The unquenchable validity of Ignasi de Solà-Morales

BarcelonaThe architect Ignasi de Solà-Morales (Barcelona, 1942 - Amsterdam, 2001) has gone down in history as an extraordinary figure for how he combined the roles of architect, historian, and theorist in his profession. Among his intellectual achievements is the general direction of the 1996 congress of the International Union of Architects in Barcelona. The direction included a keynote speech, titled "Present and Futures. Architecture in Cities", which is once again relevant now that Barcelona is hosting a new edition of the congress, from June 28 to July 2. Solà-Morales laid out his theory of architecture in cities in five fully current aspects, including the transformations of urban environments and new housing models. Likewise, he considered the impact of communication and transport media on contemporary architecture and cities, what the new architectures were that responded "to the new rites of life in large cities" and what the changes were in "residual or disused areas", that is, the reflection on the terrain vague" for which he is still internationally recognized.

Thirty years have passed since that congress and 25 years since Solà-Morales's death. How has his intellectual legacy evolved? To analyze this, the CCCB hosted this Monday "Ignasi de Solà-Morales or the blurry image that appears when you try to take a photo of an architect at work", a lecture by architect Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For Sarkis, Ignasi de Solà-Morales lived up to the etymology of his name and had an incendiary character, still relevant today, for introducing uncomfortable concepts such as "weak form" for architecture and "terrain vague" for the city. "If something runs through all his vast and varied historical writing, it is the attention to periods of transition, to what disappears, what changes, and what persists. He not only sought moments of transition in history, but he also understood history as always in transition," says Sarkis.

For Sarkis, Solà-Morales converges three ways of looking at architecture: "the etymological/mythological, the historical, and the imagistic," the latter concerning how he used photography and image theory as a tool for research and reflection. "At first glance, when Ignasi de Solà-Morales saw the photographs of the Mies van der Rohe pavilion, he found forensic evidence from which to reconstruct the pavilion. His seminal essay on the terrain vaguewas opened by a series of photographs by great photographers who looked towards unexplored territories on the outskirts of cities. By documenting that wasteland, the photographers revealed its latent potential. The photographer was the architect's partner in identifying and mapping the space for action," explains Sarkis.

Solà-Morales defended the figure of the "triple agent," which he had drawn from his own practice and from other older colleagues and those of his generation, including Francisco Sáenz de Oiza, Oriol Bohigas, Josep Antoni Coderch, Francisco de Asís Cabrero, Álvaro Siza, Rafael Moneo, Manuel de Solà-Morales, Joan Busquets, and other professionals of the 80s and 90s. Solà-Morales was a professor to some of them, and together they built "the civic spaces for interaction in the city" which were celebrated at the UIA congress in 1996. And after his death, as Sarkis recalls, studies such as Martínez Lapeña-Torres (Esplanade of the Fòrum de les Cultures), Lacol (Laborda and Can Batlló housing), and Atelier Ter (Parc de les Glòries) have shown how to intervene in residual sites. "In all his attitudes and in all his writings, Ignasi de Solà-Morales dedicated his entire life to forging a strong agency for the architect, an agency that would allow him to act more effectively from a weak discipline – the discipline of architecture – in an increasingly complex field, that of building in expansive and uncertain contexts such as the contemporary city and the wastelands it projects around it," says Sarkis.

Interest in philosophy

(Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, September 17), The cycle on Ignasi de Solà-Morales will continue with the sessions Vague terrains and new urban landscapes (COAC, July 8), Heritage, rehabilitation, and landmark projects (Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, September 17), Theory, criticism, and teaching (School of Architecture of Barcelona, September 30) and Barcelona as a testing ground: urban projects, policies, and narratives (Etsab, October 29). Among the participants are major national and international theorists such as Philip Ursprung, Deane Simpson, Lucia Allais, Daniel Abramson, Jan de Vylder, Carlos Mínguez, Antonio Monegal, Moisés Puente, Sarah Whiting, and Ana Milkacki.