|
INTERVIEW WITH RODRIGO TISI
(versión
Español)
INTRODUCTION
Architecture
has played a fundamental role along History in the definition and actual building
of the public space.
During the last decades certain kind of Architecture
has became in one of the most evident means of action and intervention of the
globalization processes. The biggest studios project the same type of building
for a store in New York, an office tower in Lima, a museum in Bilbao or a new
city in Argelia. In this sense, certain architectural practices are defining a
public space created by and for the globalization movements.
"Estaciones
del Errante" proposes a model of Architecture that resists the before mentioned
processes. Though this installation Rodrigo Tisi explores the possibilities of
an architectonic project that depends on human action, on the presence and habits
of the real individuals that inhabit the city. Beyond predetermined solutions,
copied and imported in the construction place, "Estaciones del Errante"
opens the possibility of Architecture as the result to the concrete behavior and
experience of a culture, community or space.
JC: I am going to interview Rodrigo Tisi and we are going to talk about
his installation "Estaciones del Errante". Today is July the 11th, we
are in Lima and it is eleven in the morning.
Could you describe briefly the
installation and its history?
RT: The installation departs from my work for my MA dissertation in the
Universidad Católica de Santiago. It is basically a spatial model of the
project I was working on by that time.
The installation can be described as
a model in real scale (1:1) that presents the topics and issues of the project
not through the traditional means (plans and models) but through a series of objects
displayed in the context of a gallery. These objects are what introduce the arguments
I want to consider in this architectural project.
JC: I find interesting the presence of the human body in the installation
and its relation with the public space. Could you talk about this relation and
its role within globalized architecture?
RT: "Estaciones del Errante" is located in the Plaza de Italia
in Santiago de Chile. This public space is an imaginary space, a space for joy,
a space of disagreement…. a space that exists in close relation to the interests
of the country. The public space that "Estaciones del Errante" considers
is an ephemeral space that is not part of the daily life. The place of the Plaza
de Italia appears over the Plaza Vaquedano in Santiago. Then the relation of the
project with the public space is to show how my architectural project has to do
with the massive encounters of population. In this point appears the idea of building:
the twelve towers proposed in the installation are twelve monuments created as
towers that have each one an individual architectonic project. Each program corresponds
to one single person. What makes of these towers twelve monuments is that trough
their encounter I would be declaring a new space in the Plaza de Italia. Indeed
the Plaza only happens as the result of this encounter. Then in the encounter
of the towers/monuments/characters the public space appears. The towers don't
impersonate historical celebrities of the country. They are twelve ordinary citizens.
And I highlight them to talk about a society that belongs to us and that doesn't
ends in Satiango but that can continue in any other territory.
JC: Another issue we could talk about is this system of doubles present
in the exhibition. On one side the towers stand and on the other we have the photographs
where the human body appears; on one side the big screen shows the real space
and on the other the small screen shows the modeled space. And all this appears
again in the text in the wall. What is the role of this system of doubles?
RT: To put it in a more properly way I would say that it is about insisting
about the same problem. We, architects are used to make representations that only
we understand and the projects are not adequately conveyed. Considering that "Estaciones
del Errante" is a project in scale 1:1 shown in the context of a gallery
as an installation, I find necessary to repeat several times the same problem.
The work of the twelve towers as twelve lamps is address the issue of plaza in
relation to this of monument. And the twelve images of the characters talk about
the architectonical program of the twelve towers or lamps. On the other side the
small screen shows a 3D model that insists on these topics and shows them within
the architectonical project I propose. Then the idea is to put these monuments
in the in the territory of Santiago and present them in a gallery in different
ways.
JC: And
maybe what breaks this system of insistences is that special place that you have
created for the actual spectator to become the monument.
RT: This element wasn't part of the exhibition when presented in Santiago.
But I thought that it was interesting to have inside the room an specific point
from which I could say "this is the point where the whole project is contained".
Obviously it is not found in any project. It is like saying "here as in anywhere".
But instead of putting this special point in the wall where there are only eleven
photographs, it is on the ground because it is the representation of the hopeless
that is this figure that jumps into the void as a response to his bad fate. I
put that special place on the ground following that same metaphor: "Stop
here and see if you want to jump".
JC: The thing is that this invitation is addressed to the actual spectator,
to the one that enters the gallery…
RT: Of course…everybody has sometime had the reasons to perform this
act.
Lima, July 2002
|