International Competitions in Architecture
A HOUSE FOR FERNANDO PESSOA
We cannot but fully agree with Jean-Luc Godard: "The world in which we live desperately needs, in order to subsist, the existence of the contemplated and poets." (from Notre Musique)
Indeed, how could we feel / think otherwise...?
Poiesis derived etymologically from a Greek word meaning to make, a verb that denoted an action, a transformation of a thing into another...
How much of our architecture is poetry, poiesis...?
Not much, really, but Siza's is.
We learned about the great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa from Alvaro Siza himself, when he presented his work at Columbia University in New York, many years ago... "Intrigued," we searched for Pessoa's work afterwards... and what a great revelation...!?!
Here was a great poet inspiring a great architect.
Pessoa, in his modest life, unable to assume the rigors of a single name, signed proteically with seventy three "heteronyms." He left, at his death, countless poems, hidden in a huge box. This half Jew / half Christian living and working in Lisboa is justifiably considered one of the greatest poets of the XXth century.
Did we need Pessoa
Pessoa is
Thus poetry is
Did we need Siza
Siza is
Thus architecture is
(if we are allowed to paraphrase Louis Kahn).
So we invite you to design A House for Fernando Pessoa as an homage to Pessoa, to Siza, to poetry, to architecture.
Express through your "bricks" the spirit of Pessoa's work, and thus, perhaps, and obliquely, of Siza's work.
Bring together poetry (word) and architecture (brick) in a beautiful conjunction, perhaps illustrating that Heideggerrean thought that poiesis is the blooming of the blossom, that crossing of the threshold from one thing / genre to another thing / genre.
Metamorphosize, dear architect, for the glory of both (all) arts!
This competition is organized in conjunction with a major retrospective of Alvaro
Siza's work that takes place at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, Romania.
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