Social Sert’s Casa Bloc’s Power of the People (Humane Architecture)

[music] A warmest welcome back to ThinkTech Hawaii's human humane architecture. We're sure you watched all our episodes, so you know we're in episode uh 373 now. Uh 273. We don't want to make it more impressive than it already is. So, we're broadcasting live from three parts of the world. two of them close to each other. Back to us as Pedro Cabriata back in his home away from home, Barcelona. I was supposed to be in Budapest, but I moved uh over to one of your favorite places uh Jay, which is Portugal in Porto. So, I'm close to you, Pedro uh but you know, close enough. And we're broadcasting back to Honolulu, Hawaii to UJ Fidel. So, it's great to have you back uh on the panel and we're still searching to find the genetic code again, how we can do social housing uh well back in Honolulu. So, we're trying to learn from Barcelona. So, we're back to Barcelona. Uh little bit of here uh the guys on the top left you see here the one the guy in the middle you know the other guy is Edoadoo Stora who's Pritskar prize winner from some years ago and just recently in your city of Barcelona Pedro he was also awarded the gold medal of the UIA world congress of architecture he was awarded that in the Sagra familia by Gaudi which I didn't get in but I was able to snap him at another event that you can see here and I try to talk him into becoming a shift member and good luck Martin right look at Edardo's uh you know facial expression and uh we gave a presentation there close to our favorite building haha which is Bfield's uh W hotel in the back that you see at the bottom right and we put our stickers of shift in front of it modern architecture has failed couldn't find a better uh phrase for for that building and and Thomas Ao who's the founder of the shift movement says we have to go get on a glass diet. So these were the things we were talking about. Our panel was about uh getting off car centricity. So, you know, Edardo and I have a thing going on with metro stations and then Martin House was doing a presentation about next to the Stoodgard 2100 new train station and then founding principal of Bet Laroy I'm always trying to pronounce it right that you Pedro have introduced us to their work was also there. So, we had a good time. There's Bruno Sour here who was running our panel and he's the green building council president in Spain. So that's what we've been doing recently but we're uh moving on to these guys here because you know uh we met up which is really great and tell us where that was Pedro. >> This is at the Mid Foundation which is on the Mri uh hill on a high part of Barcelona. Absolutely. Yeah. And you were giving you were kindly inviting me to a tour you were giving to uh architects from Brazil. You're giving a lot of tours to architects from >> all over the world. I got you a copy of our book, Jay, because thanks to you, we got >> Think Tech Hawaii QR codeed links to many of the shows. And this is the DOM publishers um Philip and Natasha Moisa's uh architectural guide. And to my knowledge, there isn't a full book about Barcelona yet. I guess you have to write that, Pedro. Haha. On top of everything else you're doing. So, Philillip and Natasha, listen. But if I'm not mistaken, I found this here. you guys as guiding architects. There's the collector's guide edition that has a mini Barcelona part of it. So, there's already something there, but maybe the full-blown. So, to get us right and not wrong, um, you know, Barcelona, you already said in the many shows we did together, Pedro, you said maybe, you know, qualitatively we're doing something right as housing the underserved, but but quantitatively it's not enough. And also we have to say not everything been done in Barcelona is because Jay um you and I uh last week we're just talking about um a horrible project hopefully not to happen which is happening on the most capital concentration part of the Alamana Mall that we wanted to be very critical about. So on the way to a project that you said, Martin, because we've been doing um we we try to find the genetic code for why architects in Barcelona do it so well. And per your suggestion, we did a show about um Walden 7 by Ricardo Bofil of his early years. And uh but you said that might actually be another one and that's the one we're on the way to. just next to it or across the street is this project here. That also doesn't look very promising. Don't judge a book by the cover, but it seems pretty much, you know, the fanciest thing is the kind of the wedged um openings in the in the walls. Uh but everything else seems uh not very shifty. It's sort of upside down. It seems kind of backwards in terms of So, not any any much different than or not much different than what we had to report on last week. um Jay on on the Alam Moana Mall. But now we turn to the positive. This is this is the project here. And tell us more about the architect because he also has to do with a Miro Foundation because the same architect, right? So, so this uh this building was actually done by a team of architects uh of three architects which were uh the most wellknown is Joseph Yuser who um was one of the founding members of um of the Gatbach which was the first art movement of modern architecture here in in Catalunia or Barcelona and he's the one who designed the Mid Foundation. Uh the MO foundation would be one of his late projects from the 1970s and well he has uh an interesting uh biography we can say because he was very active dur active during the 1930s in Barcelona uh as a founding member of the Gatpak and I'll mention the other architects in a while uh and then he uh went into exile with the civil war because he was uh this project the project we're seeing was actually uh promoted and encouraged by the Republican regional government by what we call the generalat. That would be the equivalent of a state uh governor uh in the United States. And um so a lot of the architects that participated in these projects were connected to the