Juan Hevia (Architect and Academic, San Pablo CEU University, Madrid)
24th January 2017
Proklo Seminar
University of Edinburgh
Take advantage of the time before the trip; in the airport, on the plane.
The first city was Chicago and the second one was Beirut. And it was amazing.
I should follow the slides, but…
I don’t know if this lecture is about the cities, the dots, or the path, the space in between the dots.
In the time it took me to take a bus to the north of Spain, I could have been in another country.
I like to stop and switch points of view.
It’s this that radically changed things.
The worst Scotland will be the best for me.
Rather than what they look like, how are they occupied? How are they made?
Ugly things are opportunities.
String fragmentation and strong identity.
Edinburgh’s parliament.
The scale of Edinburgh is quite close to the human scale, I think.
It’s quite close to a decibel.
I don’t know much about Edinburgh, but I have felt it when I’ve been walking.
I remember once we were in Salamanca.
“How should I feel when you tell me where I have to sleep?”
This is nowadays.
I don’t feel very comfortable with now.
I jump to Berlin now.
Perfect facades.
A German has done it, let’s move it.
How should our cities be?
How should our streets be?
I know what to do, I don’t know how to do it. That step can be a mistake.
When you see this picture of the world, it looks static.
When you zoom in, it’s dynamic.
The technology is a non-decibel.
“You come here with a computer mouse like a shield.”
A slave from a wrong tool.
When you provide a non-space with meaning, it becomes a place
The space among the cities. The time.
When you feel time stop; that is good.
Where are we going?
Sometimes we forget the person.
Walk and talk. Walk and talk.
This gets us to the human beings we are.
“Sorry, I know who you are but you don’t know who I am.”
Berlin
Istanbul
Victoria
Seven Opportunities. Regrets.
It’s good to have regrets.
We should take advantage of the regrets.
The arrangement of the city is the same as a grove of olive trees.
I remember arriving in Beirut in 1998.
Erasing traces, erasing memory.
Need a quick solution in order to reset their identity.
Berlin was about density.
Beirut needed a proper answer.
I love these pictures from before the war.
We found Beirut like that.
How to materialize things.
The whisper of the site.
The people in Istanbul
It’s like boiling water.
An isolated house; a micro city.
4 hours from Madrid, if I go by bike.
You can recognize ‘this is my home’ because of the colour.
Aldo Rossi is great.
We touch the earth, just at six points.
I think it’s better to swim in doubts than in truths.
Perceptive urbanism.
From the street.
These homes are lost.
Or we are the lost ones.
How long should buildings last?
In the end, they will die.
Should we be slaves to keeping them alive?