NewsLatin AmericaFelipe Leal: "Work nomadism does not generate a social fabric, it will bring very strong changes in urban life"

Felipe Leal: “Work nomadism does not generate a social fabric, it will bring very strong changes in urban life”

Felipe Leal climbed on the running board of the tram unaware of the result that a sudden stop would have had for his student bones. From that rolling vantage point he was seeing Mexico City, with its trees and its palaces. To think then that over time his pencils would design new layouts for those streets seemed impossible. At the age of 66, the architect also recalled in his recent admission speech as a member of the National College of Mexico the hours of darkness illuminated by the screen of his father’s cinema, surrounded by others who enjoyed the Indian Fernandez, Maria Felix, Cantinflas and Tin Tan. “Pedro Infante looks better on a giant screen,” said the commercials that fought against the push of television. Leal laughs. Under his signature, the capital has modified the Plaza de la Revolucion, that of Garibaldi, an Alameda that embraced the Palace of Fine Arts, the pedestrianization of Madero street, the corridor of the Basilica of Guadalupe, the Ciudad Universitaria metro station and its spiral access. ArpaFIL, at the Guadalajara Book Fair (FIL), recognizes his professional career this year for his contribution to the artistic enhancement of world heritage. Before receiving the tribute that was held this Friday, he talked in his studio’s house about the future of architecture and the challenges he faces in a changing society that is increasingly nomadic.

The Mexican architect Felipe Leal.QUETZALLI NICTE-HA

Ask. Voices from various disciplines agree that humanity will once again be nomadic, without the roots of a fixed home, due to climate change and other ravings of our time. What can architecture do in a society like this?

Response. The world experiences a very marked nomadism, not only that of millions of migrants, with their hardships. It is dramatic, but not unprecedented in the history of humanity. There is also another nomadism derived from technology and triggered by the pandemic, a digital nomadism and scientific and technological knowledge, companies that establish themselves in other countries and move groups of people who spend only five or six years in the same place. . Architecture is space time. The time that a space is occupied has been reduced and the spaces themselves and the construction procedures have also been reduced: it is no longer built with the old rigidity, but each time with lighter, more versatile and retractable materials, which can be removed, it is a game of time

Q. Can we move the buildings to other spaces?

R. In China they do incredible things, they cut a piece of the city, a residential space, and move it to another place because the State has another priority. But labor nomadism is being very intense, communications allow it, the world has become small.

Q. Is that going to change the landscape of the cities, the well-known architecture?

R. Spaces are inhabited in a different way now, also due to demographic changes. The classic family, father, mother, children and some other relative required a dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, service area… That has already collapsed, now they are single-living spaces, divorces have increased, there are more widows, people live with friends, roommates. Together they rent the spaces that were previously familiar. But the landscape will not change radically. The last thing that changes in a city is its external physiognomy, its layout. See London, nothing has changed in its structure, in its skeleton. Some buildings, perhaps, with the new technologies become more attractive and a tendency towards verticalization that automatically leads to the reduction of space.

Q. What can be done with all those offices now that you have seen the possibilities of working at home?

R. There is an oversupply of offices, they are rented everywhere and also the parking spaces, which have remained idle. It is expensive to transform them, because you have to change the facades that were hermetic and now they must have windows, they will have to be drilled, put the tubes that were not there for the kitchens, light cubes to ventilate, they are complex issues, but worse is leaving the building idle . In other cases, they will be shared by workers from different companies, some will go two days and others the rest of the week. An awareness of what is shared, such as bicycles or public cars.

Q. Airbnb spreads like an oil stain taking advantage of this labor nomadism, but these rooms do not make a neighborhood. Won’t the heart of the cities remain soulless?

R. Neighborhood, urban culture is generated by roots: you take care of your street, the tree, the decoration of the house. That is changing, yes. We will reach an almost waste utilitarian pragmatism, disposable chairs, neighbors for six months… That is very sad. That labor nomadism can be attractive at first, people who speak different languages, who dress differently, but in the end they are like cells that are not articulated, they do not generate a social fabric, that will bring about very strong changes in urban life.

