Author: Octavio Fujarte
Constantly question as a child, I do architecture and construction, sometimes I explore atmospheres, and from time to time I use my time for drawing.
The blank page seems to be on many occasions the equivalent of stage fright in the theater, it is as if we realized that we have unresolved questions, unfinished or unconnected ideas. Questions such as How to start projecting? What do I want to feel, see, hear, smell? Or maybe we don't even know what we want. Project Through Experience I'm even experiencing that same feeling while writing this article, and although I know that sometimes I don't know what I want or what I'm looking for, but I do know what I don't want and what I'm not looking for.
I have always had a question in my mind, and in my personal study I seek more and more to clarify the unknown that troubles me: is it possible to make sensory architecture? Is it possible to measure it? Are there symptoms in architecture as if it were an organism, that is, healthy or suffering architecture? How aware are we of who inhabits it? And more questions that come to my mind, and among so much information, we take for granted that what we are taught in college is the only thing we must learn and that's it, there is no greater knowledge or that that knowledge is "an extra to feed a theme”, however, I do not believe that this is the case.
THE HUMAN BODY HAS ITS OWN CONSCIOUSNESS
I have noticed that every time architecture is talked about, there is that eternal debate of “Function or Beauty”. Personally, I think that these analyzes only focus on architecture as a system or an object with geometric and compositional characteristics, which is not bad, if you ask me, however, for me, architecture goes beyond that.
There is no method as such, which is why I dare say that authors and teachers like Peter Zumthor, Alvar Aalto, Frank L. Wright, Aldo Rossi, to name a few. In their writings they tend to inspire personal experiences, observations and beliefs as if they followed a more "materialistic empiricist" philosophy, and I recognize that it sounds far-fetched, but really, if we analyze their teachings they speak of architecture without the need to speak of architecture, and I also consider that one of The best phrases that can encourage us to continue investigating or looking for this methodology is the one that Maestro Barragán said "Look guys, don't do what I did, see what I saw" I would even add "not only see, but experience, hear, smell , feel, and be aware of where are you?", since it is when the dialogue between space and the person who is seeing it is sparked, it is like feeling before a Lovecraftian monster, and feeling small before a giant, in this case "space ”.
Being your perception, your experience, your body, who can guide you to develop a good idea.
MATERIALIST EMPICRISM
As such it tells us that "sensory experience resides in the external world and exists objectively." And although there is a fundamental contradiction between empiricism and rationalism, it does not arise from the source of "knowledge" but from "lived experience", some authors such as Zumthor urge us to analyze spaces, not only with the eye or the senses, but even in memories, or "the lived experience"
Some rationalists conclude that:
“there is nothing in the mind that has not been given before by sensations.”
And this is precisely the point of divergence that exists between empiricism and rationalism, because it infers from experience, that is, we are not the same, even though we speak the same language, or live on the same continent, the conditions are not the same, although two brothers lived in similar conditions, it would not be the same experience, because "experience is not capable of providing universal wisdom" and sometimes we look for answers that work for all people, as if it were a Starbucks coffee, but think that architecture is a populist position, it is not giving value to inhabiting without worrying about the user, in the journey, in the What will he feel?, How will the light enter the space?, What sensations do they transmit to us?
Finally, and as Jean Paul Sartre, a French philosopher and writer, said.
“Today we know how to do everything except live”.
I think that it is a phrase that we must give the importance it deserves, the biggest risk for those of us who dedicate ourselves to designing and building, is not to look for a trend in itself, but to focus on "manual architecture", that is, that objectual architecture for solving needs, without making relationships, for example, a window to see can be in many shapes and forms, but be aware of the question, what will you see? Or what will you feel? It is more valuable than the element itself, maybe the window is not even used to ventilate or illuminate, perhaps that function takes second place when you are framing nature, a landscape or a filter is generated to avoid seeing wires and other noise, and you may:
“Do not know what you want, or what you are looking for, but you do know what you do not want and what you are not looking for”.
I believe that, by doing this maieutics, it can help to put the first stroke on that blank sheet.