Republican regime. And of course when the fascists won the civil war um a lot of these people uh they wor best case scenario they could stay here but probably never work again. No not in architecture. So a lot of them decided to go into exile including Mr. Sevt. Uh he went first to Paris for a few years then he went to the n to the United States and uh I don't know if you were aware of this but he was pretty successful in the USA. He ended up being the dean of the school of architecture of the Harvard school of architecture for many years. Uh he did some projects over there. He built um some housing projects uh some m uh buildings for the university as well for Harvard and um he designed the middle foundation in the 1970s from exile. There's also an interesting story around that that project. In any case, the other two architects that participated in this project were uh Subana, no, which was probably the least well-known of the three. And the only one who remained in in Barcelona after this the end of the civil war, which meant that basically he didn't do any outstanding projects and he lived his life with a very low profile, we could say. And the third one was uh Torres Clave who was um a very interesting um uh intellectual besides an interesting architect and he was uh in charge of the magazine that publicized the ideas of this uh Gatpak group and he was a third party in this um in this project. Uh unfortunately Doris Clave died um during the civil war. He he literally died in the front. So we don't know what what would have happened. He would probably have gone into exile if he had survived as well. >> Okay. And per our uh motto and mission of these shows here, we either show stuff that we have done ourselves being doing meaning either building or writing or guided or and at the very least to have seen. So in this case here it's it's double trouble because um you have been uh and we we show this later have been giving tours especially in around the building and in a unit that has been remodeled back to the original condition. You've been writing about this a lot and then you tell people about it like Martin and then Martin goes there. So the pictures here in this case are mostly by me but there's a lot of additional coverage by you. So here you see the street corner. So, if you hopefully all now watching the show and and Jay, when we get you over here, you will be able to navigate to this. And this is when you get off um you know the main street and get off into the side street into one of the side streets. You start to see that something looks strange, right? Or or to say the least unconventional, right? because you see alternating every other floor being either opened um and and a hallway and open circulation and then rather closed. So you start to think how could this basically be what could this mean right how is it basically laid out and it takes you a while. So you either do in best case everyone you do your homework before right and inform yourself and then you go or I have to say like I do I also get a kick out of looking at it first and then always try to sit down for a coffee still at the place and then do my research and then sort of go back or reflect on what I've seen um either either of the two but you can already uh lift the blanket Pedro and explain a little bit why this looks the way it looks. So this is essentially what we call duplex apartments. Uh that means that every apartment has two stories. Uh and it's organized in a way that you can only access the apartments from certain levels. So in this case it would be the second floor, the fourth floor and the sixth floor. >> That's correct. So it it gives it an interesting ornamentation but it's it's it comes from functionality. So the >> the name of the the the project already gives is the program because it's Kaza block. So it's basically to bring the uh ideal and idea of a single family residence right where you have a house that has two floors. You bring this into the urban into the urban block, right? That's basically pretty much the idea. >> You pack them on top of each other. >> Exactly. Next and on top to on top of each other. And so this is how this happens here. And then you have these open corners. Of course, we have to say if we're sort of picky, you know, this this forms an S in plan, which we will see. So depending on orientation, you either have, you know, morning sun, you have afternoon sun, or you have midday sun or you have northern. So you got all different um orientations. So you also have different ways of mitigating uh the the sun because we're talking Barcelona and we're talking it being um it being hot and so here is us walking around. Uh you want to talk about him and Lori and pilotes and stuff. >> Yeah. Well, this this um the Gatpak movement and then Cert in particular were strongly influenced by Leorbusier. Cert happened to work for one year with Lorier. As soon as he finished his studies here in Barcelona, he he left for Paris and he stayed a year over there and I don't think that it's any coincidence that just when he as soon as he turn he comes back to Barcelona, that's when the Gatpak movement is founded. So it's uh because of its ideology and the spirit of the movement they would have never talked about a leader uh but clearly Seb was one of the most influential architects within the within the group >> and several ideas that we can uh that we know already in the corros work like the pilotes the idea of the roof garden for example uh and even the horizontal windows that are not that evident in most of the project but they're kind of insinuated. So we do have a series of of things that uh connect clearly to to the CO and and if we take this to an urban scale uh it's even more because this is this was like this was building was supposed to be a prototype for social housing but it was also a prototype of a new way of do of building the city with more open spaces with more gardens and parks and with this idea of the space like um running under the building no one connect