Architects Rafael Pina and Fabián B. Di Giammarino, writing for the ARKRIT Collective, offer an objective critique of a classic of Chilean architecture, the Copelec Building. As the authors of this article assert, beyond the many descriptive accounts surrounding the building, it has earned an unquestionable status precisely because it remains unquestioned.
Certain architectural works—as well as literary and artistic ones—frequently establish an absolute prestige that renders them practically untouchable. Our sometimes highly reliable Rem Koolhaas tells us in his book Junkspace that the concept of the "Masterpiece" has become a definitive precept, a sort of semantic space that shields certain projects from criticism, "leaving its qualities unproven, its performance untested, its motives unquestioned," since the concept itself intimidates and constrains.
