Skip to main content

Francisco Díaz

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Escuela de Arquitectura, Faculty Member

Followers

15

Following

8

Co-author

1

Public Views

Architect, Researcher, Writer, Curator. Assistant Professor at the School of Architecture of the UC, Chile.

less

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

marco valencia Palacios

RAUL OLGUIN HEVIA

Universidad de Santiago de Chile

Rodrigo Millan Valdes

Universidad Diego Portales

Universidad Tecnologica Metropolitana

Gonzalo Cáceres

CRAC Valparaiso

Pia Montealegre

Universidad de Chile

Universidad Central de Chile

Claudio Pulgar Pinaud

EHESS-Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales

Interests

Uploads

Papers by Francisco Díaz

Ad Hoc Tools for Urban Renewal: The San Borja Remodeling in Santiago, Chile, 1967-1976

Architectural Histories, 2024

Conceived, developed, and built in Santiago de Chile between 1967 and 1976, the San Borja Remodel... more Conceived, developed, and built in Santiago de Chile between 1967 and 1976, the San Borja Remodeling project was the flagship of the first years of the Urban Improvement Corporation (Corporación de Mejoramiento Urbano, CORMU), a State agency created in 1966 that would become an active actor in the renovation of Chilean cities. Despite the project's significance, not only in terms of its scale and location in the centre of the Chilean capital city but also for having pushed the capacities of both the State and private companies, previous research has not addressed the full variety of tools brought together to carry out a project of this magnitude and ambition. This article describes the complexities of the San Borja project in its development. It argues that the ambition to renovate a central area in the capital city led its designers to shape and rely on ad hoc design and legal tools to make it possible. Rather than imposing a totalizing design for the city, there was a pragmatic approach aimed at developing an incremental urban renewal plan led by the State, far from both centralized planning and neoliberal urbanism.

DIAZ BOANO Land Refusal

Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of... more Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of companion intellectuals we analyze the construction of land as stable property that ultimately became financial security, to the point that nation-states ended up providing the apparatus to secure land property. Then, based on different alternatives of refusal we aim to destabilize the 'secure' position of land as property. This opens the space to propose a new status for land: an infrastructure for coexistence, a scarce resource that escapes capture. For if private property is at the root of inequality, then we may start to think of strategies that run away from that condition to ensure the right of future generations to have a place to live with dignity.

Facing Darkness: Review of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale

ARQ, 2023

Quite often, recurrent exhibitions such as biennials, triennials, festivals, and similar events, ... more Quite often, recurrent exhibitions such as biennials, triennials, festivals, and similar events, are confused with fashion shows as if their purpose was to predict trends for the upcoming season. Some audiences visit these shows to discover what to wear and talk about. Others go to see themselves reflected in the selection (and complain when their egos are not satisfied). But in so doing, these kinds of audiences miss the most basic point: these recurrent events are, first and foremost, collective exhibitions. Thus, to search for signs of hope, despair, or hints of the future in them is a misconception. Biennials, triennials, or festivals are just group displays, whether well-curated or not. A good, skillful curator can either introduce us to things we didn’t know about or present a selection of what we already knew in a new framework. Lesley Lokko, the Ghanaian-Scottish architect who curated the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale titled “The Laboratory of the Future,” along with her team, successfully did both.

Revista R 17, 2019

La mayor revolución del arte del siglo XX fue causada por una publicación. Sin el número 2 de The... more La mayor revolución del arte del siglo XX fue causada por una publicación. Sin el número 2 de The Blind Man, publicado a ﬁnes de abril de 1917, no sabríamos de la existencia de una obra llamada La fuente, ﬁrmada por un desconocido R. Mutt y que se discutió en extenso en dicha edición. Sin ese pasquín de ocho páginas que circulaba de mano en mano, no tendríamos fotografías de la broma que Marcel Duchamp (con la ayuda de sus amigos Walter Arensberg y Joseph Stella) le jugó en secreto a la exposición que él mismo había ayudado a montar y de la que Arensberg era director.

