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Thank you, Isay.
We'll now proceed with a talk,
I'll invite Alejandro Aravena to join us.
I also want to invite to our chat the businessman Otávio Zarvos.
Otávio, please.
Architect Fernando de Mello Franco
and ambassador and critic André Corrêa do Lago.
Now to the presentations that were missing.
A business school graduate,
Otávio Zarvos is Director of idea!Zarvos,
a real estate development company based in São Paulo,
by the quality of its architectural projects
and its interest in urban issues.
Otávio Zarvos has received two times,
along with Isay Weinfeld,
the MIPIM AR Future Project Awards,
from the English magazine Architecture Review,
for the buildings 360º and Oca.
idea!Zarvos has also received the Best Brazilian Architecture Award
from Arquitetura & Construção magazine and APCA.
Fernando de Mello Franco was a visiting professor
at Harvard University in 2009.
He is a member of the curatorial team
of the 5th International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (2012),
curator for Instituto Urbem
and a partner at the São Paulo-based MMBB practice.
Diplomat, economist, and architecture critic,
André Correa do Lago is the director of
Department of Environment
and Special Themes of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
member of the Architecture and Design Committee at MoMA, New York;
of the Oscar Niemeyer Foundation;
and of Arq.Futuro.
I wish you a great talk,
and would like to remind everyone that questions from the audience
should be given to the receptionists.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'd like to say a quick thank you to Marisa, Tomas,
everyone at Arq.Futuro for this invitation.
You can see the size of our challenge
from what we just saw, two diametrically opposed presentations,
with diametrically opposed themes, in a way,
and it might not be interesting to compare them,
but rather try and understand
the role of architecture through them.
I fundamentally believe that
architecture doesn't really solve problems,
and doesn't make beautiful things,
but it is a very specific world view,
and as such it proposes different worlds.
I think this was seen in both presentations.
Behind them are world views
that show certain comprehensions
which are worthy of discussing
and which unfold very distinct poetics.
But deep down I think the main question here is
what the very name Arq.Futuro says.
We discussed a lot, yesterday,
the fact that São Paulo is at a crossroad,
but I believe that architecture is at a crossroad.
And architecture is at this crossroad because the world is changing.
For better or worse, the world is changing,
and there are delicate transformations.
Since architecture is an instrument to build world views,
and to operate and transform this world,
the important question is: in the face of such transformations,
where are we going with architecture?
Yesterday we discussed that a lot,
talking about cities in developed countries,
which is by itself a curious polarity.
We're seeing a shift in power in the world.
We're seeing, especially in those so-called developing countries,
a very particular phenomenon,
which is also very new for those generations born after the 1980s:
a social class that used to be segregated
is now entering the world of consumption.
We're seeing incredible climate changes;
we're seeing transformations in the way people communicate,
and so on.
And in the face of this,
I would like to start our debate by asking both Isay and Aravena:
how do you think architecture
can build these new questions,
something which was also debated here yesterday,
the fact that we need new questions in order to get new answers,
because we are in fact seeing a world in motion.
But in what specific way can architecture relate to those changes?
Because, if they exist, maybe the old instruments which molded us,
the old canons, especially in Brazilian universities,
which don't differ much...
In what way can we think about
taking architecture to a new level?
I've talked too much. You start.
I was educated, I think...
I started studying architecture in 1985,
still in the Pinochet era, until 1991.
I think I was educated in a system
that started with a crossroad in the 1960s and 70s.
I would describe it like this.
There were architects who asked society
for creative freedom and space;
society gave it and they developed a set of rules
with which to make architecture,
and by which architecture is evaluated,
which is specific to architecture.
A set of rules specific to architecture,
in which to apply architecture's specific knowledge.
This was one path.
In this path I think it soon started to be perceived
that the risk to that asking society for
that freedom was irrelevance:
to only make projects with themes and problems
that are only interesting to other architects.
It was an endogamic system.
Another path came from those who said:
we're interested in the world's problems,
the hard problems, poverty, development...
The 60s and 70s were that time.
And with these non-specific problems,
these common problems,
they paid the price not of irrelevance,
like the others, because the themes were relevant
but they abandoned design, project, form...
I think the challenge today
is to try to start from outside architecture,
with non-specific problems,
problems that interest everyone,
and about which everyone can have an opinion, as citizen:
poverty, segregation, violence, quality of life, expectations...
'I'd like this kind of city'.
There's no need to be technical, or even very smart,
everyone can have an opinion
because it's very common, simple and shared.
Coming from outside of architecture
you still have to put these non-specific problems
through the specific knowledge of architecture,
the strategic use of form.
