Between Being and Becoming

Camera: Zenit E (1972) / Lens: Helios 44-2 / Film: Kodak Gold 200 / Time: 6:00 AM

I live in a small apartment in Hansaviertel, Berlin. During summertime, I follow an interesting daily routine. Since, in these northern latitudes, the sun rises very early—around 4:30 AM—I wake up with its first rays. Armed with one of my vintage analog Soviet cameras and a Toscanello cigar, I take a long walk around my neighbourhood in search of “targets of opportunity.” These range from flora and fauna to architecture. I am particularly interested in the dialogue between nature and architecture, which is a characteristic feature of Berlin, and specifically of this area.

The counterpoint between the stillness of buildings and the subtle movement of vegetation, with its inherent dynamics of change, is fascinating. The grounded and stable character of architecture, with its clear-cut contours, contrasts with the playful variations of chiaroscuro in the trees’ foliage. The reflections of the buildings’ facades in the waters of the Spree imprint them with a certain aura of ephemerality and ethereal delicateness.

This counterpoint between stillness and movement is, in turn, the expression of the counterpoint between Being and Becoming, which is a fundamental aspect of our experience of being in the world. I love architecture because it embodies our longing for permanence, rootedness, and endurance in the face of impermanence and change. Somehow, architecture defies the passage of Time. It is an affirmation of Being. But, like any entity belonging to this material world, it is inevitably subject to processes of ageing and decay. Just like trees, clouds, or humans, buildings come into being, last for a certain period of time, and pass away—although at a slower tempo.

In the end, everything flows, as Heraclitus wisely affirmed more than 2,000 years ago. What is a photograph but a vain attempt to freeze the flow of Becoming in the stillness of a “fixed” image?

Interview - Fublis Magazine

This is a recent interview I gave for Fublis, an interesting publishing platform. The questions were very well formulated, so it was a pleasure to answer them:

https://blog.fublis.com/interviews/design-dialogues-with-dr-phil-juan-almarza-anwandter/

On Perfection in Architecture

The concept of perfection has always had a privileged role within the ambit of architecture. In comparison to ‘beauty’, which constitutes an aesthetic category of value highly determined by the specificity of the paradigmatic theoretical frameworks from which it arises, perfection exhibits a more objective character, related to notions of internal consistency, coherence, and completeness. The will of articulating a whole, by means of the definition of a certain law of configuration that imprints an order to matter and space, is a meta-principle of architectural design that transcends styles, cultural contexts, and epochs. The overarching character of this meta-principle is rooted in physiological aesthetics: the perception of integrity, the pulsion towards visual coherence in any given system composed by differentiated parts, is the projection of an ideal state of plenitude that arises from our natural organic pulsion towards integrity. The maximum degree of perfection corresponds to the achievement of the maximum degree of complexification within the bounds of integrity and correspondence between part and whole. “Perfectio est consensus in varietate” (Wolff, Ontologia, §503, p. 390.). This consensus is a command, which in the case of architecture finds its clearest expression in the plan view, which is not a mere medium of graphic representation, but an imperative sign of correspondence; a decree not written in words, but traced in axes, lines, and measurements. The mastery in the definition of these relationships is the measure of the excellence of an architect, a mastery that evokes demiurgic undertones. Playing the role of ‘semi-gods’, giving form to our projects as consistent (micro)cosmos, is certainly a driving purpose behind our architectural endeavours, whether confessed or not. In words of Cesariano, “quilli Architecti che sano producere li sollerti effecti pareno come semidei perche cercano che larte si asimiglia & supplisca a la natura.” (Cesariano, Di Lucio Vitruvio Pollione de Architectura, etc., Como 1521, lib. I, fol ii v. Quoted in Wittkower, Rudolf. Architectural principles in the age of humanism., p. 14.).