interconnecting Mhm. And per your you know all-encompassing scope of searchs, you know, then um moving on to the United States and then eventually moving back or to Ibisa in fact, but back to the Mediterranean where he came from. Um he also then sort of thanked Lorbizier for his apprentice year with him in in in helping him to get his one and only project as it turned out in the United States. So Cert was instrumental in you know thanking Lorbizier and making sure he got a project in the United States as well. So um this is back to the Miro Foundation. This is this is your Brazilian clients, architects clients. And um you were pointing out uh something about the way you build ceilings and roofs in vaults and and that in mind um as I want to encourage everyone who participates in your great shows and your great tours which are shows in some ways, right? you're showing things and so uh that resonating with me. Then when I went following your advice to go back to Kaza Block, I found something fascinating that you also said that might be uh worthwhile for your other organization that you're part of that you please tell us and and sharing that and sort of archiving that because it unveils actually the making of this building. So please expand on that and I scroll through these pictures. >> Yeah. So um the tours I do uh the visits I do to to this uh building and to the museum/ apartment uh is uh I do it with an organization called uh Glo which means the red balloon. This is the name comes from this old French movie. I don't know if you've ever seen it. It's like a I think it's a silent movie. I I saw it when I was a child. That's basically a child chasing a red balloon around Paris. But in any case, uh it's a group of architects that are very focused on uh I think it's a very interesting perspective because their aim is to especially to uh encourage locals to know and understand their architecture. Uh so actually most of the the visits we do are in Catalan for example for for local public. Of course we have uh architecture students once in a while from from different countries etc. And um one of the interesting things that uh set and his uh colleagues were using from the start are reinterpretations of traditional building systems uh in spite of in general modern architecture had this this thing of looking away from anything that was traditional. It was if it's traditional we don't want anything to do with it. No, we're the we're doing new stuff here, new building systems, etc. And the gap had this uh kind of seed uh of okay, but maybe there's a couple of things that we can uh reinterpret, recycle, or in some cases use in a relatively literal way. So, this is a reinterpretation of a traditional system uh here in Catalunia that goes way back. Uh it was originally um a system. It's in Catalan it's called revolto and in Spanish it's called which means little vaults. It's a system. The original system had wooden beams and between a wooden beams you would have a very thin uh layer of bricks that created a small vault. uh by the 19th century it was very common to have um this system had evolved replacing the original uh uh wooden beams by iron beams. So this is something that is for example in the Ashampl neighborhood in Barcelona which was mostly built in the in the late 19th century. You can see a lot of these buildings with this kind of structure. No, with these iron beams and the the little vaults and basically this is what um SE is you and and company are using in this project. No. So uh this project essentially is uh combining no the new uh building systems with some elements of uh local tradition. In the case of the Mido Foundation, it's more of a reinterpretation because it looks like uh like the traditional system, but it's really made with reinforced concrete. So from a construction point of view, it's a little different. >> Yeah. And thanks to some water damage here, we through me were able to see that because they had to open the ceiling and the on the ground floor. And here you can see it all pretty much unvealed. And it's rather fascinating. And I pulled this here from this website down there where it actually shows, you know, it's a it's a light steel construction. It's a skeleton and then it's basically um embedded. The steel is embedded in in masonry and and in brick. and then you know eventually clad. So this was um an exciting moment for because what we want to do is obviously encourage the audience to be detectives on their own, encouraged and provoked by us and be scavenger hunters and go out and be curious about things and then my weird way as I already said then I'm going to sit down over a coffee and muddle in and then uh you know doing my homework and then also um you know finding this is always you know on on a fine line how can you take pictures, you know, and so they're not you're not uh violating their privacy. But but these pictures really show these very young kids in their diapers and the bicycles there that this project, you know, is historic. It's close to a hundred years young. I say avoiding to say old and it's still absolutely uh sought after and and inhabited uh in a way. it it it used to be. And here's finally the the plan, the S configuration. And you see the north era there clearly. And here's some drawings and especially the axon exonometric drawing on the top left that just illustrates what um you had already been explaining that you enter it pretty much as you see at the bottom left um um from the open hallway which Jay is something that you know a lot of the traditional buildings mid-century when you came to Hawaii have open circulation single loaded corridor and then you have a unit that goes spans the whole unit. So you have cross ventilation and you have that sort of um serving zone as Khan called it the servant spaces with a small kitchen and the bathroom. You got a nice living room and a staircase that gets you up to the to the many to the many bedrooms. So it's it's a very sort of a nice way of housing the workforce people and giving them