LIGA 11: Ricardo Carvalho + Joana Vilhena Arquitectos (Portugal). A Room for Mexico City
Photography: Luis Gallardo
With the passing of time I have come to defend that architecture works primarily on the formulation of a question. In this sense, to work with a degree of freedom without knowing where the finish line is (although freedom at the starting line is guaranteed) can be assumed as profound research over the mastering of space, matter and its limits. The posed question –in the case of architecture– reveals itself in the first instance as generic and later becomes specific.
Within the classic Western culture inherited by us, there is a specific relationship established with knowledge, based precisely on the idea of exploring the question itself. This way, philosophical and scientific research allowed (and still allows) access to knowledge. Here, in the formulation of the question, I find special riches in the work of architects Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena. Their way of operating consists of developing the question without generating an impasse or a commitment with a determined way of doing architecture, a repeated method of formalization. I find it interesting that the architects can escape the logic of a specific way of doing, present from the beginning, expected from the very start. I find such a possibility in the work of these architects.
When I look at the projects of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena I have the impression that in each case, each opportunity, each place, program and in each theme of architecture, exists the attempt of individualizing it. I like to think that architectural projects are born out of needs and that they find their substance and possibility for improvement in the generality of its limitations. I also like to think that physical limits and the limits of a situation – that is to say the limits of a determined reality – are defined as the proper generic question of architecture.
The situations we act upon, can be standardized, but the conditions are always unique. This allows for some architects to customize their discourse, making it singular. Shortly after comes the transformation in which the architecture inevitably develops.
The body of work of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena is diversified in its answers and is particularly efficient when tackling limitations. These architects have the capacity of understanding the idea of presence in each project –which is in turn on the very edge of their capacity to generate a particular research. At the MUDE, (Museum of Design and Fashion of Lisbon), the architects not only engaged with the project through the physical possibility of building in attendance, but even with the ambition of whatever lies beyond this reality. In this case there was the architectural legacy of an old bank in the center of the city and the passing of time and entropy over this heritage. The ruins of the building and the aging were registered by the architectural project as a broader and more ambitious possibility. This seems to be precisely the starting point of this project: turning the actual limitation into a possibility of beauty.
Projects are important as their architects transform them in important moments, to the same extent as they help substantiate the question. This is the case of the MUDE, that became important through the work of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena, not only for them but also for the city and more clearly for the Lisbon downtown. At first this did not seem like an option. It is interesting to think about this project a couple of years later, to think of its success in spite of the risks that it posed at the beginning.
When Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena do a project with a certain level of impact, as in the case of MUDE, we perceive how its value resides in the wish to individualize the answer and of working towards construction. In spite of the importance this project has for the architects, its specific approach never became a fixed working method of the architects. It did not become a recurring aesthetic performance or a repeated process of action, a possibility that can be detected often on the contemporary debates of the discipline. One of the risks of making architecture nowadays is aestheticizing the gaze. Transforming the engagement with a project into a merely aesthetic style, seems a means of wasting architecture’s full possibilities.
But if we look back on the career of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena we find different positions and researches to address different themes. We can see what it entails to do a bar that opens to the street such as the Left in Lisbon, with its white color as material for spatial depth. Or what it means to recover an apartment dating from the XVIII century without denying its historical meaning. Or furthermore, what it means to do public works such as the two public schools they built in the city of Setúbal. Or even in transforming the old country ruins in the Douro vineyards into a little hotel. A place that was developed around the idea of flooding the ruins to create a pool which in turn organizes other little spaces and lets them find their own meaning. Each of these projects has a way of addressing issues that does not deny the possibility of displaying beauty. Curiously these statements are never repeated in any place as they always seek new questions.
Architecture is present in all manifestations of mankind and is assumed as an intrinsic condition. It is hard to picture music without architecture, it is not possible to hang a painting on a wall without architecture, or placing a sculpture on the pavement without architecture. Today, the natural environment is artificially maintained in many places of Europe. Architecture is traditionally perceived as a reality, as a series of facts. The perception that we architects have of this reality includes the poetical work implicit in the act of making of architecture. But there are other realities and other perceptions of the people who will inhabit and use said spaces. What architects plan and build is not only reality but a way of perceiving that reality.
Sometimes we do not stop to think of the building –we don’t think of it as architecture– because it is assumed almost as Natural. Time, tradition, the collective action of mankind, habits, they all trace architectures of large scope. That is why we have the impression that design was not involved. The strength of the idea of a collective action resides in the fact of being collective in its perception too. And when a perception about architecture is collective the notion of heritage and culture is generated. This will be then be the highest goal architecture can achieve.
The true quality of architectural authorship seems to be the capacity to draw conditions for the perception of those who will live in it. Each work of architecture seems to have two authors. The one who manipulates the condition of the project and the author that manipulates its perception. In other words, the one who makes it and the one who inhabits it. The hotel in the vineyards of Douro is particularly clear to illustrating these ideas. It seems that it wanted to affirm that time designed it, when it is actually the architecture that formed this perception. The ruins flooded with water, transformed into a pool, alter the perception of all the other spaces, it changes their condition. The rooms will not be the same due to the presence of water and stone. I believe this complex designs the negative –an absence- as the main asset of the project.
Even though I defend that architects can work simultaneously with different types of projects with those aimed at paving a way and with those dedicated to continuity (where ideas are tuned and solutions verified), I prefer to think that all projects are somewhat creational; they are built up from doubt, disarray and a quest. Generally, architects reach the apex of their quest with a way of doing, later on, they will work within that realm for years. But there are others who maintain a form of intellectual youth precisely because they question that apparent apex of self-discovery. They are the architects that chose to remain on the side of doubt, of the permanent question. Most of the work of the architects that we know and admire, forces us to take a leap, a turn on the road, when we come upon a change of scale, of program, when we encounter an unexpected situation. Life sometimes forces architects to work unto such a change, to go back and re-do everything, leaving aside small victories and the safety of the past.
Thinking about the maturity of the architect, the most interesting strategy should be to look for an individualized road on each project. There are many young architects that manage to embrace this attitude at the beginning of their career, but as time goes by it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain.
The challenge for finding the roots on each of their projects seems to be present in the work of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena. In the work of these architects there is not a struggle against reality. Their value lies on underlining the potential of a determined reality. The work is done based on an existing situation.
There is a sensibility within this body of work that is anchored in a Portuguese tradition of architecture, where conceptual notions are taken into construction and are accompanied by an interest for detail and for the quality of materials. There is not a direct affiliation with the context of Portuguese architecture, but on the other hand the work does not break off from its origin. The notion of the local is confirmed (it has a history, a past, a home to live in) but only insofar it can state a position to counter the global.
When we stop to reflect on our work, and have to possibility to define how it is displayed, an active opportunity for reflection is generated. This is particularly important when the speed of architecture’s global dissemination, implies a renewed relation with the rule of no-repetition. In the case of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena, these moments also seem to be of importance.
Before the current exhibition “A Room for Mexico City”, the architects were featured in the show “Overlappings. Six Portuguese Architectural Studios” in the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, where they decided to exhibit their work on the antipode of the instant flash. When a large photography book is presented, as was the case, and a bench is offered for the public to sit down and observe it calmly, an immersion in the body of work is proposed.
With “A Room for Mexico City” I recognize a similar position. It is a space within a space that orchestrates the moment where one will encounter the body of work. It is almost like a chest (made out of light materials but with rigorous limits) with a jewel inside. The most valuable thing inside will be the attention that we can spend on the encountered content. Here, we are alone with the projects of Ricardo Carvalho and Joana Vilhena.
