It is not easy to find the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena (56 years old) in his hometown of Santiago. The 2016 Pritzker winner is constantly traveling to different cities around the world. This year alone he has visited more than seven countries and this week he arrives from China. They invite him to take part in conferences and give lectures on urban issues, social housing and architecture. But he also has to oversee the work that Elemental, the studio of which he is co-founder and managing director, is building around the globe. His portfolio includes a museum in Qatar, the Bank for International Settlements building in Switzerland, the Aula 10 project at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico and the tower that will house the office of the electrical company EDP in Lisbon. A task that makes the office compatible with its leitmotif: bringing avant-garde architecture into social housing. Elemental broke with traditional architectural practices in the mid-2000s by pushing the profession to solve social problems focused on improving the lives of the most vulnerable habitats.
As he travels around the world, the housing deficit that has spread worldwide in recent years – according to the United Nations, around 1.8 billion people lack adequate housing – is one of the usual topics of conversation, he says. “There is not a single country that I have crossed in the last two months where the housing deficit is not mentioned to break the ice, such as climate,” he says from the Elemental office on the 29th floor of the Torre Santa María, a building on San Cristóbal Hill in Santiago de Chile that offers one of the best high-rise postcards of the Chilean capital.
It’s half past two in the afternoon and the team, who have just finished their lunch break, are chatting animatedly at the table before continuing their work. Aravena stands up, greets him, and settles himself in a corner of the open floor plan with dark walls where his workspace is: a table with a lamp, a computer, and several books stacked on the desk and a wooden shelf. From there, start organizing your ideas. And he shoots: “The real problem we have is not so much the housing deficit, but the urban deficit.” And he goes even deeper: “If the rule of law does not succeed in creating an expectation for the future that comes with that “When it comes to access to opportunities in cities and correcting inequalities, you lower your arms and assume you’ll never get there.” And then that rule of law is replaced by the law of the jungle.” He suspects that’s behind it This phenomenon creates new worlds in which the codes of civilization no longer work.
Plans in ELEMENTAL, Aravena’s architectural firm.FERNANDA REQUENA
According to the architect, this is where violence, resentment, anger and the individual’s feeling of having nothing left to lose arise, which is a breeding ground for drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime, which gradually gain the upper hand. the peripheries, where there is no access to services, health, recreation, education and ultimately opportunities. “In some of these neighborhoods, the life expectancy of a young man is 24 years. There is no future. And there is a shortcut that the drug world offers, which is not just an economic issue but also a cultural discussion. If I am worthless, not even to my family, who will offer me an alternative where I can be valued in some way?” asks the architect.
It is a thesis that Pritzker developed in the Congress of Cities, an initiative of the Chilean Senate to promote debate among politicians, scientists and civil society organizations to improve urban life. Part of his thesis is that in those worlds where people have lost all expectations, the culture of possessions and consumption embodied in television shows like the Kardashians begins to generate a new scale of values in which what What is important is not what you are. but what you have. “We need to find a parallel narrative to the Kardashians of the world about what is valuable,” says the architect.
He says that politicians have not given the necessary leeway to counter this phenomenon. “From an ideological point of view, there are some who want to achieve it through oppression, others through the creation of opportunities. And everyone alone is not able to face it. “When you have someone who, at 24, knows they can die at any moment, oppression is irrelevant, and they die laughing at someone engaging in human rights discourse,” he says. “What’s out there is Mad Max,” he warns, alluding to George Miller’s 1979 Australian film, which depicts a dystopian reality where gangs rule the streets.
Faced with this bleak panorama, he states: “The political challenge for our cities is, at least, not to restore the conditions that allowed the emergence of those worlds in which there are too many people who have nothing to lose.” But in his opinion According to him, “neither the right nor the left alone will be able to respond to this new dynamic.” And about the territory, his scope for action, he says that the contribution will not be final either. “We can change the infrastructure, the hardware of our cities as much as we want, but the software will still be oriented in one direction,” he warns. “What we are seeing now is the cost of accumulating houses in our periphery, not opportunities,” he adds.
Alejandro Aravena in his office on the 29th floor of the Torre Santa María in Santiago de Chile.FERNANDA REQUENA
The way out, in his opinion, is “to create an alternative cultural value system, so that there is no single way to be valuable.” “We will do nothing if we fail to develop a narrative, a new collective epic. And this is where the arts in general have enormous power. Cinema, television, the media, I think they contribute to making this a more desirable reality than the shortcut of someone cornering you or slamming the door, because my way of proving worth is tied to having . It’s another narrative that has to be just as powerful and seductive, because we can’t get there with good vibes,” he says as he continues to string together ideas from his desk.
The problem of parallel power posed by organized crime and its difficult solution worries Aravena so much that on each of his trips he asks about cases in which, despite things going uphill, cities have managed to make changes to turn the tide move and make a mark inflection. Most emblematic of all, he says, is Medellín, which, with its cable car and libraries, has managed to transform itself from one of the world’s most violent metropolises into a pole of Colombia’s economic development. “When you see what has been done there, the excuses for not doing it in other places disappear. And one case that I didn’t know about was in Bogota, the Bronx and the junkyard that is now the Third Millennium Park, where they intervened in a neighborhood with 10,000 soldiers and it was completely destroyed. From bones to crocodiles appeared in the cement they used to make people disappear. If you have to face this world, poetry won’t get you there,” he says.
He admits that he has not read the draft constitution for Chile, which will be put to a referendum on December 17th. He does not appear disillusioned with the process, but notes that “the ideological polarizations we have seen are results of an operation based on clichés that resonate quickly with a certain audience, but given the complexity of the issues.” that we have to face. They are caricatures that do not offer the necessary breadth.” Clichédly, it refers to the binary positions of right and left, in which the value of what the “ideological opponent” is proposing is not taken into account. “Until we understand that we must forego the comfort of caricatured certainties, we will not be able to cope with the complexity of the questions before us. If you reduce the toolbox to what the ideology offers you, the challenges remain and continue to grow,” he warns before ending the interview.