Product Description

Arquitectura Viva 228 José María Sánchez

JOSÉ MARÍA SÁNCHEZ · DOSSIER LADRILLO · EL EQUIPO MAZZANTI · MIRALLES TAGLIABUE EMBT · FRANCESCA TORZO

Arquitectura Viva 228 José María Sánchez

The creative destruction defended by Schumpeter deserves another name: corrosive destruction. The oxymoron popularized by the Austrian economist describes the gales of transformation powered by capitalism as forces of creativity that allow a hatching of the new over the ruins of the old, while – quoting Marx – “all that is solid melts into air.” The pandemic, like other catastrophes, has exacerbated the hurricane of change that had been beating at the economic structure for several decades, further corroding the social capital of trust and predictability that supports our communities, held together more by commitments and values than by laws and contracts. Richard Sennett explained how contemporary capitalism is corroding a character that is no longer shaped by the mold of regular work, and the material and moral devastation caused by the virus warrants considering it corrosive.
The health and economic tragedy coincides with a political and social drama, with sleepwalking elites and authoritarian leaders infantilizing citizenries through self-help mottos (‘everything will be alright,’ ‘we will come out of this stronger’), clearing the way for populisms openly disdainful of critical intelligence and individual freedom. In this demolishing of liberal democracies they are accompanied by a good number of radical thinkers who, like Bruno Latour, see the pandemic as a ‘wonderful opportunity’ to stop the aggressions on the planet that globalization has inflicted. But acknowledging the urgency of confronting climate change should not lead to celebration over a viral disaster that brings only pain and death, just as admitting the need to reduce inequalities must not trigger seeing Covid-19 as a chance to blow up an institutional fabric that has ensured peace and prosperity for a long time.
In Europe we are duly promised that helicopter money and the bazooka of central banks – with war metaphors seemingly drawn straight out of Apocalypse Now – will allow a recovery in V or W, but the ‘new pessimists’ augur something more like an evolution in L and the data prefigure an ending in K, with the rich richer and the poor poorer. We are also told that construction will be a key sector in this phase, with the energy revamp of the housing stock, but it is hard to say how families will finance this ecological transition of homes in a context of uncertainty, when people are more likely to save than to invest. The fatigue and anxiety caused by the virus’s second wave does not allow rejoicing over a renewed planetary awareness or the appearance of cracks in a very unfair economic system, and much less over the creative destruction of a crisis that in fact is only producing corrosive destruction.

José María Sánchez
Atmósferas materiales
Dossier: Ladrillo

Actualidad / News
Luis Fernández-Galiano
Destrucción corrosiva Corrosive Destruction
Focho: Orgullo italiano Piano’s Bridge in Genoa
Madera europea Botter + Bressan, Snøhetta, Steimle
Cultura de concurso Paris, Bilbao, Seville
Back to the USA Danny Lyon, Bucky Fuller, Lee Krasner
Casas: Flexoarquitectura House in Algaida
Interiores: Herzog & de Meuron Stadtcasino Basel
Exteriores: noa* network of architecture Ötzi Peak 3251m

José María Sánchez

Vaciado del Hospital Provincial
Old Regional Hospital Recovery

Casa en el Monte Abantos
House on Mount Abantos

Casa 9 Bóvedas
Private House

Hospedería en el Castillo de Luna
Tourist Inn at Luna Castle

Arte y cultura/ Art & Culture

Roger Salas
La belleza inevitable Franco Maria Ricci, 1937-2020

Stephen Bayley
Placeres cotidianos Terence Conran, 1931-2020

Libros / Books

Vidas extremas Wright versus Abramović
Control de conductas Responsive Environments
Disidencia corporal Paul B. Preciado, Compiled

Ladrillo / Brick

El Equipo Mazzanti
Ampliación de la Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá
Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá Extension

Miralles Tagliabue EMBT
Centro Kálida Sant Pau en Barcelona
Kálida Sant Pau Center in Barcelona

Francesca Torzo
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Z33 en Hasselt
Z33 House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt

Richard Florida
Un urbanismo más inclusivo
The New Urban Crisis

Finn Williams / David Chipperfield
El urbanismo necesario
Housing Crisis and Planning Policies