29 December 2008

Mixing up ages in España

I don't speak or read Spanish, but I think I sense that this construction for multi-family living has generated un intenso debate, as mentioned in an earlier post from Plataforma Arquitectura. What I glean from the sometimes absurd translation provided by an online automatic translator widget, is that the the outrage is partly induced by the fact that the money and/or idea behind the construction belongs to an actor, and the buildings are seen as Disney-like movie sets. There's something about "it sails along the oceans of the Fake. It is like the fossil of Hello Kitty, or a Mickey Mouse."

Oh, well. I am always drawn to the melding of ancient with new when the sensibilities are in agreement, and I think these apartments are kind of cool . . . – GF
via Plataforma Arquitectura

HAHA! Joke's on me – the whole thing is fake, even the "old" part! see the comment left by David at P.A. Thanks, David!

1 comment:

tricky said...

Gina,

Here´s the english translation of the project description:


Ocaña ‘de España’. 53 Private Promotion Dwellings in Ocaña, Toledo

This project for 53 dwellings between party walls can be described through its tectonic (Roca Port Aventura in the stereotomic plinth of the two first floors of housing, plus buildings that, resting on the former, are rounded off with canvas roofs with silkscreen-printed tiles), or through its virtues of “non-extrusion” and “non-metaphor”. But the best way to explain this bizarre, unbridled, dislocated and autistic project is with a generous text by Roberto González García:


“The project Ocaña de España stemmed from a commission that, from the outset, was determined by a referent that ought not to be questioned: the developer and, at the same time, contractor. This client wanted to build in Ocaña a project “from Cuenca on the outside”, but “‘all-out modern’ on the inside”. We suggested building the Hanging Houses of Cuenca, or rather, a representation of these that could transfer, one by one, the most characteristic features of the historic complex, in an almost literal manner. Hence the recreation had to be achieved building the rock on the two first floors and completing the two following ones with the aforementioned Hanging Houses, a replica in every sense.

The formalization of the replica began with the rigorous transcription, word for word, of the attributes that define the objective of the project. Where it says rock, rock. The typical lookouts of Cuenca and the quaint volumetry are gradually superimposed in the design so that it appears to be literal, even though it is not truly so. Literal? Without a figurative sense? Is the gaze really so innocent? Here, at least two realities intertwine, but there are more, as many as there are senses that one can or wishes to give. The scheme of the project rests on the same foundations those two levels of reality so often doomed to meet and perhaps to not understand one another, which insert architecture in the field of the production of goods that, despite having the same form, do not share the same meanings. An experiment by way of operational realism (Bourriaud, 2001) that represents the drama of architecture in parody key. After all, one must be very serious to not enjoy a comedy.”


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thanks for linking us.

David B.
Plataforma Arquitectura