integrity through that they have their own house but altogether and packed because land again in the urban area is is sparse. And I find it amazing when you pull, you know, old traditional pictures that besides the cars and what people wear, it pretty much, you know, is just alive, you know, these days as it was back then. And here's Pedro, [laughter] as you can tell, also pulled from the web. and your organization guiding architects and and this is you with your other association, the red balloon um and and giving tours of that specific um unit that hopefully now you will also tell us more about. Right. So guide us through uh these images here that I found on the web. So this this is um one of the things uh about the apartment the the museum apartment is that uh it's they tried to put it back the way it was but at the same time they went I always say they went a little violinook in the sense especially with the furniture because they included period furniture that these apartments never really had. This was a social housing project that went uh little off course to say the least because uh the fascist regime decided to give these apartments to uh the families of military basically. uh and of course not anybody could could get in. And eventually, it's interesting because when democracy uh returned to Spain, the the building went back to the regional government and they decided to turn it into finally uh into an actual social housing uh unit. So, it's a building that achieved uh its uh original function decades after it was completed. Mhm. >> And one of the things that was recovered, another thing that was recovered in this particular apartment was the balconies. The balconies were an essential part of the original project. Uh and uh the thing is that the living rooms were a little small for our contemporary perspective. Um and if you understand that uh there uh the average apartment is a three-bedroom because the number of bedrooms can change also. I can explain that if we go back to the uh isometric a little later. Uh how this can change from one apartment to the other. Well uh if you look at the at the second story of the apartment uh on the floor plan, you see that the division is like a a nestshaped element. It it has like this. I don't know if you can see my I don't know. You're not going to see my my uh my cursor, but uh there's three bedroomedroom apartments and there's like an odd division and that division was made in such a way that if you uh close the door of one of the bedrooms in the central bedrooms and you open it on the other side, you turn the units into a two apartment and a four a twobedroom and a fourbedroom. So this is something that one of the the things that um the most surprising things about this building because this was really ahead of its time. Now when we talk about uh any kind of housing either social or not social uh flexibility is a key feature and these these guys were doing in the 1930s they were doing flexible housing uh that could accommodate to uh the the needs of the families. So, I mentioned that the the living rooms were relatively small. Uh they were not small in the 1930s, but they're a little small for the current use. We we have if you think of a family with uh uh three uh three bedrooms, probably there's uh five, six people even living there. Uh so what most of the apartments did over time is to uh occupy the balcony uh and have a larger living room. And when the building was restored, uh they decided to keep this uh prioritizing functionality because they said it's it's better uh they work better as uh as social housing units or apartments if you have a larger uh living space in spite of it having some uh issues with for example with with the excessive sun because instead of having a balcony that protects you from the sun, you have the window that is receiving the sun directly. So in spite of this, no, they decided to do this with the exception of this apartment. No, that was returned to its original look. They even did like a an archaeological uh expedition through the building looking for old pieces uh for an old sink, for example, uh for old pieces of the kitchen. No, in order to put them in this apartment. Of course, if any neighbor had a kitchen from the 1930s, they were happy to switch it for a more contemporary one. and they gladly donated these these pieces. >> So, we're walking up into the bedrooms here. They're pretty, you know, functional. Um, do the work. And so, here we're back to we're switching back to the Miro Foundation here. You giving the tour and also, you know, showing pictures of of the architect here. And then um in the uh in the foundation in the museum is this is this exhibit because we're just talking about inhabitation right and people um these days you know um appreciating the modern standard. So this, if I'm not mistaken, is an is an is a photo in art installation that that a photographer, this lady here was visiting units, right? And and and capturing um and and showing the the the different ways of anticipation, right, that the people want to own their they want to customize the apartment and they want to modernize it. So then, you know, it's it's not as you said, unless >> not necessarily modernize it. I think it's more of a sense of appropriation to make it their own. >> I don't think necessarily it's a >> it's like upgrading. You have to upgrade some things of course but >> Yeah. Yeah. No. In their own making making it your home. >> Exactly. And and and this is amazing to me because again, imagine, you know, hundred nearing a hundred years ago, right, a century ago, how people, you know, how everyone was dressing differently and looking differently >> and and of course now they're all mostly dead except maybe the young boy on the right side, right? They're long gone, but the building the building is still there. And the building is still so fresh because, as you said, it was so ahead of its time. was so innovative and it was based on things that people like to do having a good place to stay