We have to thank Mayor Bloomberg, or is it Bloomberg LLC, for the fun! We were emphatically reassured of this by head honcho from Bloomber LLC on Thursday June 24 at the press opening of the new architectural pavilion at MoMA PS1. This ludic construction made of windsurfing poles, pastel colored abdominal exercise balls, and a net , woven into an array of digital sound production devices, is built for fun.

Recalling earlier attempts and concerns by various 1960s architects—Cedric Price’s Fun Palace and London Zoo Aviary come to mind—the architects of Solid Objectives (and an array of helpers and consultants) aim to see and hear people play, and incidentally, record their activity. Alas, yes, in a purely abstract way of graphs and feedback loops that have become the signature of invisible control.

Fun, as all parents know, can also be dangerous. “I wouldn’t recommend climbing the poles” stated project architect Ilias Papageorgiu. There will be professional “pole dancers”  for that in one of the scheduled performances. But don’t get too exited! I’m sure the dancers will be apt for the “general public,” and at the sign of any tumescence or inappropriate behavior, the poles will emit a sensuous rythmic cadence surveyed on the web site, and will alert PS 1 Director Klaus Biesenbach to—yet one more time—pull the plug on the fun.

The “general public” will be saved yet again. But why not, since this work is, after all—and this was emphatically stated at the press opening—designed for the “general public.” (Remember when we used to talk about “everyone,” or “all,” as in Carnegie’s “FREE FOR ALL”). In case you’re wondering if you have gained admission to this select club, this “general public,” it is softly articulated in several ways. Of course it’s composed of all those who choose to enter MoMA PS1. And one is lured into the bunker by the elegant dancing poles, made active by people wagging—I mean playing—with them. The poles of this folly do announce themselves to the exterior world outside the solid wall of MoMA PS1. One wonders, however, why these white dancing poles do not step over the concrete perimeter wall, and advance a clear negotiation with public space. Maybe the $85,000 budget did not allow to negotiate with the city and uncover yet another layer of fun.

But don’t feel excluded, since you can still enter MoMA PS1 courtyard for free and play. You can run around, hang, pull and get wet—there are several convenient and appropriate humidity devices—and after it all, you can rest in the large and inviting orange hammocks. But, if you want to complete the experience and feel part of the “general public,”  don’t forget to whip out your iPhone and connect to the project, seeing and hearing your modulated self.  Yes of course you have one, since if you go to PS1 you must have one, right?

This last visualization strategy deployed by the architects in their attempt to blur the realm of the physical and the virtual is based on a soft yet decisive exclusion that, because of its generalized but hidden condition, becomes perverse. Carved up by the iPhone technological divide, the “general public” and the class that it assembles is finally distilled in “the kinetic elite,” an international traveling, technologically savvy and well connected alliance of people.

Yes, OK! I don’t have an iPhone! So I can never complete the project and find closure in my sad un-stylish life; but I find it better to leave the project un-closed, yes, yes, un-closed, not “open” since today “open” lies in the realm of the “general public,” of  MoMA PS1’s open courtyard, of subtle strategies that with inviting gestures and luring effects exclude and reduce the Other to simple noise.

I left the pavilion attracted by the screechings and rumblings of the elevated subway; the same noise that earlier interrupted the sound consultant when attempting to explain the interactive part of the project. This “noise” that floods the project and was summarily dismissed by the sound engineer – the irony! – is the sound that insists on the city as a common stage of conflict. The cacophony of sounds emanating from the subway are memories of dissent. The elegant poles of the 2010 PS1 pavilion translate the movement of individual bodies into sounds—sounds that, captured and recorded, are made visible. This visibility is constructed by an active blindness that, protected within the wall of MoMA PS1, excludes and ignores the rumblings of the city. The moment when the dissenting sound of the subway pierced the enclosed space however, that moment when those explaining the project had to stop and acknowledge the un-silenced Other, was the moment the fun started.

Thanks for the fun…!

