lejandro Aravena Mori has been awarded several prizes throughout his professional life: the Venice Prize at the Architectural 'Biennale', Venice (1991), selected finalist at the Mies van der Rohe Prize (Barcelona 2000), the First Prize at the 12th Architectural Biennial in Santiago, a diploma for the Iberoamerican Architectural and Engineering Biennial, and was chosen amongst the '10 Design Vanguard Architects 2004' by Architectural Record…

What has impressed me the most about him; however, were his statements when interviewed by TodoArquitectura.com:
"I think that architecture is playing a dangerous game from the revolution of modern art on: it pretends to acquire a creative privilege, I mean, 'give me space to be a genius, to create my artwork'… and that search for the independence of the arts for the arts sake, which was developed inside the artistic system itself, had to pay its price, the price of irrelevance. I mean, it's OK, it's like in Faust: I set you free, I give you privileges… but the price you'll pay is to be irrelevant. So, to provide a substitute, to conceal this irrelevance, I think, architecture now is playing the strategy of impact. As nothing matters, I'll build a substitute: an edifice with maximum impact. Gehry impacts, Koolhas impacts... Once, Hashim Sarkis -who teaches at Harvard-, wrote to me: 'I refuse to think that the discipline's I'm involved in last goal is to produce a shock, an impact'. I guess that media influences architects in that search for impact. Then… sure, when you have to deal with a problem like those of social housing, where you are asked for precision and not for spectacularity; where you are asked for reductionism and not for a full display of high tech resources, there's where I say: 'lets be relevant'. I think… that's why social housing does not partake in what architects do for reaching the Pritzker Prize or the Croquis Magazine." (TA with Alejandro Aravena/2004)

We were asked to build a glass tower, to house everything that had to do with computers at the university. We found three problems in doing so: the computers, the glass and the tower

In fact, Aravena's care for social housing assumes a very influential roll in his professional life: he is the Director of the 'ELEMENTAL' project; a "think tank" associated with COPEC -the Oil Company of Chile, and the Catholic University of Chile (UC), that is building seven residential developments at very low cost throughout the Chilean territory. These projects have the objective of being exemplary, innovative… and relevant.

Aravena's architecture is outstanding for it's carefully composed 'elemental' volumes which respectfully relate to the surrounding context. His professional work includes the Faculty of Mathematics of the Catholic University of Chile (UC), the Huelquén Montessori School, the Faculty of Medicine, additions to the Faculty of Architecture, both at UC, the recently finished Technological Building -the Siamese Towers- at the UC Campus in Santiago, the Metropolitan Park of the Arts in Chile and some well known residential buildings such as the Sculptress House and Pirehueico House. He has just been selected to design the 30.000m2 new dormitories complex -which also includes dining areas and parking- at the St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas. Mr. Aravena shares his independent professional activities with those of teaching at the universities of Harvard and the UC.

"We were asked to build a glass tower, to house everything that had to do with computers at the university. We found three problems in doing so: the computers, the glass and the tower.

With respect to the computers, the university asked us to question the kind of architecture required for teaching nowadays, given that everything depends on digital technologies. Should architecture change now that we have computers? Does the notion of 'room' (be it for work or to attend a class) still make sense? Our answer was: yes… and no. Yes, because the paradigm of a working space has been reversed: if until now a good room needed to have very good natural light, today that we work mainly on screens, a good space is that one where good half-light has been achieved to avoid uncomfortable reflections. This fact led us to explore a relatively more hermetic volume, with controlled perforations towards the outside. But, on the other hand, we were not that optimistic regarding computers and their influence on education or the transmission of knowledge. In the end, nothing can beat a good conversation between a teacher and a student -or between two students-, under the comforting shade of trees, sharing a nice cup of coffee or, just having a casual conversation in a well designed corridor. In a way, formal education is catered for by building codes: natural light and ventilation, acoustics, etc. But they do not cater for informal education. There we saw a design opportunity. So, instead of thinking about the next step of education, we felt we needed to move backwards to reach more primitive ways of being.

With respect to designing a glazed edifice, the trouble was that such buildings in Santiago automatically lead to greenhouse effect problems. We didn't have the money to solve those problems within a single curtain wall -double glazed, reflective, and tinted. Even if we had the money, the amount of energy spent on air conditioning afterwards would have been almost obscene. On the other hand, we did not like a reflective glazed façade. So, instead of going for a solution that would have cost the owners some US $120/m2, we decided to build several skins, each of them performing one thing at a time: we firstly designed an outer single-glass skin, bad in energy efficiency terms, but very good in terms of weathering. Secondly, we provided an 'internal building', clad in fibre-cement, not good for weathering but very good energy wise. In between 'both buildings', just flowing air. So we allowed the space contained between to perform as a perimeter chimney by leaving an 80cm air entrance space at the lower end of the outer skin and a similar exhaust at the top. The result is a constant convective flow of natural air, enhanced by the Venturi effect generated by the 'waists' created at the seventh floor. The final cost for this solution was 30% cheaper, but we also expect important savings in energy costs during its useful life.