Better yet, I would say that if there's any power in architecture
it's synthesis, as I've said.
To put the non-specificity of complex problems
that interest everyone through the architectural synthesis,
the strategic use of form, and give it back to society
so that people can evaluate what they like,
what they don't like, what worked, what didn't work,
what took it to the next level and what didn't...
Also not with specific languages.
I think that's our challenge,
and I don't think we're trained to face
this crossroad that started in the 60s and 70s,
to put the two paths together.
I totally agree and don't have much to add.
I think Alejandro has said
most of the things I would say,
but despite our diametrically opposed presentation,
I don't feel diametrically opposed to Alejandro's thinking.
Aside maybe from the hairdo, we are very much alike.
I just want to stress a point
that is sometimes considered superfluous by most people.
As you saw in the presentation,
these things that led me to whatever project,
to come out of architecture's funnel,
are things that have deeply touched me during my life.
They are works by artists that have moved and touched me.
I just think we shouldn't lose this poetry
that architecture should have.
I still do this, though less often,
but I still go into spaces that make me cry.
I think we can't lose this poetry
that our work, in my opinion, has to take to people.
It has to touch people.
It was a small complement to what Alejandro said,
which I think matches precisely what I think.
I think what we saw were two presentations
amazingly connected to the contemporary world.
What you two presented, deep down,
is that, first, you let yourself be influenced
by things that are usually not taken into consideration.
So, for instance, in yours, which was first,
I was very impressed by how much emphasis you gave
gave to debating with the communities.
That's extraordinarily important.
I keep imagining Le Corbusier discussing like that
with the workers when designing Cité Radieuse,
a moment which would have been moving
and which no one thought about.
So, this dimension of the contemporary action,
and you Isay, showed a lot of the contemporary education,
in that today people are infinitely more influenced
by things other than academia.
Now, there are two elements I'd like to throw into the debate.
In Brazil, Alejandro,
good architecture has been promoted by the State.
The history of Brazilian architecture
is in he Ministry of Education building...
I'm talking about modern architecture:
the Ministry of Education, Brasília...
There's an extraordinary State presence.
But the State has had to back away from architecture,
in a way, because of legislations.
We can argue about it,
but the idea is that the State should build what's cheaper.
In the meantime, the private market
used to occupy itself with houses and a smaller scale of projects.
And I think your presence here is connected to something
which links the two presentation:
the new role of the private companies,
substituting the State in providing quality.
So I want to throw you into this discussion,
having in mind what they both said.
Thank you, and thank you to everyone from Arq.Futuro,
Marisa, the team, thanks for inviting me.
I don't know if we're substituting each other, actually.
What I think is that in my 15 years as a developer,
and I'm not an architect,
I realize that everyone needs to take on a bit more responsibility.
I would obviously start with the developer,
who has a lot of tools
and should be the first to take on the responsibility
of building something better.
But I also think that architects need to
not only take responsibility,
but also be better prepared to work in this new world,
which needs to turn a profit in the end,
needs to have constructions with no problems,
because when the State builds,
we know there's no limit in quality or in cost.
And I think the architect
has to own the market a little more, first,
he has to take on more responsibility than what he's taking on today.
The role of the architect in the real estate market
is very fragmented.
He's left with such a small part
that he's put not second, but fifth or sixth.
The architecture today has to be prepared to understand costs,
how to build, what materials are most problematic, legislation...
And not only care about the building itself,
but how it's being used, the interior layout,
what people expect, not only what they want,
but what they can have, which is a big difference.
So I would divide these responsibilities
into four main points.
The developer, obviously,
and I think it's needless to say
in São Paulo he's a troglodyte.
I would say the architect has to take on more responsibility
and own this business.
Another one is the government,
which not only discourages the better quality in architecture,
because it takes too long
and it's too complicated to get anything approved,
but it also should approve projects not on a single lot basis
it should think in terms of blocks or even neighborhoods.
And it's also necessary to create a place
where we can discuss architecture.
That doesn't exist today in the real estate market,
and unfortunately we have deadlines to design and build projects,
we can't spend decades discussing in a municipal committee
something you think would be better for the community
but isn't being done.
There's no such place today,
and I think the municipal government has to change its attitude.
Finally, I think people should also stop buying certain things.
I think we, unfortunately, came from a time
when not everyone could buy property,
Brazil not so long ago had massive inflation,
massive interests, no one could by an apartment.
Suddenly that all changed and there was a huge boom,
with everyone thinking it's their last chance to buy real estate.