Q. Are we, then, before one of the great urban revolutions?

R. Yes we are. He is very strong, not only in ways. The architecture emanating from the world wars had to do with well-being, providing decent housing, parks, hospitals, universities. Everything fell apart and turned to economic interests, collective work became individualized and from there the appearance of all these platforms, whoever lives alone, becomes half an anchorite.

Q. Talk about building on the already built.

R. More and more old buildings are intervened, it is expensive to build new ones. If the building had a vocation, for example, as a hospital, a school, well, you reform it, you intervene, that is much healthier for the environment, because the land is already impacted, you do not continue with more footprints on the ground.

Q. Building on what has been built can also change the idiosyncrasy of a city.

R. But there is also a neo-romanticism, of valuing the past, now a pre-existence in time is left and the new is incorporated into it, there is a whole group that is called reurbanos, they look for those lands or buildings that are about to fall, they consolidate them, the facade, the landmark, and modern build behind. It is more attractive than an orthodox restoration to revive a past that no longer exists.

Q. Hasn’t architecture been more focused on aesthetics than on ethics?

R. There was a time of self-referenced buildings, which were not linked to the urban or social fabric, nothing to do with the environment, the volumes, or the neighborhood culture. You looked at it and said, what is this doing here? It had more to do with an aesthetic will, like an occurrence, frivolity, without thinking about habitability, architecture has suffered a lot from that, that mannerism of wanting to be original and, well, the ego. They were also very expensive construction processes that took many people out of the market, and polluting materials in the construction or waste of a lot of material.

Q. Are we not there anymore?

R. No, now there is a healthy discussion. When I studied I did dominate formalism. Since I was director of the faculty at UNAM, I see that the last generations of young people no longer think about that, but about rescuing a river, a lake, there are water workshops to see how to capture and channel water, recycling garbage, take advantage of waste as construction material, how to bond with nature, how to avoid air conditioning. That’s a strong trend. I am optimistic.

Q. Changing a city, rearranging it, avoiding suburbs, is it a matter of architects or politics?

R. Both. We architects do not make cities, we are only interpreters who give fantastic or fatal solutions, like the doctor, he cured you or killed you. Cities are made by urban agents, which are politics, the economy, pressure groups, cultural traditions. There are combined examples of political interests, urban agents and architecture that have borne fruit, otherwise we would not have the beauty of some neighborhoods. There are buildings that have reinforced these cultural traditions or have created them, like the University City of Mexico, it created a cultural and educational tradition, it is a symbol of public education in Mexico, it created identity.

Felipe Leal in the living room of his house in San Angel.
Felipe Leal in the living room of his house in San Angel. QUETZALLI NICTE-HA

Q. Many walks through Mexico City are almost inevitably interrupted by large traffic lanes.

R. The great enemies of the layout of the cities are the road engineers, that obsession to communicate in any way, fast roads, second floors, peripherals, viaducts, road axes, is a broken fabric: a mall over there, a hermitage over there, a house around here, that’s sad.

Q. The prevention of insecurity is something in which architecture has innovative proposals.

R. It is important to eliminate these barriers, even in the vegetation. In the central Alameda there were bushes. That is the worst thing for a city, someone can crouch behind, they throw garbage, urinate, the dog defecates, also humans. They do not decorate, you have to remove them. There must be trees of bole that cover, and very low vegetation, the hedges are terrible.

Q. What emblematic building of Mexico City that is in danger, in abandonment, would intervene? Or I would put it to a different use.

R. There are jewels. [Piensa largamente]. Perhaps the Latin American tower, which houses banks, offices, advertisements. You could change the use, give it a twist, add galleries, museums, something collective, that each floor offers something different, artist workshops, museums, a ballroom, restaurants, flamenco centers, a jazz bar. A multicultural that represents everything that is done in the city.

here to newsletter from EL PAIS Mexico and receive all the key information on current affairs in this country

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Posts

Read More
More