Smiljan Radic BOMB

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Smiljan Radic

byJos Castillo

BOMB 106/Winter 2009,ARCHITECTURE

(Interview)

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In the Open: Art and Architecture in Public Spaces is sponsored by Cary Brown-Epstein + Steven

Epstein and with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State agency.

Smiljan Radic and Marcela Correa, Extension to the charcoal-burners hut, 1998, Santa Rosa, Chile.

Photo: Smiljan Radic.
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Though we share acquaintances, Smiljan Radic and I have never met in person, nor spoken over the

phone. This interview is the result of a series of email exchanges between Smiljan in Santiago and

myself in Mexico City during October of 2008. Radic, when speaking about his projects, likes to quote

Ren Char: To suppress distance is to kill. This conversation did not make the effort to suppress the

distance but rather to make the most out of it, expanding progressively as we went along, sometimes

exchanging three or four quick responses over a single day, and sometimes waiting days to reflect.

This has resulted in a familiar conversation among strangers.

Radic belongs to the first generation of Chilean architects to have a global presence. I first came

across his architecture in the mid-90s, when international architecture journals in Europe and North

America started to publish his work, most notably two of his houses on the island of Chilo. From

these early projects on, his work has combined visual appeal with intellectual rigor. Seeming both

natural and foreign to their sites, his projects are equally designed and found objects, finished as

much as ongoing. When talking about his work, Radic is less likely to describethe projects than to

discuss ideas surrounding them, the effects they produce, and the way they connect to the larger

world. It is precisely Radics bricoleur-like range of references and his relaxed approach to style,

language, and method that make his work so relevant in architecture today.

Jos Castillo When the global architecture community discusses architects from less developed

countries, its common that nationalities and geographies are considered more relevant than

biographies. Could you talk about how your biography, rather than geography, has informed your

work?

Smiljan Radic My grandfather came to Chile in 1919 from Brac, Croatia. The vision of an immigrantmoves between a sense of estrangement from the surrounding world and a need to see things from

a productive standpoint; the making of objects, situations, and memories takes on a new,

unexpected dynamic. In this way, I still try to consider myself an immigrant.

JC Do you consider yourself an alien, a foreigner, or a marginal figure among colleagues? Are you

comfortable within the idea of nationality in architecture?

SR Fifteen years ago my attention was more focused on objects and fragile constructions that

connected me to professionals outside architecture. My friends have always been mathematicians,

designers, and, especially, artists, and its among these types that I feel most comfortable. Still, its

difficult to declare myself marginal in a discipline where Im taking advantage of all its means of

production.


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Smiljan Radic, Copper House 2, 2004-2005, Talca, Chile. Photo: Cristobal Palma.

JC Has this evolution of affinities, interests, and friendships changed your work? Do you miss the

fragility of your work from 15 years ago?

SR Quite the opposite. I still work in a fragile environment and am extremely connected to handicraftand the self-built, which also allows great advantages in the realm of experimentation on a small

scale.

JC Buildings like the Civic Center in Concepcin or the FMMM Houses in Santiago would seem

anything but fragile. What makes them so?

SR Its not a question of appearance or robustness; its more a matter of building techniques and

construction management. The Concepcin Civic Center has been under construction for seven years

now, with only two stages finished, leaving the public spaces of both stages unrealized. The public

spaces were one of the reasons we won the competition to build it; they were the political raison

detre of the project and the elements that gave it coherence, keeping it far from the bureaucratic

environment of government offices. A third stage is in process, where we have proposed (against the

initial opinion of the official architects) that the centers new modules are beton brut, cast concrete

for both structure and facades. Thanks to the limited resources and the long spans of time between

stages, this institutional architecture, apparently monolithic, will soften.

The FMMM houses and their patios are more like beach-resort bungalows: strangely inserted within

an urban setting, where the sea has been substituted with the mountain range. Built with very

irregular and brut(raw) concrete, the houses have the appearance of an unfinished, larger building.