1. The shadow of Brazil’s rich modernist past was the elephant in the room. Although all young architects develop different tactics dealing with it, these all felt immature and young indeed. Celio Deniz/DDG Arquitetura ’s Cruzeiro School directly acknowledged the famed Ministry of Education (among other examples), in his incorporation of passive environmental control systems (brise-soleil); on the green-surfaced roofs of the school however, he  surprisingly failed or chose not to connect them to the MES.  Eduardo [Rocha] Ferroni/H+F Arquitetos positioned his practice on the rich urbanity produced by the series of commercial galleries that  link public spaces in the center of São Paulo. Although both positions were interesting, they were undeveloped. Presenting the  Uniao de Vilanova III e IV schools, Ferroni revived the social position of architecture which figures like Affonso Reidy defended so long ago. The point was not lost to Kenneth Frampton who praised Ferroni on this; however, it is not clear how simply working for the government – producing schools, advances Reidy’s clear and powerful strategies as deployed in Pedregulho housing project.

2. The organizational structure of the architectural offices was another theme, presented more like laboratories where experiments are conducted. Complete with meeting rooms that serve as lecture halls, galleries, etc., for “public” interactions, these offices serve for multiple functions. This public and multifunctional space was something that although put on the table, remained vague, imprecise and in my opinion with a false yet deadly allure. It is curious that every single presenter started by describing their office and how they work. Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos, exulted the value of a multi-prong practice with landscape and graphic designers, and of having a gallery for “public events;” exactly what he meant by “public” is not clear. In this respect Ferroni, who works within a collective called Arquitetos Cooperantes offered me the most to wonder about.

3. The overall pragmatic description of the buildings deployed by all presenters, points to another modernist inheritance: its artistic/formal inheritance. Although Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos was most active in ignoring Brazil’s modernist past, his high aesthetic forms (quite elegant and sophisticated) reveal a minimalism with strong ties with Brazilian modernism. I venture a radical comparison with Niemeyer. Campo’s work, although absent of sensual forms, follows Niemeyer’s concentration of symbolic power on gestural moves. This type of pressure-cooker present in Niemeyer’s best work, is there in Campo’s constrained  geometric minimalism. Niemeyersque ties are revealed by an overworked absence of details that necessitates object  buildings (the H30 Park is a notable exception)  contemplated at a distance, and an interest in structural gymnastics. The scale and limits of production governs them all, even today.

4. Overlapping this formal modernist inheritance, is a deadly modernization legacy: the complete liquidation of architectural culture performed by the military dictatorship. Acknowledge by Bucci in an all too quick remark as if not to forget that Brazil does have a dark history, today happily absent from the many luminous renderings of incredibly generic Olympic projects by Bruno Campos/BCMF Arquitetos, or  Celio Deniz/DDG Arquitetura’s  most recent project for a hotel/convention center for Rio, this void resonated deeply in the pragmatic and pedestrian way in which all the architects described most their projects.

5. But the most devastating inheritance that the evening showcased, was the replication of “Brazilian Architecture,” as presented in 1943,  in New York. This is no returned of the repressed since it is the repressed that consistently fails to erupt. If we are to believe the organizers of YOUNG PRACTICS IN BRAZIL , “Brazil” continues to be:

a. just a couple of cities, in fact, the same cities. I wonder if there is another way to present “Brazilian” architecture other that the already over-elaborated centers, and why Brazilian architecture has failed (has it? ) to project itself outside its cities, and onto the massive physical organization of the Amazonian territories, just to name a very present and on going theme.

b. When it comes to architecture, Brazil continues to be white. Brazilian architects continue to be white; and although I understand the the classification of race does not follow US categories, all these architects were white indeed, as white as you can get.

c. Architectural production in Brazil continues to be male dominated.

So if we are to guess what brings these architects together, what were the criteria used to bring them to Columbia to present their work, and what characterizes them as a “generation,” I venture to say that they had to be:  young, white, male, and urban. Such is this “new generation!”

Modernism’s dreams remain; the legacy of modernization, continues. What I saw yesterday were incipient architectural practices; full of promise, but somewhat void of questions. Incipient not in the amount of work built and produced, but in their position with respect to architecture and specially with respect to Brazil’s modern legacy, its lights and shadows. Caution seems to be the modus operandi, in a what could be interpreted as a desperate attempt to join the circuit of global architectural images.

Lutyen’s apparently classicizing city plan – axis connected through roundabouts – is heavy on vehicular circulation, with little consideration for the pedestrian. The dimension is set by a vast monumental measure imposed on the landscape. This abstraction, constructed through geometry is actualized through circulation and the preference for the car. The Haussmannian militarization of the city is complete by eradicating all urban life. New Delhi was designed between 1912 and 1929; it opened in 1931. Streets are lined with trees, a possible gesture to the pedestrian, in the harsh sun of this semi-dessertic site. Trees  provide a protective edge from the street  separating it from the sidewalk (the image above is from one of the most conformed sections of the city, most sidewalks being of dirt). Trees also serve to create a buffer between the street and the walled-gated blocks.

