In 1965, the Peruvian Government and the United Nations invited British architect Peter Land to design a strategy for mass housing as an alternative to the massive informal settlements that were dramatically taking place in Lima during that period. In 1966, informal discussions began with the...
Read moreThe PREVI competition established a theoretical framework that revised the functionalist urbanism established by the former CIAM according to new urban principles. Could you define those principles?
The PREVI built project itself define the new urban principles. It is a more comprehensive...
When the PREVI competition was announced in 1969, there was an intense debate in Europe in relation to the former CIAM approach to the city leaded by the young members of the Team10 and some of them were invited to participate in the competition. How did that debate influence the work of the...
Read moreYou worked on the PREVI competition in 1969 with Kisho Kurokawa and Kiyonori Kikutake as members of the Metabolism movement. Did you consider the PREVI as a chance to develop some of the Metabolism principles?
In a retrospect, my answer is yes. But when we were approached by Peter Land...
Confronted to the specificity of the site, Guillermo Dürig’s project avoids the common rethoric of the genius loci. Instead it provokes an immediate engagement with the urban scale, operating in a multi-scale condition that intends to solve the main problems of both city and site. As a long and...
Read moreVarious international architects who were addressing new forms of dwelling and settlement in the 1950s and 1960s were chosen for PREVI competition. Atelier 5 caused an international sensation with the Siedlung Halen settlement. Why was this topic a cause for such an international concern at the...
Read moreAfter an end-of-century dominated by the iconic object as an end in itself and after a global crisis that introduced the need to bring new paradigms to architectural production, we are seeing the increasingly frequent appearance of architects and collectives who are shifting their focus towards...
Read moreSafia Hachemi really tried to make a kind of big house, but without any kind of domesticity in the concept. It was like an enormous house in-between domestic and non-domestic, in-between connected and disconnected.
Read moreBesides your practical activities, you have written a lot. Theory and Practice go sort of hand in hand. How would you differentiate or relate these two forms of architectural expression?
It is a good question. First of all I do not believe in the separation of theory and practice, which...