Half-Happy Architecture

Half-happy architecture Camillo Boano, Francisco Vergara Perucich e thought and discussed a lot before writing this text. Few Wweeks ago, we witnessed the Pritzker awarding ceremony of Alejandro Aravena and we were puzzled by the use and the abuse of the buzz-concept of “social architect”. After that then, we followed the opening speech of the 2016 Venice Biennale where the rhetoric of the social turn has been displaced, literally, on top of a metal scale staring to the frontier of the yet to come experimentation of formalist architecture with a social look. The two events are not to be taken as connected, but rather treated as discrete. So despite the several hesitations we had in planning it, this text gives us the opportunity to develop some reflections around the implications and the reasons for not simplifying the struggle of those architects who are trying to produce relevant work in the frame of the current global challenges. Taking a distance from the critique of Ale- jandro Aravena as a person with good social skills (as argued by many critics) and his media-friendly “starchitect” role, we aim at focusing on the space produced by his firm and its overall aesthetic. We wish to rise two specific points hoping to contribute to a critical view on the current architectural debate and its capacity of “reporting from the front”. The first is a concise critique of the idea of a good-half-house coined by Elemental (Aravena’s studio) for the Quinta Monroy project, con- testing its real contribution to the idea of good quality architecture for the poor. For us, the contribution made by Aravena is more a good 58 59 © OnArchitecture, Felipe De Ferrari & Diego Gras © OnArchitecture, Felipe De Ferrari & Diego Gras © OnArchitecture, Felipe De Ferrari & Diego Gras economic strategy but not necessarily a good mode of spatial pro- to ask a simple question: is it possible to produce more social justice duction and — certainly — not a revolution. Offering some insight in the entrenched and pervasive neoliberal present? into the neoliberal public policies of social housing in Chile, the first part of this text reflects on the apparent radicalism of Aravena’s ges- The Pritzker Prize ture and the problematic nature of the “social” term in such practice. Few weeks ago, the Hyatt Foundation awarded the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, co-founder and principal partner of the do-thank The second is related to the pragmatic, social formalism that seems Elemental, the Pritzker Prize acknowledging his contribution to the at the centre of the Biennale’s red carpet, with some new names on architecture discipline. 48 years-old and in the middle of a skyrocket- the list and the permanence of the usual suspects, although with a ing professional trajectory, the world-renewed prize arrives just after social touch. Reporting from the front seems to well fit Nietzsche’s in- Aravena has been asked to curate the 15th Venice Architecture Bien- terpretation of architecture as «the aesthetic objectivation of the will nale. Apparently, 2016 is Aravena’s annus mirabilis. The prize spar- to power» impulsed by the architect’s «ecstasy of the great will», ap- kled conflictive reactions on the web and in the press, boosting his parently presenting itself as an edifice that offers an interpretation of “stararchitectculturism” (a just invented neologism that mixes the social architecture as an unfinished problem that requires both polit- starchitect with the culturist, attempting to represent Aravena’s me- ical and aesthetic indetermination. diatic image of an ever-young, good-looking architect, alternative to the mainstream but still conventional, successful and “planetary” in After all, the two events and Aravena’s global fame are for us an excuse its effect) while allowing his detractors to comment on his work. 60 61 According to the adjudication comments, the prize was assigned to Aravena and the new starchitect’s pursuit him because «Alejandro Aravena has pioneered a collaborative prac- Alejandro Aravena is a concrete architect, a man of reality and action, tice that produces powerful works of architecture and also addresses a good swimmer in neoliberal waters. Those who studied architecture key challenges of the XXI century. His built work gives economic op- in Chile, and those who got acquainted with his manifesto and the portunity to the less privileged, mitigates the effects of natural dis- work of Elemental (his do-tank), know perfectly that his architectural asters, reduces energy consumption, and provides welcoming public ideology is based on simple equations, and geared on actions that space. Innovative and inspiring, he shows how architecture at its best are possible with the available, often limited, resources. In his book can improve people’s