I think people should be responsible to not buy
what they think isn't good for the city.
I won't dwell on that.
Finally, I want to talk about what I think closes this circle,
which is what we're doing now,
the role of the media, press
and institutions to be critical about what we do.
Architecture is very complicated,
I've been learning but haven't yet learned what it is.
But it's a very complicated business for those
who aren't architects to understand what's great and what's mediocre.
The architects can't properly explain it,
and when they do we sometimes get sleepy,
because it takes too long.
So I think that's the critic's job, and that's what we're doing here,
and it's sometimes a story in the paper,
speaking to everyone, not people here today obviously,
'cause I believe most people here are architects,
which is both good and bad.
Let the people decide what's good and what's bad.
But we have to start the discussion.
There was a debate in São Paulo about the neoclassical buildings,
and it was fruitful in that they started being viewed as ridiculous.
But that was because...
The architects can't gather, make a petition
and try to stuff it into people's heads.
People will listen to the media,
and it's through the media
that architects have to spread their message.
So, I don't know if I properly answered your question,
but I tried to spread out the problem a little
and not focus only on the developer,
who I think, indeed, has the biggest responsibilit.
I want to take the chance to ask a question from the audience,
which is about just that.
What made you go looking for good architecture?
Well, first of all, I didn't exactly look for it,
it wasn't a market corner or a marketing strategy.
I didn't study architecture.
I'd love to be an architect,
but maybe if I was I wouldn't be here talking to everyone,
because I wouldn't be as talented as Isay or Alejandro,
I might be a mediocre architect.
But as a resource organizer I think I've outdone myself,
and architecture is to me a matter of idealism.
I'm passionate about architecture
and the more I got to know it and study it,
especially being in contact with the architects
who've done projects for us during the last years,
the more I started to think about it.
So I didn't choose architecture, architecture chose me.
I really love it, but my company is almost an accident,
it's not something that can repeat itself.
It's... My company isn't a model to follow exactly,
because I'm passionate about what I do,
and I wouldn't make a building any other way.
If we ever come to the conclusion
that I can't sell buildings with good architecture anymore,
I'll stop building.
I won't construct a mediocre building just because it'll sell.
So I think maybe mine isn't a model to follow,
because it's moved by idealist, passion,
and it has to turn a profit, which we've been able to do.
But it's really about making the architect
come closer to this new world that opened up to him here in Brazil,
which is growing.
We're facing decades of new constructions in Brazil,
and I think the Brazilian architect has to be prepared for it,
and take charge of the market a little more,
like in the 50s and 60s.
We see great buildings,
and a lot of them were made by the architects themselves,
as developers.
André, I find your question very interesting
because it brings the market into the debate.
And in fact we can only operate within the market,
from the market, and to the market, there's no doubt.
And we're in a very different market condition than, for instance,
the glorious 50s and 60s,
when the State was the promoter of architecture.
But I wonder what are the markets, plural,
for architecture and architects today.
Without a doubt the real estate market,
which especially in São Paulo
is undergoing a very significant transformation process,
pointing to very promising paths.
And recapturing, actually,
because I think market architecture did very well in the 50s and 60s.
Higienópolis, for instance,
is a neighborhood with fantastic market expressions.
There's nothing public there, and a lot of it is very good.
So good architecture here wasn't only 'public' architecture,
quite the contrary.
But we're undergoing transformations,
and this whole matter of the compact city,
which we discussed yesterday,
as an alternative to dealing with environmental changes,
architecture, the city as an instrumentnot of resolving,
but facing our problems.
It also brings another outcome,
something from another side, the rest of the territory.
And I feel that Aravena shows,
for instance with the work in Antofagasta and the copper mines,
that there is in fact another kind of work,
from the ones that make thinks, the ones that produce wealth.
And these markets, these production processes, need cities.
The other day I saw a very interesting exhibit in Vitória (ES),
by Vale do Rio Doce, entitled "Behind Every Port is a City".
We're at a very interesting moment of huge investments
in infrastructure in the whole country,
hydroelectric plants, railways, highways, new ports,
and behind each of these ports is a city,
or there has to be a city.
So it's very interesting to see that,
while there are knowledgeable developers sponsoring, in a way,
quality architecture, there are also big companies,
huge conglomerates, or not so big, it doesn't matter,
like the forest and wood company in Chile,
who, in order to support its own production,
are investing somehow in transforming the territory
and offering good urban conditions for those
who are somehow involved in the production process.
And I think this market, if not new,
is one that's just now opening up to the participation
of architects and urban planners.
And I think it's one of the main markets for us to watch.