In any case, you are right in pointing out that in terms of materials, they are fairly conservative

projects.


4/12

JC Would you say that at this moment your interest in the brut and the fragile is concerned more

with materiality, form, and even space? Or maybe, as you said, it concerns management? How do

you negotiate the complexities and sophistication of new projects and commissions with the

primitive elements that still interest you?

SR Its always contingent on each individual project and the realistic possibilities. I do not insist upona particular line of work; that grants me adaptability and a range of solutions. I try to use materials to

create environmental units that are well defined, rather than homogeneous formal solutions.

For example, when we built the Mestizo Restaurant with the artist Marcela Correa, we simply tried

to bring the park and the surrounding lagoons inside the restaurant. We didnt want to have a

pavilion in the middle of the park, but an interior that could actually become a part of it. So we

mounted the building with a thick concrete pergola, painted in black, over large pieces of raw

granite weighing between seven and 12 tons each. These massive stones are the structure of the

building. They are the support, not only in terms of forces but also in terms of imaginationthey

form the memory one has of the landscape. The visitor connects the granite stones to the park, tothe outdoors, even if the real task of the stones is to support a roof. Looking back, there are two

issues that make this project quite different from conventional projects. On one hand, the complex

solution of using non-industrial materials to manage seismic forces in a public building, and on the

other, the fact that the actual construction process was directed and executed by the project authors

themselves. This touches on the idea of great opportunities created by assisted self-built

processes, something common in the art world.

Smiljan Radic and Marcela Correa. Mestizo Restaurant, 2005-2007, Concepcin. Chile. Photo:

Gonzalo Puga.


5/12

JC The critic Alberto Sato has commented on the affinities between your work and that of Chillida

and Oteiza, but to me there is a stronger material and conceptual link to Arte Povera and even some

strands of Land Art. Do you and Marcela consider there to be a relevant link between

art/architecture and sculpture/architecture?

SR Even if this sounds strange, I believe that art and architecture have nothing to do with each other.Their clear differences allow the collaboration between educated architects and artists. This becomes

complex, since both disciplines quite often share exhibition spaces that are physical, social, political,

and economic. As a rule, the outcomes of art and architecture collide all over the place, although, in

my opinion, there are great exceptions to this rule: the subtle way in which Carlo Scarpas work is

exhibited at the Castelvecchio Museum in Verona; the crystalline atmosphere of Donald Judds

Chinati Foundation; or the generalized silence of the Chillida-Leku Museum in Spain, especially the

silence of the works housed between the main gallerys thick walls.

I recently discovered an article by Andrea Branzi in which he proposes to momentarily isolate

technology and the logical code of its relationships to open up the abyss of wasteful constructiveenergiesweak joints, unhinged nails, obliquities, approximations, overdimensioning, fragility,

fractures, poverty . . . all of which make up, according to him, the limits of insecurityallowing an

experiential entrance into the creative and construction processes. Some projects such as the

Mestizo Restaurant, the A House, or the installation in Culipran are in direct alignment with Branzis

ideas.

JC The photographs of your built work seem very relevant to the projects. They emphasize the

everyday existence of buildings rather than their quality as objects. Are you aware of and interested

in this view of your work?

SR The everyday is relentless. Its trial by fire to have every building negotiate the everyday. The way

water is kept out, the resistance to dirt and stains, even decoration are just a few of the most

troublesome manifestations. I have been concerned with photographing architecture in an empty

fashion, to demonstrate its particular architectural qualitiesfor example, the flexibility an

architectural plan has due to the relationship between inside and outside, like in the Chilena House.

In other cases we have shown buildings in their daily use, because it gives a specific character to the

spaces, like in the Habitation project, where one can see the objects invading and dressing the

structure of the building as if it were a warehouse of memories.


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Smiljan Radic, Eduardo Castillo, and Ricardo Serpell. Civic Neighborhood, 2000-2007, Concepcin,

Chile. Photo: Gonzalo Puga.