Casa Chilena: La pluralidad de un concepto singular

180, 2020

Inaugurada exactamente a tres meses del estallido social del 18 de octubre de 2019 y cerrada temp... more Inaugurada exactamente a tres meses del estallido social del 18 de octubre de 2019 y cerrada temporalmente dos meses después por el brote del COVID-19, la exposición “Casa Chilena: Imágenes domésticas” estuvo montada en el Centro Cultural La Moneda en medio de dos estados de excepción. El presente texto busca explicitar los criterios y decisiones detrás del tema de la exposición, su postura en relación con los debates en torno a la forma de exponer arquitectura hoy, la selección de las piezas a ser expuestas y la estructura de orden de la muestra. El objetivo es no solo proponer que la casa en Chile supone una multiplicidad de manifestaciones y formatos diversos, sino también que ella puede ser entendida como un objeto cultural en vez de uno arquitectónico. Reforzando esos puntos, la exposición planteó una mirada alternativa a los discursos disciplinares de la arquitectura y una forma poco habitual de exhibir arquitectura, en la que la diversidad tomaba primacía respecto del marco comparativo entre los distintos casos expuestos. De esta manera, la exposición logró dialogar con los excepcionales acontecimientos entre los que estuvo abierta al público.

Interview with Keller Easterling: Zones of Economic Exception / Zonas de excepción económica

ARQ, 2016

The ‘zones’ –parts of territory that have an exceptional legal status– are sharply depicted in Ke... more The ‘zones’ –parts of territory that have an exceptional legal status– are sharply depicted in Keller Easterling’s recent book Extrastatecraft: the power of infrastructure space. Explaining that zones are repeatable spatial formulas used by the most powerful people in the world (so they have huge political consequences), in this interview Easterling also provides a series of arguments for why architects should not ignore these kinds of spatial products.

Interview with Leopold Lambert, The Funambulist: On Violence / Sobre la violencia

ARQ, 2016

If, consciously or not, imaginaries operate as engines for concrete actions (projects, laws, regu... more If, consciously or not, imaginaries operate as engines for concrete actions (projects, laws, regulations, behaviors, etc.), it is necessary then to question both their origins and implications. From a very particular position, Léopold Lambert has focused his work on demonstrating that, if there's a certain degree of violence inflected by architecture upon bodies, then it would be necessary to question its conceptual assumptions and understand it, without idealizations, in its political and material aspects.

Interview with Metahaven: Transparency / Transparencia

ARQ, 2016

Although transparency appears to be the starting point for every public discussion nowadays, it s... more Although transparency appears to be the starting point for every public discussion nowadays, it seems we have not realized the fact that when everything is transparent, there's actually nothing to see. Skeptical about these processes - and of how new technologies and social media have unfolded them - Metahaven has developed the idea of 'black transparency,' which deeply reflects on these imaginaries and their ultimate implications both at the political and geopolitical level.

Interview with Saskia Sassen: On Expulsions / Sobre expulsiones

ARQ, 2018

Migrations, wars, economy crashes, ecological crises and other phenomena of massive scale have be... more Migrations, wars, economy crashes, ecological crises and other phenomena of massive scale have become usual in recent years. And while they concern us because of their extensiveness and recurrence, we tend to understand them as isolated effects. However, in her last book Expulsions, Saskia Sassen argues that these are only different aspects of the same problem: the ‘predatory formations’ of contemporary capitalism that generate unprecedented levels of inequality. A context where many people end up being expelled from the economy.

Interview with Felicity D. Scott: Cautionary tales from the land of freedom / Advertencias desde la tierra de la libertad.

ARQ, 2019

Instead of freedom, we should talk about freedoms, Felicity D. Scott argues in this interview. Wi... more Instead of freedom, we should talk about freedoms, Felicity D. Scott argues in this interview. With the book Outlaw Territories as a starting point for this conversation, Scott warns us about the cynicism or ambivalence inherent in the notion of freedom which, in the USA, has been raised as a flagship argument by almost everyone: from hippies to corporations, or even from drop-outs to libertarians.

