LIGA 09: Eduardo Castillo (Chile). Opaque Sound
Photography: Ramiro Chaves
In common language, “good” architecture in Chile implies heavy construction. It is supposed to be “solid”, or better yet, “material.”
Such appraisal of solidity is the outcome of the precarious agricultural economies on which the nation was built in the 19th century—the kind that saved sticks and timber to make stables, henhouses and farms—and is undoubtedly also linked to the constant threat of earthquakes. This deeply rooted respect for the solid made for a consistent development of construction models where weight communicates the idea of both permanence and endurance. Over time, stone façades and adobe walls gave way to brick and reinforced concrete.
Similar to the stone façades of the modest manors of the Chilean colonial period (masks hiding a system of adobe walls because it was impossible to afford a full stone structure), the walls and concrete slabs displayed today on the Internet also mask a reality supported by sticks, pieces of wire and planks of wood. This heavy appearance of concrete is possible thanks to the thick structural molds, which, in modern times, have almost always been built from planks of wood.
Wooden formworks, known in Chile as moldajes (referring to the fact that they are made to mold something that has not yet been shaped) have two things in common with industrial reticulated structures: precision and low cost. Like them, the moldajes are also subject to great forces that its apparent fragility succeds in resisting. Unlike them, their existence is, by definition, brief and determined by the tension between the solid material that is setting and the wood that supports it until the process is finished.
The moldaje resembles a doodle or a quickly drawn sketch. Even during the construction, its disassembly is already being taken into account. It is just the prelude to a different solidness, another materiality. It is not pristine, but appropriate; it can endure rough treatment during construction and execution and its patches, wedges, posts and imperfections also speak to this. It isn’t necessarily systematic either, like scaffolding, for instance; nor does it aspire to be professional. The moldaje belongs to a field of traditional trades and knows how to adapt to any given circumstances.
Behind the curtain, this backstage concrete world of nourishes seems to inform Eduardo Castillo’s work, using the same resources as the moldajes of skilled craftsmen. It is reminiscent of the austere corrals, sheds and henhouses of South America, and, at the same time, of bridges or silos with their exact and tight structure that is both light and prepared to face the weight of life and the adjustments that may come over the years. A weight perhaps more demanding than that of the stones of the “material architecture,” so longed for in many corners of Chile.