What's interesting about Alejandro's social housing presentation
is that is shows a fascinating economic account,
which is also a way of approaching the low income market.
So, deep down, everything here is about what makes sense economically.
But I like your point very much, about responsibilities.
Of how much, for instance, you fell that
the education of young Brazilian architects
is not preparing them for it.
Or do you think it's something you can't talk to them about?
You were saying you needed some translation.
No, I can talk, no doubt,
and we set up a company to actually support these architects
with what they don't bring from school,
what we're seeing today.
I think yes, their education could be different,
and I think it has to be more thorough
if they're actually going to be a part of this market.
And I think they have to be,
because it's our only salvation for this city.
I partly agree with you,
but I think the architect has to look
to the real estate market first of all.
It'll be the biggest player in all this.
And even if you build housing
around these great infrastructure site,
they'll probably be built by a developer.
So I think, yes, the architect has to be better prepared,
particularly to handle technical matters in legislation and finances.
I think Alejandro, from what I saw of his presentation,
was a little more than an architect,
he was almost a developer,
and that's the role that our architects here lack.
I think the architect has to take charge,
and that means taking on more responsibilities and more risks.
I feel that the architecture
sponsored by the State in the 50s and 60s
might have spoiled the architects,
because with the State you can do anything,
and when the real estate market came back into action,
these architects were a little lost.
I think they lack that today.
In the long term what needs to be done, obviously,
is invest in colleges,
but in the short term
it's about preparing yourself and your office better.
There are professionals who can help
make your office more competitive in this market,
and this can be done now,
we don't need to wait 15 years for it to happen.
Taking the last thing you said,
yes, it's possible to have better education,
more thorough, for these things.
But the other thing is, if you don't,
partner with someone who does.
I think it's the shortest way.
It's what I did.
In 2000 I had no idea what a subsidy was.
And I had, how do you say...
When you feel ashamed for others...
I felt ashamed for myself.
It wasn't right that I,
having visited Harvard as a professor,
had no idea what a subsidy was,
in a country where 60% of all construction
involves some kind of subsidy.
So you can study everything again, for a few more years,
or find someone who knows more than you.
Which is what I did with my partner in the beginning,
Andrés Iacobelli, a brilliant engineer from Harvard who knew how to brief,
how to ask the right question,
because the worst thing is for the question the be wrong.
So he knew how to ask questions,
and I knew how to make a design that translated those questions,
synthesized the complexity,
and organized information into key propositions.
Enough diagnosis,
let's make a proposition and change it as we go.
That's one thing.
You said something very important.
Architects do have to improve and know more,
but the developers,
at least the ones in Chile, are very low standard.
The most mediocre of them all, I think, are the developers.
What you said I would call integrity.
When you say:
'If I can't make a building the way I like,
I'd rather not do it than do it with no quality',
that's called integrity.
And the difference is that a lot of people would say:
business is business.
I personally would like to do this,
but business is business.
This capacity of being two separate people,
one is me and the other is the businessman,
is a lack of integrity, being able to part into two separate people,
and it's one of the great dramas of contemporary society,
in any profession.
Anyone who can do to others something they don't want to do for themselves
has an integrity problem.
In the developer world that's very serious,
and there's not only the wrong question being asked,
but a goal, which is profit, and architecture is just a mean.
We architects, even with very mediocre education and talent,
at least search for quality in the buildings that surround us.
We may not have the means to get to that end,
but it's right.
Developers have a goal that I don't agree with,
but even so we need to understand the logic of personal gain,
in the broader sense of the word.
To put the problem as
'everything we'll lose if we don't do it well'
moves more energy than trying to organize it
in terms of what everyone stands to gain.
Some will gain financially, fair enough,
others will gain power,
others will gain quality of life, others will gain status.
If you can organize the question in terms
that everyone has something to gain,
you're able to move a lot more energy,
and it's the only way to address relevant problems.
Finally, I would say that,
about the markets you were talking about,
social housing is a market, another market...
I actually don't like that word at all,
I went to a school were the market was the devil,
and anyone who talked about it was a traitor.
To get into the world of social housing in Harvard
I had to swallow all these words
until I felt comfortable with this market world.
Now I'm going back, enough of the market for a second.
I don't think it has any intellectual merit...
In the end, it's poor as a problem,
not challenging enough as an obstacle, I think.
Even so, I think productive industries have a double challenge,
the one about the magnet and the bomb.
So they need to create conditions to attract knowledge.
The difference in competitiveness for future economies
will be determined by their ability to create knowledge,
more than by the prices of goods and services.
