VU4B
I believe that one cannot achieve a clear expression of our time but is capable of using clear constructive discipline.
I am convinced that architecture cannot be anything other than the expression of a civilization.
The expression of the essence of that civilization.
I usually compare architecture with language. To truly master a language, one must master its grammar. Then one could express oneself clearly. One could say very normal things in a language, one can state very logical things, and if one is a poet, one can even express artistic things in a language.
And I believe that exactly the same thing happens in architecture.
Excerpt from the documentary MIES.
Michael Blackwood. 1986.
Arquia / Documentary Collection.
This reflection by Mies provokes the search for the ultimate goal of architecture.
In this contemporary time when saturation and speed attenuate attention,
we assume the role of non-protagonist architecture.
We appeal to silence.
We understand constructive clarity based on discipline.
The path traveled by our study since its inception to this day is this.
Learn, modes and idioms, practice their use, understand the right moment to use an adjective,
know how to recognize a verb, exercise accuracy, keep pause ... listen.
Beyond the results, we strengthen the idea of the road as a discipline.
We establish a single conversation,
the hopeful improvement of human habitation within the planet,
through the reasonable use of resources and aiming at the constant exercise of learning together, as partners, in society.
We are not interested in the particular, if we apprehend.
(when you study you learn, but when you interact with the environment you apprehend).
From that, we can transform matter into material, imaginary into concrete and proceed with rigorous analysis to the decision that communicates with maximum clarity an idea, be it a stone, a word or a living space.
Thus, the conversation intensifies, the relationship between sender and receiver is refined,
becoming more and more accurate, more precise, more human.
We confer on the convocation of matter as an authentic discipline of architectural thinking,
We give it the role of word, and with it we say things ...
That we love the shade and the landscape, that we repeat tirelessly to enjoy the space among many, that we use knowledge to overcome gravity and fear, that we recognize our limitations and therefore ask for help, that we do to protect and share and above all that we think in freedom and imagine unique places to live better.
As one more phrase within the general conversation, this small house is a pause in the constant noise of the city, absent and unnoticed, it is made of emptiness, gardens, air, light and the occasional brick.
Let's keep talking, but even better let's try to listen more and better ... even the silences.