JC This notion of a warehouse of memories could relate to the processes of accumulation evident in

your designs. What kind of accumulation are you interested in? Curatorial (which selects, organizes

intellectually, and creates discourses) or archeological and ethnographic (which observes, catalogues,

and describes clinically)?

SR Im interested in one who accumulates without a sense of purpose, without any objective other

than creating a simple story of the soul on a case-by-case basis. Saint-John Perse, during his exile in

the United States, wrote something which is quite impressive: There is no history but that ofthe

soul, no peace but that of the soul.

JC What do you find interesting in the current global architectural realm? What are you currently

reading?

SR I always return to Saint-John Perse, especially his poem Exile. Pessoas The Seaman and Others,

Alfred North Whiteheads The Concept of Nature... I like to browse the early books of Leon Battista

Alberti, Giorgio Agambens Means Without End, Guy Debords Society of the Spectacle, Peter


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Sloterdijks Estrangement from the World, and Tadeusz Kantors writings on imitation and memory.

Also Jos Quetglas, and art and architecture manifestos of the 60s and 70s.

Regarding buildings, Im interested in the great majority of Shinoharas houses for the apparent

formal dissonance amongst them; the way Kengo Kuma uses translucency and natural elements for

the Hiroshige Museum; the promenades and geometric thermal ponds of Germn del Sol; the IberCamargo Foundation in Porto Alegre, Brazil by lvaro Siza and its connection with Lina Bo Bardis

work; the heavy construction work of Antn Garca Abrils Hemeroscopium House and its connection

to the Colina House by Miguel Eyquem; all of Glenn Murcutts work; Enric Miralless plans; Sigurd

Lewerentzs silence . . .

JC Regarding the weight of things, Antn Garca Abril says that a pound of lead does not weight the

same as a pound of hay, and that architecture always attempts to control the force of gravity and its

effect on bodies in equilibrium. I would like for you to comment on how, both conceptually and

physically, the basalt rock sculptures by Marcela Correa on the roof of the Pite House operate

differently from the granite rocks in the Mestizo Restaurant. Are you interested equally in theiconographic and material qualities of rocks or more in their performance?

Pite House, 2003-2005, Papudo, Chile. Photo: Cristobal Palma.

SR These rocks are characters that support the imagination of each of these buildings. Its definitely

what remains after a first visit. In the Pite House they hide the building, transforming a domestic

entrance into a public plaza with a view. These rocks, in front of the sea, placed strategically over

walls and compressed terrain, bury the house under their weight, incorporating accumulated time

into a building whose weathering is yet to come.

In the restaurant, the granite rocks are themselves the structural support of a building that lays ontop of them, almost in a casual fashion. In this way we connect the rocks to the park surrounding the


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pavilion, producing an interior that seems stolen from the garden. The choice of these mountainous

granite rocks, their shipment to the site, and their incorporation into the project through both

calculation and direct manipulation are now part of the history of the building. Its a history that we

own as direct fabricators, and that allows us to acquire a knowledge that is difficult to obtain though

any other means. Maybe because of my training, and especially because of Marcelas training as a

sculptor, this history is possible only in the moment it is built and defined physically, when it

transcends the design stage. The density of the materials, their weight relative to their position, the

colors of their peelings, their real and fictional dimensionsthese things cannot be experienced any

other way.

JC When you describe the building process for the Habitacin project in San Miguel, Chilo, you

describe it almost in terms of Werner Herzogs Fitzcarraldo: boats, ropes, tides, pulleys, oxen. How

much do you care for the logistical, preformal aspects of your architectural projects?

