LIGA 07: Izaskun Chinchilla Architects (Esp). House: Tree, Chocolate, Chimney
Photography: Ramiro Chaves
The notion that architecture is the container for human activity and the structure in which it develops definitely sounds good. It may even seem interesting and sophisticated that we identify architecture exclusively with containment, enclosure or structure; that we attribute almost supernatural responsibilities to these containers; that we think that their purpose is to resist, endure and stand the passing of time to protect us from nature and urban life. This generic but widespread definition of architecture is commonly accepted in many professional milieus for various reasons that I won’t explore here, but that have to do with the traditions of the discipline and some avant-garde theories of the 20th Century. However, capitalism and the belief that architecture should be just another market-driven product, a thing to sell and buy, like a can of sardines, have primarily caused this interpretation.
According to this definition, we, architects, are reduced to simple designers of boxes or cans, to artists of a dead load. According to this mindset, our most important goal would be to belabor material to the minimum to create high-quality empty spaces—in other words, neutral, cold, passionless, white, bright, translucent and isolated spaces—designed to house and protect any human activity (predominantly resting and relaxing) from phenomena or circumstances that we could then easily forget.
But let’s try another definition. What if, instead of considering architecture a mere container, we conceived it as a habit—the habit of taking up space? Architecture is, and has always been, one of the activities that define us as a species. We know the world, and relate to it, through architecture. If we follow this thesis, we must accept, and be in awe of, the fact that we are all architects. Humans, animals and plants each take up space on the planet. An anthill, just like a forest, is a habitat for multiple species. Forests didn’t just appear; they came about little by little, through countless interactions we barely understand today. Seen in this light, architecture is equally generated by nomadic tribes as it is produced by Germans; it can be created by scholars with academic degrees or by a woman who has been decorating her apartment for over 20 years. Architecture is immanent in life. It is not optional.
However, the interesting part of the definition is that architectures are solidified habits, choreographies that are hardened over time, live loads that sometimes stand still in sophisticated agreements. After standing still and lingering in a certain place, architecture appears, not because of magic, but because of the inseparable relationship between human activity and that of nature. Occupying space is the real motor of architecture and of every three-dimensional means of expression. This force or live load is, in fact, the content with which all vital architecture is built.1
Therefore, architecture’s goal should not be the container in itself. The task of the architect isn’t designing dead loads, nor protecting us from nature. Human activities aren’t generic and resting isn’t man’s prime occupation. This preamble is necessary in order to talk about Izaskun Chinchilla’s exhibition. Just as other thorough architects of the present and the past, Chinchilla works mainly with this live load. In her architecture the content is at stake—the program, the activities, the occupation and the role of the subject. Participation, the care for life, and the responsibility of each element in the design of a precise livable environment steer and instigate her work. Thus, we’re dealing with a subtle and enthusiastic way to do politics. Rather than focusing on architecture’s resistance to the environment and time, on its strength and durability, Chinchilla’s work is engaged with architectural performance, with how it can succeed and how it will relate and transform as times goes by.
Chinchilla makes architecture based on daily life experiences, she reflects on the habits and the different events that produce them. She is interested in any artisanal gesture, any element of ethnic decorative arts or traces of a collective intelligence. The materials she takes to her studio, can range from a wayuu textile, a spider web, a nest, to a Pokemon-shaped baking pan. She works with these gestures. Her processes are anything but naïve, because she conceives of a building’s performance, considering relevant circumstances. Her projects incorporate notions such as transparency, representation, performativity or the consequences of the ecological paradigm in architectural production with the same ease as we draw our AutoCAD lines on a computer screen. For Chinchilla, a picnic in the countryside, a birthday party at a Mexican gallery or a dinner on an Asturias beach are all very different. Her projects and drawings are diverse choreographies, architecture in perpetual motion.
Chinchilla’s work proves that the live load is the constant factor increasing the interest of the dead load. The more one reflects about and works with the live load, the more fascinating architecture gets. It becomes useful, functional, suitable and specific because it stimulates us as active subjects. It encourages encounters between different persons and objects, and increases our aesthetic and other faculties, thus sharpening our experience. In order to avoid making a purely theoretical claim here, it’s crucial to mention that those who persistently define their own surroundings possess more intense aesthetic abilities. Think, for example, of those who eat what they cook; those who personalize and modify the clothes they buy and wear; those who do their own and their children’s make-up; those who knit to decorate their houses, do their own carpentry, build and care for the garden on their balcony, make openings in the roof to see the stars, gather rainwater for their plants, define the façade of their apartments, engrave monotypes in their living room, or sublet half of their house.
Although a container may fully meet the ideal of beauty formed by education, we could value the beauty that comes from the content, that is, from our activities and occupations. Before being absorbed by the style or the abstract and impressive forms of an architecture that frames and represents our activities, we should be enthralled by the shapes that support and express the liveliness of the content, of the interior energy.
Can we design the live load? Can we design a relationship, a happening? Chinchilla we can’t. That’s why her projects are protocols and choreographies—a set of drawn and written agreements that presuppose, invent and negotiate a complex web of desires, occupations and activities, including the social and natural relations they will instigate, the uses and new users that they will generate. She makes agreements instead of defined forms. Her projects resemble choreographies precisely because they try to illustrate and present scenarios of what could happen if these agreements were fulfilled. They don’t come to a close but convincingly suggest the action they sketch out the possible decisions for the users. The housing project in Vallecas (2006) clearly illustrates this mode of operation, where the users have to activate and finish the building. The project’s sophisticated and eloquent sketches, still allow for the final decisions to be postponed and made by a group of people instead of an individual.
Izaskun Chinchilla knows that interesting architecture allows for extra weights to be carried, ready for new, different loads and for hidden partners. This architecture generates a force of attraction. The implicit message in Chinchilla’s work is relevant for all architects—“Let’s combine our interest in abstract spaces with a desire to reach living spaces. Let’s build architectures contaminated by, and caring for, life.”
Can there be a monument to the content and not to the container? The 2007 proposal of a monolith or World Race trophy seems to suggest this much, and the exhibition House: Tree, Chocolate, Chimney, is, equally, a small celebration of the content of the house.
