Talk delivered at "Xroads: Built Heritage and Contemporary Art" Symposium
2016 London Biennale Manila Pollination
2016 London Biennale Manila Pollination
Metropolitan Theater, Padre Burgos Ave., Manila
3:00 p.m., Saturday, September 17, 2016
The relationship between
heritage architecture and contemporary art is a fertile one, rich in
cross-pollinations. In this talk, I will
discuss the things that link the two as I have tried to understand them. This quest to understand this relationship is
at the core of my motivations as an architect.
As I understand it, Heritage
is the embodiment, through time, of the tangible and intangible expression of
the values and identity of a people.
Tangible – what one can touch – and intangible – what one cannot
touch. Tangible expression –
architecture, buildings, monuments, art, painting, sculpture. Intangible expression – the rituals,
craftsmanship, traditions, knowledge that are reflected in this architecture
and art, through time.
Perhaps one could think of
heritage as a building, and of the walls, floors and ceilings of that building,
the ornaments and objects that populate it, as Tangible Heritage. And of the space, the empty space between the
walls, between surfaces, as Intangible Heritage. The solid and the void that make the whole.
I am here to represent
ICOMOS, which is the International Council of Monuments and Sites. It is the only global non-governmental
organization that focuses on the conservation of sites and monuments. With headquarters in Paris, we are a network
of experts from many disciplines – architects, engineers, archaeologists,
lawyers, conservators – who aim to apply the highest professional and
intellectual standards to the task of conserving our cultural heritage, our
built patrimony of structures, sites, and cultural landscapes. The 9,500 members of ICOMOS are spread in 106
National Committees, of which the Philippine National Committee, or ICOMOS
Philippines, is one. ICOMOS is a partner
with UNESCO in the selection, assessment, and stewardship of the cultural sites
and monuments on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Many of us know at least one
site on that list. Here in the
Philippines we have at least a half dozen.
A stone’s throw away from here we have San Agustin Church in Intramuros,
for example. It is one of the four
churches that comprise the UNESCO World Heritage inscription Baroque Churches
of the Philippines.
ICOMOS helps UNESCO in the
evaluation of the Outstanding Universal Value, or OUV, of a site. We must be able to answer Yes to at least one
or two of these questions. Is it
exceptional? Is it a masterpiece? Does it demonstrate an important dialogue of
ideas and values? Does it bear exceptional witness to a special moment in
civilization? Is it an outstanding
example of its type of structure?
Then we judge the site for
qualities of Integrity and Authenticity.
Integrity refers to the intactness of the site, the state of the materials
and components with which the site expresses its exceptional quality. Authenticity refers to the originality of
these materials and components.
Of course when one goes to a
site like San Agustin Church, or Vigan, or the Taj Mahal, or the Sydney Opera
House, or any other World Heritage site, one does not typically process the
questions of “Is it exceptional?” or “Is it a masterpiece?” or “Does it bear
exceptional witness to a special moment in civilization?” the first moment one
gets there. One does not think of
criteria. Perhaps one does not even
think. One feels. The first moments tend to be wordless, or if
there are words they tend to be monosyllabic, like “Whoa!” or “Wow!” These are wordless reactions to the ineffable
realities of the place. These ineffable realities
are what some gather together under the term Spirit of Place. In Latin,
Genius Loci. Later do they acquire the
quality of Outstanding Universal Value.
These ineffable realities are
the focus of my work as an architect. I
believe that for many of you they are also the focus of your work as
artists.
These ineffable realities are
rooted in meaning. This is why they move
us. At this level of consideration, the
categories of heritage and architecture disintegrate. On a
very personal level, at an instinctual understanding of things, I make no
distinction between heritage and architecture.
Heritage is architecture.
Architecture is heritage. To be
more precise about it, one can say that Architecture is Trinitarian, composed
of its past, its present, and its future.
Its past is what we call heritage, its present is what we may call
contemporary design, and its future… the future of architecture is up in the
air, and we are trying to grasp it.
The late great dean John
Hejduk of the Cooper Union, that great school of art and architecture in New
York, once said: "The fundamental
issue of architecture is that does it affect the spirit or doesn't it. If it
doesn't affect the spirit, it's building. If it affects the spirit, it's
architecture."
The spirit in us that is
affected by architecture encounters the Spirit of Place that is embodied in the
architecture. We speak of the soul.