SR The displacement of Fitzcarraldos ship in Herzogs film is a fantastic example of the production of

estrangement through an errant object, or something that yearns for its original site. We ask thatwhenever we visit the monasteries of Mount Athos, or when we find the humble refuge of a

mountaineer in the Andes. I think much has to do with the physical effort. Keeping distances: a

refuge such as La Habitacin belongs to this idea, and that is why I always tell the story of the

transportation of its materials in pieces during two rainy months, with oxen, ferries, boats, and by

hand. I always present this project with Ren Chars quote, To suppress distance is to kill.

Smiljan Radic, House for My Sister, Santiago de Chile, Photo: Gonzalo Puga.

JC The way you describe your projects reminds me of John Hejduks drawings, projects, and poems

the building The House of the Mother of the Suicide, the drawing The House of the Inhabitant who

Refused to Participatewhere characters and architectures mutually create (hi)stories.


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SR The titles are impressive! I know Hejduks architectural work more than his poems. These

architectural times are still problematic for me. I remember Thomas Bernhards novel Correctionwith

the character Roithamer; his obsession was to build a cone for his sister to inhabit. She dies when she

sees it, if I am not mistaken, and then he kills himself. From that novel comes the name of my

structure House for my Sister. Which reminds me: another book to keep close by is Aldo RossisA

Scientific Autobiography.

JC Now that you mention Rossi, some of your built works have a sense of potency similar to Rossis

drawings. Representation is suspended until fabrication itself occurs. With the exception of some

perspective drawings and perhaps the models made from paper clips for the Paseo Altamirano

project, photography seems to be your medium of choice before, during, and after the construction

of the building.

SR I used to take photographs with a Hasselblad 500 that served as a reference for my projects, but I

really know very little about photography. Even photos taken nine years ago, usually during travels,

are still material for projects we are currently developing. Renderings, on the other hand, are usedafter finishing a project, with all the constructive aspects as a verification that it can be built. After

readingA Scientific Autobiography, I traveled to Mantua to see the fog coming in through the gates

of SantAndrea. There is a book of photographs by Luigi Ghirri and Aldo Rossi which is quite

impressive; the colors are subdued and low-contrast, something difficult to find in architectural

publications. I am not interested in the production of images that are not technical. I generally find

them boring, including those we have produced in the office, such as those for the Paseo Altamirano

competition.

JC You speak of the technical aspect of images, but there is something clearly political in the way you

use them, either through the interaction of people with the architecture, through the evidence of de-

or re-territorialized objects, or even through the radical construction techniques you depict. Are you

interested in the political? After all, you migrated to Venice when Manfredo Tafuri was still alive,

didnt you?

SR I arrived in Venice when Tafuri was alive, but not very healthy. Years later, I took his courses when

his voice had almost disappeared and his skin was becoming ever more gray, at a time when he was

uncovering deconstructivism. I went to Venice after buying From Vanguard to Metropolis, written by

Giorgio Ciucci, Francesco Dal Co, Manfredo Tafuri, Massimo Cacciari, and Franco Rellain short,

everyone at the University Institute of Architecture in Venice. In those years it was difficult to obtain

books of any kind in Chile. With luck you could get them at antiquarian bookshops, but architectural

books were very hard to come by, with the exception of Ernst NeufertsArchitects Data, probably

thanks to its apparent ideological neutrality. So, motivated by From Vanguard to Metropolis, I went

to Venice, a place where architecture was certainly not a collection of pure forms absent of history

and politics.

In Chile I studied at the School of Architecture of the Catholic University, an institution where

architectural history was seen as a question of style, or even poetry. This way of teaching and

understanding architecture was later condensed in a volume called The Facts of Architecture, a book

that even to this day constitutes the basis for architectural students from their first year.


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The political interests me only in regard to the popular vote. The political in architecture is relevant

when it gives depth to intervention and steals it from quick and easy formal descriptions. It is difficult

to think of our work from this perspective, because it would be an after-reading. In any case, we

would like to be engaged again in the design of collective spaces. That is what we are working on

right now, along with Marcela Correa and the designer Gonzalo Puga, with whom we are

participating in an exhibition of architecture for catastrophes called Crossing: Dialogues for

Emergency Architecture, which will open in China on May 29 as a remembrance of that countrys

earthquake.

