architecture is a fragile enterprise

O Modern Architecture - A critical history de 1980 foi re-editado, revisto e ampliado o ano passado. Quem comprar a quarta edição tem um novo capítulo para ler!

Kenneth Frampton deu uma entrevista à Werk Bauen+Wohnen (uma das melhores revistas helvéticas de arquitectura) que vale a pena ler... e ler várias vezes.
Se há uns post atrás eu e os comentadores de serviço do des-conexo nos manifestávamos em prol dos possíveis efeitos benéficos da crise, o Frampton fala disso mesmo... ou melhor, fala da necessidade de uma arquitectura de princípios. Volta a bater na tecla do estrelado, da ideia de marca, e de como este marketing estilístico à escala global é um castrador criativo das grandes fábricas de arquitectura. Fala da ideia de valores para contrapor ao "vale tudo", actualiza o regionalismo crítico e a tectónica, e ainda cita Siza...

"The received idea that there are no principles in architecture today and that anything goes is pernicious.
"The Olympic Stadium in Beijing, designed by Herzog and de Meuron, demonstrates the paradox of the spectacular in architecture. From a technical standpoint this is an exceptionally regressive and unethical structure. The colossal amount of steel used or rather misused, exemplifies what Tomas Maldonado once called the “ideology of waste,” as opposed to waste that unavoidably occurs when something is fabricated.
"I believe there is no significant innovation without tradition and that there is no living tradition without innovation. The fact that these two processes are ultimately inseparable totally repudiates the vain neo-avant-gardist notion that the architecture could or should be an open-ended value free experiment.

"I think that the task of a critic is to call attention to such work, to the work of so-called unknown architects, and in so doing help to establish them as points of reference in a more general discourse regarding what architecture is and what it could possibly be in the future.

"In my experience such lesser-known work is often superior to the work of the star architects. Perhaps this is a result of the very circumstances of success, the fact that a star or brand architect often has too much work and the fact that famous architects are often commissioned by clients because of a particular image for which they are famous; the client wants just that image and nothing else, nothing more.

Para ler e reler a entrevista de Petra Ceferin a Kenneth Frampton na íntegra basta carregar aqui.