that's still valid you know until until now. So here again it's like 19 32 till 36. Um, and since uh this was sort of taking your little finger again, Pedro, and pulling you back into our program, you also sent me out to you kept sending me out to projects you have been writing about. You got me curious about, so I spent time. And so hopefully we can grab your other body parts and get you back on more shows. And and this one here I was throwing in because when when you look at certain especially the as Jay and everyone else in in Hawaii calls it lai the balcony uh and the the shading system as as you were saying before Pedro you've been writing a lot about contemporary architects and uh this firm here to you know have been we've been talking about a lot and this project here um um there is um there's references and there's sort of lessons learned right from and and that's the main reason why we do the show here because saying this didn't fall from the sky. It wasn't like okay all of a sudden there were these genius architects and the point is with Jay you know we had good pioneering architects in in Hawaii right from all over the place as um as Alfred Price from Austria as OIP from Japan slash Russia as Tekashi Unbi from Japan as Pete Wimblely from the US. And so same thing we want to encourage look at these pioneers see what they have been doing well and as you greatly said Pedro not copying that but sort of reinterpreting that in in a modern way. So hopefully we can get that sort of uh encouragement sort of across as for me and you probably you're way more a scholar than I will ever be. Pedro um I also want to say to whoever watches us because um the the picture when we were like you know having our reuniting and we're over our coffee our breakfast you know it's like um they might say you know okay they okay they're buddies. Yeah, we're buddies now, but I got to know you through your great work. I ran into one of your tours and that's how I got to know you and I curious and then I was writing your reading your articles that you wrote. So, my appreciation comes from through your work, you know, that's I just wanted to get to get that kind of thing straight in our business of the academ. So, I I had a hard time finding uh actually pictures of Sarah from his early years. There's many pictures mainly from his late years and in Harvard where he looks very formal you know very much the elder gentleman but the early pictures of s these were the ones that I was finding you know pulling them pretty much um from from the web and and then this was the end of my tour in in moving on and moving forward. you see other buildings there, you know, um that the one that has leni at least and balconies, but doesn't like, you know, um create any curiosity, at least not on my side. So, I'm just saying it's it's very interesting to see how uh a building that is a hundred years young uh is still so fresh and and is such a great um sort of pioneer pioneering inspiration for for contemporary architects. So, Jay, we've been uh sharing a lot your reflections the relevance for Honolulu. >> Sure. Go back to the beginning, will you, Martin? the very beginning. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Okay. My my my first aside from that, my my first reaction is uh how do you how do you do the stairs here? Uh I guess there's no elevators. There were no elevators at the time this building was designed and built. So it looks like you the main entry is going to be at the level where there is no lenai and then you walk down. Am I right? To get to the level where the lenai is or is it the other way around? >> Uh the access the entries are in the corners. In every corner you have a stairwell there. Uh we don't really see them here because these are the I think these are the upper levels of the apartments. The ground floor was intended to be occupied by uh different uh services for the neighbors such as well the coffee shop where Martin had his coffee or um now we have uh social center for elder people. We have um something that is kind of like um like a kindergarten. It's not exactly a kindergarten but something of the sort. Uh so uh in that floor plan in the uh in the four corners four of them. Yeah. One 2 3 four you have uh the axises. Uh here would be on the opposite side of the lower part of this block. There's an axis. So we don't see the doors in these pictures in particular, but the doors are there and the stairwells are right inside this block. this weird looking thing, if you're wondering what it is, is because there was an additional uh volume that was added to the um to the building and it was demolished because it was kind of disfiguring the whole project. It was added without with no criteria. It had nothing to do with the design. So >> stay on this for a moment. Um so each apartment, each unit has one main entry, right? >> Yes. >> Not not two, but one. >> No, no, no. one one main one entry a single entry >> and and that entry would be um on the the floor with the window rather than the lenai and you walk down to the window no the you see these uh like kind of platforms that connect the two blocks of the building >> Mhm. >> between between the the the facade with the the doors that lead nowhere and the other block you see these platforms. This is part of the um the corridor that gives access to the apartments. So that would be the level of entry. >> Okay. Level of entry then is the the level that has the lenai and then you walk up to the level which which has the addition. >> You walk up to the apartments. >> Okay. A couple of comments. Number one is uh that's a beautiful stairway that you showed in that picture. I really like that stairway. The sweeping quality of it sort of, you know, they didn't have to be as aesthetic as they were. Um, but there you go. It's a It's really >> and it's a completely traditional stairwell. Uh, this building [clears throat] has the >> Yeah. has a curiosity because the the common stairwells are like what would be at the time like high-tech stairs >> because they're made with uh with a steel structure and with pre-fabricated uh concrete slabs. And this one on the other hand, the the interior stairwells are just made with brick in a traditional completely traditional manner. And this kind of curving vault, it's called a Catalin vault. So it's something that it it can't be more traditional than you can't be more traditional than that. >> The other thing I noticed that the applause surfaces are all stone. Um, it doesn't sound like this building either had or has now a lot of carpet, which I I that's my taste, by the way. My taste is stone, uh, for a lot of reasons, including maintenance. Um, and so I I think that's a real positive. But the other question I was going to ask you that that that those young people come around and they do graffiti and so this building has graffiti, which is what I would call a damn shame. And the question, and this is a modern technology question, Martin, maybe you have an idea about this. Can't we find wall surfacing that will allow um the maintenance staff to take that graffiti right off there so they don't have to make a big effort and to get back to the original surfacing on the walls. It really is a damn shame that people come around and they wreck the aesthetic quality of the building with this graffiti. Well, per your um telepathically I I through the tram station projects that I try to pull you know Edawardo into shift because he's been doing the the the uh the the metro station in Porto was done by his mentor Alva Rosiza and then um and then Eduardo was doing the the on um ongrade uh stations. So this is the work the typology that combines us and with our stations we have to run into becoming experts in anti-graffiti J because each station has a different materialization or infill material infill. So we had to uh our client was very interested in low maintenance. So they said okay provide us with uh sort of a manual for how can we you know with the lowest cost and effort. So indeed we we came but I think the the best um actually is what sir and his colleagues achieved because the ground floor where the columns that loriz called pilotes which we were echoing is is is reducing actually the surface of canvas like where they can really express themselves because there is very little walls it's all columns right so this is actually the best way is like you don't give them canvas and then there is there is nothing to to paint on, right? So, this project of course then has the remaining staircases and the walls and this is where they graffiti, but otherwise um you know all the surfaces are above and are private and so then you know the residents can can secure that. >> Another second point uh well third point I want to make is um um I'm disappointed to see all these open spaces that could be used. In other words, you talk about having only columns on the ground floor. Um maybe there should be rooms there for utility purposes or for shops. Um and um it's open. That's this is nice to have open, but it it's not used here. There's a an example. And it doesn't look very inviting, I'm afraid. Um, and I wonder if there's a better use to be put um to this floor, this kind of floor with only the columns and that very coarse uh surfacing on the floor. Uh, and and and as related matters, if you look out back through those columns into what what appears to be a courtyard, uh, you don't see Yeah, there. That's it. You see those trees and maybe some shrubbery in the center of the courtyard. And I know that's a in in in Europe. You see that? There. There it is. What a waste of space. What What about some green grass? Where will the children play? Where will we, you know, sit and enjoy a a cup of tea? Um this is very harsh uh landscape. And can't can't somebody do some landscaping? Can somebody put some greenery here? It really depreciates the uh lifestyle quality of a of of great architecture. Um maybe maybe they did it before and they're not doing it now, but certainly they should do it now. What do you think, Pedro? We missing something here. >> Well, one thing is that this this never really had uh like um this particular uh the building has like two courtyards. This particular one was used for um for keeping uh the police horses at one point. So it was not even not even the neighbors uh were were using the space. It had been enclosed in part by the building that was demolished and in part by a wall. So uh it really never was like a like a true garden. And I'm not sure if it was intended to be uh a garden in a such a conventional way. The original project included, for example, a swimming pool, which seems pretty odd because the space was intended to be completely open. So having a swimming pool like in the middle of a of a plaza or a public park with no restriction of access, uh it's very utopian, maybe too utopian. Uh, regarding regarding the uh the current state, uh, I think clearly the the park is uh could be considerably improved, the garden area. Uh, but you specifically mentioned grass and I would like to point out that grass is on the verge of disappearing in Barcelona uh almost intentionally because it's uh it's a kind of uh uh of greenery that means a lot of maintenance, a lot of water uh so we we're having less and less grass surfaces in public parks. We do have some know for example the Gloius Park that was recently won a very important uh award by the way uh has a spe a very specific area where they have grass uh and but they went out of their way to prevent people from crossing through the grass. So you access the grass if you want to sit and have a picnic and or do some yoga or whatever you want to do but never to cross through the park through the grass area because it's very easy to damage the grass and especially here as I said uh it has a very high water requirement etc. So uh the landscaping could be considerably improved. Yes, totally agree. uh we would have to see what kind of landscaping could uh be beneficial to to the project. No, the project also needs some uh uh some additional