Josep Lluís Mateo and ETH-Zurich

Architectural Papers VI: Expression. Architecture and the Arts: A Pedagogical Interaction.

+ Mateo Arquitectura

“Art and architecture express the world, which, without them, is unintelligible. (…)

Architecture is slower, more solid and social in its configuration, with a special relation between abstraction and matter—among many other charac¬teristics—that make it diverse in its production and its enjoyment.
This issue of our “Architectural Papers” explores the artarchitecture interaction as an argument for a series of consecutive pedagogical experiences. The students’
designs somehow serve as a testing ground for these arguments.
The products generated by the designer just starting out, though perhaps fragile (that is, unable to survive in the outside world), can also be fresh and uncontaminated. It is in this spirit that we present them here.
The analytical structure defining the problem is constant: visual arts, film, and literature as genres are identified by a specific case (Giacometti, the Locarno Film Festival, Canetti) that is developed as traces, remains of narra¬tives and as a physical, geographical place.
The general theme is compared and contrasted directly with a specific moment and with physical data.
The results, which vary, continue to manifest the potential of architecture to understand the world, to construct and celebrate it.”

Josep Lluís Mateo