Interview with Mark Wigley: The deconstructive project is a project of optimism. / El proyecto deconstructivo es optimista.

ARQ, 2022

The architecture behind philosophy, and therefore behind deconstruction, is the subject Mark Wigl... more The architecture behind philosophy, and therefore behind deconstruction, is the subject Mark Wigley has investigated over the last few decades. Understanding deconstruction as a way of thinking and comprehending the world, his ideas have been displayed in different formats: from exhibitions to academic projects. In this interview, Wigley reflects on these ideas again, allowing us to see the structure behind his philosophy and his way of understanding architecture and the world.

Un largo de-tour / A Long Detour

ARQ, 2022

Projects cannot always be formulated beforehand. Sometimes they are conceptualized during their d... more Projects cannot always be formulated beforehand. Sometimes they are conceptualized during their development. At other times, they are too radical to be announced. But most of the time, their formulation is made retrospectively simply because time gives a better perspective about what has been done. This is why it is only now that we can realize the ideas we have been trying to deploy for the last eight years. Given that ARQ has existed since 1980 - and we hope it will continue to exist for many more decades - we can look at what happened in that distant 2015 as a journey that deviated from the previous path, entering lesser-known territories and, perhaps for the same reason, more interesting to explore. Such a detour was imperative: the trajectory was so predictable that it was not difficult to anticipate it was on a collision course.

Nueva normalidad / New normality

ARQ, 2021

Shortly before his sudden death in September 2020, the American anthropologist David Graeber wrot... more Shortly before his sudden death in September 2020, the American anthropologist David Graeber wrote a short text (Graeber, 2021). There, he recalled that, after the great recession of 2008, all questionings regarding the foundations of the economy during the peak of the crisis were quickly silenced; so, as soon as the economy recovered, everything returned to business as usual. Then, he wondered if, after the pandemic, we should go back to normal or not. His answer was a resounding ‘no.’ For Graeber, the pandemic has not been a nightmare but rather the awakening of a dream, because only in dreams do implausible situations make sense (e.g., extracting surplus without adding value, as in the land market).

Libertad: práctica versus espacio / Freedom: practice versus space

ARQ, 2019

In 1926, Walter Gropius presented a diagram of housing densities that calculated the distance bet... more In 1926, Walter Gropius presented a diagram of housing densities that calculated the distance between buildings based on a ratio of their height, so that each block of houses received an appropriate amount of light. Shortly after, in 1931, Adams, Lewis and Orton argued that the beauty of Manhattan’s skyline was due to the ‘mass effect’: a set of buildings with different heights, shapes and facades, placed close to each other (Koolhaas, 1994). While the first image insists on the value of rationality, the second argues in favor of a lack of rules. One stands in favor of order while the other in favor of anarchy. Both express the debate between planning and freedom. Architecture has usually been closer to the first, since both its tools (design and preview) and its goal (the definition of an order) make it hard for its products to encompass the unpredictability of the second. In fact, if that spontaneity has come to be discussed in architecture, it has been because someone has found it outside of it, like when Rudofsky surveyed vernacular constructions or when Turner offered the Peruvian slums as a model. However, freedom is much more than a debate represented through architectural images. Freedom is not an aesthetic choice. It is a political issue.

¿Qué pasó con las masas? / What happened to the masses?

ARQ, 2018

Although famous for their pessimism, Adorno and Horkheimer hardly imagined that, decades after wr... more Although famous for their pessimism, Adorno and Horkheimer hardly imagined that, decades after writing: “the masses are too astute to identify with the millionaire on the screen”, reality would overcome their worst nightmares (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002:116). In the second decade of the 21st century, the masses are not only not so astute, but they do not even recognize themselves as such.

¿Instrumentos para qué? / Instruments for what?