maintenance. We already saw these uh these issues with water filtrations and uh leaking and things like this. So, uh, it it's has many even restoration in some parts and it wouldn't be it would I think it would be a good idea to think of how to improve the the park areas uh within the project. >> I stayed in Florence one time. We went to Florence for a wedding and it stayed in a hotel just off the the Domo, a couple of blocks away from the Domo and and um what what struck me about this place was that uh that yes, there was grass, but there were benches everywhere, concrete benches and broad iron chairs and the likes in the center of this square. And people went there. They went there to read the newspaper, to hang around, to do people watching and the like. I don't see any of that. And so, uh, don't you think that whether there's grass or not grass, um, you really need a place to sit down? Um, and >> there there are a few benches, huh, but it's uh it definitely uh it's not the greatest feature of the project. It's not really the the landscaping is not part of the original project. It's something that was done afterwards and it requires a lot of maintenance and there's it it hasn't been done as thoroughly as it should. >> Absolutely. I mean there is a there is a wood bench in front. I guess I took the picture because I saw you guys coming with your questions and there's obviously grass and in the back is the courtyard that is the more privileged because it already has you know trees and Jay you always talk about the chinsano umbrella you know phenomenon that's that's where people sit underneath and have their um in your days it's it's um it's estella beer or here it's superbach you know in Portugal and in in in Italy it's chinsano which is not a beer but a beverage, right? So this is absolutely I think your your ideas and just to make a tell another story Jay how you know this is this this helps us for Hawaii because the school of architecture had school of architecture has just been approached by the as it turns out to be the owner of the building where Barack Obama grew up with his mother um with his grandmother of course and so this is Punoho Circle on on Baritenya and the owner reached out to the school and said, "Can we do a student competition about um about keeping it up to date?" Martin, as the ones who know Martin, started to, you know, have, you know, his non-existing hair, you know, stick up and saying, "Okay, don't don't screw this up, right?" And so um I already threw at them our articles from our book where we basically said this is a gem and keep it and don't. I like your point you know about the archaeology archaeological you know approach Pedro that you say you know rather than trying to pimp it you know and and make it something new. You really spent the energy into especially for you know art historians like you. you spent the time in bringing it back to the original while then enhancing it with and and and I was then getting more calm when I I think I I hopefully understood it right and my colleague Simon Busier who's our um landscape program uh faculty is going to take it on and so it will hopefully be mainly about vegetation right and and and enhancing the inhabitation but it's it's really important that um what we address in the show that you're first of all you're aware of these gems if you have them and all your work Pedro and writing about it and you know showing it to architects of course but maybe more importantly to non-archchitects who can then inform you know the the political and institutional governance and then >> let me let me add something to that Martin I that was my last area of inquiry and I want to ask about about that so Barcelona Spain in the 1930s. Wow. Um, we're talking about Franco here. We're talking about a lot of political disruption going on. Talking about people, including architects, who had to leave Spain or else. Um, and that's when this was designed and built. And so, the question I I have in my mind is, so here's a here's a nice piece of work way ahead of its time, but um, it reflects the politics of the time. It reflects Franco and maybe part of partly the Civil War. It reflects architects trying to get along and and make a project that that is consistent with whatever the authorities are requiring. And so what you say is, "Oh, this this is brilliant piece of work. However, it reflects the politics of the time." And so I ask you, doesn't architecture always reflect the politics of the time? [laughter] Good one, Jay. Good one. [laughter] [snorts] If I if I may help out, I think if I understood you're right, Pedro, in saying this is preceding the totalitarian regime. So these were actually going up against what was to come and so they were able to finish this and then you know fascism took over and then sort of you know change the use of it and giving it to privileged you know the military families and stuff like that. But luckily it came full circle and after as you said democracy came back and by the way you know Spain rightly so Jay is is the is the European country that has been the most and I I know where you come from because most of your shows rightly so you have to dedicate to this topic right now in the United States where we are the closest to get becoming a totalitarian regime. So absolutely what role do we architects what role do we architectural theorists and practitioners play in this and be the la resistance right and if I understood you correctly uh Pedro you said you know this this project was successful because um at the end in democracy it it showed how democratic the building is actually as of now because we we've just been coming from by the way our exotic escapism expert Susanna says hi. And we were just uh in a nice little alley here having dinner. And at the end of the alley is where the urban nomads, how I like to call the homeless, live. And the owner of the restaurant, very young guy, was telling us about how Portugal, which I know you love, Jay, um is in the clause of capital concentration