lives». It results disturbing to think that in the Los Hechos de la Arquitectura written with Fernando Perez Oyarzún understanding of the Hyatt Foundation, the kind of social housing de- and José Quintanilla, a title that surely shows pragmatism (facts) and veloped by Elemental is “architecture at its best”. What is interesting, a materialist attitude, his posture on architecture is evident: analyze, therefore, is the opportunity given by the award to use the arguments resolve and build. of this elitist institution for the production of a deeper discussion on the real contribution that architecture can offer to global crises, dis- The feeling one gets while reading the book is that architecture is cussing the idea of a “shortcut to inequality”, as Aravena says. more a solution to a problem than an expression of a cultural and social mode of inhabiting space and cities, or a cultural manifestation The Pritzker prize motivation seems to stress the transformative po- of people, or a technological exploration. Having said this, perhaps tential of a renewed architecture, the need for an explicit social agen- Aravena is offering the discipline a fantastic continuation of the en- da. Can it be considered a game-changer declaration? It is difficult gineering aspirations that Le Corbusier embodied in the beginning not to agree with a particular attention to architecture, calling for its of the XX century, aligning an ethical shift of architecture with its po- multiple agencies outside of pure formalism and exclusionary rhet- tential to heal and cure the difficulties encountered on the “frontiers”. oric. Considering the global failure of neoliberal ideologies, policies Just like Le Corbusier, Aravena is responding to a call of his time. Dur- and cultures in developing a better social life, the role of architec- ing the post-war crisis, a new man was arising so a new type of archi- ture in this process cannot be underestimated, especially because it tecture was needed: modern architecture fitted perfectly in an inter- is precisely through spatial production that capital reproduces itself, national project to provide appropriate housing for a new society. In a and it is through the profitable aims of the construction industry that way, the scope of Aravena is pretty much the same: a failed capitalist architecture has been reduced to a solely elemental condition, rather world requires urgent solutions for those who don’t possess capital. than an exploration capable of producing “architecture at its best”. Social housing, Aravena demonstrates, can be a good way to include Profit, not quality, is the aim of neoliberalism, which is why the way the less privileged in the banking system, by providing land tenure in which Aravena develops social housing is just perfect: half houses and promoting entrepreneurialism at a small scale. Therefore, social obtained with public funding to activate cycles of capital accumu- housing is becoming a pathway to debt, which results vital for the re- lation and urbanize so to prepare the field for soon-to-come, better production of the capitalist landscape. If so, the Pritzker Prize allows profitable real estate developments. Without touching the Chilean us to think on what stage of post-modernity we live in, if any. Perhaps, neoliberal rule (harsh as the Atacama desert), Aravena has invented following the economic trends analysed by Thomas Piketty, we find a neoliberal method to produce social architecture, which has been ourselves in a stage that is similar to that at the end of the XIX century broadly accepted and praised. and the beginning of the XX: although not only in terms of inequali- 62 63 © OnArchitecture, Felipe De Ferrari & Diego Gras © OnArchitecture, Felipe De Ferrari & Diego Gras ty and economy, but also from the point of view of other disciplines Returning to the award, the fact that Aravena «practices architecture such as architecture. It is thus possible to claim that architecture is as an artful endeavor in private commissions and designs for the pub- experiencing an homologation with the current economic trend, in lic realm and epitomizes the revival of a more socially engaged archi- the sense that inequality has invaded its mode of practice. As a con- tect» may sound a bit disturbing to those architects that are actually sequence, it could be soon realistic to think that there exist two archi- socially engaged, or that practice an embedded, action-oriented and tectures: one for the poor and one for the others, as it was evident in tranformative architecture. One that while suggesting solutions, re- late XIX century Chile, where the city for the civilized (oligarchy) was search and new approaches, is able to target the root of a problem, differentiated by the city

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