The sub-urbanized city blocks, sit like an archipelago of protected islands in a turbulent sea of intense. Since most pedestrians use the street as their main form of circulation, the city blocks, defined by walls and gates, exhibit a fortress like condition.  Connaught Place, with its arcades, is the main roundabout and principal shopping and urban center of New Delhi. It presents an integrated urban gesture. The arcades allow urban life and activity. There are smaller roundabouts in New Delhi – Gole Market, for example – that follow this integration of commerce, street life and traffic. The separation between commerce and residential however, is emphasized in Lutyens master plan. The similarities with CIAM’s separation of the four urban orders – habitation, leisure, work and traffic – is remarkable. Although the differences with Chandigarh (below) are clear, the central medium for example, the modernizing gesture – separation of functions through  rationalization – is decidedly clear.

Above (center right) is the Ambani house, the world’s most expensive single-family residence. At a price tag of $2 billion dollars, it was designed to house a family of 6, with a staff of 200. Bellow this, is a single-family unit in the slum-redevelopment housing complex at Oshiwara I, which holds about 6 family members in 250sq feet. The units consist of a single 250sq feet space, partitioned to form a living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom, below, is the only space of somewhat complete privacy.

The golden bathroom below this one, is that of a $20million USD apartment, in the Imperial Towers.

Our second day in Mumbai (Friday, March 12), we met with representatives of SPARC. They showed us several slum rehabilitation projects. I was most taken by their very first project, Milan Nagar, constructed to resettle pavement dwellers from Byculla. The project started in the early 1990s. It took around 10 years from land allocation to final building, for a total of 83 families. Unique to this project was the direct action/intervention of the dwellers on the design of the units themselves. These one room split-level homes respond to many demands brought to light by the users, like privacy – which was a big concern.

Women were in command of the design of their homes. As part of the design process dwellers built mock-ups of the units with saris. This action unfolds the many issues of the project, spanning from functional requirements to symbolic actions. The anthropomorphic measure, the wrapping of the female body, which becomes unwrapped to measure, define and organize space, carries a potent symbolic charge. The use of women’s clothing as the measure of dimensions revels the “hidden” intent behind this project: the empowerment of women. Embedded in the project, is the organization of a small credit system for women, which has a dedicated meeting space in the building, with black boards for general accounting. This gendered communal space – controlled by women – extends the place and actions of women beyond the household. The building is clearly the domain of women. When approaching the dwellers – men and women alike – it is the women who take full command of the narrative and history to be told.

These spaces however, remain embattled ones. When I asked to take pictures, women in the absence of men would pose standing in the main room, exhibiting with pride their home. When a man was present, however, the dynamics changed. As one can see in the picture below, male gender politics are in full force. The man is surrounded by his descendants: his sons. The wife was in the kitchen, and would not join the “family” portrait. The daughter remains sitting on the floor, more like a piece of furniture, background and property. I did take a picture of the wife in the kitchen; the youngest son did run to her side, the others did not. Maybe he is the key to negotiating these two worlds. After taking the picture of his wife, the man insisted that I take a picture of him sitting, alone. The daughter remained a quiet spectator of it all.

Just out is the volume COHABITAR, edited by Anna Nufrio in Barcelona. This book gathers the experience initiated in 2004 in the international seminar INSIDE LA HABANA which I organized with Anna, with the help of my great Cuban friends. The intent of this international seminar was to present architecture students with a first approximation to the city. It involved students and faculty from the Clemson University Architecture Center in Barcelona, Spain, the Conseil d’Architecture, d’Urbanisme et Environnement, France, the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya, Spain, and the Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría, Cuba, all with the support of the Office of the Historian of the City of Havana, Cuba. The thirty European students and four faculty members who participated in the research seminar spent two weeks in Havana collaborating with Cuban architecture students mapping stories of the city, examining Havana’s interaction with the sea and documenting housing conditions in the historic center. To aid in their investigations, I organized seminars with practicing Cuban architects, well-known artists, writers, filmmakers, sociologists and research professionals. For the conclusion of the seminar, the students presented their work to the public through models, sketches and videos.  I hoped to continue INSIDE LA HABANA with U.S. students and faculty, but, because of continuing policy issues during the Bush Administration, it was impossible. I am happy that Anna was able to continue and expand on what we initiated so long ago. Europe, specially Spain, has always been a more agreeable platform from which to  engage Cuba. Let’s hope that under this new administration we are able to engage Cuba in new ways.