just like Barcelona is, right? And that's another way of of basically losing democracy if you if you basically don't give people access to you know having a place to live that's depriving them of their fundamental rights of of of democracy right so we're currently in this all over the world and the places we're we're speaking about but I think the you know uh soon having to come to the end of an exciting hour of of discourse here just like the Bo Phil Walden 7 project. You guys need to watch that. We did the show together. That was at the end of um the Franco era where a young Ricardo Bofil was was using his his ingenuity and his talent together with his father as a developer to say we're now making a project that that is, you know, at least intentionally for the people. And that's that's another project that of course now actually in Walden 7 we pointed out there is Airbnbs in there and it has been gentrified right while this project here obviously as it comes across to me but you know it better this still seems more truly social housing right so it it's this project I think my response to that Jay and then I turn it over to you Pedro because you're the expert because you're close to it has been fulfilling its its original democratic uh purpose well and has been living through and surviving uh fascists because the fascists could have just been tearing it down like and saying you know this is this is anti- US and so this is this is communist you know uh and so we going to we going to we going to bulldoze this away and they did not right what do you think Pedro >> uh yeah because the it's correct Would you mention the fact that the project was uh was prefranco? No. The the the fact that uh such a large uh social housing project was built was because of the uh of the democratic uh um the democratic uh governing at the time. No, the uh we had the the Spanish Republic. It was a period where there were we we didn't have a key for for a few years at least. Uh and um there was a coincidence uh also an ideological coincidence uh between the architects of the Gatpak and uh the regional government know that they they were both very aware and very concerned about the lack of social housing and they said okay this is our responsibility and the architects of course were part of this. No, they said we are responsible for solving this problem. So this is how this project came to be and as you mentioned it was uh modified physically modified in some cases. Uh I mentioned that some of these areas underneath the building were closed. Uh the areas that were intended to be completely public spaces were not public spaces during the Franco regime. And uh I'm not sure if we could go all the way to saying that the military families were privileged, but they were definitely you had to be uh there was like a requisite know to to be occupied this building between the late30s and uh 1970s 80s. Um you had to have fought on the right side of the civil war of course know to to be uh to have access to to these apartments. And now it's just uh it's just a regular social housing project. It's the property is uh is uh is from the re is of the regional government. So uh you pay a rent uh you pay a subsidized rent to to live here basically. >> Yeah. And right thanks Jay for pointing us to the right conclusion of the show in this point of time where we are in the United States. Let's maybe be overly enthusiastic, but maybe we say that these uh Barcelonian architects here and now that we're so excited about this is why this is like 20th show about Barcelona um are maybe uh taking prevent with their architecture of contemporary social housing taking preventive actions so that that that Barcelona, Spain of course as being part of of Catalan we can have this all this discussion that the people from Catalan say we're not Spanish right but that's sort of on another on another plate I guess but that they are not falling back to fascism and totalitarian so that's your point J right and we're very happy to have Ilia Asarov uh who is the national AIA president being part of Shift and and part of Shift's mission is social equity that's that's that's a very initial part of shift. So we're happy we have the national AIA behind us and and that way we have to do the same that architects become aware of their crucial and critical role in keeping and fighting democracy and that's that's that's maybe the most important part in the situation we are right now Jay uh back in the USA. >> Thank you. Well, thank you gentlemen and um Pedro again like pulling your next body part into us next time. Maybe we do the modulus metrics here as uh another one that we're going to report on. If you find and can make time again at some point, we would appreciate it. Uh because again, you got me excited and ignited and sent me out to I had your writings and I had your encouragement. So, I went out and um and and saw as many of them as I was able to. And I would love to keep showing that and sharing that again as to encourage architects um in the United States and in Hawaii as being part of it and saying, you know, we can we can we we're not uh we're not passive, you know, [snorts] citizens. We're very we should be very active and and if we keep our people all the people and especially the little people happy then authoritarian powers have less of that power because when you keep the people happy then these douchebags can say whatever they want right but they can't get to the people that's at least you know as a German that's also a hard lesson learned as we all know So, okay. Well, thank you guys and thanks everyone watching and Pedro hopefully having you back soon at some point and always appreciate your time and so um also >> thank you for inviting me again. >> Yeah, always a pleasure. So, we're going to take a short um uh summer break also for you Jay. So um but after that which is in about few weeks we're going to be back with more exciting discussions how to save our democracy architecturally. >> Bye-bye. >> Good luck with that. [laughter]