DETACHED Two buildings with a similar size are located in two different

Mauricio Pezo & Sofía von Ellrichshausen contexts. A light grey concrete piece rests in the middle of a

natural scene. A cooper oxide green concrete prism stands in

the middle of a suburban setting. Two opposite conditions

which are presented by a disproportionate relationship

between figure and background. The proposed constructions

are reproduced as small sculptural models. The landscape is

recorded in a huge panoramic backlight photograph. The

objects, autonomous from their location, seem insignificant in

front of the monumental effort of trying to capture most of the

details and complexities of the surroundings.

In Architecture there is an eternal tension between context and

object. Since a building is inevitably placed in a particular and

unrepeatable location, it establishes a limited set of specific

relationships with it. Considering this physical inevitability, to

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

willingly base the integrity of a building in those common as an autonomous figure. There is no possible canon, no fixed

places (such as orientation, views, access or topography) is in measure, when dealing with an unstable and informal

itself a common place, or at least the minimum that an environment. That context is anywhere. Therefore, a project is

architect should aspire to do. To explain a building as an meant to be a flexible machine. Its efficiency is determined by

answer to a place is to explain the place, not the building. It is its accidents. In this lack of autonomy, architectural practice is

no more than a tautological exercise, instrumentally required faced as a mere fitness activity, a continuous negotiation, an

for political or commercial purposes. However, a building, in its unpredictable contest to articulate a new program with an

inner formal structure, could also be understood as an existing place. But that is half of the idea, half of the promises

independent logical grammar. In its unitary conclusiveness, an of and architectural statement. The other half is what could be

architectural object could be separated from its location, from called the anti-fitness property of a building. This is the

its anecdotal dramas. An isolated building is a singular entity. It objectual aura of the piece; the capacity of an object of

is a piece, a device that resists, with more or less integrity, the replying, of declining the expected associations, up to the

problems (social, cultural, economical or technical) of the extent of producing a sort of uncomfortable situation in a given

context that supports it. Today, considering the widespread moment. It is an irony, as Borges said, to select as a personal

scarcity of resources, it appears problematic to trace a project option what is imposed as an inevitable condition.

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

* Pezo von Ellrichshausen, Detached: text for catalog of the

12th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di

Venezia, Venice, September 2010. Curator: Kasuyo Sejima

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN

 Detached, Poli, 2010. Detached, Fosc, 2010.

PVC printed photography, 300 x 600 cm PVC printed photography, 300 x 600 cm

Grey concrete model on steel plinth, 25 x 25 x 150 cm Green concrete model on steel plinth, 20 x 25 x 150 cm

PEZO VON ELLRICHSHAUSEN