Architecture In Chile. State Of The Art.

Yes, it is the Taj Mahal, in India.

1. As far as we can see, architecture in Chile is going through its best times,
and Chile seems to be the best place for modern architecture
of all the Latin American countries. Is this view right?
What does Germán del Sol think is the state of architecture
in your country now?

GS: If being modern is to not always strive for innovation,
but also to look back to the origins of architecture,
then Chile is not the best place for modern architecture.

Chile has been one of the last Latin American countries
to lose contact with its richest and dearest traditions.
Brazil and Argentina lost them in the fifties.

I never praise poverty; it would be cruel or cynical.
But for mysterious reasons,
when cultures build houses with more wit than means,
beauty abounds.

Ugliness is the lack of beauty;
the lack of generosity behind
most of today’s real estate developments.

2. Architecture is not only about creative people,
but this art also needs a proper economic environment,
and open-minded customers - individuals
as well as governmental.
How does the situation in Chile look like
from Germán del Sol’s point of view?

GS. Architecture is a poetic quality given to buildings,
to transcend construction.
It is an inner being given to buildings by men and women,
to reflect the splendor of the human condition.
Even in its miseries.

Good architecture has nothing to do
with a good economic environment
or opened minded customers.

On the contrary, Chinese architecture for example,
based on fast economic prosperity not followed by its culture,
and very open minded even childish clients,
seems to me one of the poorest one today.

3. What does Germán del Sol think
of architectural education in Chile?
Does it fit the needs of today’s practice?
How much does he think European/USA education
can contribute to the situation?

GS: I do not know how to train Architects properly.
But it seems more important to me
that students learn first how to think in abstract terms
through mathematics or calculus training,
than to make them start too soon to plan buildings.

Because all conditions will change,
and in order for architects to lead the process,
they have to find each time first hand,
what good houses, streets and squares mean for the people,
and only later make them a reality in actual projects.

Good ideas come first.
Good houses are the consequences of the right thinking.

European, and USA education
can of course contribute to improve education.
Sometimes, one has to take a fruitful distance
from one’s reality, not to change it,
but to look at it with new eyes,
to be able to discover something new
in the same old environment.

4. Give us, please, some information about the studio:
how old is Germán del Sol,
and when did he establish the practice?

GS. I am 59 years old.
I established my practice as soon as I finished School in Barcelona in 1973.

Where did he get his architectural education?

GS. I studied 3 years at the Chilean Catholic University,
and 3 years at the University of Barcelona, Spain,
where I got my degree in July 1973.

5. How large is the studio, how many people work in it?

GS: Our studio is very small in order for me
to be involved in all the projects,
and we work patiently, to have time to try and fail,
until a certain depth of the project is reached.
Success is made 99% of failures.

6. What was Germán del Sol’s most interesting,
complicated, challenging project?

GS. The next one in Moscow.

How would he describe his approach,
could he formulate his credo?

GS: My approach is to try to find
the beauty of mistakes.

Men and women dwell poetically,
In the sense that their needs are by far
beyond the shear task of survival.

Architecture provides an insight to life,
an interior to trust in the vastness of nature.

To dwell is to remain,
to make a place for one to stay.

To think one must make a pause, and dwell.
Architecture is a fruitful place to dwell,
when its order comes from life, and affection.
Braque says, “I love the rule that contains emotion”.

Poetry can make the invisible, be visible,
and therefore reveal to men and women,
the inner splendor of the human condition.

Only the present exists in life. The past is alive.
St Augustine says that ...“there are three times:
the present of things past,
the present of things present, and
the present of the future of things”.

To be modern is not to strive for novelty,
but to discover instead,
the original way of doing things.
Is to open up multiple points of view,
to receive all that has happened,
all that might happen,
and all that is impossible to happen.

Tradition is not to use grandfather’s hat,
but to buy a new one as he used to do.

May be because in South America
everything is perceived as it was for the first time,
memory is in its dawn:
a moment when life and things await,
for light to be revealed.

When the eyes are unobstructed, the result is sight.
Beauty is empathy for the splendor of people and things,
set free to be, as they are in plenitude.

The beauty of accepted wrinkles
that make an interesting face,
the trembling forms of buildings,
that escape of being captured at first glance.

To make things appear, modern imagination
works within a technique.
If elegance is to hide effort,
technique has to disappear
to make a building appear as a whole.

Because poetry only suggests,
ideas must be left open, never closed.

7.And, the last one, to make the story more human -
what is Germán del Sol’s favorite Chilean dish?

GS. Mashed potatoes with two fried Mapuche hen eggs.