That's not my own idea,
I've heard it from one of the most brilliant people I've ever met,
Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India,
the economist Rakesh Mohan.
He said that what would distinguish the countries' future competitiveness
would be their cities' ability to attract knowledge producers,
which in a global economy depends on three conditions:
one, that they earn the same anywhere in the world.
Two, that they choose where to live
based on the quality of life that cities can or can't provide.
The challenge for a first world country is to create conditions
to attract these professionals.
The challenge for our cities is not losing those knowledge makers.
Third: that the creation of knowledge happens on face to face meetings.
Not over the internet, not through technology,
but through the old choice of meeting.
There's nothing better for a project than a personal meeting,
where looking into someone's eyes you can move the line of knowledge
even by a millimeter.
And the probability for more
of these meetings lies in urban centers.
The cities have an important role in generating these conditions.
If they can't provide good quality of life,
these knowledge creators won't come.
The drama for industries, even those with enormous wealth,
in Chile, like mining or forest,
is that money is a necessary condition, but it's not enough.
The wage is the same as in London,
but the most important people aren't willing to work at a place
that doesn't offer this quality of life.
So on one side there's this magnet condition.
On the other side, in order to operate,
industries need a social license.
Not only an environmental, legal, economical or financial license.
A social license.
Chile might have been a very extreme case during the past years,
but industries can't have this social license to operate
if they can't make this wealth reach everyone.
The capacity for a city to work as this shortcut
to equality, to correct differences, is key.
Cities are very powerful instruments that can work in this dual condition.
I think design and architecture also have a fundamental role,
and a new one, which is the synthesis.
Envisioning a city with enough realism,
but also with ambition.
Isay, would you like to comment?
You're very speechless today, we've heard very little of you.
But I don't really speak that much,
unless I have something interesting to say.
Otherwise I'm quiet.
Overall, I think the architect has to complete himself,
what Otávio was saying,
enter the market, if that's his intent.
And this integrity which Alejandro was talking about,
this challenge, is very personal,
everyone has a project that is challenging and one that isn't.
And to enter into a market like the real estate,
through the wrong door,
working for a developer that thinks the opposite of what you think,
might be a bold move to try to change that person's mind.
Because it's very easy to work with someone like Otávio,
who thinks the same way.
It might be strongest to enter this market only if you want to.
It's not really my case,
I never wanted to work for people
who didn't really believe they could be doing something better.
I never understood why developers only think about profit,
even different generations.
I went through generations of developers and their sons,
who took over the companies,
and I never understood why even they didn't want to go beyond profit,
to leave something of interest to their own children and the city.
So I never wanted to meddle,
and that's why for many years, almost my whole life,
I didn't work for the real estate market.
But I worry a lot about that,
just like other styles of buildings became a fashion in São Paulo,
developers will do the same
to modern architecture and make it a trend.
And their own architects, who are professionals like any others,
no less talented, can do it,
and will repeat this market trend to exhaustion,
simply because contemporary architecture will sell,
propelled by a generation of more informed people,
who pressure the market for better living products.
That has to do with one of the questions they sent for you.
If this responsibility of better architecture,
besides the aesthetics, the quality, this whole contribution...
If it has a different relationship to the street than, say,
bad architecture.
How could you combine this,
which is something along the lines of Isay's work.
I think that's an obligation, for sure.
In our case, for instance...
And this should really come as an obligation, initially.
In our case it came as a growth.
We started doing buildings with,
I don't know if this is the right word,
more signature architects.
We looked for them because we thought...
I think there are dozens of incredible architects,
and we started, seven or eight years ago,
to do projects with some of them.
Architects who weren't in the real estate market.
At that point our concern was aesthetic.
I personally didn't think much about the city.
I didn't study architecture, I'm a businessman, like I said.
I learned it.
I think today, after seven or eight years,
all the buildings we make have certain concerns,
but I'd say they're urban kindness.
We don't have the power to change anything,
because they're small buildings.
The buildings we make are very small for the city.
We don't go into the big operations.
I'm not in the developers union, for instance,
which is a very important union, but I don't even know where it is.
I've tried going there, and they didn't invite me in,
they didn't even let me be a part of the group.
There was a time when I wanted to be a part of it,
and was just left out.
Because the developer, I think...
If we wait for the developer to plan the city,
it will obviously turn into chaos.
That's why I talk about the architect's role...
I obviously don't mean that architects have to be developers.
I just think that because they have this multifunctional line of thought,
they should take responsibility for helping to save the city.
Not becoming developers, but being prepared or,
like Alejandro said,
asking people they trust and who know things they don't,
to work together in a proposition to change this city.
