ISSUE 8 Interview with Oscar Miguel Ares. Contexts of Architecture and Urbanism/Spanish Architecture Biennale Valladolid, Spain. Interviewed by Alfonso Arias.
Alfonso
Good morning, Oscar, it is an honor for me to have your time and attention for this interview, I thank you in advance for allowing us a space in your schedule. I represent AGENCIA magazine; a virtual publication of free diffusion that seeks to be a link between research and professional practice with the dissemination of these ideas, in such a way that it is accessible to people completely outside the environment and empowers them so that they become part of the decision-making of their living space. The reason for this interview is that we want to know your point of view on the link between economics and architecture. With your experience, and your indisputable trajectory, tell us a little about how this discovery has been for you as a professional and learn about the relationship between economics and architecture. How do they influence each other in your work? How is it that these are related, feedback, affect, and prioritize each other?
Oscar
Thank you very much Alfonso for me it is a pleasure to be here. About the question, we are still a bit of an artisan of architecture in which we still like to play and experiment with materials, we like to have people close to us, we like our client to be someone close, we like to investigate all issues that have to do with the domestic and the economy and its scale.
We are in a very interesting moment, at a time when the economy and architecture are closely related, and that architecture especially has a lot to do with small territories as well, this will have to serve to energize an economy of small resources, in a very local economy and above that will end up promoting and empowering these small territories. It will be supported by crafts that were hitherto forgotten. During the modern movement preached by the great masters, through technical knowledge, there was an unshakable faith in what was technological. For the first time since then, we are not fascinated by industry, materials, or technology.
To save this planet, to be able to save the life of the earth in which we live, we have turned our eyes again to those traditional materials such as stone, adobe, and wood. This is very important because in the end what we are doing is activating or recovering trades that had been left for one reason or another because it seemed that everything had to be technologically possible; the word technology is something so open that it also contemplates such materiality.
Right now in Spain, certain sensitivities are being produced towards the recovery of their materials, we have, for example, the region of Galicia (of which we can speak later more extensively about what is happening there) where we recently could observe a beautiful monograph from El Croquis of what is being done in Mayorga, where traditional materials are being recovered once again, quarries and trades are also being recovered and somehow they are bringing that new materiality not to build cold buildings and elements, but close architectures and I think it is also a very interesting moment in Mexico; I can see that buildings and control are being recovered over that materiality that does not have much to do with the industrialization power that there may be in North America, but that many of those projects have to do with that small artisan pleasure in which everything is cared for and pampered. I will say it again, I believe that Mexico is in a very interesting moment that reminds me a lot of Portugal of the 90s with an architecture of proximity. We are now in a period of crisis that is undeniable in every way, from the thinking to the economic question and we are taking refuge in things of the past, for example. What happened to the painters of the 30s? They took refuge in black art. What happened to 19th-century architecture? They took refuge in Neo Architectures. But the difference is that today we are taking refuge in history, we are taking refuge in the past and that has to do with embracing the local and domestic economy and traditional methods.
Alfonso
Thanks to modern architecture as a kind of “faith”, a hope that technology can solve all our problems, this idea of the "crisis" resonates with me as a breaking point where technology is being revalued as a generational empirical knowledge. This is in a professional way what led you to make decisions to value proximity in architecture? Was this process personal or is also part of your studio? Can you tell us about it?
Oscar
I had a key moment, and it was on a trip to Finland, in which I had the opportunity to meet several masters of architecture. Finland in those years had the same problems that Spain had in the 50s and 60s, it was an outdated country, but eager to be part of modernity; They discovered that they could not compete with those technologies that somehow the Germans and English had, but they were able to develop very good architecture with very simple, noble materials that had nothing to do with that industrial process. That is the way of doing architecture that we often have before our eyes and I discovered it on that trip, in addition to another hurtling crisis in 2008 that made us become crazy architects in every way, I would say that was a starting point in the use of materials that somehow were already here, but that we could recover until modernity, here in Spain, it always happens that there were no economic resources, then stone, wood, vault, ceramics, etc. were used. Those are the masters who taught us that you can make good architecture only and exclusively with what we have at hand. Architecture is not something that has to be empowered or revered by technology, there are times when it should be used of course, but we have to distinguish two types of architecture, business architecture, is one that continues to use those materials that we asked to be recycled in their thinking, as elements that we can reuse, but they can also contribute to the environment in a better way so that there are many architects here in Spain, in Mexico, and around the world who realize that those are not possible with new materials and they resort to materials like stone, adobe, soil, which are materials that have always been there. The one thing that the industry must think about is that it must be flexible again with what society is asking for and obviously, it is a sufficiently sustainable construction process, with the smallest footprint and environmental impact it may have.
