Building for Bouwkunde international open ideas competition Motivation – AN END AS A START
Introduction What’s the use of architecture? What does the faculty of architecture represents? How is it taught here? Witch tools are needed to establish that education? These are the questions that we asked ourselves while developing the concept idea for the new BOUWKUNDE and guided its design. The route leading from experimental architecture theory to a building practice dominated by conventions passes through a twilight zone of concepts and methods. Regardless of whether one opts for a technical, structural, artistic, or traditional approach, the transition from theory to practice demands an intervening step. This step consists of a series of design-related decisions that can be interpreted as the combination of a concept - otherwise defined as the direction that leads to a solution - and a method for converting this solution into concrete rules of play. N.J. Habraken On 13 May 2008 a great building was lost. Is memory will remain in the mind of all the people who experienced it throughout the years. They will cherish and share mental images and experiences of the building with others. It may figure in architecture books, magazines e wallpapers, but for the rest of us (who didn’t have the opportunity to see and explore this building) this will no longer be possible, it as disappeared. It is a sad thought, but on the other hand, it is interesting to realize how much architecture is able to touch us acting like a living organism. Unlike other activities, no matter how much theory is transmitted to a person about a specific building, city or construction method, it seems that we are not able to completely understand it until we have the opportunity to see it for ourselves. Le Corbusier said that architecture is about harmony and mathematic order that is able to touch us, and that is something that cannot be transmitted by speech but only by practical experience. That means that, when a building disappears, it is lost forever, like a person: his teachings remains but the intimate relations that it established with people is lost and can never be repeated. That is why it is so difficult to copy architecture. Like people each building shares common links between one another, it also has a specific conjugation of form, dimensions, proportions that make it unique and makes the experience of it unique for each person who visits it. On the other hand, it’s this same ability to communicate to each person differently that makes architecture so inspiring to others leading to new and innovative achievements. In this case, the end of the BOUWKUNDE (the one that lasted for almost 40 years) is the beginning for a new building, a new approach, a new set of experiences based on the same basic principles and tools that have ruled architecture and allow us to understand/teach/live this activity. AN END AS A START
AN END AS A START BK2008-3515