The developer's part...
In my case, for instance,
we went from an aesthetic concern to an urban concern,
but, beyond that, I don't know where I can go as a developer.
I can give my opinion,
like being here or being in a work group,
but what we do is too small,
and the municipal government today
is worried about approving projects on a lot-to-lot basis,
which is wrong.
They should approve thinking about blocks or neighborhoods,
or even the whole city.
I don't think we'll come to a solution by personally obliging the developer.
I think the government does have to organize
in order for that to be an obligation when building in the city.
Otávio, there's a question for you that I want to link to your answer.
It's from Pedro Faria.
'No doubt the buildings developed by Zarvos are beautiful.
But it surprises me that they only have one function.
What are the factors today
keeping you from building multifunctional buildings,
which may be responsible for the change in paradigm
that our city needs and would directly affect
the daily lives of citizens?'
That's a very interesting question,
and it has a lot to do with what I just said about growth.
There's a law in São Paulo for the approval of mixed buildings.
I came to know it about five years ago,
and practically all our buildings were approved in that law,
with shops on the ground floor.
People have to see that sometimes a building,
as incredible as it sounds,
and Isay is used to participating in work meetings with us,
from the moment we buy the land
takes a really long time, especially our buildings,
because they're completely different
from what is usually done in São Paulo.
It takes about five years for the building to be ready.
So now people will start to see lots of buildings we've been making,
practically all of them with this concept.
There are buildings that have
50-meter-square units with shops on the ground floor,
and buildings with 500-meter-square units,
also with shops on the ground floor.
There's a law for that.
And look how stupid the law is:
it makes, actually, no, it allows you
to choose whether or not to have a shop,
but it limits the size of the shop to 250 square meters,
even if your lot is 10 thousand square meters.
So you can see how the legislation in São Paulo works if don't know it,
which I believe is the majority of people here.
And this is something I know well
because it's part of my day-to-day.
It's absolutely stupid.
Yes, we are making practically all our buildings today
with shops on the ground floor,
but with limitations that don't need to exist.
It doesn't make any sense.
But I think new constructions throughout the city
should no doubt prioritize not only shops,
but other things too on the ground floor of buildings,
a space which is underused a lot of the times,
like museums, art galleries,
day care centers, centers for the elderly...
Lots of things which could be made on ground floors of buildings.
Ground floors are something which abounds in São Paulo,
but if you go to New York
there are million-dollar buildings which don't have a ground floor,
they don't have such an abundance of land like we have here.
It's lost space,
simply because the law says we can't use that space for anything.
So this law, again, needs to be reviewed.
And, once again,
I think architects do need to take that responsibility,
organize themselves and demand that kind of thing,
otherwise we won't move.
Developers won't move, unfortunately,
and I agree with Alejandro, the developer is like an elephant.
He seeks profit, for the most part,
but if you put a peanut in front of him,
he'll go where you want him to.
But if you try to push him forward he won't budge.
He's too heavy to be pushed.
So I think we need to act with intelligence.
And what I said about separating the city's problem
in four isn't about dividing it,
it's because I think if we throw all the responsibility on the developer,
nothing will budge, because he won't do anything.
So let's try to see where those other four,
the critics, the buyers,
the architects, and the government can help.
Changing the topic a bit, there's a question for Aravena.
Fernando Mota, from FAU-USP.
'Aravena, how do you see popular participation in architecture projects
in the scale of a city like São Paulo,
full of social leaderships,
and where specific projects affect not only a neighborhood,
but the whole city?'
I have no idea.
Let's lose the words 'São Paulo', that might be easier.
No doubt every project, be it a lot venture,
be it in a popular neighborhood,
obviously affects and reverberates beyond the object that's being built.
This comes with questions about
the design of the city's public spaces.
How can a project somehow,
and I think this relates to the previous question,
provoke transformations beyond its own building area?
There's the responsibility for the building's design,
but also for the design of the public space.
That's why when we started working with social housing
thinking only about the residence aspects,
it became evident that we soon would have to do something about
public space, infrastructure, transportation...
The city is a transversal concentration,
it's not divided in sectors,
and it has to be treated with coordination.
So we can do one part,
but what we're doing in large scale projects
is as designers, not urban planners;
we're not urban planners, politicians, economists or social workers.
But we have to understand the language that each of these people speak
and offer an instrument for synthesizing them.
What we're trying to do is not only do the best for the building,
but work in the public space.
To try, at the same time, to be in all four areas.
There's no theory.
