Objects of Narrative Impulse

'Practices and Pedagogies' is a public lecture series organised by Projective Cities MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design. The six talks aim to discuss models and forms of practice that intersect with architectural education - old, new, and emerging pedagogical agendas.

A drawing and a photograph are the objects of this lecture.

The photograph depicts the interior of a dismantled bus employed as classroom. in Nueva La Habana in the periphery of Santiago, Chile. This was an unprecedented educational and social experiment that transformed the outskirts of Santiago into an open school program within a few years at the beginning of the 1970s. The photograph became the object of an essay published in 2020 in AR, “The Line: Notes on Politics”.

The drawing is a plan of a building – Chile’s National Stadium – prepared for an event in 1979 when property titles were delivered to settlers. The floor plan became the centrepiece of the Chilean pavilion in the 16th Venice Biennale in 2018: a drawing that records a brief moment in which a building rendered the image of a city.

Objects, words, and discourses drive an intertwined narrative in two different modes of register: an exhibition and an essay.

Architect, Universidad de Chile, 2003. MSc Advanced Architectural Studies, the Bartlett, UCL (London, UK), 2007. PhD Architectural Association (London, UK), 2014. Curator of Stadium, Chilean Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale (2018), and co-curator of The Plot: Miracle and Mirage, at the 3rd Chicago Architecture Biennial (2019). Her later publications include the book Stadium: A Building to Render the Image of a City (2018), and the essays: “The Chilean School: a room for upbringing and uprising” (AA Files, 2020) and “The Plot: Miracle and Mirage” (Revista 180, 2021). Head Master in Architecture programme at the School of Architecture, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Image: Bus-aula interior. Uncertain origin. Available In: Santiago Nostalgico . https://www.flickr.com/photos/stgonostalgico/48027916117/

Drawing: Chile’s National Stadium plan prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism in 1979. Source: Chile National Library