A contemporary monument is a monument that

must maintain relationships with its environment

that are different, more open relationships, relationships
that seize it, relationships that takes into account the obstruction of the views.
It doesn't mean it should disappear, it does not mean it does not exist.
But it must itself have some respect
for the city that surrounds it or will surround it.
This kind of possibility to make architecture
appear or disappear,
to create conditions of absence that only reinforce its presence,
is a research axis that I believe is
quite central in the manipulation that an architect must have
of the objects he/she produces.
That is, it is him and only him
who is, who must, and when I say "he must" it is from an ethical point of view,
from a duty point of view,
he must be accountable
of whether there is a need for presence
or not, of whether the building must disappear within its surroundings,
or if, on the contrary, certain aspects of the environment must be amplified. He
must in fact,
in relation to a diagnosis,
provide a specific response to a context
which is not necessarily
the demonstration of a presence
as we can imagine it to be
when you build a building. When you build a building, everyone expects to see.
a building coming out of the ground.
Here is a building that comes out of the ground. Well, yes,
sure: often, but not always.
This possibility to contain, to control; this possibility
of the silence and of the stillness of the void is also
an architectural value that, for me, is totally
contemporary and also somehow totally healthy.