Projective and critical Architecture

Projective and Critical Architecture Marina Carretero

Architecture is and has been divided into two well differentiated parts.

On one hand architecture has been seen as something merely to shelter, and to cover some aspects and needs in society. This kind of architecture is what people can see as “normal” architecture. It is related to the environment, context, human scale and perception. This is what is defined as projective architecture. Hays in “Between Culture and Form”, refers to this kind of architecture as an instrument of culture, while Solmon and Whiting refer to “cool architecture” in their essay “The Doppler Effect”.

On the other hand, we can find architecture that tries to escape from reality, and wants to be a step further than others. It wants to be a critique to society, a point to look at. This kind of architecture wants to move away context. It follows its own rules that have nothing to do with the environment, perception or society. Architects performing this way want to scream through architecture, it is a materialized manifesto. This kind of hot architecture (according to Solmon and Whiting), or autonomous instrument (Hays), wants to break rules, and to stand out from the rest. They want to be front page in books and magazines, and normally they achieve it. The problem starts when the heat of these works starts to be cooler and cooler. Everything they had, become blurrier and normally they do not remain in time, as architecture should. These projects are what we normally categorize as “aliens” in the city.

They are able to catch your eye immediately, but they are not so permanent in time as “cool” works of architecture. It is like everything in life. When something very radical appears, it can be the center of attention of all eyes, but it is suddenly forgotten. This critical architecture can make us realize where architecture is going to in a certain period of time. It is appreciated as an architectural revolution. This kind of critical architecture should exist in certain moments, but of course we cannot accept all architectural works as critical instead of projective because this way, architecture would lose its value and power.

Marina Carretero

Projective and Critical Architecture | Chapter 1

We should be aware that a building is not an art installation, but something to be lived, and for that reason it is something that needs to be thought for people, it needs to be accepted, because it is going to be part of someone´s life. It is going to be part of a city, of a context. Therefore, I think architecture should be respectful with people and their environment. It cannot be selfishly though as a “scream� if that means, that it cannot be lived or respected by others. This kind of architecture is not a response to a social problem or need but more an architectural response or critic. It does not aims for future and remain in time but for a critical response.

In order to clarify these terms, I will focus my essay in the architecture as a cultural instrument, or cool architecture. As we have seen this kind of works are not so attractive at first glance, but through them one can be astonished once one has experienced it. It is a projective architecture that as the word suggest, it is based on a project, it is not a mere object, but it projects something, it looks further and references a strategy that normally has to do with the context where it is located, and its needs. It is not as critical architecture that normally refers to the past, but is goes further, it can be understood as a post-critical approach to architecture.

= Marina Carretero

Projective and Critical Architecture | Chapter 1

While analyzing this kind of architecture, Peter Zumthor´s Therme Vals came rapidly to my mind. It is about a spa situated in the Graubßnden canton, in Switzerland. Zumthor tries to go unnoticed through the perfect landscape in where the spa was built. The materials used as well as the green roof used, made this aim possible. But as we have seen before, post critical architecture, (or projective architecture) goes further, and so Zumthor does.

He projected this building to be part of the context, and to be something livable, accomplishing the requirements of the program perfectly. He was able to emphasize the experiences one should feel in a spa. Zumthor plays with lighting and materiality in order people to experience what they should.

He is using materials of the area, such as Valser quarzite this way he is environmentally responsible while projecting, and also this fact is helping the building to fit into the context.

Marina Carretero

Apart from these contextual and technical issues, the architect is able to integrate human perception and scale into the project. He was so committed to the program, and people´s experience of the spa, that he was able to project human sensibility on it, and not only mere construction or form. Zumthor does not follow form, but he thinks it is something that arrives later, when you have projected all the elements defining architecture, such as materiality, context, memory, process etc. It is in this point where form should come by itself. The architect is able not to destroy nature, but to enhance the context´s beauty through his work, that is, at the end the addition of the parts to compose the whole.

Thus in this work, we can see how important context and participation is in post-critical architecture. It is indeed a manifesto, but not only for the architect but for the community. It responds to continuity, norms and is able to respond to the future, as opposed to hot or critical architecture.

Projective and Critical Architecture | Chapter 1