Lecture by Andrés Jaque Opens the XXI Chile Architecture Biennial

More than 500 people attended the opening of the 21st Chilean Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism in Santiago. This year, the curatorial team presented the event as a "Free Architecture Fair" focused on the "everyday and ordinary," spanning the entire country with more than 250 public activities in Iquique, La Serena, Santiago, and Puerto Montt.

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At the opening event, Spanish architect Andrés Jaque, founder of the Office for Political Innovation (OFFPOLINN), delivered a keynote lecture presenting three seminal works from his career: PHANTOM, Mies as Rendered Society, IKEA Disobedients, and Escaravox, in addition to sharing other projects currently in development. Following the lecture, he spoke with ArchDaily's Nicolás Valencia about politics in architecture.

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Speaking about “PHANTOM, Mies as Rendered Society,” Jaque distinguished between the public spaces of the historic Barcelona Pavilion and its basement, illustrating the current debate “between an architecture that is curated and manipulated to produce a sense of reality by stripping away the elements that connect it to the sociotechnological networks that make it possible, and a basement that is charged with reality.”

Within this context, he showed where workers heat their food and eat: “on the walls of this space, they are creating collages with the invitations they receive from other institutions. This is much more connected to the work Lilly Reich and Mies van der Rohe did—composing the social through fragments and heterogeneous materials—than the idealized, edited image, stripped of daily complexities, of the pavilion we all visit and photograph for Instagram,” he explained.

Jaque also presented the “Escaravox” project, which began with a commission to design shade structures for the Matadero Madrid—a massive site originally built for truck and animal traffic, and thus lacking comfortable conditions for humans. “We designed these giant, motorized, and mobile umbrellas—similar to the Biennial's mobile carts—with the idea that mobility itself would allow for flexible uses in these public spaces, fostering a performative urbanism.”

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Among his current projects in development, Jaque presented the Ocean Parliament, a project in Venice that aims to “contribute an architecture that prompts humans to renegotiate our relationship with the oceans.” Located in Giudecca (Italy), it uses the Church of San Lorenzo “to become an embassy, a mediator between humans and the oceanic,” aiming to generate new alliances through architecture with ocean acidity, coral tissues, and local marine life. “Through a series of ships that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation has in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, it will be possible to establish real-time conversations with the deep sea. This will require a type of public architecture that goes beyond the concepts of the civic we have been able to represent until now,” he concluded.

At the end of his lecture, he emphasized:

The opening ceremony of the Free Architecture Fair was attended by the Mayor of Santiago, Felipe Alessandri; the President of the Franklin Matadero Market Administration Committee, Olimpia Nadales; the President of the Chilean Association of Architects (Colegio de Arquitectos de Chile)—the organizers of the Biennial—Humberto Eliash; and the Biennial's curatorial team, composed of Beatriz Coeffé, Joaquín González, Vesna Obilinovic, Juan Pablo Urrutia, and Tomás Villalón, who presented their manifesto on the everyday and ordinary.

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Following the ceremony, hundreds of attendees visited the Free Architecture Fair Exhibition in the Franklin Matadero Warehouse, which will remain open to the general public throughout the Biennial, and enjoyed food and drinks from local eateries in the Franklin neighborhood.

This edition of the Biennial will feature prominent speakers such as Jacob Van Rijs (MVRDV), Enrique Walker, Miguel Lawner, Ecosistema Urbano, Frédéric Druot of Lacaton & Vassal, Plan B, Marta Moreira, Rama Estudio, Alejandra Celedón, and Cecilia Puga. Iquique, La Serena, Santiago, and Puerto Montt feature a series of mobile carts built with materials from Cintac, among others. Additionally, public workshops on partitioning, roofing, metal structures, and masonry will be led by the Night School for Construction Workers (ENOC) of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Chile (FAU). Other activities include housing subsidy application workshops, neighborhood sketching, architecture for children, mapped walks, heritage tours, and events exploring women and the city, among many others addressing diverse topics for different audiences.

View the full schedule of the 21st Chilean Architecture Biennial.

Via Communications, 21st Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism.