Fredy Massad
THE CABARET OF
HYPOCRITES
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Enlarged version of an article published in ABC newspaper, Madrid, 08.08 .2012 - Nº 1057
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The fact that the
Biennale d’Archittetura di Venezia is a mere vanity fair, some sort of must for
any architect who is proud of their intellectual ambitions and wants to share
and display them around an aura of sophisticated snobbism, is not the
issue. The Biennale could well be an
event that, once finished, would sink into total oblivion because of its
irrelevance. In such a case, and either praised or criticized, the absurdity of
the Biennale would then be something harmless. However, when the President of
the Biennale di Venezia is introducing the junk shop of vacuity, imposture and
banality this edition is saying that its motivation is “to help architects emerge from the crisis of identity they are going
through”, and then grounds this intention on the idea that their prevailing
calamitous image as “celebrity pastry
chefs who are being asked to create stunning wedding cakes” is a
consequence of their sacrificially bowing to the foolish whims of a society
that has asked/forced them to design “astonishing
objects that would be akin to a scream in the midst of mediocrity”, we are
then facing the proof that absurdity can turn into a despicable manipulative hypocrisy.
And that is exactly the issue.
David Chipperfield pompously gives the title of ‘Common Ground’ to a
hodgepodge of ‘anything-goes’, while insisting on a call to “react against the prevalent professional and
cultural tendencies of our time that place such emphasis on individual and
isolated actions.” A statement that sounds somehow hilarious, not just
because of the pretence to believe in the utter innocence of the architect, but
also because Chipperfield claims it is time to leave the star-system behind
while exhibiting the work of Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Rem
Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, Herzog & de Meuron… In addition to the
fact that such paradoxical selection persists in highlighting, instead of
silencing, those names which now very little (or rather, nothing) have to say, it
also overshadows the more consistent and meaningful proposals among the 69
participants. Among these, the reflections
about the daily dimension of architecture introduced by Sergison Bates and Caruso St.John can be
highly remarked. Unfortunately, they are not the only cases of presence and
purposeful content that become lost in the midst of the curatorial incontinence
of Chipperfield.
It might seem that
the cynical position displayed by Chipperfield stems from a peremptory need to
please too many parties, too many interests, right in the moment where it
should have been necessary to take a risk: develop a convincing proposal of
rupture, a clear statement of difference which would blow up the prevailing ambiguous
hollowness. Instead, he has chosen to produce an exhibition that clearly
mirrors such hollowness.
It would be indeed
delusional to believe that such a claim could be stated from a platform like
the Biennale; however, the utterly unforgivable aspect of this edition is the
trespassing the ethical boundaries. Issues such as poverty, social problems
derived from recession…are shamelessly used in order to perform an imposture of
integrity. And although accurate, not even the angry statement of Wolf Prix
against the Biennale’s banality released on Aug.28th sounds entirely credible.
Probably, one of the most interesting lessons on current
architecture ideology included in ‘Common Ground’ is the exhibition curated by Luís Fernández-Galiano, ‘Spain mon Amour’. Fernández-Galiano
displays in it a selection of the works of Francisco Mangado, Mansilla
+Tuñón, Fuensanta Nieto and Enrique
Sobejano, Paredes Pedrosa Arquitectos and RCR Arquitectes by means
of a demeaning presentation which, faking a serious concern about the
difficulties of the young Spanish architects face at the moment to achieve a
professional fulfillment, does actually make visible the despise that this
generation of architects over 50 exudes towards the younger ones. Students and
young architects, dressed in white and wearing a Venetian mask, act as human
pedestal holding models of buildings built by that generation which recently
was using them as exploitable manpower and now wants to expel them (while patronizingly
swearing they feel so deeply sorry for them).
Even more shameful yet expressive is the fact that these little models
they are holding belong to fifteen buildings that remind of those ‘good old
days’ now gone but whose privileges and alleged glory is so hard for so many to
let go for good.
Fifty-five national pavilions complete the Biennale,
featuring disparate exhibitions whose topics range from opulence and parvenu-ism to some alleged social
awareness. In most cases, and despite their attempts at being innovative and
technological and regardless how many QR codes they try to use, the national
pavilions have been conceived around an outdated exhibition model that leads
the visitor to wonder which is the need to attend physically and event that
could well be managed through the digital networks.
Among the proposals featured in the national
pavilions, Spain’s proposal is perhaps one of the most attuned with the chipperfieldean
cabaret: a perfect synthesis of the prevailing confusion among the powers
managing architecture in the country. Their curators, Antón
García Abril and Débora Mesa, leave us wondering if their project (which
includes the non-stop playing of the song by Spanish singer Joan Manuel Serrat,
‘Cada loco con su tema’ - ‘Each to his own theme’-, as
remarking the inexistence of any coherence among the exhibited stuff) is a
prank or is using an irony so subtle that minds lacking any fine sense of it
cannot grasp the radical criticism the exhibition is intended to be.
