The articles published here set out to operate against this idea, by asserting either a voice that is specific, different and close at hand, or a phenomenological and not just abstract approach to the project and the work. In today’s context of globalization, more and more are treading the paths that combine the active logics of change and the intelligence of modernity in dialectic with local logics that are dense, strong, and not necessarily picturesque.
At the present time of globalization, the identity-modernity dialectic reappears, though in a different way to how it was addressed in our recent past.
On the one hand we have the defence of the specific, the local, of landscapes that are perhaps not so diverse but, like the climate, permanently...
The idea of turning a periphery into a centre is to become independent. You have to think
independently to identify what your problem is.
When you...
JP I grew up at my grandfather’s small farm in central Finland, so I have
a farm boy’s mentality. I was the only boy within five kilometres and
had to invent things for myself to do. When you have a lot of time,
there are, of course, endless miracles happening in nature. So, my...
The materiality of place in what is locally available—the elements—is always the starting point for our projects. We also excavate a site very deeply; by excavation, I mean understanding its dynamics, its politics and its cultural expressions. For me, the site is not just the piece of land; it...
Read moreJLLM The first question is about the dialectic between the terms identity
and modernity. The typical understanding of modernity is the creation
of a kind of layer that is added to a place. For instance, Rem
Koolhaas’s ideas about China twenty years ago again introduced
this excitement about...