Alfonso
This phenomenon can be read as a recursive process where, although we already knew that architecture responds to contexts, it is being expressed in a different sense, where the aspects of sustainability and creative accessibility are added, where the architect becomes this "facilitator" to make it operational to respond to a new inhabitable demand with the materiality and technology that was always there.
Oscar
Yes, but here we must stop and think about a very important thing, I have had the opportunity as curator of the Spanish Biennale of Arquitectura for 2 years, to travel to different continents and countries, and from what I have seen we can not think that this architecture is currently dominant.
Although I am still a minority, I had the opportunity to spend 2 years in Dubai, 2 years in Tokyo, Mexico City, Guadalajara, New York, and Boston; and the truth is that in many of these cities, the dominant thinking in 99% of the construction continues to rely on other materials and on another type of scale of economy that has to do with an Excel sheet, with the economic results, with other circumstances that are not precisely those of the architecture we are talking about, we still have to do a lot, many years of awareness and we can not fool ourselves. if suddenly they publish three to four projects of recycling, sustainability procedures, etc., because that is the minority architecture, and unfortunately, I do not know if there are the right conditions in the global economy to make that change. I am not very optimistic, after everything I have seen, cities in which air conditioners are used to keep the interior at 20-21°C while outside it is at 50°C, and the buildings with fully glazed facades. I don't know exactly where we are, I'm not very hopeful that we're going to be able to turn this around; The other day, talking to some friends I said that all species on this planet fight for their survival except ours, which only fights for their greed, so as long as economic thinking is always about greed, I am afraid that the road will be very complicated.
Alfonso
Do you think that, by permeating these concerns to society, the local economy can influence the demand for certain types of buildings? Speaking beyond the use of technology and materials, if not the use of or service it will give to the communities in which they are going to be built.
Oscar
I think that topic is very important and, since when does all this happen? There had to be a crisis in 2008 so that we could call for the implementation of the buildings. To what extent is this a guilt complex of this architecture, because suddenly there was a star system of architects, but have we taken this path out of conscience or guilt? Because frustration is one of the great factors in the economy that produces one of the largest pollution systems on the planet. This issue has been going on for just over 15 years, so we have to recover those architects who come to save the world through artisan architectures that are wonderful, but I do not know to what extent they are only and exclusively published in a magazine, between fashion and reality.
If they are well understood if they can boost the local economy in a better way, but we come to learn that we cannot teach something new out of what already exists. What I would do is invite people who live in large cities to take a walk-through of small towns, so that they become familiar with what they are now calling the "new language" that seems to have never existed, and realize that here the houses that collapse, they gather the stones and rebuild another, the tiles have always been reused, the wood too. Why do we need to invent houses that already exist? This architecture already has an impact on the local economy, we are not doing anything new, we are just doing what the old builders have already done.
The good thing about this issue is making us return to our traditions, trades, and more importantly, economy to towns, streets, and provinces. The good thing about this is that they keep the memory active and that it moves away from the patterns that align us so to have all the buildings look the same everywhere, this is energizing in every way.
Alfonso
I am very struck by this idea of the consolidation of a community’s identity from the connection of architecture with its own economy and the technological and material responses they have at hand, similar to what Jean Nouvel mentions in his Louisiana Manifesto, but, at this time in small communities, where important interventions are made that seek to improve the local economy but something happens that is counterproductive, "gentrification" when the speculative value of housing or properties increases near an urban intervention that in principle is well-intentioned, the social dynamic is broken. How can we balance this with our actions? How has it been from your experience?
Oscar
I believe that none of the awarded or selected projects have produced that balance in the market at the time it is implemented, and I will tell you why I believe it because, in the end, they are unfortunately small and medium-scale architectures. The most awarded architectures are very specific works of small scale, they are works of a unique reference. This has led me to reflect that in the end, most architects are being expelled from large-scale architecture and that is a problem because we no longer have that sensibility and we are also being expelled from the city, we don’t matter anymore. The ones that are sought are the big firms, the big engineering companies, which in some ways are more profitable. In my experience, I have realized that architecture is a more heroic process in its construction, with its clients, in everything. But it is fragmented, on the one hand, we still have two scales completely of what has to do with architecture and construction, which is the other section, architecture is still thinking about processes and comes to claim sustainable processes and the discipline. When I refer to that, is because is still space, proportion, and light, that somehow generate positive values in the local economy, because it is not only about construction but about taking advantage of the most unique and pleasant spaces so that the community can develop there.