Smiljan Radic, Eduardo Castillo, and Ricardo Serpell. Civic Neighborhood, 2000-2007, Concepcin,

Chile. Photo: Gonzalo Puga.

JC I like your idea of depth. Along those lines, which Chilean architects interest you the most?

SR Without a doubt, my preference is for Germn del Sol. His buildings are the best one can find in

Chile today. Theyre the least mannerist and the ones with the strongest personal character. All thisin spite of his writings, which only show that whatever we architects write about our work, it always

has a sense of overacting.

JC You have taught and lectured both in and out of Chile. How does this operate in relationship with

the work you do at your office?

SR I tend to run short on patience, and patience is a basic requisite for teaching. Secondly, I have the

intuition that since at least 15 years ago, the architecture schools are chasing professional architects

as a way to update themselves. If this is correct, it makes no sense to be connected to architecture

schools to develop any kind of investigation. Even more so, it would seem that the architectural


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office is more flexible and dynamic and can create more speculation; it can explore representation

and of course take risks in the execution of projects.

In the real world, as the professional realm is referred to in schools, flexibility and dynamism are a

prerequisite, or an outcome of competition amongst professionals. Mostly out of lack of patience, I

teach less today, and when I do it, I do it with friends, where we try to think of things we cannotthink of at the office, often for a lack of time and dedication. For instance, as of now, Gonzalo Puga

and I are developing a workshop in Argentina around the German fashion magazine Burda. Were

recycling the representation and contruction methods of the sewing patterns that appear in the

magazine.

Strangely enough, a good place to teach and learn architecture is a good architectural office; it has

always been like that. For that reason, the immediate years after finishing school are so relevant for

the formation of an architect. Maybe this is why so many schools are incorporating professional

practice and working fellowships into architectural education curriculum.

JC You are currently working in a project for Ordos 100, where 100 architects are building 100 single-

family dwellings in inner Mongolia. It would seem far from your natural preferences. Only you, along

with Cecilia Puga and Alejandro Aravena, are from Chile. What do you think of this kind of cultural

phenomenon for architectural practice? How do you negotiate contradictions such as inviting a

group of extremely talented professionals to design unsustainable suburban villas? How do you avoid

globalized frivolity? Which programs, geographies, scales, or protocols of collaboration will you like

to venture into in the future?

SR Opportunities to work outside Chile have been few but illustrative. In Greece in the early 90s I

won a competition along with Nikolas Skutelis and Flavio Zanon to build the Iraklio Plaza in Crete. Atthe time we were under 30 years old. It was an experience characterized by delays, bureaucracy,

good seafood for lunch every day, and long trips through the Mediterranean Sea waiting for local

permits. Fourteen years later came the Ordos experience, which we finished just recently. Mongolia

visited through the film The Weeping Camelseems like a land of dreams, and the master plan of

Ordos 100 seemed reasonable if respected by everyone. But reality took its toll, as it always does.

After that, I was skeptical to work in China again, until we were invited to participate in the Crossing

exhibition, which coincides with my interestsephemerality, globalism, the low-tech, disasters . . . .

To work outside of Chile is only justified if one can achieve something you cannot achieve locally. I

think its quite stupid to do the same thing elsewhere. One should avoid the I did it of Baudrillardsmarathon man, empty and without history.

JC It would seem that ephemerality, globalism, and the disastrous are quite contemporary, at least in

the economic realm.

SR In the realm of erosion, too.

Translated by Jos Castillo


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Jos Castillo is an architect living and working in Mexico City. He is the principal of arquitectura

911sc, whose award-winning projects include the CEDIM school in Monterrey and the expansion of

the Spanish Cultural Center in Mexico City. Castillo has curated exhibitions for the Rotterdam, So

Paulo, and Venice Biennials, and currently teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

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