The bigger the artist ego, so much likely the impact of change. The bigger the investors rate of interest, the worst the standard of living result. And so irreversible the disaster. Without a comprehensive and human “Baukultur”, city dwellers will have to go around hating the place they have to live in. Over the last half a century Spain became a construction powerhouse. Big architect names and big infrastructure projects were the logical consecuences. Now they can compete over the world, with some advantage. However, between the master piece of an Spanish architect and the engineering projects run all over by Spanish companies, sometimes worthy and lively urbanism - the landscape to our day-to-day living- could have been neglected. Sometimes also art ideologies and shallow trends -like fake-sustainability- have squandered tax payes and doomed projects meant to stand for decades. That’s why, at this time of this Sixth ArchitectureWeek, it’s important also to gather names like Bofill’s Taller de Arquitectura or Estudio Lamela.
Both are well known and respected, not only as stunningly creative architects, but also as urban planners, city-line creators, square developers, seaside renovators, airport architects, garden designers. More than only the rooms we choose to live within, someone needs to care also about the view from the window, the cartography of our mental quarters, the usefulness and richness of the space we walk through, the lines that define our lives.