There is another type of architecture that is dominant, on which we should begin to reflect, is that of large corporations that produce architectures that have nothing to do with the local community or with the reality of day-to-day and are only thinking about a global economy and destroy small businesses and the social life of the community. Other smaller artisanal studios are the ones thinking about the small towns and the social circle of the villages, so we have to involve society and ask what it needs. Is that so difficult?
Alfonso
This point is important for us as professionals, for academic training to capture the need to link with the communities in which we live. Is there anything you could recommend to an architecture student on how to act so that our work truly makes a positive and sustainable impact in decentralized localities?
Oscar
I always tell my students; -First, before being architects we are people- and I mean this because we are a social service, we are in charge of creating the theater of life, that is what architecture is, there is always a wall, a roof, some buildings, there is history, and the first thing we have to do for the love of the profession is, Never forget the social duty, and that we are at the service of a society.
This means that we have to think about the people who inhabit it and not so much in the business, but that the building we make is not just construction but a place to develop community life, but also without forgetting the individual and not forgetting that they are buildings that are in a city and that can not live marginal to the city, That the experience of architecture has led us to build buildings that have known how to participate in the city and that have had spaces where people were able to develop another type of activities. Buildings are part of life so that all people can do the necessary things in it and adapt the building to what they need. We shouldn’t think that all architecture has to do with the architect’s criteria but also with the community and accept that this new building belongs to them.
Alfonso
Totally agree with all this and I can only thank you, Oscar, for sharing these ideas and discussing this way forward since it is important to share it and motivate other colleagues, Thank you very much.
Oscar
Thanks to you and a huge hug to all the Mexican friends and all the colleagues who are there, because I really believe that they are doing an excellent job, every time when I come back from there, I am seriously amazed at the ability they have to do real wonders, it seems to me that Mexico is a fascinating country and that I believe that you are in the right direction.
Alfonso
A big hug as well and Mexico will always have open arms for you.
Oscar
Thanks a lot.
About the author:
OSCAR M. ARES ALVAREZ Architect / Critic / Teacher / Curator of the XV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism
Born in Valladolid in 1972. He obtained his degree in 1998 at the School of Architecture of Valladolid. In 2010 he obtained his PhD. from the University of Valladolid – with the thesis "GATEPAC 1928-1939" – being his tutor D. Juan Antonio Cortés. Since 2013 he is a studio professor at the ETS of Architecture of Valladolid. He has collaborated, as a guest professor, at ETSA La Salle (Ramón Lluch University, Barcelona), at San Pablo CEU University (Valladolid), and at the School of Design of Al Ghurari University (Dubai, UAE).
He has given lectures and lectures at MIT Massachusetts (Boston), Tokyo, New York, Dubai, Helsinki, Mexico City, Porto, Pamplona, Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville. He is the author of the book: "Alternative Modernity. Transits of form in Spanish architecture (1930-1936)" University of Valladolid (2016). His texts and projects of architectural criticism have been published by the magazine Arquitectura Viva as well as by the departments of composition and projects of the ETSA Madrid, UPC of Barcelona -with whom he has collaborated assiduously as editor in the publication DC Papers-, ETSA of Seville and ETSA Cartagena.
Between 1997 and 1998 he collaborated in the ODI+P studio. From November 1998 to February 2012, he worked professionally, as a founding partner, of the studio Ares, Arias, Garrido Arquitectos S.L.P. Since March 2012 he has been working with the architect Bárbara Arranz, under the brand Contextos de Arquitectura y Urbanismo. As an architect he has won several competitions including the XIV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism 2018; work exhibited in the Spanish Pavilion of the XII Biennale di Venezia (May 2021); selected and exhibited at the XI Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism Paraguay (October 2019) and XII Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism Mexico City (September 2022); selected in the FAD Awards 2018 and 2022; finalist in the Spanish Architecture Awards 2017; selected Enor awards (2020), He was awarded the American Architecture Prize (New York, 2017, Bilbao 2019); Awarded with the International Architecture Awards 2018 granted by The Chicago Athenaeum/European (Athens, 2018 ); Awarded with The Plan Award, (Venice 2018, Milan 2019); as well as more than a dozen awards and mentions in the Architecture Awards of Castilla y León (2009, 2011, 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022 ), awarded in the Sustainable Construction Awards of Castilla y León (2017, 2018 and 2022). His works have been published in numerous national and international magazines, including Arquitectura Viva, Tectónica, Domus, Metalocus, Hic Arquitectura or Baumeister, and On Diseño and he has exhibited in Madrid, Seville, Venice, Milan, Mexico City, Paris or New York.
He is the director, together with Anna and Eugeni Bach, of the XV Spanish Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism, "España Vacía / España Llena; conciliation strategies", forming part of the different juries of the awarded categories.