ARQ, 2017

In her book The Architecture of Error, Francesca Hughes argues that “behind the naivety of archit... more In her book The Architecture of Error, Francesca Hughes argues that “behind the naivety of architecture’s current return to an all-invested faith in the instrumentalist premise - that technology is somehow outside of culture, and therefore able to arbitrate over things cultural - lies the ongoing denial of technology's partiality” (Hughes, 2014:77). As a branch of the philosophy of knowledge, instrumentalism is a long-standing idea stating that theories cannot be assessed in terms of their veracity but rather on the basis of their usefulness in explaining things and predicting events. Indeed, its more radical variant - eliminative instrumentalism - even suggests that once facts prove a theory, it can be discarded and, if nothing proves it, all the more reasons to disregard it.

¿Imaginarios? / Imaginaries?

ARQ, 2016

One of the most accurate explanations for the present-day global political crisis is the emergenc... more One of the most accurate explanations for the present-day global political crisis is the emergence of 'single-issue voters', that is, citizens who are passionately mobilized by a very narrow agenda of interests, abandoning the possibility that a 'grand narrative' could meet multiple specific and divergent demands (Luna, 2016).Thus, any decision will have a small group of supporters and many detractors, and both will alternate according to the subject until no one in favor of anything is left.
If we bring this notion to contemporary architecture, we can observe a similar process: an endless number of individual agendas makes it very difficult to draw a synthetic map of the current scenario. Perhaps that is why part of the discipline, maybe tired of the difficulty of reading the circuit as something coherent, is looking at a past that seemed simpler to understand with a sense of nostalgia.

Un debate valórico / A debate on values

ARQ (Santiago), Dec 1, 2017

By presenting an example quite familiar to architects, Marx explains the need for a third element... more By presenting an example quite familiar to architects, Marx explains the need for a third element - a means - to establish a value-relationship between commodities: “In order to calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures” - the philosopher says - “we decompose them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half the product of the base multiplied by the altitude.” Then, he adds: “In the same way the exchange values of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them, of which they represent greater or less quantity” (Marx, 1867(1990):127). That is, in order to establish this value-relationship between different things, a and b, it is necessary to abstract the qualities of both to make them equivalent to a third-factor x. Thus, a = x and b = 2x lets us know that a is worth half of b.

Un trabajo cuidadoso / A careful job

ARQ (Santiago), 2021

Without care, human beings would not have survived for so long on this planet. Yet, despite its r... more Without care, human beings would not have survived for so long on this planet. Yet, despite its relevance, these tasks have been made invisible and minimized. Perhaps the fact that they had been done mainly by women can explain this disdain. As Nancy Fraser (2016) indicates, the defense of male domination was the way in which, historically, the social relevance of caregiving tasks has been underestimated. That would reveal why housework has not been considered a formal ‘work’ and that the diﬀerence between oikos and polis has ended up becoming a characterization of genders: politics as a masculine sphere and care as a feminine one

El poder de resistir / The power to resist

ARQ (Santiago), 2020

After devoting a large part of his life to studying the inner workings of power - arriving at the... more After devoting a large part of his life to studying the inner workings of power - arriving at the conclusion that it was practically everywhere - in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault (1978:95) wrote that “wherever there is power, there is resistance.” This not only implies that power contains the germ of its own response, but also that resistance is not external to power, rather, it is its counterpart.

Ad Hoc Tools for Urban Renewal: The San Borja Remodeling in Santiago, Chile, 1967-1976

Architectural Histories, 2024

Conceived, developed, and built in Santiago de Chile between 1967 and 1976, the San Borja Remodel... more Conceived, developed, and built in Santiago de Chile between 1967 and 1976, the San Borja Remodeling project was the flagship of the first years of the Urban Improvement Corporation (Corporación de Mejoramiento Urbano, CORMU), a State agency created in 1966 that would become an active actor in the renovation of Chilean cities. Despite the project's significance, not only in terms of its scale and location in the centre of the Chilean capital city but also for having pushed the capacities of both the State and private companies, previous research has not addressed the full variety of tools brought together to carry out a project of this magnitude and ambition. This article describes the complexities of the San Borja project in its development. It argues that the ambition to renovate a central area in the capital city led its designers to shape and rely on ad hoc design and legal tools to make it possible. Rather than imposing a totalizing design for the city, there was a pragmatic approach aimed at developing an incremental urban renewal plan led by the State, far from both centralized planning and neoliberal urbanism.

