Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s model in context with the gallery space
Raw – New Brazilian Architecture exhibition has opened its doors last Saturday 21 June to great public accolade. Some 200 people came to see the exhibition and meet some of the participating architects and speakers, many whom came from Brazil especially for the event.
The exhibition was officially opened with a speech by Jaime Lerner, one of the world’s most innovative architects and urban planners. Lerner reflected on the ‘Raw’ condition, saying he prefers things to be “raw” rather than “well-done”. Those who know his work can interpret this as an allusion to the fact that much of architecture and urban planning loose their initial “freshness”, artistic impetus and simplicity giving way to overtly complicated designs. Having been three times mayor of Curitiba and twice governor of the state of Parana, Lerner is a practical man, used to the restraints and challenges of planning and building in a country such as Brazil. He remains, however, forever an optimist: One of his famous quotes affirming ‘ The city is not a problem, the city is a solution’.
The following speech was by the curator Ricardo de Ostos, who initiated his speech with a quote from Bertrand Russell: “Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.” De Ostos continued to reflect upon the question of the ‘Raw’ concept having derived from the main theme of the London Festival of Architecture ‘Fresh’, instigating the question of what makes architecture ‘raw’ and ‘fresh’, and how the participants have dealt with those questions with the projects presented at the exhibition.
He then introduced the participating architects present: Franklin Lee and Anne Save de Beaurecueil from SUBdV; Fernando Maculan from Galapagos; Joao Domingos de Azevedo from Metro Arquitetura; Nannette Jackowski from NaJa&deOstos; Juliano Dubeux from Juliano Dubeux Arquitetos Associados and Igor de Vetyemy from Igor de Vetyemy Arquitetura Interiores e Design; and also guest journalist Gian Luca Amadei from Blueprint magazine.
Galeria 32 at opening night
Finally closing the speeches was the Brazilian Ambassador to London, Carlos Augusto R. Santos-Neves, who made a very relevant speech on the question of ‘Raw’ and Brazilian culture within and without Brazil quoting Claude Levi – Strauss’ Mithologiques’ ‘The Raw and the Cooked’. Appropriately drawing a parallel between the work of the French anthropologist’s concept of “the raw” versus “the cooked” in association with the dichotomy between the natural world and the world of human culture.
Naturally according to Levi-Strauss the raw / cooked axis is characteristic of all human culture, with elements falling along the “raw” side of the axis being those of natural origin, and those on the “cooked” side emerging from “cultural” origin, meaning those originating from human creation.[i]
From this perspective could architecture ever be considered “raw”, or does it automatically fall under the category of “the cooked”?
Amongst architects there seems to be an emerging need to re-evaluate the preexisting values attributed to the profession in order to achieve new solutions, and increasingly the possible answers seem to point towards a cross-over of disciplines, technologies and basic materials, which might change the way “the cooked” (or that created by man), comes into existence through innovative understanding of what “the raw” (or that which comes form nature), can offer which lay un-speculated.
Lerner himself says he prefers it “raw rather then well done”, and the exhibition at Galeria 32 certainly seeks to explore the subject through the speculation of various architects from various regions of Brazil, utilizing varying means of expression. More than anything the exhibition is a platform for concepts and discussion to emerge and evolve in the thinking person’s mind.
The exhibition is open until 18 July 2008, from 11am till 6pm Monday to Friday.
Gallery 32
32 Green Street
London W1K 7AT
Marble Arch tube
+44(0)20 7399 9280
- [i] Mythologiques I-IV (trans. John Weightman and Doreen Weightman)
- Le Cru et le cuit, 1964, The Raw and the Cooked, 1969
