IJUP08 - Universidade do Porto

ARCHITECTURE: STUDIES AND POSSIBILITIES OF
TRANSVERSALITIES. Space of Encounter – Herzog & de Meuron,
Diller + Scofidio, Dan Graham, Lacaton & Vassal, Sancho y
Madridejos, Vito Acconci [1]
Ana Pedrosa
Faculty of Architecture, University of Porto, Portugal.
This study seeks a personal idea of a contemporary architectural practice, considering
above all its artistic potential of generating meaningful events in space, rather than the
imperative to construct.
The study object is the production processes of architectural poetry, having as key strategy
the transversality between distinct disciplinary practices and between discourse and
practice.
This interdisciplinary is not constraint to other artistic activities. Nevertheless, the work
addresses particularly the practices of installation and performance, for its manifestations
by actions towards space or body and therefore focusing more on the effects prompted and
less on objectual character of the work of art.
To establish coincidences or interferences between enclosed disciplines is not considered
as a value for itself. What is at stake is the reinvention of an architectural practice through
the redefinition of its limits as a discipline, in its objects, in its tools, in the author’s role, in
the inhabitant’s role, in its relation with place.
The idea of architecture, outlined along the essay, as an artistic medium of intervention,
results of the conjuncture of the following: an idea of the qualities of its meanings – seen
as unpredictable, wandering, subjective – through the notion of indetermination; an idea
of the inhabitant’s active and creative role in the construction of the experience of
architecture, through the notion of event; an idea of art as a potency of the real , through
the notion of virtual; an idea about the identity limits of the subject, as well as of the
architectonic object, through the notion of body.
[1] Graduation Essay – 2007. Supervisor Teacher: Manuel Mendes, Arguer Teacher: Manuel
Botelho, Jury: Rui Braz. The early study issues were induced by the internship at the Atelier
Sancho y Madridejos – Madrid, 2003-04 – who’s practice is inspired in the work strategies of
artists as E. Chillida and J. Oteíza; and the participation in the Workshop Espaço do Encontro
(Space of Encounter), under the orientation of Jean Philippe Vassal – Porto, 2005, and consequent
public space intervention at the FIMP 2006 – Porto International Puppets Festival.
Main theoretical bibliographic references (summarily identified in order to acomplish page layout): Deleuze,
Gilles. Conversações 1972-1990,(1990); Foucault, Michel. “Des Espaces Autres” in Dits et Écrits IV 1954-
1988,(1957); Benjamim, Walter. “La obra de Arte en la Época de su Reproductibilidad Técnica,”(1936);
Cruz, Teresa. “Posfácio” in O Pintor da Vida Moderna,(1993); Moure, Gloria (editor). Behind the facts –
Interfunktionen 1968-1975,(2004); Ortega y Gasset, José. “La Deshumanización del Arte,” in La
Deshumanización del Arte y Otros Ensayos de Estética,(1925); Conde, Yago. Arquitectura de la
Indeterminación,(2000); Guilheux, Alain. Architecture Action – une Architecture Post-Théorique,(2002);
Leatherbarrow, David. Uncommon Ground – Architecture, Technology, and Topography,(2000); Solà-
Morales, Ignasi. Territorios,(2002); Solà-Morales, Ignasi. Diferencias – Topografia de la Arquitectura
Contemporánea,(2003) ; Teyssot, Georges. “The Mutant Body of Architecture” in Flesh – Architectural
Probes, (1994).
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