MAGAZINE ARQ 65 | april 2007

Land

The discussion of this issue called “In territory” refers in one way to a panoramic review of architectural projects with a strong relation with the territory where they are located, even if is natural or built. In other way, it presents a selection of articles that exemplifies from different point of views the relation between architectural projects with the context where they are located. The article from Fernando Perez Oyarzun about Lo Contador House exemplifies maybe, in the best way, how a specific building can be crucial in the destiny of its own territory, in this case a neighborhood in Santiago.
This new issue of ARQ takes particular focus in the recent architecture built in Chile and its relation with its particular geography. The multiple options in how to use this territory present a wide range of different conditions: from two houses on the sea border, works from Smiljan Radic and Teodoro Fernandez respectively to a Ski Box in Portillo, in Los Andes Mountain Range from Del Rio y Nuñez. The strong relation with its context also is clear in the Geometric Terms in the Villarrica National Park in the South of Chile, from the chilean National Prize in Architecture German del Sol. This issue also presents projects in urban territories like the Lofts in Valparaiso from Menendez y Barrientos and the Patriarch Square in Sao Paulo from the Pritzker Prize, Paulo Mendes da Rocha. All those works are part of a panoramic view, where location and context present a wide repertory of possibilities, where appears the common problems of the architectural practice.