As a introductory exercise to the master thesis project, Christian Kieckens takes on the part of Onofre Bouvila1, a city dweller who during a period of three months asks five design questions bound by a storyboard. The design questions are given a critical interpretation and answer by myself, the architect. It is meant as an exercise about architectural thinking and as the prelude for the eventual design proposal for the thesis project.
1
Onofre Bouvila is the protagonist and central figure in the novel The City of Marvels, written by Eduardo Mendoza.
2
Leon Krier in 1980 proposed the Insula Tegeliensis for his design of the city centre of West Berlin as a reaction to the traditional closed perimeter block.
Leon Krier. Rational architecture, 1978: The reconstruction of the European city. (Brussels: Archives d’architecture moderne, 1978), 168 – 169.
Four of the five design questions are summarized on the next pages because of their major relevance to the thesis project. They are presented in their original form as a dialogue. Each answer by the architect is substantiated both textually and visually. This way the discourse between Onofre and the architect is easy to follow.
A metropolitan house
Onofre Bouvila wants a permanent place to transfer his experiences. He asks the architect to help him in his quest for elementary and essential spaces and to generate some guidelines to shape a set of separate buildings.
The architect thinks the ‘urban collage’ and tradition, together with the daily needs of urban life found in a city quarter—housing, work, education, leisure, culture—should serve as the basis for the design of a metropolitan house. A cluster of various ‘building types’ are brought together around a public courtyard.2 The boundary of the block and the unification of the buildings is emphasized by a ‘galleria’. This way, the block becomes generous and creates value for both the city and itself. The whole functions as if it were a ‘city within a city’.