It took us a few years after we started to reach the points
that I began by explaining.
We didn't start with them,
we got to them.
The same will happen, I hope, with the urban dimension.
I have no idea about the metropolitan scale,
because we never worked with it.
I'd have some insights,
but those are declarations of intent,
which I don't find interesting now.
It's better to talk about concrete facts.
About concrete facts,
there's an audience question about how you divide your time,
in these projects,
between the community, the government
and the architecture itself.
How much of your time do you dedicate
to each of these?
Again, I have no idea.
They were made in such speed that we couldn't...
The first time we stopped to think about
what we did after the earthquake and in Calama was now,
while preparing for the Venice Bienalle.
And still when I look at it
it's like it was done by someone other than me.
We're trying to understand what we did.
But I'd say it changes a lot according to the time.
Right in the beginning 80% of the time
should be about architecture, design, proposals.
We swallowed all the constraints and agendas of each stakeholder,
but the emphasis is in putting forth a proposal for discussion, fast.
I the case of this city we were talking about 20 days,
as in the case of Calama.
This idea of a consultant doing a thorough diagnosis
can't happen most of the time.
So, put forth a proposal quickly.
But once the proposal is made,
in the implementation of the project for the city of Constitución,
99% of the time is about management.
The idea has to be strong,
clear and simple at the beginning
in order to endure five, ten years of work.
The Calama project goes from now until 2025.
When you say the city has to be an oasis,
it's simple enough and complex enough to encompass all the scope,
but this capacity has to resist and make it to 2025.
Right now we're there, still designing a lot,
but in Constitución I would say it's mostly just politics,
meeting with the community,
making sure that public departments are doing
what they're supposed to...
So I think it changes a lot depending on the project.
Aravena, there's another question for you.
In Brazil there are some social initiatives
that intend to capacitate
people not directly connected to social housing,
so that later they can take part in building community houses
under professional guidance.
So after the end they're left with the legacy of a profession.
Does Elemental work with similar initiatives,
involving people directly in the building process
in order to teach them?
No. No, because it's not efficient.
You can't assume that, because someone is poor,
they can build.
There are capacities, competences, tools
that are much better left to those with knowhow.
I know how to do some things, as an architect.
Families are very good at establishing priorities,
not only because it's about their lives,
but because they live in scarcity,
their daily lives are about knowing what to do,
because doing something always means not doing something else.
This intelligence,
the common sense of daily life, is very useful in a project,
but it doesn't necessarily mean they'll build something.
In poor communities they don't have regular incomes,
so, when the money comes,
it's much more efficient that some people who know how to build,
who can be from the community or not, do it.
What we learned from experience
was that the size of the void was the same,
and that's important,
the size of what you don't do is very important
in the quality of the future construction
that will be individually financed, not individually built.
Some people in this community,
who were unemployed and from the construction business,
offered their services,
and we qualified this group of people
to come up with an efficient solution.
For 500 dollars they would build two extra rooms.
And that was sold to the families,
and it took about two or three weeks to build,
which is very little.
That is much more efficient than expecting
that everyone builds their own.
None of us comes to the end of a working day
wanting to build or own house.
People have to work a lot more than us
to get to the end of the day,
I can't imagine they'll still want to build their own house too.
I have another question here for both of you.
How do you perceive failure during the development of your works?
And how do you define failure in that process?
It was interesting, Alejandro,
that you presented very clearly the wrong solutions,
how many wrong solutions come up.
I actually thought that was very rare,
to see an architect show a solution
he thought of and recognize that it was wrong,
but I think that's why this question came up.
How do you define it,
and how do you see failure during the development stage?
Difficult, no?
Failure in the development of the architectural project?
The idea?
And the failure at the end, too, because I think failure...
I think this is a profession in which
I feel that experience and maturity count for a lot.
Maybe like working as a surgeon.
I think experience as a professional
really counts for the final solution.
That doesn't mean that you don't fail,
but you learn something that's very clear to me
and which I think is an architect's greatest talent,
which is to listen.
So that's essential in my day to day.
I can only start something if I listen,
listen, listen before, and also if I have something
I find essential to the profession,
which is respect for the person who asked you for that project.
So for me, personally,
the fact that a person found my office's number
and called me to ask for something is a reason to do things like that.
And that's how it goes throughout the whole process.
And like I said, that doesn't mean we don't...
I think there's a discontent every day with the work
until you reach the solution required by the client and wanted by you.
But I think professional maturity makes you...
It doesn't mean you will solve the problem satisfactorily,
but over the years, and in a city like this,
which someone said, and I find interesting,
which is a city that allows any kind of construction.