Finally, we had to face the problem of designing a tower. Because the total floor area was barely 5.000m2, it didn't matter how much we reduced each floor area, the resulting volume was always pretty squat. So the only logical solution we could figure out was to 'axe' a prism away from the top, dividing the building in two from the seventh floor up. The fine aluminium glazed facades for each of the resulting parts are of slightly different colours, so if seen from the front, the building appears as a unique 'bi-cephalous' volume, but when seen as a foreshortened figure, the colour difference makes it look like two slender figures that happen to share the same body as if they were Siamese twins".

The Siamese Towers raised much controversy in Santiago. There was as much opinion against the building as in favour of it. Negative criticism concentrated mainly in 'its lack of local identity, and its disregard to the surrounding environment and the user's needs'.

TA asked Mr Aravena for his comments in relation to this controversy:

"About criticism… nothing could be more incorrect than saying I don't care about users. In fact, it is almost all that I do in social housing. You've surely seen, through my other answers to you, or our statements, that many of the decisions in relation to this building are not the architects' personal agenda but part of the clients' brief; they're not just concepts, but solutions.

This building is not worse than others I've done, but it's generated such an amount of irritation that the criticism dwarfs the building itself… I think our statements are clear enough so as to demonstrate that disregard for users' needs was the last thing on our minds.

I cannot deny that this kind of criticism hurts and I think that, by feeling so, I already demonstrate that I do care about how the building's being used and lived in. But I always try to design as late as I possibly can. I firstly try to 'charge' the equation with all that is relevant (budget, brief, client, users, local climate, the place) before I decide what to do.

With respect to local identity, I think it's a fallacious concept and just not sufficiently broad-minded, because the real problem here is that of 'pertinence'. Buildings must be pertinent. In ancient times they'd never questioned 'identity', they only had restrictive technologies that didn't leave them much scope to be arbitrary. Nowadays, with the development of technologies that allow us to do almost anything, the only problem is to design what is pertinent to the situation".

TECHNOLOGICAL BUILDING
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF CHILE
LOCATION: San Joaquín Campus, Catholic University of Chile, Santiago
DATES: Project: 2003 - Completion: 2005
PROGRAM: 5.000 m2
ARCHITECTS: A. Aravena, Alfonso Montero, Charles Murray, Ricardo Torrejón
COLABORATOR: Emilio de la Cerda
ENGINEERS: Luís Soler & Associates
CONTRACTOR: Serinco Limited
STRUCTURE: reinforced concrete
FINISHES: glass, fibrocement and native woods (cohíue, mañío)
BUDGET: US $2.000.000
Images: © A Aravena - R Torrejón - Cristóbal Palma - Víctor Oddó

His professional work has been recognized on a number of occasions and awarded extensively: Venice Prize at the Architectural 'Biennale', Venice (1991), selected finalist at the Mies van der Rohe Prize (Barcelona 2000), awarded First Prize at the 12th Architectural Biennial in Santiago, diploma at the Iberoamerican Architectural and Engineering Biennial, chosen among the '10 Design Vanguard Architects 2004' by Architectural Record and awarded the Erich Schelling Foundation 2006 Architecture Medal in Germany. His projects have been published by Casabella (Italy), Arquitectura Viva and VIA (Spain), Arquine (Mexico), Summa + (Argentina), ARQ (Chile), Phaidon World Atlas of Contemporary Architecture (England) and recently by A+U (Japan), Monitor (Moscow) and ICON (London). He has given conferences and been guest lecturer at the College* of Architects of Cataluña, Archilab 2001, in Orleans, the IUAV of Venice, the World Bank and the Iberoamerican Development Bank in Washington. The University of Harvard has carried out a retrospective study of his work. During 1999 Mr. Aravena participated at the Visiting Teachers Program of the Architectural Association in London. In 2000 he was chosen as the best under-35 architect by the Chilean College* of Architects and nominated as one of the 25 most promising architects in the world by the Rolex Foundation, Switzerland (2002). He has also been selected as the best under-45 Chilean Architect by architecture students in Chile. He has also participated in all seminars at the 'El Chile que viene' lecture series by the Expansiva Foundation and CEP.

Mr. Aravena is also the author of various books, among them: Los hechos de la arquitectura -Architecture Facts- (Ed. ARQ 1999, re-edited recently), El Lugar de la Arquitectura -The place of Architecture- (Ed. ARQ 2002) and Material de Arquitectura (Ed. ARQ 2003).
*College of Architects is the Spanish equivalent to the Institutes of Architects.