DIAZ BOANO Land Refusal

Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of... more Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of companion intellectuals we analyze the construction of land as stable property that ultimately became financial security, to the point that nation-states ended up providing the apparatus to secure land property. Then, based on different alternatives of refusal we aim to destabilize the 'secure' position of land as property. This opens the space to propose a new status for land: an infrastructure for coexistence, a scarce resource that escapes capture. For if private property is at the root of inequality, then we may start to think of strategies that run away from that condition to ensure the right of future generations to have a place to live with dignity.

Facing Darkness: Review of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale

ARQ, 2023

Quite often, recurrent exhibitions such as biennials, triennials, festivals, and similar events, ... more Quite often, recurrent exhibitions such as biennials, triennials, festivals, and similar events, are confused with fashion shows as if their purpose was to predict trends for the upcoming season. Some audiences visit these shows to discover what to wear and talk about. Others go to see themselves reflected in the selection (and complain when their egos are not satisfied). But in so doing, these kinds of audiences miss the most basic point: these recurrent events are, first and foremost, collective exhibitions. Thus, to search for signs of hope, despair, or hints of the future in them is a misconception. Biennials, triennials, or festivals are just group displays, whether well-curated or not. A good, skillful curator can either introduce us to things we didn’t know about or present a selection of what we already knew in a new framework. Lesley Lokko, the Ghanaian-Scottish architect who curated the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale titled “The Laboratory of the Future,” along with her team, successfully did both.

Revista R 17, 2019

La mayor revolución del arte del siglo XX fue causada por una publicación. Sin el número 2 de The... more La mayor revolución del arte del siglo XX fue causada por una publicación. Sin el número 2 de The Blind Man, publicado a ﬁnes de abril de 1917, no sabríamos de la existencia de una obra llamada La fuente, ﬁrmada por un desconocido R. Mutt y que se discutió en extenso en dicha edición. Sin ese pasquín de ocho páginas que circulaba de mano en mano, no tendríamos fotografías de la broma que Marcel Duchamp (con la ayuda de sus amigos Walter Arensberg y Joseph Stella) le jugó en secreto a la exposición que él mismo había ayudado a montar y de la que Arensberg era director.

Casa Chilena: La pluralidad de un concepto singular

180, 2020

Inaugurada exactamente a tres meses del estallido social del 18 de octubre de 2019 y cerrada temp... more Inaugurada exactamente a tres meses del estallido social del 18 de octubre de 2019 y cerrada temporalmente dos meses después por el brote del COVID-19, la exposición “Casa Chilena: Imágenes domésticas” estuvo montada en el Centro Cultural La Moneda en medio de dos estados de excepción. El presente texto busca explicitar los criterios y decisiones detrás del tema de la exposición, su postura en relación con los debates en torno a la forma de exponer arquitectura hoy, la selección de las piezas a ser expuestas y la estructura de orden de la muestra. El objetivo es no solo proponer que la casa en Chile supone una multiplicidad de manifestaciones y formatos diversos, sino también que ella puede ser entendida como un objeto cultural en vez de uno arquitectónico. Reforzando esos puntos, la exposición planteó una mirada alternativa a los discursos disciplinares de la arquitectura y una forma poco habitual de exhibir arquitectura, en la que la diversidad tomaba primacía respecto del marco comparativo entre los distintos casos expuestos. De esta manera, la exposición logró dialogar con los excepcionales acontecimientos entre los que estuvo abierta al público.

Interview with Keller Easterling: Zones of Economic Exception / Zonas de excepción económica

ARQ, 2016

The ‘zones’ –parts of territory that have an exceptional legal status– are sharply depicted in Ke... more The ‘zones’ –parts of territory that have an exceptional legal status– are sharply depicted in Keller Easterling’s recent book Extrastatecraft: the power of infrastructure space. Explaining that zones are repeatable spatial formulas used by the most powerful people in the world (so they have huge political consequences), in this interview Easterling also provides a series of arguments for why architects should not ignore these kinds of spatial products.