Someone said that to Todd and Billie,
that their kind of work wouldn't fit in São Paulo,
and I personally disagree.
I would say that for us, for me,
failure is very painful. It hurts a lot.
We can't separate failure in our professional lives
from a personal failure,
it's the same thing.
There are no weapons or armors to shield us from the pain of failure.
I think we're so afraid of that pain that we work very hard,
and we don't feel we have the right to fail.
It's not an arrogance of being infallible,
but, especially when you work with social housing,
we talk a lot about the importance of innovation,
and that to innovate you can't be afraid to fail.
You can't fail with a person's subsidy,
something that they'll only get once in their lives.
It's opposite to a culture
that talks about innovation as a permission to fail;
it's okay if you fail yourself,
but if you fail using someone else's resources,
which they'll never get again in their lives, it's very painful.
And I don't wish on anyone the kind of failures
we've had with Elemental's projects.
But the one thing is that we try to transform that pain into work,
so we don't make the mistake again.
Well, I'm being told we're almost reaching the end of our time.
We have very positive conclusions,
I think, about what you've presented,
but in a way we're left with an impression
of how hard it is to do the right thing.
It means fighting a certain culture, fighting legislation
fighting the market...
Would you like to say one last word to wrap it up,
so that we end with you saying the last word?
Obviously, related to São Paulo
and to this view of a country that is growing
and will have another kind of demand.
Isay, you're a Brazilian, you start.
I would Just like to say I think we all need to own our responsibilities,
not only architects and developers, but everyone.
And I think one of them is not to think of urban planning just for us.
I never answered your question, it was meant for Alejandro,
about large housing complexes, but I think that term alone,
"large housing complexes"
is discriminating against a series of people who'll live somewhere
that's nowhere near the houses of the people here.
We're all part of an elite.
And unfortunately I think today we have to think of São Paulo
not in terms of what we want anymore,
but what we can have, and I think we'll have to rethink the city
in which we live and maybe make space for these people to come live near us.
I don't think they're here, like Alejandro said,
they're working,
and at 8 o'clock at night they're not taking part in committees
meetings, and councils,
so we get to decide all of this,
not only the people here, but a small elite.
And we've decide wrong during the last decades.
The proof of that is our city.
It's no use blaming it on a developer or a politician.
It was decide by all of us in this elite,
and we have to rethink it.
That's the message I'd leave for us to really think about when we get home.
Really, I wouldn't give opinions as an architect, but as a citizen.
Yesterday we discussed, during the meeting,
and what no one said to the mayor candidates
was the problem of insecurity.
It was the big elephant in the room, which no one remembered.
I think the other problem, not only in São Paulo,
but Brazil as a whole, is corruption,
a huge wall that can affect so much
this country so rich in culture and personal qualities.
I would like to see something like what happened in Chile,
with social movements that
couldn't stand their rights not being guaranteed,
whether in education, energy, or quality of life;
in Spain, millions of people manifested against violence,
and I think it's important for Brazil
to have millions of people putting social pressure to end corruption.
Isay, do you want to?
I also wanted to say brief words of closure.
I would indeed sustain my idea
that both you and Aravena have very distinct poetics,
and I think that's actually good.
The value of it lies in your capacity to build poetic views of the world.
Now, there is in fact a common denominator,
and it is one that delights me:
whether it's Aravena's dialogue with economy,
politics, and ecology, from the point of view of its systems,
which are out of the architectural scope,
whether it's your dialogue with arts, music, dance,
there is a crucial point in that,
which is an architect's ability to get back to facing others,
to get back to the construction of exchanges,
dialogues that go beyond the restricted architectural universe.
There's no way of building a poetic vision
if we don't feed on this whole universe,
which enwraps us all wholly.
And I think that's something
for us all to think about as acting architects.
I would like to thank the guests for being here,
and to thank Urbem in particular,
an institute which supported us
us and helped immensely to structure
and think about what themes and discussions were relevant to the city.
So I would like to thank Philip Young and Fernando de Mello Franco,
who are part of Urbem, and the whole team,
who were instrumental to the creation
and the reflection about these debates during the last few days.
I would also like to remind everyone that these lectures
will soon be available at Arq.Futuro's website,
and that the next edition of Arq.Futuro
will happen in Belo Horizonte, in November,
focusing on the themes of recovering degraded areas
and preserving the architectural and historical heritage.
We believe the discussion of the last days was very positive
in order for us to think about what we can do
and how we can behave in order to have a better city today
and to really think about the future.
Thank you very much, everyone. See you soon.