franjayo
16-08-2005, 01:36
The most recognized local architectural writer is Jorge Rigau, FAIA, he is the dean of the School of Architecture at the Polytechnic University (ArqPoli). He writes a weekly column in one of the main newspapers. Last week’s column dealt with the need to unify the architectural and engineering professions, an important universal issue for the future of both disciplines. My translation as follows:
The Chapultepec Cárcamo
“He who does not know where he goes, wherever he is has arrived”, words of a Caribbean taxi driver who practices philosophy as a public service. His words thunder in my ear as the summer ends and a million students will start, continue or finish their studies in engineering and architecture.
Our quality of life depends of both professions as they impact public spaces, infrastructure, housing, the environment and the landscape. For these two disciplines, that have promoted and enjoyed the mutual discord since the 19th century, the challenge is imminent; nonetheless it lies in achieving a mutual communion. I am not referring to collaboration between individuals of each profession, this has been happening for a long time.
Facing the XXI century, interdisciplinary efforts are less urgent than the promotion of mutual contamination between the disciplines. We need more engineers to think like architects and more architects with the technical willpower of engineers. As of today, the worst in our cities lies in the dull combination of stingy engineering design and non-technical architecture.
As a consequence of the first, the Teodoro Moscoso Bridge (a local unadorned engineering work of excellence) rises and stretches over the San Jose Lagoon without doing anything else. As example of the second condition we have a proliferation of structures, sculptures and other apparatus that seem to say that being there is sufficient justification for its urban existence. In contrast architects of the stature of Santiago Calatrava, Jean Novel and Norman Foster capture the imagination of the world with projects that intertwine structural and aesthetic gestures, having the express purpose to unify these efforts.
Before them, engineers like Robert Maillart, Pier Luigi Nervi and Felix Candelas understood the construction of bridges, domes and roofs as problems of aesthetic ambition. Even though the previous examples were cultivated and grew in a first world context, we must not discard in our part of the world the strengthening of an architectural culture versed in method and techniques of construction, nor in the blooming of a new breed of engineers formed with solid artistic criteria.
Professionals in both disciplines have much to learn from the Cárcamo de Chapultepec, the water distribution chamber that in the midst of the great forest of the Aztec capital, redirects the water springs that feed by gravity the Mexico Valley basin. This pragmatic construction was accompanied by a tribute to the element that gives rise to life, to the workmen who lost their lives in the project, the intellectual authors, to the engineers and the architect of the main building. Diego Rivera captured everything in exuberant sub-aquatic murals, unique in the world.
Engineering and Architecture were thus place on the same level with the sole purpose to celebrate the achievement of bringing drinkable water to the city. Unfortunately as our city remains orphan of similar works, the local cityscape will continue its banal and tasteless existence. The ignorance of richer possibilities leaves us immobile. Because he who does not know where he goes, wherever he is has arrived.
Source: El Nuevo Dia newspaper www.endi.com published August 9, 2005 p. 65
References for the Cárcamo de Chapultepec:
http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/espanol/cultura_y_sociedad/arte/detalle.cfm?idpag=2044&idsec=14&idsub=50
www.arqueomex.com/S2N4GUIAVIAJEROS71.pdf
The Chapultepec Cárcamo
“He who does not know where he goes, wherever he is has arrived”, words of a Caribbean taxi driver who practices philosophy as a public service. His words thunder in my ear as the summer ends and a million students will start, continue or finish their studies in engineering and architecture.
Our quality of life depends of both professions as they impact public spaces, infrastructure, housing, the environment and the landscape. For these two disciplines, that have promoted and enjoyed the mutual discord since the 19th century, the challenge is imminent; nonetheless it lies in achieving a mutual communion. I am not referring to collaboration between individuals of each profession, this has been happening for a long time.
Facing the XXI century, interdisciplinary efforts are less urgent than the promotion of mutual contamination between the disciplines. We need more engineers to think like architects and more architects with the technical willpower of engineers. As of today, the worst in our cities lies in the dull combination of stingy engineering design and non-technical architecture.
As a consequence of the first, the Teodoro Moscoso Bridge (a local unadorned engineering work of excellence) rises and stretches over the San Jose Lagoon without doing anything else. As example of the second condition we have a proliferation of structures, sculptures and other apparatus that seem to say that being there is sufficient justification for its urban existence. In contrast architects of the stature of Santiago Calatrava, Jean Novel and Norman Foster capture the imagination of the world with projects that intertwine structural and aesthetic gestures, having the express purpose to unify these efforts.
Before them, engineers like Robert Maillart, Pier Luigi Nervi and Felix Candelas understood the construction of bridges, domes and roofs as problems of aesthetic ambition. Even though the previous examples were cultivated and grew in a first world context, we must not discard in our part of the world the strengthening of an architectural culture versed in method and techniques of construction, nor in the blooming of a new breed of engineers formed with solid artistic criteria.
Professionals in both disciplines have much to learn from the Cárcamo de Chapultepec, the water distribution chamber that in the midst of the great forest of the Aztec capital, redirects the water springs that feed by gravity the Mexico Valley basin. This pragmatic construction was accompanied by a tribute to the element that gives rise to life, to the workmen who lost their lives in the project, the intellectual authors, to the engineers and the architect of the main building. Diego Rivera captured everything in exuberant sub-aquatic murals, unique in the world.
Engineering and Architecture were thus place on the same level with the sole purpose to celebrate the achievement of bringing drinkable water to the city. Unfortunately as our city remains orphan of similar works, the local cityscape will continue its banal and tasteless existence. The ignorance of richer possibilities leaves us immobile. Because he who does not know where he goes, wherever he is has arrived.
Source: El Nuevo Dia newspaper www.endi.com published August 9, 2005 p. 65
References for the Cárcamo de Chapultepec:
http://www.mexicodesconocido.com.mx/espanol/cultura_y_sociedad/arte/detalle.cfm?idpag=2044&idsec=14&idsub=50
www.arqueomex.com/S2N4GUIAVIAJEROS71.pdf