The MAPA Solution. Creators in the labyrinths of the contemporary

by Diego Capandeguy

LIGA 14: MAPA (Uruguay + Brasil). Spaces within Spaces
Photography: Luis Gallardo

 

South America is experiencing a very exciting time with regards to its new architecture. Several different generations coexist, while new creators emerge with fertile practices and baptize their studios and buildings with their “brand,” in the fluid manner typical of this digital age. MAPA is one such example.

MAPA is an emerging architecture studio formed by young Brazilian and Uruguayan architects. In fact, MAPA was born from the merger of Studio Paralelo in Brazil and MAAM in Uruguay. It is directed by Luciano Andrades, Rochelle Castro, Silvio Machado, Matías Carballal, Andrés Gobba and Mauricio López, who are supported by many other enthusiastic young assistants.

This alliance is significant. Some are from the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of Brazil, the mythical “best country in the world”; others are from diminutive neighboring Uruguay, a tiny country like a mythical southern Costa Rica. The two are separated by a dry, permeable, almost blurred frontier. There are shared stories and particularities like the temperate Pampas, the origin in the province of Cisplatina, the mythical rural gaucho, the similar layout of their capital cities, past history and a stronger European influence than elsewhere. These singularities helped to define their identity and their opportunities.

These local identities, however, were both assimilated and limited in the formation of these young architects’ sensibilities. Their sympathies lie more closely with those of other fertile collectives from around the world.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this alliance is the productive unfolding of the Post-Fordist character of its architecture. They have previously collaborated with architects of other generations and are distinguished by a working pragmatism and by the quality and freshness of their first built works, and the many projects that have won prizes in numerous architecture competitions.

The first three works built by the group in Brazil stand out as signs of their time, with an artisanal appearance despite the use of standardized components. Their CREA building in Campina Grande, near Joao Pessoa, functions as an attractive, self-contained urban attractor, a kind of permeable, perforated bubble with transparencies that do not conceal the interiors. These spaces within spaces, as the group calls them, offer a place of calm in the tropical surroundings. By contrast, the Xan Haus near Porto Alegre is an auteur house in a condominium formed by a stacking of volumes with apertures and filtered fluidity. Its contemporary nature presupposes an openness and refinement that is unusual amongst this sector in the region. Finally, the Minimod surprises with its “postcard-perfect” appearance. This is an experiment with an appealing capsule perched on the region’s ranch land, and intended to be transportable or “reversible,” which is a theme with great potential.

MAPA current exhibition at LIGA in Mexico City is a new exploration with a somewhat curious and enigmatic appearance. It is formed by 40 massive wooden columns set some 60 cm apart, with incisions or notches cut into them. The architects have set themselves rules in playing with the restrictions of the venue. In this relational spatiality the tiny sculpted human figures appear diminutive in relation to this forest or empty Manhattan. In their own text, the young MAPA architects appeal to an explicit architecture of blurred boundaries, which may be linked to other contemporary artists. Is this installation a metaphor for MAPA themselves, digital architects who dream of still working as artisans of construction in the wide spaces of Brazil and in a fluid world, to traverse and to expand? The MAPA architects have been inspired to work beyond the local relics of contemporaneity, linking up in new networks, with their apertures and endogamy, their transparencies and their masks.

In their buildings and projects, just as in this installation, there are formal games, variances of scale and nods to anthropomorphism. Here, though, it is an abstract forest—almost a cold climate forest even in the heat of Mexico City—without mediation, without the subtle filters and colors of their earlier buildings and projects. Yet the spirit of each commission, without fanfare, seems to share a certain creative attitude of adaptation. This is what defines the vital and resourceful approach of the collective. Perhaps, over time, this will become the “MAPA Solution,” a distinguishing mark of their operation that unites them and guides them towards a great potential future. For the members of this group are authentic in their quest for project opportunities with a contained beauty.

Welcome, then, the creations of these young architects, these paradoxical flying penguins.

Welcome to the MAPA Solution!

 

 

LIGA 14: MAPA (Ury-Bra)