I really struggle with the tendency of Latin-Americans to mingle together sometimes excluding the chance to find amazing new ideas or experiences in people from different parts of the world. But I have to admit that I was certainly fortunate to have had in this year an amazing group of Peruvian friends in the school (a group so rarely large, by the way, if you consider not only the population of Peru, but also the level of the education in the country). It will be sad not to see half of them around the building next building.

The fact that this makes sense to me and that when looking to a sheet with a million of numbers I can sense where the mistake could be tells me that Kayden’s class has been a very useful one.

Studio de Felipe Correa sobre el centro histórico de Quito. En mi universo, un curso intensivo de diseño urbano porque estuve el día entero del review, desde la presentación general del tema de Studio hasta la última de las exposiciones.

The first Christmas I spent away from home was almost ten years ago. I decided to use some money I had saved to make a trip by myself to the US staying in the house of friends and family. The Christmas I spent it in the house of my aunt Ligia in Gothenburg, Nebraska, a place that I would rightly call home for all the nice days that I have spent there in different trips. The whole family of my uncle came to the house for the dinner and I got to see some of them after several years from my first visit to the US when I was about ten. One of the cousins of my cousins, I think it was Levi, received a banjo as a Christmas gift. That intriguing banjo. I was impressed with the instrument, with its shape and also with its meaning. I had seen Doug, a Nickelodeon character, owning the banjo in his “Ritmo Callejero” song when I was younger, but that was the first time I saw one in real life. When the banjo was played it sounded so familiar. The very first chord that Levi played automatically summoned an idea, probably shaped in me by the TV and my first visit, of a US as a place of farms, SUVs, interstates and football. I don’t remember well the circumstances but in the following moments, all the young people ended up in the basement of the house because someone had a guitar that I could use for playing along. Next thing I knew was that my cousin Erica took out her saxophone (was it a saxo or a clarinet?) and my cousin Michael his harmonic (or maybe a flute?), and someone started singing  and playing another guitar (Archie maybe?) and despite the amateur I am with music we started jamming around so spontaneously that at some point we didn’t realize that they were already calling us upstairs for the turkey. Back to 2018 in Cambridge, having finished the work of Studio, today a friend brought us to a bar for a beer and some American music. And even though this past year the US has been for me everything but farms, SUVs, interstates or football, when the guitarist took out a banjo and started playing it, that remote Gothenburg came immediately to my mind along with the idea that many of my American friends and almost all of my international friends have not been lucky enough to experience that rural Midwest world I met that is such a considerable part of this country.

Many people came to see the review of the Studio of Patrik Schumacher. Understandable, since what he does best is to get himself into the people’s conversation. One of the reasons for it is eccentricity and that you could see it in his review. He celebrated that two of his students just disagreed with the instructions and ideology he gave to his Studio and diverted into their own explorations. Fun to watch but also disappointing. What is really challenging is to have some kind of constraint and work creatively around it. Not my idea, I heard it from Enrique Walker, architect from Columbia that explained some time ago here in GSD how critical is that point for his Studio. Anyway, I got to hear from an amazingly intelligent architect, the one in pink. I forgot his name.

Unaware of how cold it would be, I went today to Antigone, a play made by some people from the university in the stadium. Amazing actors the ones playing the soldiers. Unfortunately rain and cold made many people leave the play before the end. I tried to stay as much as possible but also had to leave.

I was not expecting ending up in this kind of activities but I am thankful for it. Today I spent a part of the day with my friend Harry in the Yard where he was explaining the installation he built there to the people.

Es inquietante para quienes hemos estado acostumbrados a la limitación externa con su menor creatividad y mayor predictibilidad, es inquietante atravesar un ambiente en el que las limitaciones son permeables y cuya violación inclusive se alienta. Esa fue la presentación final del Core Studio de Landscape que fui a ver y, en particular, del grupo de Harry, quien al verme llegar me advirtió que no sabía lo que se venía. En la presentación de su grupo incluso las palabras de los alumnos fueron sacrificadas en favor de una transmisión de radio de tiempos de guerra combinada con sonidos guturales de fondo, mientras los alumnos extraían silenciosamente de una caja distintos mapas, modelos y objetos con el único afán de sugerirlos, pero no de presentarlos para el análisis. Muchas luces, madera, transparencias y tecnopor después, la presentación concluyó y el instructor del Studio, Pierre volteó hacia los jurados: ¿alguna pregunta? Quiero decir que me rehúso a pensar que un proyecto pueda darse el lujo de no ser objeto de un acto de transmisión de ideas como es una presentación final, pero la verdad es que por qué habría de rehusarme.

Los alumnos sentados o parados, entremezclados con los profesores instructores del Studio, otros profesores del departamento incluida la jefa del mismo que vinieron como jurados de las presentaciones finales, el mismo decano de la facultad y los profesores y profesionales invitados como jurados en un grupo heterogéneo discutiendo las lecciones del curso que acababa de terminar en esos momentos. Además de ello, posiblemente el último momento de todo el programa en que la clase entera estará junta. Aunque el curso recibió un montón de críticas de los alumnos, hubo muchos momentos colectivos como este en que el pensamiento de la última vez me hizo disfrutarlos más.

Viene alguien a visitar mi desk con las únicas intenciones de que le invite el último moshi sabor te verde comprado en Lowell que tengo en la mesa y me dice: “Mira! Por la ventana! Un grupo de penes gigantes dando la vuelta al Sanders Theatre. Tienen huevos y todo”.