This second lecture from the international lectures series at ASA forum was a nice surprise (see first post on this topic here). The second male and female duo of architects to speak at the forum were from Spain and presented their work from a clearly theoretical standpoint. In contrast to SANAA who create new shiny white things Langarita Navarro are more attracted to activating existing city fabric. They describe this as a kind of taxidermy. The way that something lifeless can be re-invigorated.
A second, and related, analogy they used was that of ‘bust and pelt’. ‘Bust’ is the word they used to describe the permanent, stable, hard part of the architecture such as an existing building or delineated space and ‘pelt’ describes a softer component that will require more maintenance, is more transient and will ultimately disappear before the lifespan of the bust has expired.
One good example of this theory in application is the Red Bull Music Academy which was a temporary structure built in Madrid. The original location for the Academy was in Japan but the project was rapidly relocated to Madrid following the 2011earthquake. A huge existing industrial building was made functional by the addition of smaller, self-contained spaces within the structure. In this instance the existing building was the ‘bust’ and the smaller buildings and linking landscape the ‘pelt’.
The surprise was that I have used this project as a precedent previously and much admired it. I think it is demonstrates a practical creative working space and is a model that could be applied to many under-used buildings within the city- whether in city like Bangkok where spaces require air-conditioning but fan cooled spaces would suffice for socialising or in a colder environment where you can selectively heat the spaces you require and wear more clothes in the open spaces.
The second projct which clearly demonstrated this strategy is the Medialab Prado, Also in Madrid. Here is an exploded diagram of the building which they referred to as ‘The Thing’ and how it sits inside the ‘bust’ of the existing building. They use a lot of colourful, graphic images which are easy to understand and are good at communicating the enthusiasm behind their work.
Langarita Navarro recently exhibited at Shenzhen Biennale under the title of ’embodied pelts’ their project was a study of workplaces which found that there was and ovewhelming similarity between workplace environments dominated by plants and the shiny reflectors of overhead lighting, regardless of the business’ activities or the location of the offices. They added into this the presence of an embodied pelt to create an installation that was a commentary on this study.
The final piece of wisdom which emerged form the Q and A session at the end (no I didn’t ask any questions myself, although perhaps I should have as some of the questions I think really missed the mark- awkward) was an analogy relating to concept and ideas.
They explained that at the beginning of the project you have many ideas and if ideas were like clothes; you are wearing all of them. By the end of the project you should only be wearing one item of clothing such as a jaunty tie. This is how you curate your ideas and emerge with a clear concept. I’ll leave you with this masterpiece from my notebook. 