On the occasion of the recent XXI Chilean Architecture Biennial, Juan Pablo Urrutia, a member of the curatorial team, spoke with Spanish architect Andrés Jaque, founder of the Office for Political Innovation, whose practice explores the intersection of the everyday and the political in architectural design.
Originally titled The Power of Architecture: Realistic Design Installed in the Mundane in the official catalog of the Chilean Biennial, this conversation explores architecture detached from the suprareal. "In my work, there is a strong interest in practicing and thinking about architecture as an integrated, socially active practice," Jaque says.
Juan Pablo Urrutia (JPU): To begin, we would like to get your thoughts on the persistent tendency within the architectural field—specifically in the circuits where formal space is discussed, questioned, valued, and awarded—to highlight that which is removed from the everyday, from our daily domestic reality, associating it instead with a building culture that reflects the accumulation of power or wealth, while forgetting—or hiding—the common conditions and systems that define our lives. Why do you think architecture remains tied to a discourse associated with the concentration of power and resources?