In school we learn of the
qualities of architecture that have been passed down as the Vitruvian canon of
firmitas, utilitas, venustas, Latin words for strength, usefulness,
beauty. Beyond school, and with time, we
learn to understand the qualities that time brings to architecture and to our
appreciation of Spirit of Place, one of the most profound intangibles there
are.
Thirty years ago, I was a
student of architecture spending 3rd year with the rest of my architecture
class in Rome, Italy. We were on a field
trip to Verona. Three of my classmates
and I were having dinner with one of our professors – Prof. Kenneth Featherstone
- at an outdoor restaurant facing a piazza.
Across the piazza was one of the houses where a key event in the Romeo
and Juliet story reportedly took place.
We had just finished dinner and we were chatting. Prof. Featherstone began to talk about
materials, and about the cobblestones of that piazza, and of the time, history
and emotion that resided in those cobblestones.
He instructed us to reach down and to touch the cobblestones. We all gingerly reached down and touched them
with the tips of our fingers. We had not
had as much wine to drink as the good professor. “That’s not how to understand history!” he
said more loudly. “Get on your knees and
get your hands dirty!”
And we did. What a strange sight we must have been. Fortunately the IPhone and its camera had not
been invented yet. We were four architecture
students on our knees feeling the patina of time on those cobblestones.
It was one of my first and
clearly my most memorable lessons on materiality and on patina and on immanence. And their role in our appreciation of the
Spirit of Place.
Patina. The patina of time. Strictly speaking patina is the film that
develops on a metallic material such as bronze as a result of age and the passing
of time. The way we use the term now
pertains to the effects of time on the character and appearance of a surface,
the benign or not always benign effects of weathering that come with time. It is something many of us find visually
appealing.
If patina is on the surface, immanence is what is beneath the
surface. It is difficult to describe
without going into riddles. It is the
thingness of things, the wallness of a wall.
If you believe in the deity, it is the way in which the deity resides in
that wall. It is a powerful quality, the
intangible quality of a tangible thing such as a wall, which, when combined
with the ineffable emptiness of space, yields a profound experience of reality.
This brings me to my last
subject, which is a brief discussion of the term Pollination. I find this to
be the most intriguing word in the title of this event. As artists and architects, we aim to
pollinate the world with profound experiences of reality.
Let me share our experience
with a current project. We are nearing
completion of a project nearby, the Adaptive Reuse conversion of the former
Department of Tourism building on Agrifina Circle in Rizal Park into the new
National Museum of Natural History. It
was completed in 1939 as the Department of Agriculture, designed by Antonio
Toledo who was then the Consulting Architect of the Bureau of Public Works. We began the project in 2012, and expect to
complete by first half of next year.
The experience of each visit
to the site has been a lesson in patina
and immanence, and in Spirit of
Place. Space and Light are of course
essential components of the Spirit of Place, but it is Patina and Immanence
that in my opinion I find most linked to the sense of heritage as the passage
of time. Week after week, to walk down a
corridor or around a courtyard that is in a state of transition, produces in
one’s mind many impressions, countless impressions. With
each glance, at each turn, we would confront a moving scene of window, of wall,
of light entering space, even of wall being demolished, or rebar dangling from
slab, and we would be moved by how compelling these views were, these visions
that had been curated by circumstance.
One day it would be Jose Joya on this wall, or Antoni Tapies on
that. The next day would be Mark Rothko,
or Jun Yee. I am talking about the links
one would make between what we were seeing there and works of art we had seen
elsewhere.
The medium of the architect
is drawings. We use plans, sections,
elevations to capture and express design intent, a concept. As design intent merges with the spirit of
place, the experience of being in that place becomes more vivid. Like the parable of the loaves and the
fishes, the multiplication of impressions results in the Infinite abiding, residing, in the moment. Of course this
happens in new construction too, but in a heritage site, there is that added
dimension of time and patina, and a deeper sense of immanence.
This is why the relationship
of heritage architecture and contemporary art is a fertile one. This is why artists and architects recognize
and embrace – are fueled by - such places as Escolta, and support the adaptive
reuse initiative of the Metropolitan Theater, where we are gathered today. It
is these places, resonant with the creative vibe of our colleagues in art and
design, which speak to us most strongly, when we feel the need to return to our
roots and understand how we came to be ourselves, and where we need to go from
here in our unending quest for meaning.