At Clemson University I had the opportunity to engage in design build practices. The work of the Rural Studio in Alabama, Mockbee’s relation to Clemson, and the generalized condition of poverty and need in small communities in the South after decades of neo-liberal economics and conservative politics, I thought, could guide design pedagogy.   In long debates and discussions with then colleague Jori Erdman, we agreed that “good design,” was not enough. Architectural design needed to be buttressed with and guided by a critical understanding of the territory it would engage. We proposed Southern Seminar, a class that would engaged the spatial politics and development of South Carolina. The seminar combined lectures and class discussions with historical and theoretical investigations. In the fall of 2001, armed with the experience of the seminar, we launched Studio South.

When I visited Havana in 2000 I was fascinated by the andaminos, the scaffolding that populated the city, particularly in old Havana. Locals then used to call Havana “La Ciudad de San Lázaro” (St. Lazarus’ City), because of all the crutches supporting its buildings preventing them from falling. Behind this ruinous reality hid the barbacoas, which for many were but a continuation of the rotting condition of the city. I take issue with this interpretation and instead think they represent not a decaying city but on the contrary manifest a force of growth and vitality.

In 2000 I became interested in contemporary vernacular building practices in Havana, Cuba, known as barbacoas.  Since then I have been slowly researching them and developing a theoretical position on these experiences. One can find these types of interventions just about anywhere in the world. I’m interest in the Cuban case because these are set within a Socialist context were the idea of “proper housing” is a right guaranteed under the 1976 Constitution. The first opportunity I had to present my research in Cuba, was at the 2002 International Architecture Biennial . There I presented  some initial theoretical positions that attempted to circumscribed these structures within contemporary forms of expression/resistance. This presentation got picked up in La Jiribilla, and I published it in essay form under the title: Huecos: discursos y prácticas espaciales en la Habana in Pasajes de Arquitectura y Crítica (Madrid, 2002).  A year later, I had the opportunity to present this research at the Import/Export: Latin American Urbanities International Conference at  Harvard University. A revised version titled: “Ingrown Disorders: the barbacoa structures and the interior city of Havana,” appeared in AULA/ Architecture and Urbanism in La Americas (2003). In 2005 I was involved in building a barbacoa. I presented this experience at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA) International Conference in Mexico City (proceedings), the Royal College of Art, London and at the Camp for Oppositional Architecture in Berlin. In 2008, in collaboration with Anthropologist Anna Cristina Pertierra, I wrote a piece published in Buildings & Landscapes/The Journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum. I continue to engage this important question, and remain committed to this research.

One of the primary objectives of the program of the Cuban Revolution was to solve once and for all the housing problem in Cuba. To attain this goal the Revolution established a series of laws and institutions that, through the early convulsive period of the Revolution (also known as the “Heroic Period”), would change and transform until their final solidification and bureaucratization in the 1970s. In this early period the Revolution fomented local organizations and grassroots practices that would mark and condition the housing question and would survive its subsequent institutionalization.

“Inventar: Recent Struggles and Inventions in Housing in Two Cuban Cities.” Buildings and Landscapes 15, 2008:78-92

I certainly think a good South American show could be very popular, but most of the discussion I have heard about such shows during the last year has been based on a slight misconception. Our STOCKHOLM BUILDS has been used as an example of how a South American show could be done. Actually although GEKS [Kidder-Smith] is an architect, he did not have a great deal of the information needed to put the show together in an interesting fashion. Betty Mock did a great deal of research and fortunately it was possible for research on Stockholm and Swedish building to be done here –which would not be true, I am afraid, in the case of South America which is very badly documented.

Janet Henrich, 1942

I address MoMA’s relationship to Latin American architecture in part of my dissertation. I gave an updated version of this presentation in Montevideo, Uruguay, at the Universidad de La República, in Dec. 2009.

Vilamajó_Facultad de Ingeniería