Interview with Leopold Lambert, The Funambulist: On Violence / Sobre la violencia

ARQ, 2016

If, consciously or not, imaginaries operate as engines for concrete actions (projects, laws, regu... more If, consciously or not, imaginaries operate as engines for concrete actions (projects, laws, regulations, behaviors, etc.), it is necessary then to question both their origins and implications. From a very particular position, Léopold Lambert has focused his work on demonstrating that, if there's a certain degree of violence inflected by architecture upon bodies, then it would be necessary to question its conceptual assumptions and understand it, without idealizations, in its political and material aspects.

Interview with Metahaven: Transparency / Transparencia

ARQ, 2016

Although transparency appears to be the starting point for every public discussion nowadays, it s... more Although transparency appears to be the starting point for every public discussion nowadays, it seems we have not realized the fact that when everything is transparent, there's actually nothing to see. Skeptical about these processes - and of how new technologies and social media have unfolded them - Metahaven has developed the idea of 'black transparency,' which deeply reflects on these imaginaries and their ultimate implications both at the political and geopolitical level.

Interview with Saskia Sassen: On Expulsions / Sobre expulsiones

ARQ, 2018

Migrations, wars, economy crashes, ecological crises and other phenomena of massive scale have be... more Migrations, wars, economy crashes, ecological crises and other phenomena of massive scale have become usual in recent years. And while they concern us because of their extensiveness and recurrence, we tend to understand them as isolated effects. However, in her last book Expulsions, Saskia Sassen argues that these are only different aspects of the same problem: the ‘predatory formations’ of contemporary capitalism that generate unprecedented levels of inequality. A context where many people end up being expelled from the economy.

Interview with Felicity D. Scott: Cautionary tales from the land of freedom / Advertencias desde la tierra de la libertad.

ARQ, 2019

Instead of freedom, we should talk about freedoms, Felicity D. Scott argues in this interview. Wi... more Instead of freedom, we should talk about freedoms, Felicity D. Scott argues in this interview. With the book Outlaw Territories as a starting point for this conversation, Scott warns us about the cynicism or ambivalence inherent in the notion of freedom which, in the USA, has been raised as a flagship argument by almost everyone: from hippies to corporations, or even from drop-outs to libertarians.

Interview with Mark Wigley: The deconstructive project is a project of optimism. / El proyecto deconstructivo es optimista.

ARQ, 2022

The architecture behind philosophy, and therefore behind deconstruction, is the subject Mark Wigl... more The architecture behind philosophy, and therefore behind deconstruction, is the subject Mark Wigley has investigated over the last few decades. Understanding deconstruction as a way of thinking and comprehending the world, his ideas have been displayed in different formats: from exhibitions to academic projects. In this interview, Wigley reflects on these ideas again, allowing us to see the structure behind his philosophy and his way of understanding architecture and the world.

Un largo de-tour / A Long Detour

ARQ, 2022

Projects cannot always be formulated beforehand. Sometimes they are conceptualized during their d... more Projects cannot always be formulated beforehand. Sometimes they are conceptualized during their development. At other times, they are too radical to be announced. But most of the time, their formulation is made retrospectively simply because time gives a better perspective about what has been done. This is why it is only now that we can realize the ideas we have been trying to deploy for the last eight years. Given that ARQ has existed since 1980 - and we hope it will continue to exist for many more decades - we can look at what happened in that distant 2015 as a journey that deviated from the previous path, entering lesser-known territories and, perhaps for the same reason, more interesting to explore. Such a detour was imperative: the trajectory was so predictable that it was not difficult to anticipate it was on a collision course.

Nueva normalidad / New normality

ARQ, 2021

Shortly before his sudden death in September 2020, the American anthropologist David Graeber wrot... more Shortly before his sudden death in September 2020, the American anthropologist David Graeber wrote a short text (Graeber, 2021). There, he recalled that, after the great recession of 2008, all questionings regarding the foundations of the economy during the peak of the crisis were quickly silenced; so, as soon as the economy recovered, everything returned to business as usual. Then, he wondered if, after the pandemic, we should go back to normal or not. His answer was a resounding ‘no.’ For Graeber, the pandemic has not been a nightmare but rather the awakening of a dream, because only in dreams do implausible situations make sense (e.g., extracting surplus without adding value, as in the land market).