The title ‘SPAINLab’
misleads us to expect some kind of exploration of the relationship between
architecture and technological research when, in fact, it is resembles more a
kind of horror show. The concept retrieves the superficial use of the term
‘laboratory’, which in the 90’s used to be applied to the sort of pseudo-scientific research in architecture.
The retrieval of this totally obsolete concept, expecting it to be bestowed
with connotations of ‘advanced’ architecture, betrays itself immediately as an
excuse to undercover the loss in current Spanish architecture.
The exhibition’s
highlight is the project for ElBulli Foundation by Cloud
9, corroborating that the tendence
towards ugliness and a misused rethoric on innovation are the
philosopher’s stone of this architect more obsessed with his media profile than
the material consistency of his alleged advanced visions. It is not presented
with sufficient clarity whether Vicente Guallart is included in this exhibition
on behalf of his own architectural practice or as chief-architect of the City
Council of Barcelona, it is unclear whether he is mixing or mistaking public
with private. The connection with the idea of laboratory is also hard to find
in the other projects that the exhibition includes. These works by Menis,
selgascano, Ecosistema Urbano, RCR Arquitectes and Sancho Madridejos appear
more as sterile divertissements than as serious, purposeful and much-needed
analyses of the present circumstances in Spain.
Under these circumstances it would have seemed mandatory to generate a
self-critical, cathartic proposal instead of the vaudeville conceived by García
Abril and Mesa.
The Golden Lion award to Torre Horizonte
(renamed Torre David by the jury formed by Wiel Arets, Kristin Feireiss, Robert
A.M.Stern, Benedetta Tagliabue and Alan Yentob) as the best project included in
‘Common Ground’ has come as the ultimate proof of the ideology of opportunism
and cynicism underlying in this Biennale.
Awarding the obscene sacralization
that this vertical favela is has
verified how dangerous is the ignorant obsession that has led the ‘first world’
to sublimate other realities. If the project by Urban Think-Tank (Alfredo
Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner) and Justin McGuirk exudes hypocritical
irresponsibility, its recognition does nothing but insisting in the celebration
of a treacherously fake model of ethics and responsibility that is doing
nothing but a narcissistic propaganda by means of an intellectual and
economical exploitation of the hardest conditions of poverty, something which
was already the foundation of the work of Alejandro Aravena and ELEMENTAL
Chile. A quick google-search is enough to check the opinions on general
discomfort, coming from different perspectives,
about the usage and deliberately misguided interpretation that Brillembourg,
Klumpner and McGuirk make of the occupation of a urban building, overlooking
the hard and complex social issues involved in it.
The presentation of
the project of Urban Think Tank within the framework of ‘Common Ground’ appears
as odious as this shallow interpretation. They have opened a sort of
fashionable arepería, decorated with
photographs and video footage of the Tower, where visitors (as tourists) can “have fun, eat and, in general, have a taste
of South America.” An idea which confirms that Urban Think Tank are acting
as a great scam devised as gloating for the stupid do-gooderism of the first-world that now drowns in the consequences
of its own neoliberal rubbish.
Under its masking as
redemption, the Biennale has betrayed even more clearly the current condition
of a system of powers, castes and cronyism that has led current architecture to
a state of collapse. A state based on impostures, deceitful statements such as
Chipperfield’s. Deny the void filling it up with yet even more void.
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image 1: "Spain, Mon Amour" Luis Fernández Galliano in "Common Ground" (Via Biennale)
Image 2 : Urban Think Tank, Torre de David Project (awarded Golden Lion 2012)
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image 1: "Spain, Mon Amour" Luis Fernández Galliano in "Common Ground" (Via Biennale)
Image 2 : Urban Think Tank, Torre de David Project (awarded Golden Lion 2012)
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Architect Fredy Massad
founded ¿btbW/Architecture in 1996 together with art historian Alicia Guerrero
Yeste devoting their joint work to the analysis of contemporary architecture.
He combine their regular contributions to the culture supplement of Spanish newspapers ABC and La Vanguardia with articles featured in international magazines, particularly in Europe and South America (Conditions, ORIS, summa+, AU, Vitruvius, arqa, Clarín, Bsau).
Between 2009 and 2012 they coordinated the architecture section for the Spanish contemporary art magazine EXIT-Express.
From October 2012 Fredy Massad will be editing the architecture blog within the culture section of Spanish newspaper ABC.
He has authored and edited different books and actively lecture in seminars and universities, developing an approach that aims at emphasizing the political and ideological dimension of architecture to actively intervene in the revision and transformation of the paradigms of present society.
He combine their regular contributions to the culture supplement of Spanish newspapers ABC and La Vanguardia with articles featured in international magazines, particularly in Europe and South America (Conditions, ORIS, summa+, AU, Vitruvius, arqa, Clarín, Bsau).
Between 2009 and 2012 they coordinated the architecture section for the Spanish contemporary art magazine EXIT-Express.
From October 2012 Fredy Massad will be editing the architecture blog within the culture section of Spanish newspaper ABC.
He has authored and edited different books and actively lecture in seminars and universities, developing an approach that aims at emphasizing the political and ideological dimension of architecture to actively intervene in the revision and transformation of the paradigms of present society.
