October 23 – November 9, 2012
LECTURE :
23 October 2012
Une vision optimiste
Francisco Mangado
«Dear students, we are fortunate to be in a rich and wonderful discipline. Never before have we had so many prospects for architecture. We have certainly never before had such fine, well-prepared young architects. So let’s be more demanding and selective. Let’s not reduce architecture to mere graphic experimentation. Our profession requires research, rigor, risk-taking, hope. Be optimistic, for it is possible to do architecture intensely. You are in a position of responsibility and will experience difficult moments, especially when you rebel against the obvious and facile and wish to go further. Go ahead and do so, for you will enjoy it».
Beauté: défi et service
Debate, Thuesday 30th October
with
Francisco Mangado, Gonçalo Byrne, Ignacio Dahl Rocha, and the ASAR, association des étudiant d’architecture.
Moderator: Llàtzer Moix
After three days of discussions and lectures at the International Campus Ultzama organised by the Foundation Architecture and Society, further debates happens within the ENAC Faculty. The editorialist Llàtzer Moix will takes stock of the discussions held in Ultzama to help prompt discussion and open it up to the students in architecture.
Manifesto International Campus Ultzama 2012 “Beauty: Challenge and Service”
Beauty in architecture, for years associated with classical canons, and in recent years sequestered by the iconic and spectacular, is in response to current demands clamoring for new directions.
The idea is neither to define it nor to delimit it; after all, we can think up as many expressions of beauty as we can conceive works of architecture. But it is important to find and explore paths that can lead to it, and with the aim of creating a favorable atmosphere for an ethical aesthetic. We affirm that architecture is lasting, that it has permanence and a far-reaching dimension, in contrast to the bulk of industrial production, subject to fashions and designed for obsolescence.
We affirm that beauty in architecture comes from essential solutions and unveiling. And that it is neither an attribute nor a prior objective, but a consequence of rigorous professional practice, dialogue with space and time, creativity, naturalness, critical sense, research (not speculation), a vocation for service (not servility), discretion, and a flexibility regarding uses that opens opportunities for reconstruction, renovation, and recycling.
In sum, we affirm that beauty, producer of intensity and emotion, is a goal that architects manage to move closer to when they give society more than what it asks of them, when they empathize with the users of their buildings, and when they pursue efficiency with the aim of improving the experience of life in every way possible.