Libertad: práctica versus espacio / Freedom: practice versus space

ARQ, 2019

In 1926, Walter Gropius presented a diagram of housing densities that calculated the distance bet... more In 1926, Walter Gropius presented a diagram of housing densities that calculated the distance between buildings based on a ratio of their height, so that each block of houses received an appropriate amount of light. Shortly after, in 1931, Adams, Lewis and Orton argued that the beauty of Manhattan’s skyline was due to the ‘mass effect’: a set of buildings with different heights, shapes and facades, placed close to each other (Koolhaas, 1994). While the first image insists on the value of rationality, the second argues in favor of a lack of rules. One stands in favor of order while the other in favor of anarchy. Both express the debate between planning and freedom. Architecture has usually been closer to the first, since both its tools (design and preview) and its goal (the definition of an order) make it hard for its products to encompass the unpredictability of the second. In fact, if that spontaneity has come to be discussed in architecture, it has been because someone has found it outside of it, like when Rudofsky surveyed vernacular constructions or when Turner offered the Peruvian slums as a model. However, freedom is much more than a debate represented through architectural images. Freedom is not an aesthetic choice. It is a political issue.

¿Qué pasó con las masas? / What happened to the masses?

ARQ, 2018

Although famous for their pessimism, Adorno and Horkheimer hardly imagined that, decades after wr... more Although famous for their pessimism, Adorno and Horkheimer hardly imagined that, decades after writing: “the masses are too astute to identify with the millionaire on the screen”, reality would overcome their worst nightmares (Adorno & Horkheimer, 2002:116). In the second decade of the 21st century, the masses are not only not so astute, but they do not even recognize themselves as such.

¿Instrumentos para qué? / Instruments for what?

ARQ, 2017

In her book The Architecture of Error, Francesca Hughes argues that “behind the naivety of archit... more In her book The Architecture of Error, Francesca Hughes argues that “behind the naivety of architecture’s current return to an all-invested faith in the instrumentalist premise - that technology is somehow outside of culture, and therefore able to arbitrate over things cultural - lies the ongoing denial of technology's partiality” (Hughes, 2014:77). As a branch of the philosophy of knowledge, instrumentalism is a long-standing idea stating that theories cannot be assessed in terms of their veracity but rather on the basis of their usefulness in explaining things and predicting events. Indeed, its more radical variant - eliminative instrumentalism - even suggests that once facts prove a theory, it can be discarded and, if nothing proves it, all the more reasons to disregard it.

¿Imaginarios? / Imaginaries?

ARQ, 2016

One of the most accurate explanations for the present-day global political crisis is the emergenc... more One of the most accurate explanations for the present-day global political crisis is the emergence of 'single-issue voters', that is, citizens who are passionately mobilized by a very narrow agenda of interests, abandoning the possibility that a 'grand narrative' could meet multiple specific and divergent demands (Luna, 2016).Thus, any decision will have a small group of supporters and many detractors, and both will alternate according to the subject until no one in favor of anything is left.
If we bring this notion to contemporary architecture, we can observe a similar process: an endless number of individual agendas makes it very difficult to draw a synthetic map of the current scenario. Perhaps that is why part of the discipline, maybe tired of the difficulty of reading the circuit as something coherent, is looking at a past that seemed simpler to understand with a sense of nostalgia.

Un debate valórico / A debate on values

ARQ (Santiago), Dec 1, 2017

By presenting an example quite familiar to architects, Marx explains the need for a third element... more By presenting an example quite familiar to architects, Marx explains the need for a third element - a means - to establish a value-relationship between commodities: “In order to calculate and compare the areas of rectilinear figures” - the philosopher says - “we decompose them into triangles. But the area of the triangle itself is expressed by something totally different from its visible figure, namely, by half the product of the base multiplied by the altitude.” Then, he adds: “In the same way the exchange values of commodities must be capable of being expressed in terms of something common to them, of which they represent greater or less quantity” (Marx, 1867(1990):127). That is, in order to establish this value-relationship between different things, a and b, it is necessary to abstract the qualities of both to make them equivalent to a third-factor x. Thus, a = x and b = 2x lets us know that a is worth half of b.

Un trabajo cuidadoso / A careful job

ARQ (Santiago), 2021

Without care, human beings would not have survived for so long on this planet. Yet, despite its r... more Without care, human beings would not have survived for so long on this planet. Yet, despite its relevance, these tasks have been made invisible and minimized. Perhaps the fact that they had been done mainly by women can explain this disdain. As Nancy Fraser (2016) indicates, the defense of male domination was the way in which, historically, the social relevance of caregiving tasks has been underestimated. That would reveal why housework has not been considered a formal ‘work’ and that the diﬀerence between oikos and polis has ended up becoming a characterization of genders: politics as a masculine sphere and care as a feminine one

El poder de resistir / The power to resist

ARQ (Santiago), 2020

After devoting a large part of his life to studying the inner workings of power - arriving at the... more After devoting a large part of his life to studying the inner workings of power - arriving at the conclusion that it was practically everywhere - in the first volume of The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault (1978:95) wrote that “wherever there is power, there is resistance.” This not only implies that power contains the germ of its own response, but also that resistance is not external to power, rather, it is its counterpart.

Refusing Land’s Capture: A New Status for a Finite Resource

by Francisco Díaz and Camillo Boano

Hilal, S., Bedir, M., Ramsgaard Thomsen, M., Tamke, M. (eds) Design for Partnerships for Change. UIA 2023, 2023

Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of... more Through this argumentative essay, we seek to frame a new status for land. First, with the help of companion intellectuals, we analyze the construction of land as stable property that ultimately became financial security, to the point that nation-states ended up providing the apparatus to secure land property. Then, based on different alternatives of refusal we aim to destabilize the ‘secure’ position of land as property. This opens the space to propose a new status for land: an infrastructure for coexistence, a scarce resource that escapes capture. For if private property is at the root of inequality, then we may start to think of strategies that run away from that condition to ensure the right of future generations to have a place to live with dignity.

Hacia una crítica de clase media

PLOT, 2022

Ponencia en el seminario "Original misunderstanding" de GSD, Harvard, publicado luego en el númer... more

Architectures of Bipolarity

Lithium: States of Exhaustion, 2021

Human bodies are in a permanent state of exchange. Through the nose and mouth, our lungs perform ... more Human bodies are in a permanent state of exchange. Through the nose and mouth, our lungs perform a continuous process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling CO2 . Our skin permanently exchanges water with the environment, releasing or receiving humidity. Blood is continuously flowing in our veins, feeding the different organs that make up the body. Electric impulses are always traveling through our nerves. Even in a state of total rest – as in profound sleep or total relaxation – the atoms in our body are continuously moving.

Complejidad y Contradicción en la Dictadura: Arquitectura e historia en el Chile de Pinochet.

Santiago 1977-1990: Arquitectura, Ciudad, Política, 2021

A más de tres décadas de la recuperación de la democracia en Chile, el concepto de ‘patrimonio’ y... more A más de tres décadas de la recuperación de la democracia en Chile, el concepto de ‘patrimonio’ ya se ha institucionalizado. De hecho, en 2018, la palabra quedó inscrita en el nombre de un ministerio y se creó todo un nuevo aparataje estatal para su protección1 . Así, hoy en día, poner en duda la validez de esta idea podría convertirnos en enemigos del sentido común. Sin embargo, aquello que ahora parece tan políticamente correcto podría no ser más que la culminación de un proyecto de larga data que, en los primeros años de la dictadura, encontró un terreno fértil donde afianzarse.

Urbanismo Top-Down

Vamos P'Arriba: la Remodelación San Borja y la vivienda vertical, 2022

El 20 de febrero de 2019, el reconocido exfutbolista Marcelo Salas fue parte de un curioso desafí... more